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The Taliban will ‘never be defeated

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6445981.ece

The Taliban will ‘never be defeated’
‘Colonel Imam’, the Pakistani agent who trained Mullah Omar and the warlords to fight the Soviets, says the US must negotiate with its enemies

THE Pakistani intelligence agent who trained Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, to fight has warned that Nato forces will never overpower their enemies in Afghanistan and should talk to them rather than sacrifice more lives.

“You can never win the war in Afghanistan,” said so-called “Colonel Imam”, who ran a training programme for the Afghan resistance to the Soviet Union’s occupation from 1979 to 1989, then helped to form the Taliban.

“I have worked with these people since the 1970s and I tell you they will never be defeated. Anyone who has come here has got stuck. The more you kill, the more they will expand.”

A tall, bearded figure, whose real name is Amir Sultan Tarar, he trained at Fort Bragg, the US army base where America’s special forces are stationed.

During the late 1970s and 1980s he controlled CIA-funded training camps for 95,000 Afghans and often accompanied his students on missions.

After the Soviet defeat and the collapse of communism, he was invited to the White House by the first President George Bush and was given a piece of the Berlin Wall with a brass plaque inscribed: “To the one who dealt the first blow.”

Today western intelligence agencies believe Imam is among a group of renegade officers from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) who continued to help the Taliban after Pakistan turned against them following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

United Nations officials and Afghanistan’s intelligence service have reported sightings of him in the Afghan provinces of Helmand and Uruzgan. It is a charge he shrugs off, claiming that at 65 he has not worked for almost eight years.

“I wish I could do it but they don’t need me any more,” he says. “My students are far ahead of me now. They are giving a lesson to the world. I am very proud of them.”

Although he expresses great admiration for the British military (“far more gallant than the Americans”), Imam says that in sending troops to Helmand, Britain had forgotten its previous wars in Afghanistan.

In particular, he chides, they should have remembered the battle of Maiwand in 1880, in which 2,500 British troops took on 25,000 Afghans and suffered a devastating defeat.

“When people in Helmand heard the British were coming back, the cry went up all over: ‘Remember Maiwand? Our old enemy has come to the same area where they were once defeated to take revenge’. Then everyone, Taliban and nonTaliban, joined together. They told me on the phone, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll make sure the Brits don’t have an easy time’.”

His comments come as the number of British soldiers killed by enemy action in Afghanistan has risen to 137, one more than the number who have died in Iraq.

According to Imam, Helmand is particularly difficult because of the character of the people. “They couldn’t care less about loss of property or loss of life,” he said.

It is unlikely that anybody alive today knows the Afghans as well as Imam. All the key figures were trained in his camps, from the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panj-shir, to warlords such as Gul-buddin Hekmatyar, his “naughtiest” student. “It was a matter of pride for me that my students later became big commanders,” he said.

“The Afghan is a very cunning soldier,” he added. “He picks things up very quickly and never forgets. As a Pakistani unit commander I’d be training my men for six months and maybe they would remember 70%. But in Afghanistan teenagers came, had only three days’ weapon training and they remembered 100%. In just 15 days they mastered the Stinger [the shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missile].”

Omar passed through his camps in 1985. “He was a simple man, a small commander leading a maximum of 40 people and didn’t have much weaponry,” Imam recalled.

One of Imam’s biggest backers was Congressman Charlie Wilson, the Texan who was instrumental in securing funding for Operation Cyclone, the CIA programme to supply arms with which the mujaheddin would fight the Soviet troops.

“He used to dance with happiness at seeing our training camps,” said Imam.

Within 10 years the Russians had been forced out. “Total expenditure just $5 billion and not a single American life,” said Imam. “Now the Americans are spending hundreds of billions and losing hundreds of lives.”

The last time he saw Wilson was after the 1988 Geneva accords on the Soviet withdrawal. Imam told him: “You’re abandoning the Afghans. They need financial support for rehabilitation.” Wilson replied: “Dollars don’t grow on trees.” “Do Afghan youth grow on trees?” asked Imam. “Over 1.5m Afghans have died.”

Furious at the American betrayal and devastated by the resulting infighting in the Afghan resistance, he became close to Omar. “I love him,” he said. “He brought peace to Afghanistan.”

Imam was Pakistan’s consul-general in Herat when the Taliban captured the city in 1995 from Ismail Khan, the mujaheddin commander, who claims the ISI agent oversaw the whole Taliban operation. From there he guided the Taliban as they took over the cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Jalalabad and eventually captured Kabul.

Like many Pakistanis he refuses to believe the September 11 attacks were carried out by Osama Bin Laden. “An operation like that needs ground support,” he said. “I have no doubt it was carried out by the Americans to give a bad name to the Taliban government as an excuse to topple it.”

When General Pervez Musharraf, then president of Pakistan, agreed to American pressure to cut ties to the Taliban, the colonel was outraged.

Recalled to Islamabad, he told Musharraf: “You cannot defeat these people, they are well trained, they have a lot of ammunition and the more you kill, the more supporters will come.”

Today he adds: “It was the blunder of his life and because of it we are all doomed.”

Imam left Afghanistan when the US bombing of the country ceased in 2001 and claims he has not returned. “I can go any time on my old routes, even the Americans cannot stop me, but there is no need,” he said. “I have friends roaming all over there. At times they give me a call, they like to hear my voice.

“I’m quite happy with the current situation because the Americans are trapped there. The Taliban will not win but in the end the enemy will tire, like the Russians.”

He has offered to find the Americans a way out: “We can give them a face-saving solution but they must change their strategy.”

First, he says, they must spend billions on reconstruction. Then they must open talks with Omar rather than the so-called moderate Taliban with whom negotiations are under way.

“When are you people going to understand there are no number two Taliban?” he asked. “Those who break away from mainstream Taliban have no place in society. You may make deals in Dubai or Saudi Arabia, but when they come back to Afghanistan and people know they have compromised with the Americans, they are finished.

