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Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2 leader, the most wanted terrorist after Osama bin Laden, with a $25 million bounty on his head, is holed up near Quetta, Pakistan, according to a highly placed Pakistani intelligence source. The Egyptian-born radical is a master of disguise, a meticulous planner and the deadliest of terrorists. Yet Pakistani intelligence sources say he roams openly and with impunity in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. While Predators continue to strike at a variety of key terror targets in that area, our source tells us that the CIA and other intelligence agencies cannot get...

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2 leader, the most wanted terrorist after Osama bin Laden, with a $25 million bounty on his head, is holed up near Quetta, Pakistan, according to a highly placed Pakistani intelligence source.

The high-profile arrest of a group of Pakistani militants in mid-April in the restive Afghan province of Helmand by the Afghan army and their subsequent handover to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for grilling exposed a jihadi network running to the heart of urban Pakistan. In the course of interrogation, the militants confessed to being recruited, trained and then launched into Helmand after spending some time in places such as the southern port city of Karachi and Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province. They also gave details of their Pakistani leaders and their activities, including how these leaders could...

QUETTA, Pakistan — SNIPPET: "The abduction occurred as the man was heading to his job as the head of the U.N. refugee office in the main southwest city of Quetta, senior police official Khalid Masood said. Masood identified the kidnapped official as John Solecki, and said he was from the United States."

LAHORE: Intelligence agencies have once again arrested the Taliban Majlis-e-Shura’s former defence minister Mullah Obaidullah Akhund along with two other Afghan nationals from Lahore, along with two other Afghan nationals, intelligence sources told Daily Times on Sunday. The sources revealed that Obaidullah had been arrested in 2006 in Quetta and was released after around nine months, after which he fled to in Afghanistan. This time he arrived in Pakistan to generate funds, the sources said, adding that he, along with Pakistani allies, had visited several cities in this regard. The sources revealed that Obaidullah had arrived in Pakistan in the...

Excerpt - Yesterday's suicide bombing at the Kamra Air Force Base in Punjab was not the first strike at a nuclear weapons storage facility. After a closer look at the bases struck inside Pakistan since August, at least two more strikes occurred either on or near nuclear weapons storage facilities, based on open source information on Pakistan's nuclear weapons programs. Since August 2007, there have been two suicide attacks at or near the Sargodha Air Force Base, a nuclear weapons and missile storage facility in central Punjab province. Other attacks in Punjab and the Northwest Frontier Province may be aimed...

A Swiss newspaper claimed on Sunday that the Taliban's former Defense Minister was free two days after his reported capture by Pakistani security forces. The Swiss weekly Sonntagsblick said one of its reporters spoke to Mullah Obaidullah Akhund on February 28 unhindered in an Islamic School in the southwestern city of Quetta. Akhund, considered a key ally of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar, was the most senior leader from the hard-line militia to be reported arrested since US-led troops ousted it from power in 2001. Several Pakistani intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said earlier this month that he...

Quetta: Suspected Baloch militants blew up a gas pipeline near Quetta on Tuesday, cutting supplies to a power plant and several areas, a gas company official said. Gas supplies were cut to four districts near Quetta and a 95 MW city power plant. Supplies might be restored to some areas within 24 hours, Nawaz said. No one was hurt in the early morning blast in the outskirts of Quetta. “They planted explosives under an 18-inch pipeline that blew out a 4-foot piece of the pipe,” said Sheikh Nawaz, general manager of Sui Southern Gas Company. agencies

THIS IS PAKISTAN: Carlotta Gall of the New York Times has been aggressively covering support for the Taliban provided by the Pakistani intelligence services. Although the government of Pakistan insists that it supports the US and NATO against the Taliban, it seems that influential figures in Pakistan consider Ms. Gall to be the greater threat. In a rare first-person narrative in this morning's Times, she describes her experiences in Quetta: My photographer, Akhtar Soomro, and I were followed over several days of reporting in Quetta by plainclothes intelligence officials who were posted at our respective hotels. That is not unusual...

1/17/2007 11:16:29 AM Afghanistan officials said on Wednesday that the Taliban spokesman, who was arrested on Monday, has said that the fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was living in hiding in Pakistan, where he is supported by the country's main spy agency. A spokesman for the Afghan intelligence service said on Wednesday that the arrested Taliban spokesman Mohammad Hanif had told investigators, during his interrogation, that Mullah Omar was living in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta where he was being supported by Pakistan's main spy agency. The Afghan intelligence service also released a video recording showing Hanif...

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) - Gunfire and rioting broke out for a fourth straight day Tuesday after the funeral service for a prominent tribal chief killed by Pakistani government forces. Two police were wounded and dozens of shops destroyed. More than 10,000 mourners attended the funeral of Nawab Akbar Bugti, who fought for decades for greater rights for the Baluch tribespeople. At least two people have been killed, dozens wounded and 500 arrested in rioting since his death Saturday. The service was held even though Pakistani authorities have not yet returned Bugti's body to his family. The government says it is...

