Pakistan Taliban chief's brother killed: officials

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The brother of new Pakistan Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud has been killed in a clash with the military in the tribal region where insurgents hold sway, security officials said Thursday.

Kalimullah Mehsud was killed on Monday in a battle in the lawless insurgent stronghold of North Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan.

"Kalimullah was buried on Wednesday. He was killed on Monday in crossfire with security forces," a security official in North Waziristan told AFP.

An intelligence official in the region confirmed the report.

The English-language Dawn newspaper quoted Taliban spokesman Qari Hussain as saying that suicide bombers were being prepared to avenge the death.

"We will take revenge of the assassination of Baitullah and Kalimullah," Hussain was quoted as saying, referring also to Hakimullah Mehsud's predecessor Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in the tribal belt last month.

Fighting erupted on the outskirts of North Waziristan on Monday after Taliban rebels fired a missile into a paramilitary camp at Razmak town, killing one soldier and wounding five others, security officials said at the time.

In retaliation, the paramilitaries pounded militant hideouts around Razmak and in neighbouring South Waziristan's Makeen and Ladha areas, with seven Taliban including Kalimullah Mehsud killed in the bombardments.

Hakimullah Mehsud, who has yet to speak to the media or appear in public since his appointment, has two surviving brothers.

The young commander, believed to be about 30, took the reins of the feared Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in late August after the group finally confirmed the death of leader Baitullah Mehsud in an August 5 US drone missile strike.

Pakistan's government blames the TTP -- formed by Baitullah Mehsud in late 2007 -- for the majority of about 270 attacks and suicide bombings that have killed more than 2,100 people across Pakistan in the past two years.

Islamabad earlier this year launched a fierce offensive to purge the northwest of Taliban fighters, and has already claimed success in Swat valley.

Analysts, however, say they will face a much tougher task in North and South Waziristan, which are teeming with both Pakistani Taliban and other Islamist militants who fled Afghanistan after the 2001 US-led invasion.

They have carved out camps in the mountains of the semi-autonomous tribal belt, and Washington says the militants are plotting attacks on the West and slipping over the border to target foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Missile attacks by US drone aircraft in the region have been soaring recently, with three such strikes in North and South Waziristan killing 20 suspected militants in the last two days.

Musharraf admits Taliban two-timed him

29 September 2009, LAHORE: Ex-Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf has admitted that his government’s secret agreement with the Taliban had backfired.

The Taliban had misled Musharraf’s administration, the Daily Times quoted him as saying.

He said on the one hand, the Taliban negotiated with the Pakistani government on the implementation of the sharia law, while on the other, they called the country’s constitution un-Islamic.

Earlier, Musharraf had fiercely denied playing a double game of supporting the Taliban while receiving US funding to fight them when he was in power.

“Get your facts correct, I have never double-dealt. There is a big conspiracy being hatched against Pakistan, to weaken the Pakistan army and the ISI, to weaken Pakistan,” Musharraf told New York Times journalist David Sanger, who had alleged Pakistan of duplicity.

Meanwhile, a Pakistani court issued notice to Musharraf and nine others after they failed to appear for a hearing in a case relating to the assassination of former PM Benazir Bhutto.

Top U.S. security officials share Afghan-Pakistan border concerns

WASHINGTON -- As President Obama huddles with key military advisers to talk about a strategy in Afghanistan, top officials charged with protecting the homeland on Wednesday pointedly stressed the danger from terrorists in the Afghan-Pakistan border area.

In Senate testimony, the officials said that despite recent arrests, they remain deeply worried about al Qaeda's intentions and plotting.

"My greatest concern still is the ability of al Qaeda to use western Pakistan and Afghanistan as sanctuary," FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Homeland Security Committee. "If you look at the most serious case we have had recently, the Zazi case, it was the training in Pakistan that gave them the capability of undertaking the attack," Mueller said.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she, too, was focused on the threat emanating from there.

"Homeland security begins in many instances abroad, and particularly what happens in Pakistan and Afghanistan is a source for many of the threat streams that ultimately we are spending resources on, and there is an impact here in the homeland," Napolitano told the panel.

The director of the National Counterterrorism Center agreed that recent successes against al Qaeda had put more pressure on the organization, but had not deterred al Qaeda's intent on attacking U.S. and Western interests.

"We assess that this [al Qaeda] core is actively engaged in operational plotting and continues recruiting, training and transporting operatives," said Mike Leiter, the center's director.

Mueller said all the officials are concerned al Qaeda has made "a concerted effort" to recruit in Western countries, allowing them "to fly under the radar" through operatives free to travel more easily.

The Senate committee headed by Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut, expressed unwavering support for the current counterterrorism efforts. Lieberman and the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, praised the officials for the string of recent arrests of accused terrorists in New York; Colorado; Springfield, Illinois; Dallas, Texas; and North Carolina. When the senators asked what more they can do to help the officials, the FBI's Mueller had a ready answer.

"Renew the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act," he said.

The Senate is expected to debate later this year whether to reauthorize three of the several new powers granted to authorities in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Provide details on Taliban, Pakistan tells U.S.

Thu Oct 1, 2009, ISLAMABAD, Oct 1 - The United States should provide information about top militants in Pakistan, a government minister said on Thursday, as Washington stepped up pressure on Islamabad to go after Taliban leaders.

The United States, struggling to contain rising insurgent violence in Afghanistan, says top Islamist militants, including Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, are in Pakistan.

U.S. ally Pakistan rejects that.

"They have given only apprehension that some of the Taliban like Mullah Omar and all that, they might be in Quetta," Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters.

The United States says an Afghan Taliban shura, or leadership council, headed by Omar is centred in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta.

"We categorically told them that they are not in Quetta, and if they have any real-time information, they should give it to us and we will take action," Malik said.

The United States is weighing options on how to deal with the Afghan insurgency eight years after driving the Taliban from power in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The U.S. commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, said in an assessment leaked last week the Afghan insurgency was clearly supported from Pakistan.

"Senior leaders of the major Afghan insurgent groups are based in Pakistan, linked to al Qaeda and other violent extremist groups, and are reportedly aided by some elements of Pakistan's ISI," McChrystal said, referring to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

McChrystal identified the Quetta shura as the biggest threat to the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan.

"FULL COOPERATION"

The Washington Post said this week U.S. officials were expressing concern over the ability of Omar and his lieutenants to launch attacks into Afghanistan from sanctuaries around Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province.

Pakistan, battling al Qaeda-linked Pakistani Taliban militants in ethnic Pashtun lands to the north of Baluchistan, says the Quetta shura does not exist.

But many analysts say Pakistan is acting only against militants which are a threat to itself, like the Pakistani Taliban, while leaving alone those focused on fighting in Afghanistan or on targeting India.

U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson told the Washington Post this week the Quetta shura was "high on Washington's list".

The deputy chief of the U.S. mission in Pakistan, Gerald Feierstein, told a group of Pakistani reporters that Omar and his command centre were in Baluchistan, a news agency reported.

"We have already expressed our reservations to Pakistan. Their movement is unacceptable and we expect full cooperation from the Pakistan government in this regard," the Online news agency quoted Feierstein as saying.

Feierstein also said al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun lands on the Afghan border, the news agency said.

The United States stepped up its attacks by pilotless drones on militants in northwestern Pakistani border sanctuaries last year as the Afghan insurgency intensified. [ID:nSP456597]

But Feierstein said no proposal for expanding drone strikes to Baluchistan was under consideration, Online said. He also said the ISI "as an institution" had no links with the Taliban but "some elements" were Taliban sympathisers.

Obama gets bill to triple level of aid to Pakistan

October 1, 2009: Legislation to triple aid to Pakistan in hopes of stemming the tide of radicalism and anti-Americanism in that nation cleared Congress yesterday and moved to President Obama for his signature.

The bill, approved by a voice vote in the House, would provide Pakistan with $1.5 billion a year over the next five years. The Senate passed the bill last week.

The aid would be focused on democratic, economic, and social development programs.

“The United States has an enormous stake in the security and stability of Pakistan,’’ said Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “We need to forge a true strategic partnership with Pakistan and its people, strengthen Pakistan’s democratic government, and work to make Pakistan a source of stability in a volatile region.’’

The final bill was crafted by Berman, a California Democrat, in cooperation with the leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chairman John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, and Dick Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican. It was endorsed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

The goal of the aid program is to strengthen Pakistan’s legislative and judicial systems; its public education system, emphasizing access for women and girls; its health care system; and its human rights practices.

The legislation also authorizes military assistance to Pakistan, while setting several conditions on that aid. Those include certification that Pakistan is cooperating in stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons and that it is making a sustained commitment to combating terrorist groups.