A top US diplomat on Thursday said Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was based in Pakistan's tribal belt and senior Taliban leaders operating from Quetta were playing a key role in fomenting unrest in Afghanistan, prompting Islamabad to dismiss the charges as "mere speculation".
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.
In a new audio recording, Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden has threatened to capture and kill Americans if Washington decides to execute the alleged 9/11 masterminds Khalid al Sheikh Mohammed or any other Al Qaeda suspects.
A close aide of slain Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was among six militants killed in a United States drone attack in Pakistan's lawless tribal region 10 days ago, media reported on Tuesday.
The Pakistani intelligence agency ISI knows the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, but is keeping his location a secret and wants to use the Al Qaeda chief as leverage over the US as it is wary of America's closer ties with India, noted military historian Stephen Tanner has said.
With Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden remaining elusive, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmud Qureshi has said the United States may be aware of his whereabouts and asked American intelligence agencies to share any information they have on him. "US may be aware of the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden," Qureshi, currently on a visit to Washington, was quoted as saying. "If the US intelligence is that clear, they should share that intelligence with us," he said.
Osama bin Laden's son has warned that if his father is killed, his successors, who will take charge of the Al Qaeda, will be 'much, much worse'. "From what I knew of my father and the people around him, I believe he is the most kind among them, because some are much, much worse They want to make more violence, to create more problems," ABC News quoted Omar bin Laden, who was raised in the midst of his father's fighters, as saying.
'Maybe it was its (India's) sheer size, with one-sixth of the world's population, an estimated two thousand distinct ethnic groups, and more than seven hundred languages spoken,' Obama writes on his fascination of India in his latest book A Promised Land.
'My father was so happy. This is the kind of president he needs -- one who will attack and spend money and break the country. I am sure my father wanted McCain more than President Barack Obama. McCain has the same mentality as Bush. My father would be disappointed because Obama got the position,' Omar told the Rolling Stone magazine.
Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden's son has claimed political asylum in Spain after being refused entry to live in the UK with his British wife.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday stepped up pressure on Pakistan to "take out" the world's most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden and 'break' his Al Qaeda's network.
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was cornered by US forces in the Afghan mountains of Tora Bora just months after 9/11 and could have been killed or captured, but the military top brass decided not to attack him with the massive force at their disposal, a Senate report says.
Hamza bin Laden promised to continue the global militant group's fight against the United States.
Chaudiri Abdul Majeed and Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, who held a series of senior posts in Pakistani nuke programme, went to Taliban headquarters in Kandahar in mid-August 2001 and spent three days with bin Laden who was keen on acquiring weapons of mass destruction, the book says.
Pakistani's President Asif Ali Zardari, asked on NBC's 'Meet the Press' program where Osama bin Laden was, told the interviewer, "You'll have been there for eight years. (So) You tell me.You lost him in Tora Bora, I didn't, I was in prison."
'Some people might go through their entire careers without getting a role like this. It's once-in-a-lifetime kind of a role.' Sikandar Kher gets us ready for Tere Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive.
'Terror is a legitimate threat. It is a threat that comes from Al-Qaeda and those organisations that have morphed off of Al-Qaeda, but there are other interests we have beyond merely -- for example, the situation in the Middle East is not a global war on terror. But it matters to us mightily whether or not we end up with an accommodation between the Israelis and the Palestinians,' he said.
"I don't think Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan because we have combed our area," Mukhtar told the Dawn news channel amid frequent Western media reports that terror mastermind was hiding in Pakistan's porous tribal areas bordering Afghnistan. Acknowledging that it was not possible to totally control the border with Afghanistan, he said Pakistan is trying to apprehend all Al Qaeda operatives within its territory.
But, the opposition Congress and some social activists hailed Twitter's decision to remove the cartoon, and claimed the BJP was trying to gain political mileage out of the court's judgment.
The activation of diplomatic channels is likely to yield better results than a simmering hostility, recommends Ajai Shukla.
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'I am not a fan of remakes. The Shaukeens does not have a single scene or character taken from the original.' Abhishek Sharma, director of The Shaukeens, explains why his film is different.
Osama bin Laden has been sidelined by his followers and has no longer any control over the Al Qaeda terror network, according to intelligence officials in Britain and the US.
Retired Lieutenant General J F R Jacob has said that if it is true that he needs medical care, then Pakistan is the place where he is getting it.
US President George W Bush says Osama bin Laden is "still alive" but regrets making his infamous edict to get the 9/11 terror mastermind "dead or alive" saying that it had sent a "wrong signal" to the Muslim world.
Omar Laden, the son of Osama bin Laden, has been banned from entering Britain to live with his new wife because of fears that his presence would cause 'considerable public concern'.
The US drone strike that killed Ayman al-Zawahiri has raised questions over Pakistan's possible role in the raid amid reports suggesting that the country's airspace could have been used for carrying out the precision strike on the Al Qaeda chief's safe house in Kabul.
Mahatma Gandhi would never have agreed with the "idea that there is some connection between Islam and violence" and would have stood up to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden if he were alive today, his grandson has said.
Hamza, 29, has assumed a senior position within Al Qaeda and was aiming to avenge the death of his father, who was shot dead during a covert US military raid in Pakistan's Abbottabad seven years ago, Osama's half-brothers Ahmad and Hassan al-Attas were quoted as saying.
US President George W Bush on Wednesday came under severe attack from the Communist Party of India-Marxist, which described him as a "fool" for comparing Russian leader Lenin with the likes of Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler.
Rahimullah Yusufzai, also a senior journalist, told rediff.com that it cannot be said that recent violence in Pakistan was orchestrated by the Al Qaeda -- led by Osama bin Laden and his right hand man Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
Rediff readers vote on topics related to Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's killing by American special forces
'Pakistan is only interested in Afghanistan insofar as it can give it more strategic weight vis-a-vis India,' says Afghan expert Sarah Chayes.
Later addressing a press conference, Musharraf said that he would not allow the sovereignty of his country to be breached by the US.
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is probably somewhere in the area of Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said.
'They are worried that the BJP government is trying to reduce Kashmiris as a minority.'
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