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.


 
 

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.

7 U.S. soldiers among 8 killed in IED attack in Afghanistan

Eight NATO soldiers -- seven of them Americans -- were killed Thursday when two improvised explosive devices blew up in southern Afghanistan, according to the International Security Assistance Force and the Pentagon.

A coalition military official said the attack occurred in the Shorabak District, a remote area in the southeastern part of Kandahar Province, approximately 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) south of the city of Kandahar. It's the same region in which Taliban forces unleashed multiple attacks earlier this month in their so-called spring offensive.

The devices exploded one after the other, the official said.

ISAF did not identify the nationalities of the soldiers, but Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said Thursday afternoon that seven of them were American.

Both U.S. and Canadian troops are deployed in the region.

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.

Explosion in Afghan military hospital

The Afghan Defence Ministry said that a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a tent filled with medical students eating lunch at a military hospital in Kabul on Saturday, killing at least six people and wounding 23.

Defence Ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zaher Azimi said that Saturday's blast occurred on the grounds of the Mohammad Daud Khan military hospital in central Kabul.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid took responsibility for the attack.

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