US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi would co-chair the first US-Pak Strategic Dialogue to be held in Washington on March 24.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, who has been appointed the Al Qaeda chief following the killing of Osama bin Laden, is probably hiding in Pakistan and can be nabbed by the Inter Services Intelligence if it "really wants" to do so, a top United States Senator has said.
Refusing to comment on an emissary being sent to Pakistan to confront concerns about the Inter Services Intelligence working with militants, the Bush administration on Thursday said the United States was working with Islamabad in its fight against terror."I have no comment on that story," White House press secretary Dana Perino said, adding that she was not in a position to comment on how Pakistan was faring on the war on terror."We will continue to work with them," she said.
United States investigation officials have stumbled upon an unreleased video of Osama bin Laden which shows the slain Al Qaeda chief speaking on the recent unrest in the Middle East but has no reference to the uprisings in Libya, Yemen and Syria.
General Ehsan Ul Haq, former director of the Inter Services Intelligence, has urged the United States to stop demonising the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and pressuring Pakistan to go after it, saying it's not a priority for the Pakistan army.
For Pakistan, it's a Catch-22 situation. Under pressure from the United States, it may have to chop and change the ISI set-up. But if it tinkers too much with the elite agency, Islamabad risks a more horrifying repurcussion. Vicky Nanjappa reports
The listing in the Shuhada's (Martyrs') Corner of the website www.pakistanarmy.gov.pk named Naik Zulfiqar Ahmed as the ISI operative who died in New Delhi's Ganga Ram Hospital on November 16, 2007.
Raised by Pakistan's Inter-Services-Intelligence for its proxy operations against India, the Lashkar-e-Tayiba has now become the largest terror group operating in the sub-continent and it also poses a potent threat to the United States, an American think-tank has said.
The powerful role of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence in Afghan insurgency is 'as clear as the sun in the sky', says a latest study.
The apex court, however, dismissed a PIL filed by NGO, Centre for Public Interest Litigation, seeking a court-monitored fresh probe in the Pandya murder case.
Pakistan on Friday dismissed reports claiming Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Omar had fled from Quetta to Karachi, with the help of the Inter Services Intelligence, to avoid the possibility of being targeted by United States drones."This is ridiculous to say the least," Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit told reporters. He said there had been speculations about Omar's presence in Pakistan 'for years'.
Speaking to ANI, Qatar-based spokesperson of Taliban Suhail Shaheen said, "What do you mean by military role? If they come to Afghanistan militarily and have their presence, I think that will not be good for them, they have seen the fate of military presence in Afghanistan of other countries. So it is an open book for them. And about their help to the Afghan people or national projects, I think that is something which is appreciated."
Former Inter-Services Intelligence official Khalid Khawaja, considered to be a close friend of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, has exposed the murky deals between the spy agency, the Pakistan army, the militants.Khawaja, a former air force squadron leader, claims that he was captured by militants while trying to finalise a deal between them and the army. According to him, the ISI had sent him to North Waziristan to broker a deal between the militants and the Pakistan army.
"How can you have a strategic dialogue without including the military," Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke told reporters at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department.
A CoBRA company has about 100 personnel each.
Against the backdrop of the WikiLeaks disclosure about Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services-Intelligence's double-game in Afghanistan, former US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has said the Pakistani spy agency has a relationship with the Taliban.
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence had held Osama Bin Laden prisoner for nearly six years in Abbottabad and handed him over to the United States in a staged raid, a media report said on Wednesday in a new controversial account of the Al Qaeda chief's death.
Pakistan on Friday rejected India's charge that Inter Services Intelligence was involved in the Mumbai terror attacks, alleging that it was a "manifestation of undisguised hostility" and "smear campaign" against Islamabad.
Influential United States Senator John Kerry who heads the congressional committee responsible for the American foreign policy has said that Pakistan's president, army chief and the Inter-Services Intelligence are showing encouraging signs of transformation and taking the terrorists head on.
A former director-general of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence has said that United States President Barack Obama will pull out American troops from Afghanistan for economic reasons rather than for strategic ones because his administration would find the ongoing surge unsustainable.
A top American General has said that it would not be surprising if Pakistan's powerful spy agency Inter Services Intelligence has links with Islamist extremist groups, which have set up a safe haven in the country's restive tribal region.