“In Afghanistan the only man who can make a decision and people listen is Mullah Omar. He’s a very reasonable man. He would listen and work for the interests of his country.”

He insisted the Taliban leader was not in Pakistan: “He’s in the hills of Uruzgan, his home province. If there’s a requirement he will listen to me, but why should I get him involved in a risky situation?”

Imam said he had watched with horror as fighting spread into Pakistan and had been shocked to see his fellow officers having to fight against their own countrymen in the Swat district.

“These are not Taliban, they are tribals,” he said. “Mullah Omar told them time and time again not to fight against Pakistan. They are fighting against the government of Pakistan because it is supporting the enemies of Islam. Everybody knows our government is supporting the US drone attacks in our own area.

“This is an American plan to make us a subjugated country and have an excuse to get our nukes. Everybody, your prime minister, President Obama, all go, ‘Oh, the nuclear weapons are unsafe’. I say you’re making them unsafe. When you were not in the region there was no problem.”

The call for prayer brings our interview to an end. Before he goes he has one last warning: “I tell you when my nation rises up it is not Afghanistan, not Iraq. There will be tremendous killing.”
 

p2prada

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Sounds like a co*k s*cker.

First, he says, they must spend billions on reconstruction.
They already are Mr. Imam. And so is India. And so is Europe.

Then they must open talks with Omar rather than the so-called moderate Taliban with whom negotiations are under way.
Negotiations with the Taliban is like talking to a wall. Will Omar can give up Osama then?
 

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FACTBOX - Networks, not attacks, pose militants' main cost

FACTBOX - Networks, not attacks, pose militants' main cost

Fri, Jun 12 09:30 PM
Devastating bomb attacks on civilians are inexpensive to mount for militant groups, whose main cost is simply keeping their networks running between operations, according to an international anti-money laundering body.

A February 2008 report by the 34-nation group, the Financial Action Task Force, cited the following direct operational costs of big attacks.

ATTACK DIRECT COSTS

Event Date Estimated cost

London transport system attacks Jul 05 8,000*

Madrid train bombings Mar 04 $10,000

Istanbul truck bomb attacks Nov 03 $40,000

Jakarta JW Marriot Hotel bombs Aug 03 $30,000

Bali bombings Oct 02 $50,000

USS Cole attack Oct 00 $10,000

E. Africa embassy bombs Aug 98 $50,000

*Pounds sterling

Such costs -- purchases of vehicles, improvised bomb-making components, maps, surveillance material -- "are often very low relative to the damage they can yield".

COST OF 9/11

According to the U.S. 9/11 Commission Report of 2004, the 2001 attacks on the United States cost somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to execute.

INDIRECT COSTS

"Maintaining a terrorist network ... between attacks represents a significant drain on resources."

These costs are:

Salaries/subsistence and communications

Individuals need to cover day-to-day expenses and perhaps also those of dependants. A cell will also need to communicate with its members and perhaps a parent network.

Training, travel, and logistics

Training is required in terms of ideological indoctrination and practical skills, and this often requires travel and procurement of false documents.

Shared funding

Where a cell is part of a network or shares a common goal or ideological or religious background with another cell or network, it may be called on or feel compelled to provide financial support.

Broad organisational needs

Maintaining a network or a specific cell to provide for recruitment, planning and procurement between attacks represents the most significant drain on resources. Beyond funds needed to finance attacks and provide direct operational support, organisations need money to develop a supporting infrastructure, recruit members and promote their ideology.

Militant networks often use compromised or complicit charities and businesses to support their objectives.

There is often a public relations and media operations arm that sustains a militant ideology. Groups such as al-Qaeda are prolific producers of videos and other messages distributed on the Internet dedicated to recruitment and propaganda.

HOW FUNDS ARE RAISED

Legitimate sources

Militant groups receive considerable support and funding from and through otherwise legitimate sources including charities, businesses, self-funding from employment, savings, and social welfare payments - methods that would not otherwise raise concerns because they appear lawful.

Crime

Groups are turning increasingly to alternative sources of financing, including crimes such as arms trafficking, money laundering, kidnap-for-ransom, extortion, racketeering, and drug trafficking. Militant use of criminal activity to raise funds ranges from low-level scams such as credit card fraud to serious organised crime.

Safe havens/failed states/state sponsors

Safe havens and wider cases of weak jurisdictional control, and state tolerance or support of terrorist organisations, give militants wide scope to raise, move and use finance.

HOW FUNDS ARE TRANSFERED

There are three main methods: Use of the financial system (for example money remittance companies), use of the international trade system (for example over- and under- invoicing) and physical movement of money (for example through the use of cash couriers). FATF says militant groups use all three methods to move money for the purpose of disguising its origins and integrating it into the formal economy.

See full FATF report at

http://www.fatf-gafi.org/dataoecd/28/43/40285899.pdf

(Source of attack cost estimates: All statistics are from the August 2004 report of the U.N. Monitoring Team Report on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, apart from the figure for the London attacks provided by the UK Home Office (interior ministry)
 

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Nigeria holds Ukraine arms plane

Page last updated at 08:06 GMT, Thursday, 18 June 2009 09:06 UK


Nigeria holds Ukraine arms plane

A Ukrainian aircraft reported to be carrying crates of weapons has been detained in Nigeria.

It had made an emergency landing in the northern Nigerian city of Kano while on a flight to Equatorial Guinea.

Nigerian security officials say 18 crates with mines and ammunition were on board, but there are no details of exactly who the cargo was destined for.
The three crew members, reported to be Ukrainian, are being questioned, but few details other have been released.

BBC reporter Mustafa Mohamed, in Kano, says the aircraft was placed under guard, and security forces are continuing their investigations.

It is believed the plane made the emergency landing because of a technical fault.

Attack on palace

Earlier this year, the authorities in Equatorial Guinea arrested a number of people in connection with an attack on the presidential palace in the capital, Malabo.

A the time of the incident, in February, state radio in Equatorial Guinea said that those detained had been operating with other members of a rebel group based in Nigeria's Niger Delta region.

It said some of those who attacked the palace had been killed or wounded.
Rebels of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) denied involvement.

The Equatorial Guinea President, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, later dismissed several government ministers

BBC NEWS | Africa | Nigeria holds Ukraine arms plane
 

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Georgian officer defects, appears on Moscow radio

Georgian officer defects, appears on Moscow radio

Thu Jun 18, 2009 12:02pm EDT By Dmitry Solovyov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Georgian lieutenant turned up on a popular Russian radio station on Thursday and asked for political asylum in Russia, saying he had deserted his unit in protest at President Mikheil Saakashvili's policies.

Russia defeated Georgia in a five-day war last August. But earlier this year a Russian army sergeant defected to Georgia, handing a public relations coup to Tbilisi's pro-Western government. The Russian deserter said at the time he had fled to Georgia because conditions in his unit were unbearable.

The Georgian lieutenant, who presented himself on Thursday as Alik Bzhania, aged 35, said in a live interview on Moscow's Ekho Moskvy radio station: "I have not defected to the enemy. I have joined the side of my brothers."

Russian migration officials, security services and the armed forces' general staff told local media that Bzhania had indeed asked for political asylum.

Interfax news agency said it would host Bzhania's news conference on Friday.

In a brief statement, Georgia's interior ministry said Bzhania had worked on a patrol vessel in the coast guard department of the interior ministry from October 2008 but was dismissed last month "for multiple disciplinary violations."

"I love my country, but I can no longer stay on its territory, because I just cannot look on quietly as President Mikheil Saakashvili is destroying Georgia from within," Bzhania said in the radio interview.

Georgia has been gripped by political turmoil since early April, with the opposition protesting in the streets demanding Saakashvili resign over his record on democracy and last year's disastrous war with Russia.

"I ask Russia to grant me and my family political asylum and help avoid persecution by the Georgian authorities which is likely to follow after I expressed my disagreement with the policy of our president," Bzhania said.

He said he was a trained officer but he had not taken part in last year's war between Russia and Georgia because he was doing civilian work.

He rejoined the military as a navigator of a coast guard cutter last October.

He defected on May 23, leaving his unit in the Black Sea port of Poti, crossing into Georgia's rebel region of Akhazia and giving himself up to Russian border guards.

Georgia has paraded the fugitive Russian sergeant -- at ease wearing jeans and posing to cameras -- and declined to extradite him to Russia because he asked for political asylum.

Russia first accused Georgia of abducting its army serviceman, but then Moscow sharply changed its tone and threatened to jail the run-away for desertion

Georgian officer defects, appears on Moscow radio | International | Reuters
 

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42 operational terror camps in Pak, PoK

42 operational terror camps in Pak, PoK
19 Jun 2009, 0112 hrs IST, Rajat Pandit, TNN


NEW DELHI: When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh acted tough with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari in the full glare of television cameras this week, he had solid reason to do so. There are still 42 terror-training camps directed against India alive and kicking in Pakistan and PoK.

The latest assessment of Multi-Agency Centre (MAC), the nodal agency for all terror-related intelligence under the home ministry, holds there are 34 `active' and eight `holding' camps operational across the border.

Both Pakistan/Northern Areas and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir have 17 `active' and four `holding or dormant' camps each, says the MAC assessment, based on inputs from Research and Analysis Wing, Intelligence Bureau, Military Intelligence and National Technical Research Organisation, among others.

"It is estimated that around 2,200 militants are housed in these camps. After 26/11, many of these camps emptied out or relocated. Some are back to their original status now, while new ones have also come up,'' said an official.

With the PM declaring India wants Pakistan to take "strong, effective and sustained action'' against the terror networks targeting India from its soil before it decides on resuming the composite dialogue process, the fate of these camps as well as that of the masterminds behind the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai is being tracked closely.

India, of course, had rebuffed Pakistan's calls for resumption of the dialogue process after 26/11. Even now, though India has signalled its interest in reviving the dialogue after the Singh-Zardari meeting in Yekaterinburg in Russia this week, New Delhi remains cautious about whether Pakistan will actually walk its talk.

While Pakistan is taking steps to crack down on the Taliban-al Qaida nexus, faced as it is with unrelenting heat from the US, the jihadi factory against India continues to run with impunity.

As per the MAC assessment, of the around 2,200 militants in the 42 camps spread across Pakistan, around 300 belong to Lashkar-e-Taiba, 240 to Jaish-e-Mohammed and 130 to Huji, while the rest are of "mixed'' origins.

The "active'' camps in PoK include those in Kotli, Garhi Dupatta, Nikial, Sensa, Gulpur, Forward Kahutta, Peer Chinasi, Jhandi Chauntra, Bhimbher, Barnala, Skardu, Abdullah Bin Masud, Tattapani, Samani and Shavai Nallah, among others.

The North-West Frontier Province is another hotbed of jihadi activity, with the densely-forested hilly Manshera region, in particular, housing several madrasas, which also double up as training camps. These include Jangal Mangal, Andher Bela, Shinkiari and Jalo Gali, with other NWFP camps including Boi, Oghi and Attar Shisha.

The other camps in Pakistan and Northern Areas include Muridke, Sialkot, Beesian, Garhi Habibullah and Jalogali. "Many of these camps are makeshift, which can be translocated very quickly to evade scrutiny. Moreover, the real leaders of the various tanzims are based in cities like Islamabad and Lahore,'' said another official.

42 operational terror camps in Pak, PoK - India - The Times of India
 

MMuthu

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I don't believe that Pakistan will dismantle the terror network against India, There Probability of this occurring is very, very less than 0.0000000001.

And I don't think US will apply extreme pressure to dismantle the India specific Terror Camps.... They are happy till the PA acts against the Al-Queda and Taliban.

They don't want another 9/11.... They are not much worried about another 26/11.

I think India Army should act before another Terror attack against India, I may sound foolish but we have no other option.
 

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Georgian officer who fled to Russia denies dismissal reports


15:3719/06/2009
MOSCOW, June 19 (RIA Novosti) - A Georgian officer who has requested political asylum in Russia denied on Friday claims by Georgia's Interior Ministry that he was dismissed from the coast guard service in May.

At press conference in Moscow, Lt. Alik Bzhaniya, 35, produced ID valid through 2011.

"I have documents in English. This is an ID, it is like a pass. If I am dismissed, this document is taken from me at once," he said.

The Interior Ministry said Thursday that Bzhaniya, who crossed into Abkhazia in May, was dismissed from the Georgian border police coast guard service on May 18, 2009 for repeated disciplinary violations.

The Russian Federal Migration Service said however that he was detained by Russian border guards in the former Georgian republic on May 23, and that he told them he had deliberately left Georgia to seek asylum in Russia.

The migration service said that on June 9 it had issued him with documents stating that his application for refugee status was being considered.

Russian intelligence officials have said a recording of Bzhaniya's questioning will be made public.

On Thursday, a man identifying himself as Bzhaniya made a live phone call to the Moscow-based Ekho Moskvy radio. He said he was seeking asylum in Russia, and that he had not taken part in the August attack on South Ossetia, as he was in the reserves at the time.

Russia and Georgia fought a brief war over South Ossetia last August after Georgian forces attacked the republic in a bid to bring it back under central control. Two weeks after the end of the conflict, Russia recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another former Georgian republic, as independent states. So far, only Nicaragua has followed suit.

Georgian officer who fled to Russia denies dismissal reports | Top Russian news and analysis online | 'RIA Novosti' newswire
 

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A very strange Taliban burial

A very strange Taliban burial

Tribal leader and Taliban breakaway commander Qari Zainuddin Mehsud was killed earlier this week. His funeral took place in Dera Ismail Khan in north-west Pakistan.

It was as unlikely a situation as one is likely to find - even in Pakistan.

The burial of a Taliban commander in a Shia graveyard while Pakistan's armed forces provide security for his militants.

A small number of people - his men and journalists - stood for nearly an hour in the debilitating heat of Dera Ismail Khan as the last rites were performed.

Security personnel in official vehicles and armoured carriers stood in silent vigil as usually stoic Taliban militants broke down in tears.

The setting was the inglorious and sombre funeral of Qari Zainuddin Mehsud.

He had recently been catapulted into the position of pretender for the throne of Baitullah Mehsud, the most powerful Taliban commander in Pakistan.

Qari Zain, as he was known, was gunned down by one of his own bodyguards after morning prayers on Tuesday.

A day earlier, the BBC had arranged to have a chat with him about his decision to take on Baitullah.

But fate apparently had other designs for the young Taliban commander.

Rivalry

He had recently come out publicly denouncing Baitullah as being an enemy of Islam and Pakistan.

Turkestan Bhittani
Turkestan Bhittani was allied to the slain Mehsud tribal leader.

Qari Zain had also declared a jihad against Baitullah Mehsud and formed a pro-government Taliban group called the Abdullah Mehsud group.

Abdullah Mehsud, a cousin of Qari Zain, was one of Pakistan's earliest Taliban commanders who advocated taking the fight to Nato forces from Pakistani territory.

He was killed by Pakistani security forces in Baluchistan, allegedly on information provided by Baitullah Mehsud.

Since Abdullah's death, Qari Zain had been building up a resistance to Baitullah's control within the Mehsud tribe.

He was also closely allied to Turkestan Bhittani, leader of the Bhittani tribe and Baitullah's main rival.

In recent times, both men have been aided by Pakistan's security establishment - to which Baitullah Mehsud now represents a clear and present danger.

But that plan has suffered a setback with Qari Zain's death.

No locals

His funeral was delayed as several concerns had to be addressed.

While his family was keen on his burial in his native village in South Waziristan, Pakistan's intelligence was understandably reluctant.

There was a very real possibility of his body being found hanging from a tree in South Waziristan
Local journalist

After having invested in Qari Zain's appeal as an alternative, they stood to be made a laughing stock with the Taliban's penchant for digging up the bodies of their rivals.

"Qari Zain had been denounced in the strongest of terms by Baitullah's men," remarked a local journalist in Dera Ismail Khan.

"There was a very real possibility of his body being found hanging from a tree in South Waziristan."

For this reason, the BBC had a tough job on Tuesday working out where and when the funeral would take place.

Reports that his body was being flown to South Waziristan were discovered to be false.

Instead it was learnt that his family was being flown in from that region to attend the funeral on Wednesday.

The timing and venue were kept a secret till a few hours before the event.
Banner proclaiming Qari Zain's war on Baitullah Mehsud
The details of Qari Zain's funeral were a closely guarded secret

Finally, as the heat rained down in Dera Ismail Khan, we made our way to the locality of Madina city.

A Shia-dominated neighbourhood was a strange setting for a Taliban funeral. The Taliban consider the Shia sect to be the same as non-Muslims or even worse.

But these "government Taliban" had apparently set up shop in the heart of this area.

As we drove through the narrow streets, two things stood out starkly.

The eerie lack of locals and the overwhelming presence of armed men on every corner.

It was the first time I have seen security personnel and Taliban militants manning checkpoints together.

As we parked our car outside the house where Qari Zain was killed, a Taliban militant told us that we should first go to the graveyard.

We immediately took off - through side streets.

These led to fields of maize located behind the houses. Crossing them we came to the graveyard, a resting place for mostly Shia and some Christian remains.

That perhaps contributed to the choice.

'Jihad continues'

It also said a lot about claims by the security forces of having taken the fight to Baitullah Mehsud. The airtight security managed to keep away any potential suicide bombers as well as locals and tribesmen.

"It would have been a poor crowd anyway with one side considering him a heretic and the other a traitor," said another journalist acidly.

For that is indeed how Qari Zain's siding with the government is seen by many of his fellow tribesmen.

The heavy irony of the situation was also not lost on those present.

That the only option for security forces to protect the body of their champion was to bury it in such a manner speaks volumes about which way the battle is going.

Having failed utterly to prevent his assassination, the only way they could protect his remains was to keep them as far away from South Waziristan as possible.

Soon after the funeral, militants loyal to the dead Taliban commander gathered at the house where he was killed.

A short ceremony ensued to appoint his brother Misabhuddin as the new chief.

Speaking to the BBC, he said he would continue his brother's mission and not rest till Baitullah was dead.

"The operation in South Waziristan is the government's right and those caught up in the fighting are all terrorists," Misabhuddin said.

But he was quite clear on another point as well:

"Jihad against America and its allies in Afghanistan would continue as well."

But was not the point of the operation in South Waziristan to stop such activities? Apparently not, as far as Misabhuddin is concerned.

"Pakistan's government only has problems with the foreign militants in the area. They have always supported us in the jihad in Afghanistan."

BBC NEWS | South Asia | A very strange Taliban burial
 

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Nigeria 'to release key militant'

Page last updated at 16:33 GMT, Friday, 26 June 2009 17:33 UK
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Nigeria 'to release key militant'


Nigeria's government is offering clemency to oil rebel leader Henry Okah as part of its 60-day amnesty deal for militants in the Niger Delta.

Mr Okah is facing trial on charges of gun-running and treason after being arrested in Angola in 2007.

His release will depend on whether Angola agrees to it, President Umaru Yar'Adua's spokesman said.

The main militant group in the oil-producing Delta had said it would not disarm unless Mr Okah was freed.


The amnesty move is an effort to end years of attacks on the region's beleaguered oil industry, which have severely cut output.

Nigeria's chief of defence staff says the security forces will observe a ceasefire for the 60 days the Niger Delta amnesty is on offer, ending a recent intense offensive in the area.

"But if we are attacked, we will respond," Air Chief Marshall Paul Dike, Reuters news agency quotes him as saying.

A presidential pardon, rehabilitation programme, education and training are being offered to militants who give up their arms by 4 October.

The militants claim they are fighting for the rights of local people to benefit more from their region's oil wealth.

But many attacks in the lawless region are undertaken for financial gain.

"Henry Okah will be offered the amnesty after the president has sent the envoy to Angola," said presidential spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi.

"If [Angola] accepts, he will be released."

'We want peace'

Hours after details of Thursday's amnesty was made public, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) claimed to have carried out an attack on an oil field run by the Royal Dutch Shell.

Mend, in reality an affiliation of armed groups, said it was responding to a military raid on a village. Neither claim has been independently verified.

But Mend's acting leader "General" Boyloaf told the BBC he did want peace, although he objected to the use of the word "amnesty", arguing that the militants were not criminals.

Other militant representatives with Mend links have agreed to disarm if they can meet with the president to iron out some issues, including the release of Mr Okah.

"General" Boyloaf said that if Mr Okah was released within a week, Mend would give up all its arms, keeping "not even a bullet".

Mr Adeniyi, who was briefing journalists about the amnesty deal on Friday, emphasised that no money would be given in exchange for weapons, but militants would be offered jobs or scholarships at rehabilitation centres being set up across the region.

The BBC's Abudullahi Kaura in the Niger Delta says later on Friday the inspector general of police is due in Ogoniland, where a militant leader known as "Osama bin Laden" is expected to hand over his weapons.

Militant attacks in the region have reduced oil production to 1.3m barrels per day, officials say. Nigeria's Opec quota is 2m.

BBC NEWS | Africa | Nigeria 'to release key militant'
 

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U.S. gives Somalia about 40 tons of weapons

U.S. gives Somalia about 40 tons of weapons
Fri Jun 26, 2009 8:37pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government has provided about 40 tons of weapons and ammunition to Somalia's embattled government in the past six weeks to help it fight Islamist insurgents, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the United States spent less than $10 million on what he described as small arms and ammunition as well as on payments to other nations to train Somali government forces.

While the State Department confirmed on Thursday that it was providing weaponry to the government, it had not previously provided details on the type, cost or amount.

The senior State Department official told reporters the United States began providing the arms soon after Somalia's al Shabaab insurgents began a major offensive against the fragile transitional federal government (TFG) in early May.

Al Shabaab, which is seen as a proxy for al Qaeda, controls most of south Somalia and all but a few blocks of the capital Mogadishu. The official said Washington feared that it could destabilize the region and turn Somalia into a safe haven for foreign Islamists and "global terrorists."

"We've shipped probably in the neighborhood of 40 tonnes worth of arms and munitions into Somalia," the official said. "We remain concerned about the prospects of an al Shabaab victory, and we want to do as much as we can to help the TFG."

The United States funded the purchase of arms for the Somali government and also asked the Ugandan and Burundian troops in the country to give the government weapons and then reimbursed them, the official said.

He said the United States also set aside money to pay the Ugandan and Burundian units to train government forces rather than having U.S. troops conduct the training.

When a moderate Islamist was elected president in January, there was hope he could end nearly two decades of bloodshed in Somalia by reconciling with hardliners who want to impose a strict version of Islamic law across the country.

But al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden declared Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed an enemy in an audiotape released in March, calling on the insurgents to topple the government and for Muslims around the world to join their fight.

The U.S. official said he had heard estimates of between 200 and 400 foreign fighters in Somalia but that his personal view was that the figure probably was less than 200

U.S. gives Somalia about 40 tons of weapons | International | Reuters
 

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Send more Aid,.....Hope other countries also come in to help the Somalia Govt. Civil War and insurgents made the country devastated.
 

