Pakistan

Islamabad, October 05: An intelligence agency has unearthed more than 150 gangs of drug smugglers and human traffickers and warned the government of a looming diplomatic embarrassment over the issue.

According to sources, the agency suggested that law-enforcement personnel posted along the Iranian border should be transferred periodically because postings for long durations provided them an opportunity to develop links with human traffickers and their agents.

Peshawar, October 05: As security forces are all set to launch a major offensive in the tribal region of South Waziristan, Maulana Fazulur Rehman, the chief of his own faction of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, has offered to ‘mediate’ between the government and militants to avert another crisis.

‘We are ready to negotiate between the government and insurgents in the NWFP and tribal area,’ Maulana Fazl told a conference of Ulema and Madressah teachers at the Arbab Niaz Cricket ground on Sunday.

Karachi, October 05: Two policemen and two residents were killed in Lyari on Sunday in a day-long gunbattle between gangsters and the police. More than 60 people, including women and children, were wounded in crossfire when the two sides freely used guns, rockets and grenades.

Residents of Kalakot and Singhulane, the epicenter of the violence, remained confined to their homes. There were no reports of casualties suffered by the criminals or arrests made by the police, who claimed to have seized arms and ammunition from the gangsters.

Islamabad, October 05: Britain’s home and defence secretaries arrived in Islamabad on Monday for talks with Pakistani leaders on counter-terrorism and defence in the insurgent-plagued nation, officials said.

British Home Secretary Alan Johnson and Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth will meet with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, army chief General Ashfaq Kayani and other top ministers in the two-day visit.

Islamabad, October 05: The authorities in Pakistan have sold over 500 kanals of agricultural land attached to two Sikh gurdwaras to the defence housing authority (DHA) in violation of rules.

The Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB), according to reports, has overturned its rules while handing over to DHA 544 kanals (one kanal = .125 acres) attached to Sikh shrines — Samadh Bhai Maan Singh and Gurdwara Deh — in Lidhar, a village in Lahore Cantonment.

Islamabad, October 04: The anti-terror law in Pakistan has been amended allowing authorities to act against members of outlawed groups that set up new outfits with different names, a move which may have ramifications for Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) whose founder Hafiz Saeed floated Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) after it was banned.

Islamabad, October 04: Pakistan and the US were closing in on al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden about five years ago but suddenly lost track of him and now it was not known whether the world’s most wanted terrorist was dead or alive, according to former President Pervez Musharraf.

“It was some five years back when there was some intelligence that got picked up of a broad location…Then suddenly, we lost track,” Musharraf, currently on a lecture tour of the US, told a near-capacity crowd at a college at Sioux Falls in South Dakota.

Islamabad, October 03: The Pakistani army is keeping up pressure on the Pakistani Taliban as it prepares for an offensive on their South Waziristan stronghold and awaits the outcome of infighting between factions, an army spokesman said on Saturday.

The government ordered the army to launch an offensive against Pakistani Taliban Baitullah Mehsud and his men in South Waziristan near the Afghan border in June.

Mehsud, accused of numerous bomb attacks across the country, was killed in a U.S. missile strike in August.

Lahore, October 03: The local Taliban plans to target 35 top political leaders, including Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, during the campaign for upcoming by-elections to provincial and national assemblies, Pakistani authorities said on Friday.

Islamabad, October 03: US intelligence agencies believe the newly named leader of the Taliban in Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud, might have been killed in a gunfight with a rival faction weeks ago.

Militants tapped Hakimullah to replace the group’s previous leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed by a missile fired from a CIA-piloted drone aircraft in his South Waziristan stronghold on the Afghan border August 5.

Hakimullah’s death, which officials said has yet to be confirmed definitively, would be another setback for the group, the Nation reported Saturday.

Islamabad, October 03: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has amended an anti-terror law allowing authorities to act against members of outlawed groups that set up new outfits with different names, a move which may have ramifications for LeT whose founder Hafiz Saeed floated JuD after it was banned.

Islamabad, October 03: US intelligence agencies believe the newly named leader of the Taliban in Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud, might have been killed in a gunfight with a rival faction weeks ago.

Militants tapped Hakimullah to replace the group’s previous leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed by a missile fired from a CIA-piloted drone aircraft in his South Waziristan stronghold on the Afghan border Aug 5.

Hakimullah’s death, which officials said has yet to be confirmed definitively, would be another setback for the group, the Nation reported Saturday.

Islamabad, October 03: The Saudi Arabia government has freed five Pakistanis who were wrongly implicated in a narcotics case in that country, the Online news agency reported.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani Friday welcomed the decision by the Saudi government.

