The Pakistan government has detained a co-owner of an upscale catering company in Islamabad and at least four others in connection with the botched Times Square bombing plot for which Pakistani-American terror suspect Faisal Shahzad has been arrested in the United States, a media report said in Washington on Saturday. The suspects, including Salman Ashraf of 'Hanif Rajput Catering Service', were taken into custody following the May 1 Times Square terror plot.
In an interview with Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa, George Alexander Mapp, a friend of Faiza Outalha, estranged wife of Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorist David Coleman Headley, talks about his relationship with Faiza, his ordeal with the NIA and what he thinks about the Headley case.
The worst-ever attack on a police force by Maoists, the blast in Pune at the beginning and the Varanasi explosion at the end of the year blotted the copybook of the security forces, which otherwise kept 2010 free from terror.
The United States will inform India by next week about possible dates, most likely in this month, for giving direct access to Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley.
Residents of Mohib Banda, Shahzad's ancestral village in Pubbi area of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province, said members of the 30-year-old's family believed he had been implicated in a "false" case.
A Pakistani court on Friday dismissed a petition seeking asylum in the name of 'holy war' for five American Muslim youths recently arrested in the country for allegedly planning terror attacks, saying that it was not the duty of the judiciary to define 'jihad'.
Pakistani authorities have registered a case under the stringent Anti-Terrorism Act against the five American Muslim youths, who were recently arrested in Sargodha in Punjab province on suspicion of links with terrorist groups.
Determined to seek the extradition of Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley and access to him, India will raise the issue with US at the official-level during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's four-day visit to the US.
Indian investigators will soon get access to terror suspect David Headley as United States authorities are working out the logistics of where and when they can question the Pakistani-American in connection with the Mumbai terror attacks, an official of the Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Tuesday. "In the plea agreement, Headley did agree to meet with Indian authorities. I think right now we are just trying to work out the logistics and scheduling of that," said FBI.
US has said that it is yet to take a decision on Lashkar operative David Coleman Headley's extradition to India, said Robert Blake, the Obama Administration's point man for South Asia, especially India-Pakistan relations.
As extradition of terror accused David Headley from the United States is likely to be a difficult process, India will press for immediate direct access to him for its investigators.Top government sources said as extradition of the 49-year old Pakistani-American, who has admitted to plotting the audacious Mumbai terror attack, appeared to become a difficult process, the immediate priority of the Indian investigators was direct access to him to know details about terror plots.
William said he was in disbelief that his own nephew was connected with the massacre in Mumbai. Headley wrote letters to his uncle from a Chicago jail, addressing him as "Dear Uncle Billy (Mama)". William said Headley had communicated to him that he was doubtful he would be let off, after he was arrested on terror charges in October last year. In a letter dated December 18, 2009, Headley wrote to his uncle that "despite his heritage, he is now a 100 per cent Muslim."
Dismissing concerns about the plea agreement between the United States government and Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley, Home Minister P Chidambaram on Friday said the deal was not a 'setback' for India's probe into the terror attack on Mumbai. Headley, who was arrested in October last year in Chicago by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has pleaded guilty to charges of planning and helping carry out the attack on Mumbai.
Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley, accused of plotting the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks and conspiring to target a Danish newspaper, pleaded guilty on Thursday before a United States court. Headley, 49, who was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's joint terrorism task force on October 3, 2009, told US District Judge Harry Leinenweber that he wanted to change his plea to guilty, in an apparent bid to get a lighter sentence.
The Indian government will be 'satisfied' if Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley, who pleaded guilty in a United States court to his involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks, is awarded a life sentence, Home Secretary G K Pillai said on Friday. "The US attorney general has advised a sentence of life imprisonment. If he gets a sentence of life imprisonment, I don't think the government of India will be unsatisfied," he said.
Law enforcement sources rubbished allegations that Headley was a double agent for US intelligence and that this was why he was not being made available for interrogation by Indian intelligence.
Official access for Indian investigators probing the Mumbai terror attack to Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley will help prove to the world Pakistan's involvement in the 26/11 strikes, the Bharatiya Janata Party has stated."It (consequences of his pleading guilty before a United States court) is a mixed bag. As we cannot get extradition, it is a loss. But, at the same time, we can get official access," BJP said.
Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley had participated in terror camps being run by the Lashkar-e-Tayiba in Pakistan, despite promises by the then president Parvez Musharraf in 2002 to the George W Bush administration, that all such facilities will be shut down. Headley, a LeT operative arrested in October 2009 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had attended five such training camps run by the terror outfit between 2002 and 2003, according to Headley's plea agreement.
A top United States intelligence official has said that the probe in the Mumbai terror siege is an 'excellent example' of cooperation between India and the United States, even as Indian authorities are smarting over the US administration's refusal to hand over Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley on charges related to his involvement in the 26/11 attack.
In a volte-face, Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley, accused of plotting the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks and conspiring to target a Danish newspaper, pleaded guilty on Thursday before a US court in Chicago.
Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley, a Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative charged with conspiring in the 26/11 Mumbai terror strike, will plead guilty before a United States court on Thursday, five months after he was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Headley, a co-accused who has pleaded guilty, said he was watching TV from his home in Lahore during the 60-hour siege of Mumbai that began on the night of November 26, 2008.
Revelations by Pakistani-American David Headley, a Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative charged with conspiring in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, may have prompted Islamabad to finally go after the Afghan-Taliban, a noted United States scholar on South Asia has said.
United States Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake, while briefing reporters on the meeting between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on the sidelines of the 65th United Nations General Assembly in New York, said the issue of direct and complete access to Pakistani American and Lashkar operative David Coleman had not come up at all at these talks.
Pakistani-American LeT operative David Coleman Headley on Wednesday pleaded not guilty to the 12 counts filed against him in the superseding indictment returned on January 14, including charges he conspired in plotting the terror attacks in Mumbai and a Danish newspaper.
Charged with conspiring in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Taiyba operative David Coleman Headley will be produced in a Chicago court on Wednesday, where he will respond to the charges against him. Headley is set to appear for his arraignment before US Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys in United States district court, Northern District of Illinois. Co-accused Tahawwur Hussain Rana appeared in the same court on Monday and pleaded not guilty.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has politely turned down India's request for extradition of terror suspect David Headley to India on the ground he will have to first undergo a sentence which could be imposed on him in the US for the offences committed if convicted.
'They are both very individualistic and have similar personalities.'
The Eternal Gandhi Museum is the only Gandhi-related museum in the United States, dedicated to Gandhi, to preserve and promote his ever-lasting legacy of nonviolent conflict resolution.
Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-American accused of criminal conspiracy in the Mumbai terror attacks, is set to appear before a court in Chicago on Wednedsay to respond to the charges against him.
As Pakistan took exception to Home Secretary G K Pillai's recent remarks on Inter Services Intelligence's role in Mumbai attacks, India on Friday said that there is no acrimony between the two sides on the issue.
The 2007 raid at Islamabad's Lal Masjid, where Faisal Shahzad often prayed when visiting his home, was the "triggering event" that drove the Pakistani-American to terrorism, culminating into the failed Times Square bombing plot.
'From what evidence has come up, General Bajwa somehow managed to tell the Americans that I was anti-American.' 'And so, it [the plan to oust me] wasn't imported from there. It was exported from here to there.'
Expressing deep concern over sudden spurt in hate crimes against ethnic and religious minorities, several top lawmakers have asked President-elect Donald Trump to rescind his recent appointment of Stephen K Bannon as his chief strategist.
Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomb suspect, fears for his life after spilling the beans to investigators, but is dying to know why his homemade explosive never exploded in the crowded area of New York city.
Pakistani-American terror suspect Faisal Shahzad had planned to attack four other targets if his bid to detonate a car bomb near Times Square in New York was successful, according to a television channel. Other locations that he intended to attack were Rockefeller Centre, Grand Central Terminal, the World Financial Centre and the Connecticut headquarters of defence contractor Sikorsky. Sikorsky manufactures helicopters for the US military, including the Black Hawk.
US Ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, was in Mumbai this week to pay tribute to 26/11 victims and to lay out a path for future US-India relations.
Pakistani-American terror suspect Faisal Shahzad was a liberal person until he was struck by financial woes in the past few years, his friends say, following which he appears to have lost the way.
Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American suspect in Times Square failed bombing, has waived his right to a speedy arraignment and is not expected to appear in court today.
Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad, the suspected Times Square bomber, attended a terrorist training camp at Waziristan in Pakistan, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has said. In a 10-page compliant file on Tuesday before the Court of Judge Nathaniel Fox, Southern District of New York, the FBI alleged that Shahzad traveled from Connecticut to New York on a sports-utility vehicle that was laden with a bomb.