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Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts

Raza Rumi survives gun attack.

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Qais

Renowned columnist and anchorperson Raza Rumi was injured today in an attack by unknown gunmen in Lahore. His guard and driver were also injured in the attack. The driver, Mustafa, later on succumbed to his injuries. The guard, Anwaar Hussain, is also said to be in critical condition.

Rumi frequently spoke against the Taliban and was a critic of government policies for handling terrorism.

In his last tweet, Raza Rumi informed his followers about the incident;


 Response from Journalists:










Response from Politicians:





Tweet of the Day
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Pak shuts 3 US 'intelligence fusion' cells

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Anonymous

Pakistan has closed three US military intelligence liaison centers in Quetta and Peshawar, a US newspaper reported.

The liaison centers, also known as intelligence fusion cells, in Quetta and Peshawar are the main conduits for the United States to share satellite imagery, target data and other intelligence with Pakistani ground forces conducting operations against militants, including Taliban fighters who slip into Afghanistan.

US special operations units have relied on the three facilities, two in Peshawar and one in Quetta, to help coordinate operations on both sides of the border, senior US officials said. The U.S. units are now being withdrawn from all three sites, the officials said, and the centers are being shut down.

It wasn't immediately clear whether the steps are permanent. The closures, which have not been publicly announced, remove US advisors from the front lines of the war against militant groups.

The decision has not affected the CIA's ability to launch missiles from drone aircraft in northwest Pakistan.
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US engaged in direct talks with Taliban: report

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Anonymous

American officials have met with a senior aide to the fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, at least three times in recent months in the first direct exploratory peace talks, officials in the region said, a US paper claimed.

The meetings have been facilitated by Germany and Qatar, but American officials have been present each time, meeting with Tayeb Agha, who is a close personal assistant to Mullah Omar, the officials said. The C.I.A. and the State Department have been involved in the meetings, one official said.

Talks have begun before the killing of Osama bin Laden on May 2.

The presence of Mr. Agha, a longtime personal assistant of the reclusive Taliban leader, is a sign that the Taliban are serious despite their public opposition to peace talks, the officials said. 

Yet the senior Afghan official cautioned that the meetings might not represent much because Mr. Agha was known to be no longer particularly close to Mullah Omar. Mr. Agha was a much trusted personal assistant, answering phone calls and making appointments for Mullah Omar, for most of the Taliban’s time in power, from 1994 to 2001. 

The meetings have been conducted without the participation of Pakistan.

Germany, which has troops in northern Afghanistan, has led the process with the Taliban and hosted some meetings, while Qatar has hosted another, according to the officials.
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Chopper damaged in OBL raid back in US: Pentagon

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Anonymous

Pakistan has returned the wreckage of a US helicopter used in the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden early this month, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday. 

"The wreckage of the helicopter destroyed in the bin Laden operation was returned over the weekend and is now back in the United States," Colonel Dave Lapan said.

The helicopter was damaged in a hard landing at bin Laden's compound and US special forces deliberately blew it up after gunning down the Al-Qaeda leader in the May 1-2 raid, officials have said.

Photographs of the tail of the wrecked helicopter fueled speculation among experts and aviation enthusiasts that the aircraft was a secret model with design features to reduce noise or foil radar detection -- most likely a modified Blackhawk.

Pakistan had said earlier this month that it would not share the damaged helicopter with China, which has been accused of buying up wreckage of US military aircraft to get an insight into American defense technology.

Tensions between the United States and its ally Pakistan have run high since bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks and the world's most wanted man, was found living in Abbottabad, a garrison town near Islamabad.
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Osama had another house near Abbottabad, reveals wife

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Anonymous

Slain al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden lived in a small village close to the Abbottabad highway for more than two years before moving into a larger compound in the Pakistani garrison town in 2005, according to the dreaded terrorist's Yemeni wife who is now in custody.

The woman told investigators that Laden lived with his family for nearly two-and-a-half years in the village of Chak Shah Mohammad, a little more than a mile southeast of the town of Haripur, on the main Abbottabad highway, the New York Times (NYT) reported quoting two unnamed Pakistani officials.

One of the officials pointed out that this meant that Laden had moved from the rugged terrains of tribal villages to the relatively urban settings sometime in 2003.

The presence of Pakistan's military academy in Abbottabad made several observers to suggest that it was impossible for the army or intelligence officials not to know that Laden was hiding in the vicinity.

"If he was there since 2005, that is too long a time for local police and intelligence not to know," Hassan Abbas, a former Pakistani official now teaching at Columbia University, told NYT.

The newspaper pointed out that the Obama administration had stopped short of formally accusing Pakistan of some form of complicity in Laden's concealment for over a decade.

The Times reported that the Obama administration has demanded the names of some of the top intelligence operatives in Pakistan to determine whether they had contact with Laden or his agents.

"At best, it was willful blindness on the part of the ISI," said Art Keller a former CIA official. "Willful blindness is a survival mechanism in Pakistan."

In particular, American officials have demanded information on what is known as the ISI's directorate, which has worked closely with militants since the days of the fight against the Soviet army in Afghanistan.

"It's hard to believe that (Pakistani army chief Ashfaq Parvez) Kayani and (ISI director general Ahmad Shuja) Pasha actually knew that bin Laden was there," a senior administration official said.

The official, however, said "there are degrees of knowing, and it wouldn't surprise me if we find out that someone close to Pasha knew."
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Compound where Osama Bin Laden was killed

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Anonymous

US forces finally found al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden not in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan's border, but in a million-dollar compound, with his youngest wife, U.S. officials said early on Monday.


They were led to the fortress-like three-story building after more than four years tracking one of bin Laden's most trusted couriers, whom U.S. officials said was identified by men captured after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

"Detainees also identified this man as one of the few al Qaeda couriers trusted by bin Laden. They indicated he might be living with or protected by bin Laden," a senior administration official said in a briefing for reporters.

Bin Laden was finally found -- more than 9-1/2 years after the 2001 attacks on the United States -- after authorities discovered in August 2010 that the courier lived with his brother and their families in an unusual and extremely high-security building, officials said.

"When we saw the compound where the brothers lived, we were shocked by what we saw: an extraordinarily unique compound," a senior administration official said.

"The bottom line of our collection and our analysis was that we had high confidence that the compound harbored a high-value terrorist target. The experts who worked this issue for years assessed that there was a strong probability that the terrorist who was hiding there was Osama bin Laden," another administration official said.

The home is in Abbotabad, a town about 35 miles (60 km) north of Islamabad.

The building, about eight times the size of other nearby houses, sat on a large plot of land that was relatively secluded when it was built in 2005. When it was constructed, it was on the outskirts of Abbotabad's center, at the end of a dirt road, but some other homes have been built nearby in the six years since it went up, officials said.

WALLS TOPPED WITH BARBED WIRE

Intense security measures included 12- to 18-foot (3.6 meters to 5.5 meters) outer walls topped with barbed wire and internal walls that sectioned off different parts of the compound, officials said. Two security gates restricted access, and residents burned their trash, rather than leaving it for collection as did their neighbors, officials said.

Few windows of the three-story home faced the outside of the compound, and a terrace had a seven-foot (2.1 meter) privacy wall, officials said.

"It is also noteworthy that the property is valued at approximately $1 million but has no telephone or Internet service connected to it," an administration official said. "The brothers had no explainable source of wealth."

U.S. analysts realized that a third family lived there in addition to the two brothers, and the age and makeup of the third family matched those of the relatives -- including his youngest wife -- they believed would be living with bin Laden.

"Everything we saw, the extremely elaborate operational security, the brothers' background and their behavior and the location of the compound itself was perfectly consistent with what our experts expected bin Laden's hide-out to look like," another Obama administration official said.

A small U.S. team conducted a helicopter raid on the compound on Sunday afternoon, officials said. After 40 minutes of fighting, bin Laden and an adult son, one unidentified woman and two men -- identified as the courier and his brother -- were dead, officials said, and Obama was preparing a television address to the nation.
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Taliban threaten US, Pakistan over Osama

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Anonymous

Pakistan's main Taliban faction on Monday threatened to attack Pakistan and the United States after the US confirmed that Osama bin Laden had been killed near the Pakistani capital.