It was earlier scheduled for Tuesday.
A Pakistani court on Monday directed the government not to deport five American Muslim youths, arrested on suspicion of terror links, to the United States or any other country. Chief Justice Khwaja Muhammad Sharif of the Lahore high court issued the order in response to a petition filed by former Inter Services Intelligence agency official Khalid Khwaja. In his petition, Khwaja said the five youths should be tried under Pakistani laws.
The world's attention is on the new Taliban and the imminent announcement of an inclusive government in Kabul, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
'Pakistan is full of 'religious entrepreneurs' like Hafeez Saeed who poison the minds of the young so that they can be motivated to become terrorists. They work in concert with the rulers of Pakistan. It is a private-public partnership.'
A United States commission on religious freedom on Tuesday expressed deep concern over links between Pakistan's extremist groups and the Inter Services Intelligence, saying some of the madrasas in the country are creating 'an atmosphere of intolerance'. The commission is also concerned about the alleged role of Pakistan's Islamic schools, or madrasas, in providing ideological training to religious extremists and in creating an atmosphere of intolerance.
The United States may seek to gain leverage from the WikiLeaks disclosures about the Inter Services Intelligence's links with the Taliban and the Al Qaeda to make Islamabad act tougher on militant groups on its soil. "This is now in the open," a senior Barack Obama administration official said, referring to the 92,000 documents of the US defence department's war in Afghanistan made public by the online whistleblower WikiLeaks.
The government on Monday said it cannot rule out the possibility of the involvement of a foreign hand in the Pune blast, including a David Headley link, even as it disclosed that an Inter Services Intelligence -sponsored 'Karachi Project' was going on to indoctrinate Indian youth on to the path of terror.Home Secretary Gopal K Pillai said there is definitely a Headley link to the Pune blast, since it took place at the German Bakery.
Intelligence Bureau agents tell Vicky Nanjappa/Rediff.com that Dr Ved Pratap Vaidik's meeting with terrorist Muhammad Saeed will only benefit the ISI.
Agitated over confusing signals emanating from Pakistan with regard to Mumbai attacks, India on Friday slammed it for not responding through proper channel and felt that Islamabad was doing it deliberately to hide the truth about involvement of state actors in the carnage.
Khan's statement is significant because Pakistan had so far denied that it had any information about the hideout of Osama before he was killed in a covert raid by a US Navy SEAL team in Abbottabad, a garrison town north of Islamabad, on May 2, 2011.
Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence has been trying to engineer trouble in Punjab for the last twenty years, former director general of Punjab Police Kanwar Pal Singh Gill told rediff.com in an exclusive interview on Monday. I am surprised that the bomb attack has come late. Knowing the Punjab militants, I was expecting it soon after the judgement about former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh's murder case," he said.
While some say an agreement was reached over the Panama Papers, others suggest that Nawaz Sharif may have handed the CPEC to the military in exchange for his survival.
The JeI (J&K) also has several trusts for running schools to disseminate orthodox Islamic education, has a youth wing and has numerous publications for spreading its fundamentalist ideology.
Amid increasing pressure by the United States to rein in the Inter Services Intelligence for its involvement in terrorist activities, including the Indian embassy blast in Kabul, Pakistan has said it would investigate the matter if evidence were presented to it against any of its nationals."If any evidence were to be presented against any individual in Pakistan, or against the interest of Pakistan's neighbours, then the government would certainly act on that evidence.
'Whatever comes in the minds of the Pakistani generals and Pakistan military, they just go for it.' 'They do not care about the consequences for their country or the consequences to the people of Pakistan.'
Describing the organisers of the 26/11 and Kabul embassy attacks as "clients and creations" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, India has said those behind the carnages are known to prepare for strikes across the world and cautioned against any compromise with such forces.
Just why is Pakistan's former spy chief among the most dangerous men in the world?
Banks can collapse, markets can be rigged, investment instruments can become worthless overnight, auditors can fail to blow the whistle, board directors can be asleep, and regulators can be incompetent, notes T N Ninan.
'Defence funding is channelled to State-owned research organisations where scientists are merely bureaucrats holding meetings and sending out minutes of meetings and press releases, but have long ago stopped any innovative work.' 'Unless this tragedy is fixed, India's chances to create world-conquering and job-creating new industries are slim,' says Ajit Balakrishnan.
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