Terrorist outfit Al Qaeda is training a 12-member team of westerners in Pakistan for a special mission including plotting attacks on return to their home countries, a media report has said.
The figure, based on testimony by senior US intelligence officials to a joint inquiry by the US Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees, is at least three times higher than previous estimates.
The plunging global economy is an even bigger threat to the United States' national security than the al Qaeda terrorist network or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, according to America's new intelligence czar.Traditionally, US intelligence chiefs always preface their opening remarks with either terrorist or nuclear proliferation threats, but DenisBlair's first sentences in his testimony before the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was about the economy.
"Musharraf has got a situation at home where there is a certain amount of sympathy in some places for, if not Al Qaeda, then certainly for the people who are more inclined to Islam."
"Al-Qaeda has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002. I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to," Clinton told a group of senior Pakistani journalists in Lahore on Thursday.
In his memoirs, Lord Stevens, former metropolitan police commissioner, said he ordered a secret operation to protect the prime minister and his wife after receiving intelligence about the plot, weeks before the event in June 2002.
Mohammad Afroze has been found guilty under Sections 120-b (conspiracy) and Section 126 of the Indian Penal Code (committing depredation on territories of power at peace with the Government of India).
Afroze was arrested on December 3, 2001 on charges of conspiring with terrorist outfit al Qaeda to bomb the House of Commons in UK, Parliament House in India and Radio Towers in Australia.
"We need to go much further in realising the well established objective of degrading the ability of the Taliban to fight while simultaneously denying safe-havens, finances and armament," Indian Ambassador to UN Nirupam Sen told the Security Council on Tuesday.
This is the first explicit claim of responsibility for the blasts, which claimed 56 lives, by the terrorist group headed by Osama bin Laden.
Al Qaeda-linked group claims responsibility for London blasts
A top Obama aide on Sunday said the Al Qaeda is based in Pakistan and that the United States would 'not rush' in finalising the new strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Zawahiri served three years as a surgeon in the Egyptian Army, but his journey from an eye surgeon to becoming a most wanted global terrorist started after he met Laden in 1986, and joined Laden as his personal advisor and physician.
The resolution proposed by Russia that called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza but made no mention of Hamas' attack on Israel.
Terrorist outfit Al Qaeda marked the eighth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington with a video message in which it has predicted that US President Barack Obama would be brought down by the Muslims.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has admitted that terrorists operating in Kashmir have nexus with Al Qaeda, Taliban and Pakistani extremists, which is a "very dangerous" combination.
Anwar al-Awlaki, the public face of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has been killed, the Yemeni defence ministry announced on Friday, signalling another major setback to the terror network after the death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
By creating mayhem, Hamas aims to force the Arab States to give up their plans of reconciliation with Israel, explains Colonel Anil A Athale.
'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.'
A plot by Islamist militants to blow up the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre art museum and a nuclear power plant has been foiled, the French police said.
There are ample indications to show that the newly launched Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent headed by Indian-born Asim Umar will seek to lay siege on India through waters rather than land.
The UN Security Council on Wednesday failed to adopt a Brazil-led draft resolution that would have called for humanitarian pauses in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict to allow full access for aid to the Gaza strip after the US vetoed the text.
Their detention outside the US enables CIA interrogators to apply interrogation methods that are banned by US law, said Haaretz.
Anger is the basic root cause of all terrorism. The anger is often caused by domestic or external factors. While India may not have much control over the external factors, it should be able to detect in time signs of anger due to domestic reasons and take action to address them. Unaddressed anger at the domestic level drives the angry into the arms of trans-national organisations such as al Qaeda in course of time.
Al Qaeda and a North Waziristan-based terror group 'Brigade 313' have reportedly prepared a plan to launch an attack on the 19th Commonwealth Games, which are due to be held in New Delhi from October 3 to October 14.
As the peril of Islamic militancy spreads like a jungle fire in almost every nook and corner of Pakistan, the Al Qaeda network keeps thriving by evolving a modus operandi which exploits its local affiliates -- the Pakistani militant groups active in Jammu Kashmir and Afghanistan -- to pursue their global jehadi agenda, says Amir Mir.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's second most powerful leader after Osama Bin Laden, might be critically wounded and possibly dead, according to a media report.The CBS News reported that it had obtained a copy of an intercepted letter, which urgently requests a doctor to treat al-Zawahiri. The Al Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding somewhere in Pakistan's tribal areas.
The Al Qaeda has launched a blistering attack on Pakistan's beleaguered President Pervez Musharraf accusing him of betraying Muslims by supporting the US-led war in Afghanistan.
Beijing blocked the proposal that had been moved by the US and co-designated by India to blacklist Mir under the 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council as a global terrorist and subject him to assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo.
Rauf Azhar, born in 1974 in Pakistan, had been sanctioned by the United States in December 2010.
Investigators probing the terror module busted in Karnataka have claimed that the arrested 11 youths were inspired by the contents of an online magazine which glorifies activities of the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Eighteen year-old Hammaad Munshi of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, has been arrested on suspicion of terrorist activities after handwritten notes about martyrdom, propaganda from Al-Qaeda and instructions on how to make Napalm bomb were found at his house.
'But unlike Bond who killed an individual, Israel is killing a nation.'
The CIA director described Pakistan's role in the war on terror, saying "The United States has not had a better partner in the war on terrorism than the Pakistanis. The turmoil of the past few weeks has only deepened that cooperation," he said, adding the two countries now had 'even more clearly mutual and common interests'.
At least four persons, including an alleged Al Qaeda militant, were killed on Saturday when a United States drone struck in the lawless North Waziristan region after a lull in the Central Investigation Agency's spy plane campaign in Pakistan.
A Pakistani woman, who mysteriously disappeared five years ago, having alleged links with the al Qaeda, was arraigned in a New York federal court on the charges of attempting to kill American soldiers and officials in Afghanistan and a bail hearing was set for Monday.
Besides Germany, The UK's Scotland Yard and French Surete are also on full alert for possible Al Qaeda strikes in London and Paris. The German magazine Der Spiegel had reported on the weekend, that a group of Al Qaeda terrorists trained in Pakistani camps and assisted by underworld don Dawood Ibrahim are planning to storm Germany's Parliament in a Mumbai-style attack.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances