Pakistan/Terrorism: militant claims Tehrik-e-Taleban has grown stronger

Qari Hussain Mehsud, a Taleban militant who claimed to be leading a group of suicide bombers known as the Fidayeen-e-Islam, said Thursday that the Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan has grown stronger, even after the lost of its top commander Baitullah Mehsud. "Our movement has gained more strength after the martyrdom of Baitullah Mehsud," he said. "We are united." Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US missile strike in August.

Qari also said they will carry out more suicide attacks if the Pakistani Army launches another offensive against them. "We have enough suicide bombers, and they are asking me to let them sacrifice their lives in the name of Islam, but we will send suicide bombers only if the government acts against us." The Army has carried out a number of operations and offensives against the militants in its restive tribal regions and other parts of the northwest. A statement released by the military today said 57 militants have surrendered in the Swat Valley over the past 24 hours, while 13 others were arrested.

Pakistan/Terrorism: Taleban bomb Pakistan school in Peshawar

According to Pakistani officials Taleban militants on Tuesday bombed a mixed primary school in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. “The school building, which consisted of three rooms was destroyed in the blast,” local police official Hamzullah Khan told reporters. Khan said the bombing bore the hallmarks of the Taleban, who are opposed to the education of women and frequently target girls’ schools. Provincial education official Mohammad Nisar also confirmed the incident.

However, there were no immediate reports of casualties because the school was closed for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr to mark the end of Ramadan. Over the past few years militants have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly for girls, in the North West frontier Province (NWFP). Nearly 200 schools were destroyed in the Swat valley alone during a two-year violent campaign by radical cleric Maulana Fazaullah to enforce sharia law.

Pakistan/Terrorism: police say attack on minister foiled

Pakistani police on Monday foiled an assassination plot that targeted a regional education minister in the North West Frontier Province. “An informant tipped off officers that insurgents had gathered in a government high school in North West Frontier Province after midnight and were planning to kill provincial Education Minister Sardar Hussain Babak and attack government installations and security forces,” police officer Noor Jamal Khan said.

Khan said police confronted the militants and a firefight occurred. A loud explosion rocked the building and three of the men escaped, including one who was wounded. The bomber then blew himself up, Khan said. “We have collected the body parts of the young suicide attacker and these will be sent for identification purposes,” he said.

Separately on Monday, one Pakistani soldier was killed and three were wounded when Taleban militants attacked an army checkpoint in Mamuser district of the South Waziristan tribal region. “Rocket attacks struck two military camps in the region but caused no casualties or damage,” an intelligence officer who spoke on condition of anonymity. However, Azam Tariq, a purported Taleban spokesman, said more than 40 soldiers were either killed or wounded in attacks on two checkpoints in the area.

Pakistan/Terrorism: car bomb kills 25 in Kohat

At least 25 people have been killed when a suspected suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a hotel in the city of Kohat, 150 km southwest of Islamabad on Friday, area mayor Syed Mehtabul Hassan said. The Mayor said several others were also wounded on Friday when the bomber detonated his vehicle near a hotel in Kohat town in what might be a sectarian attack. He said that 25 bodies have been pulled out of the rubble of the hotel and nearby shops.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Police official Asmat Ullah said the hotel hit by the suicide bomber was owned by a Shiite. He said the blast destroyed several cars, and several shops at the nearby Kacha Paka market, where the hotel is located. Friday's attack was the second in two days in Kohat, a rough town not far from the Afghan border with a history of violence between the Shiite and Sunni Muslim sects. On Thursday, six people were wounded when a bomb planted outside a shop in a separate area of Kohat exploded.

Pakistan/India/Terrorism: Islamabad registers anti-terror cases against Hafiz Saeed

Pakistani police announced on Friday that it has registered two anti-terror cases against Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the mastermind of Mumbai terror attacks. "Saeed has been booked for inciting public sentiments and arranging and addressing unlawful congregation", police official Mohammad Mansha told reporters.

The cases were registered against him on Wednesday by security officials in Faisalabad, an industrial town in the central Punjab province. Saeed, also the founder of banned Lashker-e-Taiba, has been blamed by India for masterminding the Mumbai terror attacks that killed 166 people last year. Saeed was placed under house arrest in December last year after the UN Security Council declared the JuD a terrorist organisation. He was freed on the orders of the Lahore High Court in June this year.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Jammat-ud-Dawa strongly condemned the case registration. "The government should not take criticism from someone as a crime... Hafiz Saeed did not commit any crime by talking about jihad as it is also mentioned in the holy Koran," said the spokesman, Yahya Mujahid.

Pakistan/Terrorism: Taleban commander arrested in Swat

Pakistani military declared on Thursday that they have arrested a top Taleban commander accused of beheading soldiers in the Swat Valley region. “Wanted terrorist commander Sher Muhammad Qasab, whose duty was to behead security personnel and anti-Taleban civilians and carried a head money of 10 million rupees ($120,000), was arrested during an operation. Qasab was captured injured,” the military said in a statement. Reportedly, Sher Muhammad Qasab was injured and arrested in a military operation, during which three of his sons were killed and another detained. "Troops encircled him for days," a military official spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said Qasab “was running a slaughter centre at Chaharbagh where he himself used to slaughter opponents and security personnel.” His arrest was the third in a series of recent high-profile detentions in Swat. Last week, the military announced it had arrested Muslim Khan, the Pakistan Taleban's spokesman, and Mahmood Khan, another senior Taleban commander, along with four other Taleban leaders in a Swat raid.

Pakistan/Terrorism: Al-Qaeda-linked Uzbek militant killed in Waziristan

Pakistani security officials announced on Thursday that a senior Uzbek militant linked to Al-Qaeda was killed in a recent US drone strike in Pakistan's North Waziristan region on the Afghan border. The officials said Najmiddin Kamolitdinovic Jalolov, also known as Yahyo, was killed on Monday when a pilotless US aircraft fired a missile at a truck near the town of Mir Ali.

"He was among three top militant commanders from central Asia who had an affiliation with Al-Qaeda and had been working in and from our territory," said a senior Pakistani intelligence official, who declined to be identified. A second Pakistani security official said Jalolov was among four militants killed in the strike.

According to officials Jalolov was the founder of a militant group called the Islamic Jihad Union. The US Treasury banned US dealings with Jalolov and tried to freeze his assets in June last year, saying he was an organiser of suicide bombings in Tashkent in 2004 that killed at least 47 people.

Pakistan/Terrorism: police thwart attack on oil facility in Karachi

Police in Karachi foiled an attack on an oil storage facility near the country's main port after the gunmen killed a guard, the city's police chief said on Tuesday. "Three men wearing women's burqas in a van wanted to enter the city's oil terminal but were resisted by a facility guard," city police chief Wasim Ahmed told reporters. "They shot dead the guard (who was outside the main gate) and fled when a police patrol team exchanged fire with them," he added.

Ahmed said the police and other security guards retaliated and as a result the men fled, leaving behind 10 hand grenades, three AK-47 rifles and three burqas. "We suspect they wanted to carry out a big terror activity which our prompt police action thwarted. We are vigilant and our security measures have so far saved the city from any major terror incident," Ahmed said.

Separately, at least 28 Taleban militants and two soldiers were killed in a suspected US drone strike and attacks carried out by Pakistani troops in the North Waziristan tribal district near the Afghan border on Monday, officials said. It was the third missile strike in the region within a week, as two simultaneous aerial raids last Monday and Tuesday killed at least 15 militants, including Uzbek fighters.

Pakistan/Terrorism: Taleban chief in Swat surrounded

Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik announced on Sunday that Taleban chief Maulvi Fazlullah in northwestern Pakistan’s Swat Valley has been surrounded and will be captured. “Fazlullah has been surrounded. He can’t run away," Malik told reporters after meeting leaders of ethnic Pashtun tribes from the northwest. "Fazlullah is now irrelevant, he’s a vegetable. I think he’ll be captured.”

Malik security forces did not want to kill “100 innocents to capture one man”. He said the security forces were also closing in on Mangal Bagh, leader of the Lashkar-e-Islam in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Malik said seven terrorists from Maldives had been arrested from the tribal areas, adding cases would be filed against Muslim Khan under the anti-terrorism laws.

Pakistan launched a military offensive in the Swat valley, about 120 km northwest of Islamabad, in late April which killed more than 2,000 fighters. However, there has been no independent verification of that casualty estimate. The army captured Muslim Khan, who served as a senior negotiator for the Taleban, and Mahmood Khan, last week, the army said. Three other leaders were also arrested, it said. The Pakistani Taleban commander Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a missile attack by a US drone aircraft in his South Waziristan stronghold on the Afghan border in early August.

Pakistan/Terrorism: Taleban’s spokesman in Swat arrested

Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas announced on Friday that security forces have arrested the spokesman of the Taleban in the Swat valley. “The spokesman Muslim Khan and four other Taleban leaders were arrested from Swat in a successful operation,” the Major-General said.

Muslim Khan and senior Taleban commander Mehmood Khan, for whom authorities had offered rewards of 10 million rupees ($120,500) each, were arrested by security forces "in a successful operation in Swat", the army said in a statement. Three other militants - Fazl Ghafar, Abdul Rehman and Sartaj Ali - were also apprehended, army said.

The army claims it has killed over 1,800 militants in a four-month-long campaign in Swat and other parts of the Malakand division though the top militant leadership, including local Taleban chief Maulana Fazlullah, continues to evade them.

Pakistan/United Kingdom: liquid-bomb plot hatched in Pakistan: Intelligence

According to intelligence services a plot to blow up at least seven transatlantic aircraft using liquid bombs was masterminded from Pakistan. “In terms of Al-Qaida involvement, there is a large part of this plot that has been thought through or invented in Pakistan,” one counter-terrorism source said after the trial. This has been disclosed after more details emerged on Tuesday of the complex planned attacks.

The Woolwich Crown Court on Monday convicted three Britons of plotting to kill "thousands" by blowing up transatlantic airliners bound for North America in mid-flight suicide attacks using bombs made from liquid explosives. A jury in the court convicted ringleader Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, of Walthamstow, east London, of conspiring to activate bombs disguised as drinks. Tanvir Hussain, 28, and Assad Sarwar, 29, were also found guilty of the same charge.

The jury were shown intercepted emails in which Athe three British men asked Pakistani contacts for advice on building bombs in drinks bottles to detonate on flights. The emails were obtained by a court order in California requiring Yahoo! to disclose them. Reports said the men’s main point of contact was Rashid Rauf, a UK-born Muslim who fled to the tribal areas of Pakistan in 2002 after the murder of his uncle and developed strong links with Al-Qaeda. Intelligence services also reportedly believe he was a key contact of the gang in the 2005 bombings of the London transport system which killed 52 people.

Pakistan/Terrorism: troops killed 33 militants in Khyber

At least 33 suspected militants have been gunned down by Pakistani security forces on Sunday as part of a week-old campaign in the Khyber Pass, the main land route used to supply NATO and Afghan forces in Afghanistan. "Security forces targeted two militant centres. They destroyed them and killed 33 militants in the operation," a Frontier Corps spokesman said in a statement.

Reportedly, during Sunday's fighting, troops cleared two militant compounds and demolished 17 houses said to belong to militants. The military launched anti-militant operation in Khyber --the main border crossing for NATO and US supply convoys to Afghanistan-- last week following a suicide bomb attack at a checkpoint in the region which killed 22 policemen.

Khyber is on the main land and supply route through Pakistan into Afghanistan, where international forces are battling a Taleban insurgency. According to official reports nearly 120 militants have been killed in the past week, but independent casualty estimates are unavailable. Truck convoys carrying supplies to US, NATO and Afghan forces regularly come under attack as they move through the pass that links Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Pakistan/Terrorism: landmine kills 5 troops

Pakistani officials said a landmine exploded in the Taleban bastion of South Waziristan on Monday, killing five Pakistani soldiers on Monday. "The patrol was sent ahead of a military convoy to check the security on the road and a landmine laid by militants went off and killed five soldiers," an intelligence official in Wana, who declined to be identified, said.

The attack comes a day after security forces gunned down 33 militants as part of a week-old campaign in the Khyber Pass. During Sunday's fighting, troops cleared two militant compounds and demolished 17 houses said to belong to militants. The military launched anti-militant operation in Khyber --the main border crossing for NATO and US supply convoys to Afghanistan-- last week following a suicide bomb attack at a checkpoint in the region which killed 22 policemen.

Khyber is on the main land and supply route through Pakistan into Afghanistan, where international forces are battling a Taleban insurgency. According to official reports nearly 120 militants have been killed in the past week, but independent casualty estimates are unavailable. Truck convoys carrying supplies to US, NATO and Afghan forces regularly come under attack as they move through the pass that links Pakistan and Afghanistan.

India/Terrorism: top LET militant killed in gunbattle

Abu Jinda, a self-styled commander of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) was killed in an encounter with security forces Jammu's Reasi District early on Friday morning. According to officials an operation was launched by security forces in Batoi forest area of Mahore, 120 kms from Jammu, on early Friday morning. An encounter soon broke out in which the LeT militant identified as Abu Jindal alias Mohammad Avais code name Zuman of Pakistan was killed. Jindal is said to have had a role in masterminding the 26/11 terror conspiracy in Mumbai that claimed over 160 lives. It has been reported that some terrorists are still trapped in the region and efforts are on to flush them out or kill them.

Five militants were killed Wednesday by Indian army near the Line-of-Control in Kashmir, in what was described as an infiltration attempt by militants from the side of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

India/Terrorism: 5 militants killed in India-administered Kashmir

Army officials in India-administered Kashmir declared killing 5 militants early Wednesday, foiling an infiltration attempt. The militants were reportedly trying to cross the Line of Control (LoC) in Gurez sector of north Kashmir's Bandipore district from Pakistan. "The group of terrorists was challenged, upon which they opened fire at the surrounding troops," said defence spokesperson Col Uma Maheshwar. " In the heavy exchange of fire, 5 militants were killed. The operation is under way in the remote area, and the firing is continuing."