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Afghan guards held after shootout

Page last updated at 13:34 GMT, Monday, 29 June 2009 14:34 UK
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Afghan guards held after shootout

Police chief Matiullah Qatay is said to have been killed in the gun battle

Forty-one US-trained Afghan guards have been arrested after a shootout in which Kandahar's provincial police chief was killed, the regional governor says.

Thoryalai Wesa says the guards will be sent from the southern province to the capital Kabul for trial.

Up to eight other policemen were killed after the guards, who are employed by US security forces, entered the prosecutor's office in Kandahar city.

They were trying to free colleagues held in the building, the BBC was told.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he "seriously condemns this action", describing it as a "serious blow to governance-building".

Gun battle

In a statement, Mr Karzai's office described what had happened.

"Armed men from one of the private security firms based in Kandahar tried to free two criminals - they attacked the local prosecutor's office," it said.



"The police chief of Kandahar and the head of the criminal investigation department resisted them - these guards opened fire" and killed them, it went on.

The statement said three others were also killed, although other reports put the total at nine.

The police chief has been named as Matiullah Qatay and the head of the criminal investigation department as Abdul Khaliq Hamdam.

The US military spokesman in Kabul, Col Greg Julian, confirmed to the AFP news agency that there had been "an incident" but did not have details.

Some witnesses had said US forces were at the scene of the incident, but this is unconfirmed.

A spokesman for Nato-led forces in Afghanistan said they were looking into the incident.

The BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul says that Afghan guards are often employed at coalition military bases across the country.

They are paid and trained by the US. While the guards are recognised by the Afghan government, they do not come under their command.

Locals often refer to these guards as Afghan special forces as they are well-trained and well-armed, our correspondent says.

Kandahar is the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban - although the Taliban are not believed to be involved in this latest incident.

The province has seen an increase in violence in recent years and shootings are common, the BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul says.

It is a key battleground in the fight between the Taliban insurgency and the Afghan government and coalition forces.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Afghan guards held after shootout
 

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3 Khalistan Zindabad Force associates held, explosives seized

3 Khalistan Zindabad Force associates held, explosives seized

Ludhiana, June 30: Police on Tuesday seized 32 gelatin sticks along with six detonators from three arrested persons related to the Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF).

A module of the KZF was busted with the arrest and recovery of the explosives, Inspector General of Police, Jalandhar, Sanjiv Kalra, said addressing a press conference at Jagraon near here.

Acting on a tip off that some criminals are planning to carry out seditious and sabotage activities with a view to disturbing the public peace, a police party conducted frisking and checking at Bassian village near here and intercepted the three persons travelling in a car and seized the explosives.

The arrested KZF associates are identified as Kuljit Singh alias Kanta, Bhag Singh and Baba Balbir Singh. They were working at the instance of Ranjit Singh alias Neeta from Jammu but has taken shelter in Pakistan, Kalra said.

Neeta is providing explosive material to members of KZF for carrying out blasts and anti-national activities at the instance of ISI-Pakistan Agency, he said.

The recovered explosive bore the mark of Super Power-90 Solar Explosive Limited from Nagpur and detonators are from Nayonda district in Andhra Pardesh, Kalra said.

Preliminary investigations and questioning of the accused revealed that their targets include Piara Singh Bhaniare Wala, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, chief of Dera Sacha Sauda, Baba Ashutosh and crowded places including vital installations, he added.

3 Khalistan Zindabad Force associates held, explosives seized
 

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CRPF bled more in naxal infested areas than J&K and North-East

CRPF bled more in naxal infested areas than J&K and North-East

New Delhi (PTI) Countering naxals in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand cost more lives of CRPF personnel as compared to that during operations in militancy ridden Jammu and Kashmir and the north-east in the first six months this year.

The CRPF lost 39 personnel in the naxal infested states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand as compared to only two in Jammu and Kashmir and the north-east between January-June this year, according to official records.

Interestingly, in both J&K and north-east states, the CRPF has had better success rate in terms of militants killed.

The CRPF killed about 64 ultras in the militants struck areas as compared to only 43 in left wing extremism (LWE) affected states, the records show.

The country’s largest paramilitary force also lost a total of nine arms and 760 ammunition in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh as against none in other operational areas.

The losses primarily occur when naxals loot the weapons and ammunition used by security personnel during encounters or after they are injured in an IED blast, officials said.

The CRPF has recovered 183 weapons from non-naxal states while it has recovered 170 from left-wing extremism hit states, the records stated.

Interestingly, the highest injuries for the force's men has been in J and K with 339 personnel injured till date as against only 74 in naxal areas.

The high injury rate of CRPF personnel in J and K is primarily due to stone pelting incidents by civilians.

The Hindu News Update Service
 

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Accused in Ahmedabad blasts arrested

Accused in Ahmedabad blasts arrested

Bhopal, July 02: An accused in the Ahmedabad bomb blasts case has been arrested by Madhya Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) here.

Mohammed Irfan alias Kareli, wanted in connection with 17 serial blasts in Ahmedabad and other cities, was arrested from Karond area here, police sources said today.

On a tip off that Irfan would come here for setting up "sleeper cell" of the banned organiation SIMI, ATS found Irfan at Karond where he was waiting for two of his associates.

Besides Gujarat police, Jabalpur police was also looking for him and had declared an award of Rs 15,000 for information leading to his arrest, they said.

Irfan would be taken on transit remand from district court and then produced before a court in Narsinghpur.

Bureau Report

Accused in Ahmedabad blasts arrested
 

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Mumbai train blasts: US freezes assets of 4 Pakistanis

Mumbai train blasts: US freezes assets of 4 Pakistanis

Washington, July 02: The US has frozen the assets of four Pakistani terrorists for alleged involvement in a series of terrorist activities in India, including the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai and February 2007 bombing in the Samjhauta Express.

The US treasury department on Wednesday slapped sanctions on the four - Arif Qasmani, Fazeel-A-Tul Shaykh Abu Mohammed Ameen al-Peshawari, Mohammed Yahya Mujahid and Nasir Javaid - by designating them as part of support networks of al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) in Pakistan.

"The designated individuals have provided direct support to al Qaeda and LeT and have facilitated terrorist attacks, including the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai," the Treasury said in a statement.

LeT, a Pakistan-based terrorist group with links to Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda network, blamed for the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) by the US on December 26, 2001 and designated under a UN Security Council Resolution May 02, 2005.

"The United States and the United Nations have both targeted these four individuals for supporting al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Toiba," said Adam J Szubin, director in the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

"Threats to global security require a global response, and we are gratified to be standing shoulder to shoulder with the UN Security Council as we cut these terrorist supporters off from the international financial system."

As of early 2008, Ameen al-Peshawari was providing assistance, including funding and recruits, to the al Qaeda network. He has also provided funding and other resources to the Taliban operating in Afghanistan, the statement said.

Arif Qasmani, chief coordinator for LeT dealings with outside organisations, has worked with LeT to facilitate terrorist attacks, including the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai and the February 2007 Samjhauta Express bombing in Panipat, Haryana.

Qasmani conducted fundraising activities on behalf of LeT in 2005 and utilised money that he received from Dawood Ibrahim, an Indian crime figure and terrorist supporter, to facilitate the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai, it said.

Since 2001, Arif Qasmani has also provided financial and other support and services to al Qaeda, including facilitating the movement of al Qaeda leaders and personnel in and out of Afghanistan, the return of foreign fighters to their respective countries, and the provision of supplies and weapons.

In return for Qasmani's support, al Qaeda provided him with operatives to support the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai and the February 2007 Samjhauta Express bombing, the Treasury said.

In 2005, Qasmani provided Taliban leaders with a safe haven and a means to smuggle personnel, equipment and weapons into Afghanistan.

Mohammed Yahya Mujahid, the head of the LeT media department, has issued statements to the press on behalf of LeT on numerous occasions, including after the December 2001 LeT attacks on the Indian parliament, and following the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai.

From 2001 to at least 2008, Nasir Javaid, an LeT commander in Pakistan, was also involved in LeT military training as head of an LeT training centre in Pakistan, the statement said.

Mumbai train bombings : US freezes assets of 4 Pakistanis
 

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North Korea 'test fires missiles'

last updated at 14:05 GMT, Thursday, 2 July 2009 15:05 UK
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North Korea 'test fires missiles'

North Korea has test-fired four short-range missiles, South Korea's Yonhap news agency has reported.

The agency quoted defence officials as saying the fourth was launched at around 1220GMT from Sinsang-ni.

Three surface-to-ship missiles had earlier been fired - two near the port of Wonsan and one more from Sinsang-ni.

The UN tightened sanctions against North Korea after it launched several missiles and carried out an underground nuclear test in May.

The first two missiles were fired from a base near Wonsan, and the third and fourth from nearby Sinsang-ni, the South Korean defence ministry said.

South Korean defence minister Won Tae-jae said the missiles were "surface-to-ship" ones and had been "fired into the East Sea", reported Yonhap.

South Korean media had reported that a missile launch was imminent. Previous North Korean warnings to shipping to avoid its coastal waters have been preludes to test launches.

Nuclear fears

Japanese and South Korean media have also reported that North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range ballistic missile.

Such a rocket was launched in May, with Pyongyang saying it was intended to put a satellite into orbit.

There are fears that North Korea is trying to produce nuclear warheads small enough to put on long-range missiles.


The North may be about to launch another long-range missile, media say
After six-nation talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions broke down earlier this year, Pyongyang said it would "weaponise" its plutonium stocks and start enriching uranium for a light-water nuclear reactor.

Enriched uranium can be used as fuel for a nuclear reactor or, if more-highly enriched, it can be used to make atomic bombs.

Earlier this week, a North Korean ship suspected of transporting weapons to Burma turned around and appeared to head back to North Korea.

It has been under US surveillance for about a week and is the first vessel monitored under the new UN sanctions.

Resolution 1874, passed on 12 June, allows for inspections of air, sea and land shipments in and out of North Korea suspected to be carrying banned arms and weapons-related material.

The North has said it will treat any interception of its ships as a declaration of war.

The latest missile launches came hours after North and South Korean officials ended talks at the joint Kaesong industrial zone in North Korea without progress being made.

South Korean officials said they had rejected a Northern demand, made in earlier meetings, to pay higher wages and increased rent in the factory zone, located just across the border in the North.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | North Korea 'test fires missiles'
 

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"War on terror" used to target minorities: report

"War on terror" used to target minorities: report
Thu Jul 2, 2009 1:51pm EDT
By Natasha Elkington

LONDON (Reuters) - Countries on the front line in the "war on terror" are using the battle against extremists as a smokescreen to crack down on minority groups, an international human rights group said on Thursday.

For the fourth straight year, Somalia, Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan topped an annual index compiled by Minority Rights Group International (MRG) of countries where minorities are most at risk of genocide, mass killings or violent repression.

"You see governments who have faced a genuine threat, but the point is the actions they have taken against the wider civilian population, including minority civilians, has been justified as part of the 'war on terror,'" MRG director Mark Lattimer told Reuters.

"It has included disappearances, torture and extrajudicial executions."

A two-year insurgency in Somalia led by al Shabaab militants, who have links to al Qaeda and include foreign Islamists among their ranks, has killed some 18,000 civilians.

The insurgency has put historically oppressed minority groups such as the Bantu, Gabooye and Yibir at particular risk, the chairman of Somali Minority Rights and Aid Forum, Mohamed Hassan Daryeel, said.

"If the Yibir go with the government, they will be attacked by the radical Islamists. At the same time, if they go with the Islamists, they will be considered terrorists, and if they are neutral they'll be targeted by all sides."