6 Anti-Terrorism Police Killed in Pakistan By NASEER KAKAR, Associated Press Writer Five bombs ripped through a firing range at a police training school in southwestern Pakistan on Thursday, killing six members of an anti-terrorism unit and wounding nine, police and a doctor said. The attack was the deadliest in weeks in southwestern Baluchistan province, a vast region where renegade tribesmen are fighting for greater autonomy and an increase in royalties for resources extracted from their lands. The bombs, wired together to go off in sequence, were hidden around a firing range at the training academy in Quetta, the provincial...

There are wheels within wheels  Anis (in Dari and Pashto)    06/23/2005   Kabul , Afghanistan   At a recent interview with Aina TV, the US ambassador and special envoy to Afghanistan, Dr Zalmay Khalilzad criticized the Pakistani authorities for not doing enough to arrest the leaders of the Taliban and Al-Qa'idah.  If we have a look at and study the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we will clearly see that Pakistani politicians, particularly the officials in Islamabad , speak so brazenly and undiplomatically that it is unprecedented in the whole world.   Every country has its own policy and diplomacy and sometimes it...

Islamic Militant Arrested in Pakistan March 05, 2005 QUETTA, Pakistan — An Islamic militant accused of killing as many as 130 minority Shiite Muslims (search) in separate attacks in recent years has been arrested in southwestern Pakistan, police said Friday. Ramzan Mengal, a member of an outlawed Sunni group linked to al-Qaida (search), was arrested in Quetta as he was going to a mosque for evening prayer, said Pervez Rafi Bhatti, the city's police chief. "This man was involved in all major attacks against Shiites in Quetta and elsewhere, and his arrest is a big success," Bhatti said.

Taliban told US it would give up Osama - middleman By Mark Trevelyan BERLIN, June 4 (Reuters) - U.S. and Taliban officials met secretly in Frankfurt almost a year before the September 11 attacks to discuss terms for the Afghans to hand over Osama bin Laden, according to a German television documentary. But no agreement was reached and no further negotiations took place before the suicide hijackings in 2001, which bin Laden subsequently hailed in a videotape as the work of his al Qaeda network. ZDF television quoted Kabir Mohabbat, an Afghan-American businessman, as saying he tried to broker a...

WASHINGTON - It was a spring-like Monday morning here as Afghan leader Hamid Karzai watched a hastily sewn flag rise over the long-abandoned Afghan embassy. Much like Mr. Karzai's desperate nation, the dilapidated embassy is a testimony to neglect, with peeling paint, leaky roofs, sagging walls, and termites. Still, no one seemed to notice. Speaking of shared US-Afghan pain, partnership, and hope, Karzai dignified the moment. He seemed sincere, yet polished - even, some would say, chic. "Tie it well, Haron," said Karzai, looking on in a silver lamb's-wool cap, flowing tunic, and emerald cape as his chargé d'affairs ...

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least 10 people have been killed and more than 20 wounded in a powerful bomb explosion near an army truck in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, officials say. "We have information that 10 people, including a Pakistan army soldier, have been killed in the blast," Major-General Shaukat Sultan, a military spokesman, told Reuters. Four soldiers were among the wounded, he said. Information Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed denounced what he called "a heinous act of terrorism". He said it was too early to allot blame for the blast on Friday, but added: "The people responsible...

Pakistani police suspect Al Qaeda involvement in sectarian violence (AFP) 8 March 2004 QUETTA, Pakistan - Pakistani police Monday blamed Al Qaeda for sectarian violence in the city of Quetta where 47 people were killed in an attack on religious procession by minority Shiite Muslims last week.“We have arrested four Pakistani militants including one Shafiq-ur Rehman, linked to an international terrorist organisation,” provincial police chief Shoaib Suddle told a news conference in the southwestern city. Rehman was involved in the July 4 attack in Quetta where 48 Shiite worshippers were gunned down at a city mosque, he said.He described the...

Today: March 08, 2004 at 9:20:42 PST Man Held by Pakistan May Be Tied to AttackASSOCIATED PRESS QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) - A suspected Islamic militant already in police custody may have had a hand in the massacre of 44 people at a religious procession last week, Pakistani authorities said Monday. Shafiq-ur Rahman was in jail on kidnapping charges last Tuesday when gunmen opened fire on a Shiite Muslim procession, but Quetta police chief Shoaib Suddle said authorities believe he may have been behind the attacks. Suddle said that during interrogation Rahman had confessed to taking part in past attacks on...

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan has detained 30 people in connection with an attack this week on minority Muslim Shi'ites in the southwestern city of Quetta, which killed 44 people and wounded at least 150, police said on Sunday. Police also registered a complaint by relatives of the slain Shi'ites against seven local members of an outlawed Sunni militant group whom they blamed them for the attack. A senior police official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters 30 people had been arrested so far in an extensive investigation into the massacre on Tuesday, when Shi'ites were observing Ashura,...