India's Defence Ministry said militants are trying hard to carry out maximum number of infiltrations into India-administrated Kashmir before the winter season. Indeed, there have been several infiltration attempts in recent months. Meanwhile, in the Baramulla district on Tuesday, a special police officer (SPO) was killed and a trooper injured during a gun fight between security forces and militants. Police said the forces were carrying out a search operation when the militants open fired.

Religious affair minister wounded in a terrorist attack

Hamid Saeed Kazmi, the Pakistani minister for Religious Affairs has been wounded this wednesday by unidentified gunmen who shot him in the Pakistani Capital Islamabad.

"Gunmen sprayed bullets on the minister's car," said a police officer who added that one person was also killed during the attack. The minister's life is not in danger, he also said.

Pakistan/Terrorism: 45 militants killed, 105 Talebans surrender; 41 dead bodies recovered

According to the Pakistani Army, security forces have killed 45 militants and 105 Taleban militants have surrendered on Wednesday in Pakistan's restive northwestern tribal region. “105 Taleban fighters gave themselves up to the local administration in the Kabal area near the Mingora town in Swat,” said army spokesman Lt Col Akhtar Abbas. 41 militant dead bodies, including 2 top Lashkar-e-Islam commanders and Taleban fighters, have also been recovered from the Swat valley.

It has been reported that the militants were killed in separate army offensives in the Malakand division and Khyber region. Authorities said the dead bodies found in Swat valley were militants killed in revenge attacks by local residents. Also on Wednesday, the Army has launched an operation against the Lashkar-e-Islam and other groups in the Bara town of Khyber, following which 50 militants were arrested. Meanwhile, a private TV news channel in Islamabad, citing intelligence sources, said newly appointed Tehrik-e-Taleban chief Hakimullah Mehsud is already dead. “The Taleban is hiding the fact to save their image,” said the news report today.

Pakistan/Terrorism: Religious Affair minister wounded in a terrorist attack

Pakistani police said unknown gunmen shot and wounded Pakistan's religious affairs minister, Hamid Saeed Kazmi, in an attack in the capital Islamabad on Wednesday that killed his driver."Gunmen sprayed bullets on the minister's car," said a police officer who identified himself as Qasim.

Islamabad's Federal Government Services Hospital doctor Khalid Hussain said Kazmi suffered a gunshot wound to a leg but was in stable condition. "Mr Kazmi is wounded but stable," Hussain said.

No one has claimed to have carried out the attack. Kazmi has been a key figure in opposing the Taleban in Pakistan, continuing to carry out reforms of religious schools and working with senior clerics to denounce the militants' tactics.

Pakistan/Terrorism: troops killed 5 militants, 12 arrested

Pakistani troops gunned down at least five militants and arrested 12 others on Tuesday in a security operation in Pakistan's north-western tribal area along the Afghan border, officials said. "Our troops faced stiff resistance from the terrorists, and during an exchange of fire, five militants, including two commanders, were killed," corps spokesman Major Fazalur Rehman said. "Three soldiers were injured while the security forces destroyed three hideouts of the militants," he added.

Reportedly, the army operation was aimed against Lashkar-e-Islam, a militant group that has close links with the Taleban.The militant group is believed to be behind a number of terrorist attacks inside the Khyber district and the neighbouring city of Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province.

Separately, in another offensive against militants Pakistani troops killed 15 militants in fresh clashes in Swat. "It was very precise and we managed to kill 15 militants," Lt. Col. Akhtar Abbas, a military spokesman in Swat, said of the attack launched on Monday evening. The army went on the offensive in Swat in late April and says it has killed over 2,000 militants, and lost 312 soldiers in the fighting. Independent casualty estimates are unavailable.

United States/Pakistan/Security: Washington upset about reports on illegal modifications on Harpoon

According to reports by the Press Trust of India (PTI) on Tuesday, the United States has expressed serious concern on reports about Pakistan making illegal modifications to the American-made Harpoon anti-ship missile. "This is something that we take very seriously. We have raised the issue with the Pakistani government," said P J Crowley, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs. Islamabad has also been accused of modifying the P-3C aircraft for land-attack operations – in violations of the US law, including the Arms Control Export Act.

The New York Times, quoting an unnamed American official, said Sunday that the modifications will increase the missile's capability in taking out land targets. The missiles could be a potential threat to India, if the reports are found true. Meanwhile, Islamabad has rejected the allegations and said they are open for any investigation into the reports. “The (Pakistani) government has responded with an agreement in principle for mutually agreed inspections,” added Crowley.