A United States court has refused to release photos and videos from American military raid that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last year.
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.
'Employment of dedicated lightweight special forces aircraft may provide the answer for repeat anti-terror air strikes with surprise elements intact, the cost benefit assured and attrition minimal,' says Group Captain Murli Menon (retd), India's former air adviser in Pakistan.
A United States drone targetted a house in Pakistan's restive North Waziristan tribal region, killing at least four terrorists and injuring two others.
The majority Democratic leadership in the United States Senate prevented a key Republican Senator from moving a vote on his amendment that if passed would have cut off all US aid to Pakistan till release of the imprisoned physician who helped the Central Intelligence Agency trace Osama bin Laden.
After having boasted that Obama personally orders the drone strikes, the government is now refusing even to confirm whether any documents on the subject exist, says B Raman.
Ex-CIA official Bruce Reidel had said in Washington, DC that amid speculations over Zardari's future, he believes that the 'creeping establishment' of Pakistan's fifth military dictatorship is underway right now, reports Aziz Haniffa.
A top American senator has introduced a legislation in the Senate that seeks to eliminate foreign aid to Pakistan until the conviction of Shakil Afridi -- the doctor who helped the Central Intelligence Agency trace Osama bin Laden is overturned and he is released
The drones struck before dawn, firing four missiles at the compound and a vehicle in Mir Ali, 25 km from Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan Agency. US and Afghan officials have described the area as a hub for Al Qaeda and Taliban elements
Chinese authorities have arrested a suspected agent of the American Central Intelligence Agency in China who apparently worked in the Ministry of State Security, country's main intelligence agency, a media report said on Saturday.
While the United States has already shown dissatisfaction over Pakistan's claims that Dr Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani physician who helped the Central Intelligence Agency track down and kill Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, had relation with militants, the Pakistan Taliban have not only rejected the reports of any links with him, but has also said that the imprisoned doctor is 'wajib-ul-qatal' (one that deserve death penalty), as he helped the US to kill bin Laden
Seeking a clarification from Pakistan, the United States on Wednesday said that it did not believe in the "story" that a Pakistani doctor, who helped the Central Intelligence Agency track Osama bin Laden, was sentenced to 33-years in jail for links with the banned Lashkar-e-Islam militant group.
The Taliban will either attack Peshawar prison, abduct Dr Shakil Afridi and let their leaders decide his fate, or they will use an inmate in the jail kill the doctor. Amir Mir reports from Islamabad
The pathetic failure of United States' policy in Pakistan is evident by the fact that more than 10 years after the 9/11 terror strike, terrorist groups based in Pakistan continue to operate with impunity, according to Lisa Curtis, a former Central Intelligence Agency official and currently the head of the South Asia Programme at the Heritage Foundation. She argued, "The 9/11 attacks should have crystallised our policy in different ways,".
'Nanda Devi is not an easy mountain to climb.'
The proposed agency to counter terrorism will be preoccupied defending its arrests before the courts and against allegations of human rights violations, points out B Raman
United States drones struck in Pakistan's restive Waziristan tribal region for the third consecutive day on Thursday, killing seven suspected terrorists, officials said.
The growing influence of the Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon in shaping relations with Pakistan was a key reason behind United States Ambassador Cameron Munter's decision to quit his post, the media in Islamabad claimed on Wednesday.
The Central Intelligence Agency managed to kill one of its most wanted terrorists in the world -- Al Qaeda leader Anwar al Awlaki -- in a drone strike attack in September 2011 after hatching a fake marriage plot with a Croatian woman. Al Awlaki was linked with 2009's Fort Hood shooting and the foiled airplane underwear bomb that happened later in the same year.
Brigadier Usman Khalid also persuaded the doctor to conduct a fake polio campaign, which led to the terrorist's assassination.
Acknowledging the "strain" in United States-Pakistan relationship, a top US intelligence official has said that the internal situation in Pakistan is "fraught" and will take some time to get back to normalcy.
