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A Pakistani journalist who wrote last week about the suspected infiltration of Pakistan's navy by al Qaeda terrorists was found dead Tuesday, two days after he went missing in Islamabad. Syed Saleem Shahzads body was found almost 100 miles north of the Pakistani capital.His face had been battered, and he had a gunshot wound in his stomach, according to sources. Mr. Shahzad was Pakistan bureau chief of Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online and author of “Inside al Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11.” He disappeared on Sunday, two days after he wrote an article claiming that al...

A man who scouted sites for the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks has testified in a separate trial that the Pakistani intelligence service had links to the group that carried out the attacks. David Headley was giving evidence against Tahawwur Rana, who is accused of giving him cover to scout the sites. Headley said a Pakistani agent paid him $25,000 (£15,526) for the operation. Mr Rana has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers say he was tricked by Headley, a former friend. Headley has said he was trained by militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). At the opening on Monday of Mr Rana's trial...

A senior Yemeni al-Qaeda operative has been arrested in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, Pakistan's army says. Mohammed Ali Qasim, also known as Abu Suhaib al-Makki, had been working under al-Qaeda leaders along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, a statement said. The army said his arrest was a "major development in unravelling the al-Qaeda network operating in the region". Officials later told the BBC that Qasim was key courier between Osama Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The BBC's Orla Guerin in Islamabad says that since Bin Laden was found and killed by US commandos on Pakistani soil on 2...

Targets inside India 'identified' if attacked: ISI chief PTI | May 15, 2011, 09.47pm IST ISLAMABAD: ISI's powerful chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha has warned India that any Abbottbad-like attack by it would invite a befitting response from Pakistan as targets inside the country "had already been identified" and "rehearsal" carried out. Pasha's warning came as he addressed the in-camera joint session of the Senate and National Assembly held behind closed doors on Friday. Pasha is facing fire over the inability of the ISI to track down al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, where he was living, before he was...

General Pasha told parliament he had a “shouting match” with the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, over C.I.A. activities in Pakistan when they met recently in Washington, several lawmakers who attended the session said. In a rendition of the history of American relations with Pakistan, General Pasha declared that the United States, which has provided Pakistan with some $20 billion in aid over the last decade, had let Pakistan down at every turn since the 1960s, including slapping sanctions on the country in the 1990s.

The Pakistan army's Af-Ind strategy Sandeep Unnithan | New Delhi, May 11, 2011 | Updated 19:12 IST There are two worldviews of Pakistan: as victim and as villain. The first view sees Pakistan as Chaos-istan. A bankrupt failed state torn by sectarian strife, teetering on the precipice and no control over terrorists. Its implosion would mean Islamic fundamentalists would spill across its borders or worse, get control of its nuclear weapons. The other more studied view is of the state as villain. From General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi, the Pakistan army holds the country in its grip like a parasite...

Pakistan's ISI fights lawsuit linking it to Mumbai attacks US lawyers seek dismissal of allegations against embattled intelligence agency By Michael Isikoff National investigative correspondent NBC News NBC News updated 5/10/2011 7:33:15 PM ET 2011-05-10T23:33:15 Pakistan’s embattled ISI intelligence service has retained U.S. lawyers to block a lawsuit alleging that its current and former directors helped one of the world’s most dangerous terrorist groups conduct the Nov. 2008 attack in Mumbai, India, killing 164 people, including six Americans. The lawsuit, filed late last year in U.S. federal court in New York by American family members of the victims and one...

The past week has been filled with announcements and speculations on how Osama bin Laden was killed and on Washington’s source of intelligence.... [Snip] Obfuscating on how intelligence was developed and on the specifics of how an operation was carried out is an essential part of covert operations. The precise process must be distorted to confuse opponents regarding how things actually played out; otherwise, the enemy learns lessons and adjusts....{Snip] Posturing Versus a Genuine Breach It is not inconceivable that Pakistan aided the United States in identifying and capturing Osama bin Laden, but it is unlikely. This is because the...

The Washington Post reports that the Pakistani intelligence service has outed a CIA station chief in response to the US raid in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden. Their report avoids naming the CIA’s man, who will presumably be heading home quickly after leading the effort in the last six months on the OBL operation — which he had to do after Pakistan outed the previous station chief: The public outing of the CIA station chief here threatened on Monday to deepen the rift between the United States and Pakistan, with U.S. officials saying they believed the disclosure had been...

Well, what else did we expect the Pakistanis to say? We’re so incompetent that we can’t even detect an invasion? Oh, wait … A senior official in Pakistan’s civilian government told ABC News, “Elements of Pakistan intelligence — probably rogue or retired — were involved in aiding, abetting and sheltering the leader of al Qaeda,” the strongest public statement yet from the Pakistani government after the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound.This is based on the government’s judgment that the number of years bin Laden spent in Abbottabad — and it now appears in a village outside the city of...

ISLAMABAD: Osama bin Laden may have lived in Pakistan for over seven years before being shot dead by US forces, senior Pakistani security officials said on Saturday, a disclosure that could further anger key ally Washington over the presence of enemy number one in the country. One of Bin Laden’s widows told Pakistani investigators that the world’s most wanted man stayed in a village for nearly two and a half years before moving to the nearby garrison town of Abbottabad, where he was killed. The wife, Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, told investigators earlier that Bin Laden and his family had spent...

The Emperors’ ClothesCyril AlmeidaMay 6, 2011 PAKISTAN this week has been confronted with a deeply unsettling question. Could the self-appointed custodians of the national interest themselves be the greatest threat to national security? There is no joy in asking this. Pakistan exists in a tough neighbourhood. A strong and vibrant army is necessary and desirable. But as the initial shock and disbelief wears off, there is a deep, deep sense of unease here. Did they know he was here? Surely, they knew he was here? Nobody has come out and said it openly yet. It’s too early, the story still...

There is no way Pakistan assisted the U.S. military operation of killing Osama Bin Laden. The Pakistani government is condemning the U.S. for entering its country. The army chief warned the U.S. that it will jeopardize their so called relationship if the U.S. invades Pakistan without their permission. Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir questioned the U.S. mission of violating Pakistan's sovereignty. Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf stated that the Bin Laden raid showed a lack of trust between the U.S. and Pakistan. Musharraf lied to the U.S. about trying to help kill terrorists within their borders. We should have never trusted...

August 17, 2010 Pakistan’s Failed National Strategy Walter Russell Mead The unremitting spate of bad news from Pakistan continues; rains are still drenching the highlands and the devastation continues to spread down the river valleys.  This year’s harvest has been ruined; increasingly, it seems unlikely that farmers will be able to plant fall crops.  While visiting Pakistan earlier this month, I posted on the roots of Pakistan’s rage, doing my best to explain why so many Pakistanis are so angry with the United States.  That is one side of the story; but equally mysterious to many people and especially in...

The ISI and Terrorism: Behind the Accusations Authors: Jayshree Bajoria, Senior Staff Writer Eben Kaplan Updated: May 4, 2011 Introduction Pakistan's military intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has long faced accusations of meddling in the affairs of its neighbors. A range of officials inside and outside Pakistan have stepped up suggestions of links between the ISI and terrorist groups in recent years. In fall 2006, a leaked report by a British Defense Ministry think tank charged, "Indirectly Pakistan (through the ISI) has been supporting terrorism and extremism--whether in London on 7/7 [the July 2005 attacks on London's transit system],...

NEW DELHI: A vast majority of Pakistan's military leadership is unhappy about the US operation that killed Osama bin Laden and fears that America will conduct similar raids in the future to target the country's nuclear arsenal. An assessment made by Indian agencies suggests that almost three-fourths of the Pakistani military brass is concerned about the way American helicopters crossed into Pakistani territory, carried out a surgical strike and left without informing either the Pakistani government or security establishment, Indian government sources said. The finding, shared with leaders of the Indian government, is significant because of the deep ties Pakistan...

Pakistan’s ‘deep state’ C. Raja Mohan Posted online: Wed May 04 2011, 01:21 hrs Terrorism,” the former ISI chief, Lt General Asad Durrani, wrote last week, “is a technique of war, and therefore an instrument of policy.” Unlike Lt General Hamid Gul, another former ISI chief, Durrani is not bombastic; he is quite precise with words. Durrani is upfront in asserting that the ISI has no reason to be apologetic about using violent extremism in the pursuit of the Pakistan army’s strategic objectives in Afghanistan and India. But a week is a long time in politics. After the US Special...

NEW DELHI: The direct role of Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence in harbouring Osama bin Laden, first elsewhere and then in the cooler climes of Abbottabad where he met his maker, may never be known. But there is growing realization around the world, with some US senators on Tuesday reinforcing the charge against Pakistan security and intelligence agencies of playing "a double game" of staggering proportions in the so-called global war against terrorism, that it will be virtually impossible to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Islamist terror till one of its main benefactors is neutered. From the Haqqani network in Afghanistan to the...

NEW DELHI: It now turns out that Indian agencies had twice warned their US counterparts about the presence of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in an urbanized and heavily populated area not very far from Islamabad – once in mid-2007 and again in early 2008 when they specifically mentioned his likely presence in a cantonment area. On both occasions, the Americans either did not take the Indian intelligence seriously or perhaps were too busy working on their own inputs about Osamas whereabouts. The first time Indian security agencies gave this information to the US authorities was in mid-2007, soon after...

Quite a few people whose intelligence I respect greatly -- including Ace of Spades and Wretchard -- are talking about a theory that makes so much sense, it scares me. Even though it's purely theory and speculation, it hangs together all too well. For years, we've all had our suspicions that the Pakistani intelligence service -- the ISI -- is at the very least infiltrated by terrorists, and may in fact might be cooperating with them. India insists, with considerable justification, that the ISI was linked to some of the more horrific terrorist attacks they've suffered, and far too many...