The White House has outrightly refused to negotiate with Al Qaeda for the release of its citizen, who was kidnapped by the terrorist outfit in Pakistan last year.
The British Intelligence Agency recently said the latest weapon of al Qaeda is to lay traps by equipping female suicide bombers with explosive breast implants, thus making it impossible to detect at security check-points.
The US has warned of a possible Al-Qaeda attack by sea off the coast of Yemen and has alerted ships, including those from India, and maritime vehicles plying in the region.
'The shift of militants to Afghanistan this year suggests that Al Qaeda and its allies, armed with new tactics honed in Iraq, are coming full circle five years after US-led forces ousted the Taliban mullahs,' says the Los Angeles Times.
The arms that Pakistan has requested includes new helicopter gunships, including AH-1W and the Apache-64-D; armed helicopters, such as the AH-6 and MD-530 Little Bird; and utility and cargo helicopters, such as the UH-60 Black Hawk, the CH-47 D Chinook and the UH-1Y Huey, The Washington Times reported on Wednesday.
They figure on a secret list drawn up by Britain's domestic intelligence service MI5 in the aftermath of 7/7 terror attacks in London.
The top CIA official is said to have presented Musharraf 'compelling' evidence of Al Qaeda's resurgence in Pakistan, US officials were quoted as saying.
Blair's assessment came at Tuesday's hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee when panel chairwoman Senator Dianne Feinstein asked him to weigh up the possibility of an attempted attack in the United States.
Voicing America's resolve to wipe out "apocalyptic cult" like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, President Barack Obama today said safe havens for terrorists will not be tolerated and called on Muslims worldwide to reject those who "distort Islam, to preach intolerance, and promote violence."
The US is gearing up to attack Al Qaeda targets in Yemen possibly in retaliation to the failed attempt to bomb a US plane on Christmas Day, believed to have masterminded by extremists operating in that country.
The hijackers had demanded release of Azhar Masood in order to release the passengers of the plane.
US Coordinator on Counter-Terrorism Dan Benjamin said the aim of securing the world would remain incomplete unless LeT is defeated.
The 23-year old Nigerian al Qaeda suspect, who tried to blow up a US plane, was arraigned on Sunday and faces a prison term of up to 20 years if convicted, even as aviation authorities beefed up security measures and flight rules for America-bound flights globally.
Al-Qaeda is obsessed with using commercial airliners to carry out terror attacks and it may try again to use aircraft to strike Western targets, a leading British defence think-tank warned on Tuesday. The warning comes a day after three British men of Pakistani origin were convicted of plotting to blow up flights from London to North America using bombs disguised as soft drinks.
Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) is warning that the situation on the sub-continent has turned "grave" as it appears that open warfare is about to break out between Pakistan and the United States, The European Union Times reports.
Security has been increased in and around the ancient Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati in view of the Al-Qaeda threatening to spread its network to Assam.
Professor Deepa Ollapally said, "The way in which this was carried out, it does suggest that they needed some fairly sophisticated, coordinated planning. And, if the reports are true about their rounding up Americans and British, then it sounds like there is an Al Qaeda hand possibly, which again would be the most obvious difference between every other terrorist attack that has gone on before (in India)."
The 55-year-old admitted that he had tried to dispose off five tons of hashish and a half-ton of heroin in exchange for cash and four shoulder-fired Stinger missiles, which he and the other defendants intended to sell to Taliban members.
Congressman Howard Berman, the chairman of the United States' House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, has predicted that Pakistan is "perhaps the most likely launching point of a future Al Qaeda terrorist strike." Berman said, "The tribal regions of Pakistan provide safe haven for thousands of militants and terrorists, who seek not only to destabilise Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan, but who also plan attacks around the globe."
The United States has increased security at all its major airports and railway stations, and has taken a number of measures, that include temporary closure of its 22 diplomatic missions, following a "very specific" Al Qaeda threat emanating from the Arabian Peninsula.
The agency said it has found several digital devices containing large volumes of incriminating data during the searches.
"He (Zawahiri) and his organisation still threaten us. As we did both seek to capture and kill and succeed in killing bin Laden, we certainly do or will do the same thing with Zawahiri," Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told media persons at a Pentagon news conference.
In a bid to end the anti-jihad war, the United States has asked Saudi Arabia to secretly negotiate with the Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan and persuade them to part ways with the Al-Qaeda so as to deny the jihadis their last safe havens in those two countries.
The meetings were held by members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, which at that time included Vice President Richard Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, apart from CIA director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft. The principals not only discussed the tactics, but also approved them, reports ABCNews.com
The Musharraf regime has given tacit approval to attacks by pilot-less United States planes on Al Qaeda targets along Pakistan's restive border area. The strikes have been stepped up as officials fear that the new civilian government will be hostile to such an offensive.Since January, missiles reportedly fired from Central Investigative Agency operated Predator drones, have hit at least three suspected hideouts of Islamic militants.
'You are dealing with a small gang of semi-literate terrorists. These are guys flying kites.' 'There is huge difference between flying kites and actually having a deliverable, executable, plan.'
The US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, has said that a part of Pakistan has become a safe haven for terrorists organisations like Al Qaeda and the Taliban and this would be one of the main challenges for the incoming Obama Administration.
In 2009, Al Qaeda's core in Pakistan remained the most formidable terrorist organisation targeting the US homeland and it has proven to be an adaptable and resilient terrorist group, the annual Country Reports on Terrorism released by the US Department of State of Thursday has said.
The US President said that justice has been delivered.
The recovery, first of its kind in Jammu and Kashmir, was made by a police party at Chicka Kheit under Kandi police station.
Stating that the Al Qaida was able to establish an unprecedented safe haven along the Pakistan-Afghan border in the past 18 months, the Central Intelligence Agency chief has warned that the situation there presented a clear danger to the two nations, as also to the United States. General Micheal Hayden termed the 2006 peace deal between Pakistan government and the pro-Taliban tribals in North Waziristan as absolutely disastrous.
Rauf Azhar, born in 1974 in Pakistan, had been sanctioned by the United States in December 2010.
Disapproving of US' reliance on President Pervez Musharraf in the war against terror, presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who raised a storm by suggesting unilateral action against Al Qaeda in Pakistan, has vowed to go after the terror network there.
The army carried out this operation in the South Waziristan tribal region after reports that 25 to 30 Al Qaeda men were hiding there.
Under the name Irhabi 007 -- combining the James Bond reference with the Arabic for terrorist -- he worked with al Qaeda leaders in Iraq and came up with a way to convert often gruesome videos into a form that could be put onto the Web.
A US congressional paper says the recent arrest of eleven men in Virginia, allegedly connected with the Lashkar, raises the prospects of a new terrorist threat in the US.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances