Pak intelligence agencies uncover plot to assassinate Zardari

Pakistani intelligence agencies have uncovered a plot to assassinate President Asif Ali Zardari and arrested several persons, TV news channel reported. 

The agencies conducted raids over the past few weeks in Islamabad and Punjab and arrested up to 42 persons, the reports said. 

GEO News channel quoted its sources as saying that 42 people had been arrested while Express News Channel reported that eight have been arrested. 

The reports said the plotters had planned to target Zardari while he visited the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, where his father Hakim Ali Zardari was being treated till his recent death. 

There were also reports that the plotters had planned to target Zardari at Nawab Shah in Sindh province. 

There was no official word on the alleged assassination plot. 

Security officials have said in the past that the President faces serious threat to his life from the Taliban and other militant groups. 

Zardari rarely makes public appearances due to security concerns.


 
 

Reporter who exposed Pak Navy men's link with al-Qaida killed

A well-known Pakistani investigative reporter who had complained of threats from the country's Inter-Services Intelligence was found dead on Tuesday, two days after he disappeared following the publication of his articles that exposed links between Pakistan navy personnel and al-Qaida operatives.

Syed Saleem Shahzad, 40, the Pakistan bureau chief for Asia Times Online, was found dead in Punjab province about 200km from Islamabad. His body, fished out of a canal, was identified by his brother-in-law Hamza Amir. It bore marks of torture, police said, one officer adding that he had cuts on his face.

He is survived by his widow Anila, and sons — Fahad (14), Syed Rehman (8) — and daughter Amina (12).

Soon after Shahzad went missing on Sunday evening while on the way to a TV station from his Islamabad home, a representative of Pakistan's Human Rights Watch, Ali Dayan Hasan, told the Daily Times of Pakistan that "credible sources" claimed Shahzad was apprehended by the ISI. Members of Shahzad's family told the editor of Asia Times that many of Shahzad's friends believed him to be in ISI custody and that he was "safe and would be released after 48 hours".

"He told us that if anything happened to him, we should inform the media about the situation and the threats," Hasan said.

Shahzad had on several occasions been warned by ISI officers over his reports they considered "detrimental to Pakistan's national interest".

His last report on May 29 gave details of contacts between the Pakistan navy and al-Qaida operatives and how the terror group had infiltrated the Mehran base in Karachi and helped organize the devastating attack on May 22.

Police said Shahzad's body was found near his white Toyota Corolla car at Sarai Alamghir near Jhelum town. After police informed Shahzad's family, a relative went to the site and identified the body. Shahzad's family had earlier told the media that the description provided by police did not match with that of the missing journalist, which initially led to hope that he might be alive.

While scores of angry and shocked journalists gathered at his Islamabad home to pay their last respects, there was no word from the government or the army on the killing and neither did any authority visit his home. Pakistani journalists have planned a rally in Islamabad on Wednesday to protest the killing of Shahzad.

David Headley first trained by Lashkar, then ISI

Dissatisfied with the military and espionage training received by Mumbai attacks accused David Coleman Headley from the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Pakistan's spy agency ISI gave him special coaching in surveillance tactics before 26/11.

The training was given by Major Iqbal, Headley's ISI handler, on the streets and in a two-storey safe house in Lahore near the airport, the 50-year-old said.

"ISI did provide me (espionage) training," Headley told a Chicago court as he was grilled by defence attorney Charles Swift who's trying to prove Headley's friend and co-accused, businessman Tahawwur Rana, was in the dark about the Lashkar operative's terror role.

Headley told the court that when he met Major Iqbal in 2006, he was told Lashkar's training was "very elementary" and "not very good". So Major Iqbal, who was identified by Headley as Chaudhery Khan, decided to personally coach him. It was a double-storey house with a small compound outside in a residential neighbourhood, Headley described.

In answer to repeated questions on Thursday, Headley said he did not know the full name of Major Iqbal, but was sure he was from the ISI. Although Headley never saw Major Iqbal in military uniform, he came to meet him several times in a military jeep and his subordinates had military designations, he said.

He was introduced as Major Iqbal to him.

Headley said he never went to the ISI headquarters and added that he was introduced to Major Iqbal by military personnel.