Bolstering his hunch, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, who headed the Central Intelligence Agency at the time when US Navy SEALs killed bin Laden in Pakistan's Abbottabad town, said there were intelligence reports of Pakistani military helicopters passing over the compound where the Al Qaeda chief was hiding.
Pakistan on Thursday sacked the government doctor who had helped the Central Intelligence Agency track down Osama bin Laden in the garrison town of Abbottabad in May last year, amid calls for trying him for treason.
The crucial joint session of Pakistan Parliament that will endorse new terms of engagement with the United States began in Islamabad on Tuesday, following a string of crises, including the November 26 strike by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which took relations to an all-time low. The joint session of the Senate and National Assembly, summoned by President Asif Ali Zardari, will debate the recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee.
The United States has put its covert air campaign that targets al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan's tribal agencies "on hold", in the wake of strained ties between the two countries.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday participated in a 45-minute yoga session along with over 200 top police officers of the country gathered at Kutch for an annual conference, which has been marked by a distinctive personal touch this time.
The case of Pakistani doctor Shakeel Afridi took a new twist on Wednesday when a detailed order about his arrest and conviction stated that he has been punished for his links with a militant outfit, not for working with the Central Intelligence Agency and helping it locate Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. The order has revealed that Dr Afridi will be produced before another court for the trial over his links with the CIA.
Amir Mir reports how a physician became a CIA mole and helped locate the most wanted man in the world.
Strongly reacting to Pakistan jailing a doctor who helped the Central Intelligence Agency find Osama bin Laden to 33 years, the United States has said there was no basis for the verdict and it will raise the issue with the leadership in Islamabad. "We continue to see no basis for (Shakil) Afridi to be held," State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters.
Dr Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani surgeon who helped the US Central Intelligence Agency find Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, has been sentenced to 33 years in prison for 'treason'.
In a major operation, Delhi police has arrested two suspected Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorists who were allegedly planning to carry out terror strikes in the capital by targeting vital installations and VVIPs. Delhi police sources said the operation was launched to nab the two LeT men after receiving inputs from central intelligence agencies that the duo have entered the capital to carry out strikes.
A German national was deported from Tamil Nadu in the wee hours on Tuesday after he was picked up by police in Nagercoil for his alleged "active involvement" in the protests against the Kudankulam nuclear power plant project.
A German national was picked up by the Tamil Nadu police in Nagercoil for allegedly assisting the protests against the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant and deported from the country in the wee hours of Tuesday.
Egypt's military council was scheduled to meet on Thursday, without Hosni Mubarak, its leader, in a move that points to the fact that the Egyptian leader could step down.
Almost two weeks after four people including an Israeli diplomat were injured in a car blast in Delhi, the probe into the terror attack seems to have hit a dead end. Intelligence officials in Israel, who had immediately blamed Iran for the attack, and the United States have shared information about the attack with their Indian counterparts.
In secret concessions to Pakistan, the US has tightened rules on drone strikes inside the country, apparently making them more selective as part of efforts to shore up its fragile relationship with Islamabad.
Just two days after Pakistan released Central Intelligence Agency contractor Rayamond Allen Davis, arrested in a double murder case, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed a certification to the Congress asserting that Islamabad is co-operating with the US in preventing and dismantling terror networks, congressional watchdog has said.
An unusually powerful United States delegation has arrived in Pakistan to deliver the warning that the United States would act unilaterally, if necessary, to attack extremist groups that use the country as a haven to kill Americans, according to a senior American official.
Terming as "alarmist" a media report that the Army moved two units towards Delhi in January without informing the government, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said such reports "should not be taken at face value".
Bruce Riedel, erstwhile Central Intelligence Agency veteran and senior National Security Council official in the Clinton Administration, who spearheaded President Obama's strategic review on Afghanistan and Pakistan, has said the US-India strategic partnership, "a core relationship for the United States," today faces "its most difficult problem ever that is a ticking bomb next door in Pakistan -- a time bomb which could explode at any moment."
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