United States President Barack Obama on Monday named former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as his next defence secretary, and also nominated his counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan, who was involved in the planning of the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, as the new Central Intelligence Agency chief.
The judicial commission assigned to investigate the American raid in Abbottabad, which killed Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden in May 2011, states that no one else in the garrison town knew that the world's most wanted man had taken up residence there, according to a senior government official
The report of the independent commission investigating Osama bin Laden's presence in Pakistan would be available next month, Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar visiting Washington has said.
Pakistan's powerful spy agency Inter Services Intelligence regards the United States as its "worst enemy" and Islamabad's claim that it is cooperating with Washington is a sham to extract billions of dollars in aid, jailed Pakistani doctor Shakeel Afridi who helped the CIA trace Osama bin Laden has said.
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.
The atmosphere at the 9/11 Museum is certainly somber, but not melodramatic. The exhibition conveys a sense of peace and optimism, not frustration and despondency, says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The judicial commission probing the killing of Osama bin Laden has recorded the statements of Inter-Services Intelligence officials, who reiterated claims that the US unilaterally conducted the raid against the Al Qaeda leader without the consent of Pakistani authorities.
Pakistani authorities have taken steps to declare as government property the plot of land in the garrison town of Abbottabad where Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden spent his final years before he was killed by American commandos.
Threatened by the growing clout of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the Al Qaeda is desperate for a comeback. Explosives that airport scanners can't detect are the latest security threat
'What America could figure out is that this finally was an American with an American passport operating in Pakistan who had access to Al Qaeda. Now the prime objective of that time was the capture of bin Laden. This is three years before Abbottabad, the only thing that the US intelligence agencies were thinking about was how do they decapitate him, how do they cut the head off of Al Qaeda and here was this tantalising, untrustworthy, difficult, hard to control, psychopathic individual, who was American,' Adrian Levy, co-author of the book The Siege: The Attack on the Taj, tells Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
Actions of Shakil Afridi, the doctor who helped track Osama bin Laden, have "seriously jeopardised" Pakistan's efforts to fight polio, the top Pakistani diplomat told US lawmakers.
After the Shakil Afridi episode, both sides are back to where they were, with ties strained and reconciliatory efforts coming to a standstill, says Amir Mir
A powerful House committee chairman has accused the Obama administration of jeopardising national security by providing classified information to two filmmakers producing a movie on the raid by Navy SEAL that killed Osama bin Laden.
This is for the first time in several years a news report has surfaced about the hiding location of the Al-Qaeda chief, who is Osama bin Laden's mentor and successor.
Questions about slain Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's ties with the Pakistan establishment remain unanswered in the documents made public by the United States, in which references are made to "trusted Pakistani brothers" without any elaboration. The West Point report notes that "there are no explicit references to any institutional Pakistani support for Al Qaeda and its operatives," but media reports said that if any such references were there, those would be classified.
While United States President Barack Obama on the occasion of Osama Bin Ladin's first anniversary arrived in Kabul to assess the security situation of the country, the Afghan Taliban has announced a fresh spring offensive throughout the country from Thursday. Tahir Ali reports
Two top United States officials have called off visits to Islamabad without assigning any reasons, reflecting the current tensions between the two countries as they struggle to reset their troubled ties a year after the killing of Al Qaeda's Osama bin Laden.
A year after Osama bin Laden was killed by United States Special Forces in Pakistan, his terrorist outfit Al Qaeda has little support in the Muslim world, a poll has said.
The United States has said that drone strikes are "legal and ethical" tools against Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan, dismissing Islamabad's concerns over the attacks.
Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden had planned to mount indiscriminate attacks on the Pakistani soil before his death in a covert United Stated raid in Abbottabad, the documents seized by the Americans from the slain terrorist's compound in the Pakistani garrison city have suggested. The Central Intelligence Agency shared intelligence about possible Al Qaeda attacks inside Pakistan when officials of the two countries met to explore the way forward in resetting bilateral ties.
United States Senator John F Kerry -- President Barack Obama's nominee to be the next Secretary of State -- has asserted that he would be strongly opposed to any cuts in America's considerable aid to Islamabad.
Pakistani military leaders, including army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, were surprised to know that Osama bin Laden was hiding in their country when they were told about the American raid that killed the dreaded terrorist, according to an analysis of conversations conducted by the United States intelligence.
US President Obama will nominate his counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan, who was involved in the planning of the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, as the new chief of CIA, White House officials said.
The world remembers Osama bin Laden's 9/11. But it ought to pay heed to the previous two 9/11s, associated with the messages of Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi, say Sudheendra Kulkarni and Radha Viswanathan
United States special envoy Marc Grossman on Thursday met Pakistan's top civil and military leadership as part of efforts to salvage bilateral relations following the covert American operation in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden.
"Pakistan has made very important contribution to international counter terrorism cooperation as well as great sacrifices," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu said, as Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, began a key visit to the country, declaring China as his country's best friend.
Despite the fact that Al Qaeda's top brass has been ruthlessly eliminated in US-operated drone strikes and ground operations in Pakistan, including its very chief Osama bin Ladin, the group has strengthened itself at both ideological and financial grounds, reports Tahir Ali.
In the website, the boy dubbed the 'Crown Prince of Terror', called for an acceleration in the destruction of America, Britain, France and Denmark, the latter singled out for the publishing by its largest selling broadsheet of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.Hamza Bin Ladan, 16, the youngest of the Saudi-born warlord's 18 sons, is claimed to be the author of a poem featured on an extremist website to mark the third anniversary of the July 7 London bombings.
With its ally Pakistan under attack for its failure to locate the hideout of Osama bin Laden near its capital Islamabad, China on Thursday strongly came to its rescue, saying the global community should "understand and support" Islamabad's anti-terrorism efforts.
Senior American and Pakistani defence and military officials met in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Monday to discuss the regional security environment and the situation along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
The compound in the garrison town of Abbottabad where Osama bin Laden was killed by the United States special forces last year was demolished by Pakistani authorities on Saturday night amidst tight security, local residents said.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has warned that Islamabad will not tolerate any further unilateral action by the United States, like the raid that killed former Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in his Abbotabad hideout.
Seven members of United States Navy SEAL Team 6, including one involved in carrying out a raid that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, have been reprimanded for allegedly divulging classified information for a video game, senior Navy officials said on Friday.
A commission investigating Osama bin Laden's presence in Pakistan and the covert United States raid that killed him has asked the government to give it access to 1,87,000 documents, including diaries and letters, found at the slain Al Qaeda leader's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Pakistan Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani on Thursday in an unprecedented tongue-lashing against the powerful military said it is "unacceptable" if the army "considers itself a State within State" and warned that "conspiracies" are being hatched to "pack up" his government.
"US better forget him (Afridi) as he is never going to leave here, he will never be traded for Dr Afia Siddiqui, no such proposition is under consideration," Director General ISI, Lt General Zaheeer-ul-Islam said.
With deepening of India-United States relationship and deterioration in the ties between Washington and Islamabad, Pakistan is moving closer to China, a Congressional report has said.
Radical preacher Abu Qatada, often referred to as Osama bin Laden's point man in Europe, was on Saturday sent back to jail by a British judge after being arrested for alleged breach of bail conditions.
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