"If he has been martyred, we will avenge his death and launch attacks against American and Pakistani governments and their security forces," spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

"These people are in fact the enemies of Islam," he added.

The Taliban spokesman said the militia had not itself managed to confirm bin Laden's death, which was announced by US President Barack Obama.

"If he has become a martyr, it is a great victory for us because martyrdom is the aim of all of us."
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Pakistan says US conducted operation

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Anonymous

Pakistan on Monday confirmed the death of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in an “intelligence-driven military operation” conducted by the US army, in the early hours at Abbottabad.

A statement from the Foreign Office said the most wanted terrorist mastermind was killed in an operation “conducted by the US forces in accordance with declared US policy that Osama bin Ladin will be eliminated in a direct action by the US forces, wherever found in the world.”

The Foreign Office termed it “a major setback to terrorist organizations around the world.” The statement said President Obama telephoned President Zardari on the successful US operation which resulted in killing of Osama bin Ladin.

Osama bin Ladin’s death illustrates the resolve of the international community including Pakistan to fight and eliminate terrorism. 

The Foreign Office statement said al-Qaeda had declared war on Pakistan. Scores of Al-Qaeda sponsored terrorist attacks resulted in deaths of thousands of innocent Pakistani men, women and children.

Almost, 30,000 Pakistani civilians lost their lives in terrorist attacks in the last few years. More than 5,000 Pakistani security and armed forces officials have been martyred in Pakistan’s campaign against Al-Qaeda, other terrorist organizations and affiliates. 

Pakistan has played a significant role in efforts to eliminate terrorism. 
“We have had extremely effective intelligence sharing arrangements with several intelligence agencies including that of the US. We will continue to support international efforts against terrorism.”

“It is Pakistan’s stated policy that it will not allow its soil to be used in terrorist attacks against any country. Pakistan’s political leadership, parliament, state institutions and the whole nation are fully united in their resolve to eliminate terrorism,” the statement said.
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Osama Bin Laden is dead: US media

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Anonymous

Al Qaeda's elusive leader Osama bin Laden is dead and his body has been recovered by US authorities, American media reported. US President
Barack Obama was to make the announcement shortly.

US President Barack Obama would make this announcement shortly, a senior US official said.

The official said that Bin Laden was dead, but did not provide details of how his death occurred.

Obama was imminently to address Americans in a highly unusual Sunday night appearance on television.
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4 killed, 56 injured in Navy buses attack in Karachi

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Anonymous

Four people including two personnel of Pakistan Navy were killed in two separate terrorist attacks targeting Pakistan Navy buses in Karachi on Tuesday morning, a spokesman of Pakistan Navy said.


He identified the dead as Sub-Lieutenant Iqbal and Umar Farooq, a Sailor of Pakistan Navy, Dr. Nazia, a civilian working with Pakistan Navy, and Muhammad Sharif, a civilian employee of Pakistan Navy.

Of the 56 injured being treated at Pakistan Navy hospitals, some were discharged after providing them with first aid.

The spokesman pointed out that two Navy buses were targeted in two different parts of the metropolis almost simultaneously.

The buses, he added, were taking the staff to their respective units.

The two Navy buses were targeted in Defence Phase two and Mohajir Camp in Baldia Town area here.

The Commander Karachi, Rear Admiral Syed Khawar Ali, visited the hospitals and inquired about the health of the injured, the spokesman further stated that the Naval Headquarters has ordered an inquiry.

The Inquiry Committee has been directed to submit its report to the Naval Headquarters.
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Several injured in Darra Adam Khel suicide blast

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Anonymous


Several people were injured in a suicide blast that occurred in the main market of Darra Adam Khel, on Friday.


Commissioner of Kohat said that the suicide bomber ripped through the main market as a result several people were injured. The injured were being rushed to the nearby hospitals. 


Security forces have cordoned off the area after the incident.
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