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The cellphone that was seized from Osama bin Laden's courier has been revealed to contain contacts to a militant group that's been long connected to Pakistan's intelligence agency. This could mean that Pakistan was protecting bin Laden the whole time. The militant group that Osama had in his phone, Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, were in constant talks with Pakistan officials. Though none of those conversations were explicitly about bin Laden, it does raise an interesting question. Did bin Laden get help (and live comfortably while in hiding) from the Pakistan government? The link to Harakat is important because it is deeply entrenched in...

WASHINGTON -- A cellphone of Usama bin Laden's trusted courier recovered in the U.S. raid last month that killed both men in Pakistan contained contacts to a militant group that is a longtime asset of Pakistan's intelligence agency, The New York Times reported late Thursday.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Twice in recent weeks, the United States provided Pakistan with the specific locations of insurgent bomb-making factories, only to see the militants learn their cover had been blown and vacate the sites before military action could be taken, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials. Overhead surveillance video and other information was given to Pakistani officials in mid-May, officials said, as part of a trust-building effort by the Obama administration after the killing of Osama bin Laden in a U.S. raid early last month. But Pakistani military units that arrived at the sites in the tribal areas of...

CHICAGO (AP) -- A federal jury convicted a Chicago businessman on Thursday of helping plot an attack against a Danish newspaper that printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad but cleared him of the most serious charge accusing him of cooperating in the deadly 2008 rampage in Mumbai. The jury reached its split verdict after two days of deliberations, finding Tahawwur Rana guilty of providing material support to terrorism in Denmark and to the Pakistani militant group that had claimed responsibility for the three-day siege in India's largest city that left more than 160 people dead, including six Americans.

PESHAWAR: According to a BBCUrdu report, Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistani terrorist leader with ties to al Qaeda, was among those killed in the latest drone strikes in South Waziristan. The report quoted locals as saying that Kashmiri was killed in the strike that killed at least nine militants. Kashmiri was the chief of the Harkatul Jihad al-Islami (HJI), an organisation affiliated with al Qaeda. He is widely believed to have masterminded the attack on the PNS Mehran naval base in Karachi. A government official in Peshawar told BBCUrdu that although he had been receiving information regarding the death of Kashmiri...

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],...