The disclosures are part of the testimony of Headley, who has pleaded guilty, and cements India's charges that elements of ISI were involved in the 26/11 attack. Delhi's fears are being corroborated by information given by federal prosecutors in the documents to the court, which have been unsealed.

The ISI and Major Iqbal were particularly motivated by the fact that he was born in the US. As an American national, he would be able to conceal his real identity in India, they felt.

"They (ISI and Major Iqbal) wanted me to have a business so as to have the ability to have a long-term stay in India. In discussion with them I suggested it to take the help of Dr Rana's (Tahawwur Rana) business to get this objective," he said.

According to the new documents, Headley began attending terror training camps of the Lashkar in February 2002. By December 2003, Headley had attended five separate courses, and had been trained in, among other things, Lashkar's philosophy, the use of weapons and grenades, combat tactics, survival skills and counter-surveillance methods.

After completing several camps, Headley became acquainted with senior Lashkar member Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, who was responsible for Lashkar's military operations and one of the brains behind 26/11.

Former Pakistan President Musharraf: America's Osama raid "technically... an act of war"

Piers Morgan interviewed former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf today for a program that airs later this week. Musharraf responds to America's raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and President Barack Obama's comments this week that he would do the same thing again. "No country has a right to intrude into any other country," said Musharraf. "Actually, technically, legally, you see it, it's an act of war. So I think it is an irresponsible statement, and I think such arrogance should not be shown, publicly, to the world."

He went on to further explain the "act of war" comment:

"Theoretically, technically, yes indeed, it's an act of war," he said, but noted it wouldn't necessarily signal a war. "How to deal with it is the question, and I leave it to the government there to how they want to deal with it."

Will repeat Osama-type raid if needed: Obama

Obama said he would approve an Abbottabad-like operation which killed Osama bin Laden if another militant leader was found in Pakistan.

Urging Pakistan to give up its mistaken notion of India as a security threat, US President Barack Obama has said he would order another raid like the one which killed Osama bin Laden if Islamabad did not act on threats developing in the country towards the US or its allies.

"Our job is to secure the United States. We are very respectful of the sovereignty of Pakistan. But we cannot allow someone who is actively planning to kill our people or our allies' people. We can't allow those kind of active plans to come to fruition without us taking some action," Obama told BBC in an interview broadcast this weekend, hours before he embarked on a tour of Ireland, Britain, France and Poland.

The US President's warning came in the face of a resolution approved by Pakistani MPs earlier this month which said the country would "no longer tolerate such actions and a repeat of unilateral measures could have dire consequences for peace and security in the region and the world."

But Obama, unmindful of Islamabad's stand, said Washington had always been clear about its willingness to act if Pakistan did not, and his administration was not the first to say this.

"Our hope is and our expectation is that we can achieve that in a way that is fully respectful of Pakistan's sovereignty. But I had made no secret. I had said this when I was running for the presidency, that if I had a clear shot at Bin Laden," Obama said when asked if he would order another raid if a high-value target was detected.

BBC: You'd take it.

Obama: That we'd take it.

In the same context, Obama linked Pakistan's behavior to its insecurity vis-a-vis India, a diagnosis he said he and British Prime Minister David Cameron shared.

"I think what Prime Minister Cameron understands, as I understand, is that Pakistan has been very obsessed with India. They see that as their existential threat. I think that's a mistake," Obama said, reiterating opinion he has expressed before.

In remarks that were clearly addressed to Pakistan and its India-obsessed military, Obama said "Peace between India and Pakistan would serve Pakistan very well" as it would free up resources and capacity for Pakistan to engage in trade and commerce, and "make enormous strides that you're seeing India make."

"But that's their (Pakistani) orientation. It's been that orientation for a long time," he added regretfully. "And so they look at issues like Afghanistan. Or the border region in the Fata (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) through the lens of what does this mean for our contest with India."

The US President said Washington has been trying to talk to the Pakistanis about how they can reorient their strategy so that they understand that the biggest threat to Pakistan and its stability is homegrown, but he did not indicate any progress, much less success, in the matter.

"If we don't go after these networks that are willing to blow up police stations, blow up crowds of people, assassinate Pakistani elected officials with impunity — if they don't get a handle on that then they're gonna see a significant destabilisation of the country," Obama said.

Reflecting on the raid which Obama and his aides followed in real time at the White House, he said, "That was as long a 40 minutes as I care to experience during my presidency." He also indicated that the killing of bin Laden could be a "wake-up call where we start seeing a more effective cooperative relationship" with Pakistan.

Obama will discuss a range of issues with European leaders during his weeklong visit, including the upheavals in Arab countries, the war in Afghanistan, and the international economic crisis, which has forced Europe to adopt austerity measures.

Terrorists attack Pakistan military base, at least 12 military personnel killed

About 12 hours after storming Pakistan navy's key airbase in the heart of the port city of Karachi, heavily-armed Taliban militants were still holding onto parts of the base after destroying two US-made surveillance aircraft and killing 12 military personnel.

Pakistan army's elite Special Service Group (SSG) and naval commandos backed by helicopters were hunting down a group of 15-20 militants who attacked the naval premises last night in the worst assault on a military base since the Army Headquarters was besieged in October 2009 in Rawalpindi.

Security forces were engaged in a deadly gunbattle with armed militants since last night after the militants sneaked into the PNS Mehran, the naval air station within Faisal airbase, from three residential points adjacent to the air base.

Fifteen loud explosions were heard from the base, the headquarters of Pakistan's naval air arm, following the attack and intermittent firing was reported till this morning.

The security forces also killed four militants and have captured four alive, a senior security official said.

Interior minister Rehman Malik, who was dispatched to Karachi by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to monitor the situation, said the terrorists entered the airbase from three directions.

"A building in the premises is still under their control from where they are exchanging fire with soldiers," he said as the militants blew up two US supplied PC-3 Orion long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft.

"The situation is being tackled delicately to secure assets, minimise human losses and defeat the terrorists completely," he said, adding, "It is not just an attack on a navy establishment, it is an attack on Pakistan."

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which has stepped up attacks on security installations since the May 2 death of Osama bin Laden, has claimed responsibility for the assault.

"We had already warned after Osama's martyrdom that we will carry out even bigger attacks," Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told foreign agencies from an undisclosed location in northwest Pakistan.

He said the attackers sent into PNS Mehran naval base had enough supplies to survive a three-day siege.

"They have destroyed two P-3c Orion aircraft," another Navy spokesman Commander Salman Ali said. The long-range reconnaissance aircraft were bought from the US by Pakistan.

Hundreds of security personnel, including from the paramilitary Pakistan Rangers and elite naval and army commandos, moved into the airbase to flush out the terrorists.

Authorities used helicopters throughout the night to mount surveillance over the airbase.

Heavy exchanges of fire between the attackers and terrorists continued till about 11.30 pm last night, and was then followed by intermittent firing and 15 blasts after midnight.

"The operation still continues. It is not over yet," said one security official. The cordon around the attackers was being tightened and the operation was likely to be completed soon, he said.

The terrorists targeted several hangars where the navy's P3C Orion surveillance aircraft were parked.
Footage on television overnight showed ambulances rushing to the airbase.

Flames and thick smoke billowed into the sky from an object burning near a four-engine aircraft that looked like a P3C Orion.

The high-security area where the attack occurred also houses the PAF's Southern Air Command, Air War College and museum.

Security was tightened across Pakistan following the attack, particularly at military installations and in the federal and provincial capitals.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani strongly condemned the terrorist attack. Gilani said such "cowardly acts of terror could not deter the commitment of the government and people of Pakistan to fight terrorism".

Defence and political analysts termed the attack by the militants as a big security lapse by the Naval forces that needed to be investigated thoroughly.

Head of Pakistan Navy Vice Admiral Noman Bashir said the country's armed forces would continue their fight against terrorists.

Security sources said that the terrorists apparently entered the Naval Mehran air station adjacent to the Pakistan Airforce Faisal base on the main Shahrah-e-Faisal road through three different routes dressed in military uniforms.

"They took advantage of the fact that people at that time were leaving for home from the PAF museum inside the Faisal base," one source said.

Sources said that some Chinese engineers were also working at the naval base where the attack took place but they were evacuated safely.

"The air station was basically used as an operational and surveillance centre with a runaway and hangers by the naval aircrafts and also had a training centre," provincial government official Ahmed Chinoy said. 

Mullah Omar killed

Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has been killed in Pakistan, Xinhua cited a private television channel as stating on Monday. 

"Mullah Omar was killed on way from Quetta to North Waziristan," Afghanistan's TOLO television stated.

However, it did not provide details on how he was killed and by whom.

Meanwhile, a security official confirmed the killing, saying: "It is correct that Mullah Omar has been killed."

But he did not disclose details.

Omar was considered the spiritual leader of the Taliban movement that operates in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was Afghanistan's de facto head of state from 1996 to late 2001 and had the title "Head of the Supreme Council".

Osama’s Yemeni wife led US to Abbottabad?

Pakistan interior minister Rehman Malik believes US had a mole right inside Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad hideout and this was how the al-Qaida chief was tracked down, a media report said on Sunday.

Top US officials said after the raid that they were only partially certain of Osama's presence inside the $1 million mansion, but Malik says only definitive information could have led them right to the room where bin Laden was killed, according to a report in The Sunday Times. The report also says that bin Laden's Saudi wives believe it was his younger Yemeni wife Amal who betrayed him.

"In my experience of years as an intelligence officer, I think someone from inside may have given information," said Malik. "If the Americans didn't have definitive information, they couldn't have gone straight to the room where bin Laden was," he was quoted as saying by the paper.

A pocket guide carried by the US Navy Seals who killed Osama, suggests "bin Laden had fathered twins in captivity" referring to the unidentified children born this year to his youngest wife Amal, 28.

The document, left behind in the compound, lists the names and ages of those who were present, including bin Laden's wives, children and grandchildren. It also details where they lived in the compound and when they arrived.

According to the report, after the mission Obama said he had been "only 45% to 55% sure that bin Laden was even in the compound". The document, which is believed to have been carried by all the Seals on the mission, however, indicates that US intelligence was certain of his presence.

Some Pakistani officials, including Malik, believe the briefing points to the presence of a mole in the compound. The two elder Saudi wives of bin Laden have accused Amal of betraying bin Laden, either by supplying information or by allowing herself to be tracked to the compound.

There have been reports of visits to the compound by donors and a Taliban commander. The other possibility is that US drone technology is far more sophisticated.

Documents also reveal for the first time that the two courier brothers moved to Abbottabad in 2006 from Mardan where Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the al-Qaida No 3, was captured in May 2005. According to Guantanamo detainee assessment published by WikiLeaks, he was caught while waiting for a courier. He had earlier been living in Abbottabad.

According to the report, an employee at Abbottabad Post Office was tracked after he received suspiciously large cash transfers and he led investigators to Umar Patek, one of the Bali bombers, arrested in Abbottabad in January. All these arrests in the same area seem more than coincidence, it said.

Militants attack Pakistan navy base, four killed

Flames and smokes belches out from a Pakistani base after an attack by militants in Karachi on May 22, 2011.

Militants attacked a Pakistani naval aviation base on Sunday, killing at least four people, officials said, the latest attack on a heavily guarded military installation in Pakistan. 

Senior police official Tahir Naveed said attackers were inside the Mehran base in Karachi fighting with base personnel.

Witnesses said they could hear sounds of gunshots and see smoke rising from the base. Officials said between 15 and 20 attackers were inside the base, and had attacked three hangars housing aircraft. Eight explosions were reported from the base.

"Three hangers were hit. There is some damage to aircraft or helicopters," an intelligence official said.

A least a dozen ambulances were parked outside the base, waiting to take wounded to hospital. Pakistani military and paramilitary reinforcements were pouring in, with four vehicles carrying about 10 troops each moving into the base.

Taliban militants, who have vowed to avenge the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden by US special forces, have carried out several attacks since his death on May 2.

An intelligence official said four people had been killed and five wounded in the Karachi raid.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani condemned the "terrorist" attack at the naval base.

"Such a cowardly act of terror could not deter the commitment of the government and people of Pakistan to fight terrorism," Gilani said in statement.

Pakistan television reported that a P-3 Orion maritime surveillance plane was attacked in the assault.

The Karachi attack evoked memories of an assault on Pakistan's army headquarters in the town of Rawalpindi in 2009, and revived concerns that even the most well-guarded institutions in the country remain vulnerable to militants.

Pakistan has faced a wave of bombings and gun assaults over the last few years, some of them claimed by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban.

Others have been blamed on al-Qaida-linked militant groups once nurtured by the Pakistani military which have since slipped out of control.

ABBOTTABAD

A US special forces raid on May 2 which found and killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad has also revived suspicions that militants may be receiving help from some people within the security establishment.

Pakistan and the United States say the senior leadership in the country did not know bin Laden was in Abbottabad.

On April 28, suspected militants detonated a roadside bomb in Karachi, killing four members of the navy, the third attack on the navy in a week.

The attack came two days after two bombs hit buses carrying navy personnel, killing four people and wounding 56. Taliban insurgents took responsibility for the twin attacks.

Bin Ladens son newest US threat

Pakistan's parliament condemns U.S. raid, threatens sanctions

Islamabad, Pakistan -- Pakistan's parliament threatened Saturday to cut off access to a facility used by NATO forces to ferry troops into Afghanistan, signaling a growing rift that began when U.S. commandos killed Osama bin Laden during a raid on a Pakistani compound.

A resolution adopted during a joint session of parliament condemned the U.S. action. It also called for a review of its working agreement with the U.S., demanded an independent investigation and ordered the immediate end of drone attacks along its border region.

Failure to end unilateral U.S. raids and drone attacks will force Pakistan to "to consider taking necessary steps, including withdrawal of (the) transit facility" used by the NATO's International Security Assistance Force, according to the resolution.

U.S. lawmakers have questioned how the world's most wanted terrorist managed to live in plain sight for years in Pakistan -- near the country's elite military academy -- without being detected.

Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials have said there is no evidence that any active members of Pakistan's military or intelligence establishment knew about or actively protected the al Qaeda leader.

Publicly, leaders in both countries have downplayed a rift.

During a stop in Afghanistan Saturday, U.S. Sen. John Kerry stressed that Americans want Pakistan to be "a real ally" in combating terror. Still, he added, the United States is "not trying to find a way to break the relationship apart."

"We're trying to find a way to build it and to improve it and we need to work at that and that's part of what I'll be doing over the course of the next couple of days," said Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who also planned to visit Pakistan.

The unanimous resolution made clear there was a growing dissatisfaction among Pakistani lawmakers.

The resolution also ordered a review of its counter-terrorism cooperation agreement with the United States.

The government is deeply "distress(ed) on the campaign to malign Pakistan, launched by certain quarters in other countries without appreciating Pakistan's determined efforts and immense sacrifices in combating terror," the resolution said.

It also said more than 30,000 Pakistani civilians and more than 5,000 military personnel had been killed in its fight against terror "and the blowback emanating from actions of the NATO/ISAF forces in Afghanistan."

Anger over U.S. drone strikes has mounted during the past year after it stepped up efforts along the Pakistani-Afghan border.

On Friday, a suspected U.S. drone strike killed four suspected Islamic militants in the Datta Khel region of North Waziristan, according to two Pakistani intelligence officials. They said an unmanned aircraft fired four missiles at a militant's vehicle on the border area.

The demands by the Pakistani civilian government come as new details emerge about the raid on bin Laden's Abbottabad compound.

Members of the U.S. Navy SEAL team that attacked the compound were wearing helmet-mounted digital cameras that recorded the mission, a U.S. military official told CNN on Friday.

The official described the digital recording as hazy, fast-moving and subject to poor lighting in the rooms. The source also said it is hard to get clear images from the footage.

"This is not movie-quality stuff," the official said.

An official familiar with the material seized from the compound said Friday that Navy SEALs recovered a stash of pornography. The official would not discuss exactly where it was found, what it was or whether it is believed to belong to the al Qaeda leader or to someone else living at the site, such as bin Laden's couriers or his son.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Bin Laden's compound is also undergoing intense analysis, and U.S. officials say he apparently enjoyed a support network in Pakistan that allowed him to stay in one location for the past several years. He had no escape plan or means to destroy his reams and gigabytes of documents in the event of an enemy assault, according to the U.S. sources.

Two U.S. lawmakers joined a public chorus for the release of photos of bin Laden's body after seeing the images themselves.

"These are very graphic, gruesome pictures," said Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado. But seeing them "gave me a sense of finality and closure."

A conservative legal watchdog group has filed the first lawsuit seeking the public release of the video and photographs of the raid and its aftermath.

Judicial Watch is asking the Department of Defense to comply with a Freedom of Information request for the material, especially photos of bin Laden's body. The legal complaint to force compliance was made in federal court in Washington on Friday.