The Pakistanis were freed after the arrests of the real culprits who had placed the narcotics in the victims’ belongings before they boarded the flight to Saudi Arabia. The accused were arrested in Pakistan.

Karachi, October 03: Pakistan is set to conduct trial in the Mumbai terror attack case today. The trail was adjourned last week after the judge failed to appear.

The Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Monday had said that Islamabad had arrested seven people and prosecutions would begin in October. “Pakistan wants to see this trial to a logical conclusion,” he said.

Islamabad, October 03: The Taliban militants are planning to carry out suicide bombings across Pakistan to avenge the death of their chief Baitullah Mehsud who was killed by the security forces in April, a media report said citing intelligence sources.

Mehsud was killed in a US drone attack in South Wazirisitan.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan said it will carry out suicide bombings across the country.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the group’s commanders held in Mir Ali in North Wazirisitan, intelligence sources told the Online news agency Friday.

Islamabad, October 03: The Saudi Arabia government has freed five Pakistanis who were wrongly implicated in a narcotics case in that country, the Online news agency reported.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani Friday welcomed the decision by the Saudi government.

The Pakistanis were freed after the arrests of the real culprits who had placed the narcotics in the victims’ belongings before they boarded the flight to Saudi Arabia. The accused were arrested in Pakistan.

Islamabad, October 02: Pakistani troops Friday killed 27 militants in the ungoverned north-western tribal district of Khyber that borders Afghanistan, a security official said.

Fazal-ur-Rehman, a spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps, said in a press statement that helicopter gunships targeted various positions of Taliban fighters in Khyber and inflicted heavy casualties on the rebels.

Islamabad, October 02: The al Qaeda-linked leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is believed to have been killed by a US missile strike in Pakistan’s northwest, intelligence officials said on Friday. The Taliban denied the claim.

Tahir Yuldash’s death would be a significant blow to the militant groups that have wreaked havoc along the Afghan-Pakistan border and the latest victory for the covert American missile program.

Islamabad, October 02: The al-Qaida-linked leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is believed to have been killed by a U.S. missile strike in Pakistan’s northwest, intelligence officials said Friday. The Taliban denied the claim.

Tahir Yuldash’s death would be a significant blow to the militant groups that have wreaked havoc along the Afghan-Pakistan border and the latest victory for the covert American missile program.

Chaman, October 02: Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar is in Pakistan and the United States is saying it is only there to justify an extension of its drone missile attack, a Taliban commander said Wednesday.

A U.S. newspaper said this week U.S. officials have expressed concern about the ability of Omar and his lieutenants to launch attacks into Afghanistan from sanctuaries in the Pakistani city of Quetta.

Pakistan has always denied that Omar or any of its commanders are based in Pakistan, but failed to dispel suspicions in Washington and Kabul.

Peshawar, October 02: An al Qaeda-linked Uzbek militant leader was killed in Pakistan in a U.S. drone missile strike in August, Pakistani intelligence agency officials said on Friday.

Tahir Yuldashev, leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, was killed in a missile strike in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border, where he had been based for some years, they said.

“The man is dead. He was killed in a drone attack in South Waziristan on August 27,” said one Pakistani intelligence agency official in the city of Peshawar.

Karachi, October 02: A psychologist, who has been counselling the Pakistan cricket team ahead of major ICC events, feels Younus Khan’s men are well on course to lift the Champions Trophy as they have conquered the fear of failure.

Maqbool Babri, a clinical psychologist and hypnotist who counseled the players before the Twenty20 World Cup in England and before the Champions Trophy, felt the body language and mental attitude of the players in South Africa was encouraging.

Islamabad, October 01: The Pakistan government has received intelligence inputs about terrorist threats to the Prime Minister and other top political leaders like opposition PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani disclosed this during an interaction with the media at Gilgit in the Northern Areas yesterday. He said the federal government had conveyed the reports about the terror threats to the Sharif brothers through the Interior Ministry.

Washington, October 01: The US Congress has passed a bill to triple non-military aid to Pakistan to $7.5 billion in the next five years, but with stringent conditions demanding action against extremist groups on its soil and prevention of attacks into neighbouring countries.

Though the compromise bill passed by House of Representatives Wednesday does not specifically mention India so as not to hurt Islamabad’s sensitivities, it specifically lists extremist movements like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the outfit behind 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

Islamabad, October 01: Pakistan’s Supreme Court has said it is essential for the Parliament to endorse a controversial ordinance passed by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf to give amnesty to President Asif Ali Zardari and others facing corruption charges, failing which the cases against them would be revived automatically.