Daryeel said recent amputations carried out by al Shabaab fighters were performed on child soldiers forcibly recruited from minority groups. "They are at the bottom of society, the most disadvantaged," he said.

Despite a decline in violence in Iraq, the report said civilian deaths from violence were still estimated at 300-800 a month over the past year.

It said minorities continued to bear the brunt of the violence, especially in the Nineveh area, home to the Shabak people.

"The Shabak community has suffered a lot at the hands of the terrorist groups and at the hands of the Kurdish 'Assayish' (secret police)," head of Iraq's Minorities Council, Hunain Al-Qaddo, told Reuters.

He said around 10,000 Shabak families had fled parts of Mosul to their homeland in the Nineveh plains for fear of being killed because of their ethnicity.

The rest of the top 10 list was comprised of Myanmar in fifth place, followed by Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Israel/Palestinian territories.

Pakistan rose on the list due to an escalating conflict against different Islamist groups, combined with growing violence in national politics and suppression of dissidents.

Ethiopia, Eritrea and Yemen were assessed as under greater danger than a year ago with their governments' involvement in regional conflicts compounding the risk of repression at home.

African states make up half the report's top 20 list.

(Editing by Robert Woodward)

War on terror used to target minorities: report | International | Reuters


This is really the saddest truth .. minorities have suffered the most because of this war on terror .. This war on terror is in real the biggest terror .
 

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Taliban buying children for suicide bombers

Taliban buying children for suicide bombers

Sara A. Carter (Contact)



Pakistan's top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, is buying children as young as 7 to serve as suicide bombers in the growing spate of attacks against Pakistani, Afghan and U.S. targets, U.S. Defense Department and Pakistani officials say.

A Pakistani official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the topic, said the going price for child bombers was $7,000 to $14,000 - huge sums in Pakistan, where per-capita income is about $2,600 a year.

"[Mehsud] has turned suicide bombing into a production output, not unlike [the way] Toyota outputs cars," a U.S. Defense Department official told reporters recently. He spoke on the condition that he not be named because of ongoing intelligence efforts to catch Mehsud, a prime target for a U.S. and Pakistani anti-Taliban campaign.

An apparent U.S. effort to kill Mehsud last week failed. On Sunday, the Pakistani government offered a reward of about $615,300 for information leading to the capture of Mehsud, dead or alive. The U.S. State Department has offered a bounty of $5 million for Mehsud, who is thought to be hiding in the tribal areas near the Afghan border.

Suicide bombings have become frequent in Pakistan in the past year, including high-profile attacks on hotels frequented by Westerners, as well as on Pakistani police and military installations. There has also been a spate of such attacks directed at U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.

The U.S. official said the price depends on how quickly the bomber is needed and how close the child is expected to get to the target.

"[Mehsud] produces these suicide bombers, which are sold or bartered, which can be used by [Afghan Taliban leader Mullah] Omar's Taliban or ... other groups," the U.S. official said.

In some cases, he said, the children are kidnapped and then sold to Mehsud.

Using child suicide bombers "is the grim reality of the Taliban Frankenstein that now threatens to overwhelm the Pakistani state," said Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution scholar who chaired a review of Pakistan-Afghanistan strategy for President Obama.

Efforts to reach a spokesman for Mehsud were not successful.

The use of children in war is not unusual in Afghanistan or the tribal regions of Pakistan. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, many pre-adolescent boys became mujahedeen or freedom fighters.

There is a different cultural perspective here about the age at which a boy becomes a man, said Sher, a former Afghan freedom fighter who asked to be identified only by his first name to protect himself against Taliban retribution.

"Fighting is not the issue," Sher, who took up arms against the Russians at age 13, told The Washington Times by phone.

"What is unusual is making these young fighters into suicide bombers," he said. "That was not common in Afghanistan, not even in the past. These children are brainwashed to believe things that are not even true. It is a crime against God."

In other conflicts, such as that between Israel and the Palestinians, suicide bombers are generally older, at least in their late teens or early 20s.

Suicide attacks mounted by Mehsud have killed prominent officials and politicians, including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and hundreds of civilians. The attacks have begun to shift sentiment among Pakistanis against the Taliban. The government has mounted an offensive to clear militants from areas close to the capital, Islamabad, although Pakistani authorities have failed to catch local Taliban leaders.

Pakistani officials have said their next target is the rugged region along the Afghan border where al Qaeda and the Taliban fled after U.S.-led forces toppled the Afghan Taliban government in Kabul in 2001.

Last week, Mehsud narrowly escaped a U.S. drone attack that killed approximately 80 people who were attending a funeral in South Waziristan in Pakistan's tribal region. U.S. officials were watching the funeral by video feed from the drone, which flew high above the scene, concealed by clouds. The drone strike was the closest the U.S. had come to killing Mehsud in the past year, U.S. officials said.

Pakistani officials told The Times that Taliban commander Qari Hussain, who was a close aide to Mehsud, was killed in the attack.

Hussein was one of the main trainers and recruiters of suicide bombers, a Pakistani government official said.

"He was a very important figure to Mehsud," said the official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the nature of his work. "However, Mehsud escaped the attack. Believe me, there will be no tears for Mehsud in Pakistan when he is killed."

The Taliban is a formidable enemy to the Pakistani people and government, Mr. Riedel said.

He said the Pakistani government's current military strategy against Mehsud is promising, but only time will tell whether it will succeed.

A second U.S. Defense Department official with expertise regarding the Taliban told reporters that al Qaeda and other Pakistani militant groups created by the Pakistani government to fight rival India have helped Mehsud stage suicide attacks.

The official, who also asked not to be named because of the nature of his work, said there had been a "convergence" of militants based in the tribal areas "supplemented, financed, probably trained, inculcated, by al Qaeda elements" and also "Punjab-based Pakistani terrorist groups."

"It's the relationship between the three elements that is producing effective suicide bombers and sustaining a suicide-bomb campaign inside Pakistan," the official said.
 

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