Pakistan/Somalia/Piracy: Pakistani nationals may be training Somali pirates

The Times of India newspaper reported on Tuesday that there are growing concerns about possible links between pirates and terrorist groups after authorities confirmed the first case of alleged Pakistani involvement with Somalian pirates. It said that investigations into the hijacking of a Russian warship in April by Somali pirates show that Pakistani nationals played an important role in the hijack. 12 Pakistanis had been apprehended along with the Somali pirates.

Authorities have confirmed the first case of alleged Pakistani involvement with Somali pirates in a revelation that has raised concerns here about a possible link between piracy and suspected terrorist groups. On April 28, a Russian warship apprehended 12 Pak nationals — along with Somali pirates — for attempting to attack a tanker off Somalia’s coast.

Sources said that an investigation, indicates Pak nationals having played a 'lead' role. Their nationality was confirmed through identity cards and “evidence” was handed over on May 8 to MSS Rehmat, a Pakistan Maritime Security Agency ship, 20 km of Gwadar. Islamabad first claimed that these men were fishermen but three months on, there is no word on the probe.

Pakistan/Terrorism: blast kills 16 police cadets in Mingora

At least 16 police recruits of the newly-formed Community Police Force have been killed and four others injured when a suspected suicide bomber blew himself up inside a police training centre in Mingora on Sunday, officials said. Reportedly, about 50 cadets of the force were getting training at the centre when the bomber sneaked into the parade ground and detonated explosives strapped to his body. “At least 16 police cadets died Sunday after a suicide bomber sneaked into the courtyard where they were training in Swat's main town of Mingora and detonated his explosives,” local government official Atifur Rehman said.

Deputy Inspector General Idrees Khan of the district police said that authorities were looking into reports the attacker may have disguised a uniform and slipped into the station posing as one of the dozens of recruits. "We are investigating whether the bomber climbed over the wall of the police station, or whether he was already present among the police cadets," Khan said.

Separately on Sunday, suspected Taleban militants set fire to 18 container trucks carrying supplies for Western forces in neighbouring Afghanistan in the Pakistani border town of Chaman. "The attackers probably had planted explosives under one of the oil tankers which went off, setting others on fire," Abdul Rauf, a senior border police official, told reporters. "Eighteen trucks have completely been destroyed." No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks so far.

Pakistan/Terrorism: army killed 45 Taleban militants

At least 45 suspected Taleban militants have been gunned down by Pakistani troops in scattered gunbattles across the northwestern Swat Valley after a suicide bombing on a police station killed 17 cadets, the army said Monday. A spokesman for the Pakistan Army, who preferred not to be named said the militants were killed during clashes with the security forces.

On Sunday, a suicide bomber sneaked into a police courtyard in the valley's main town yesterday and killed 17 cadets while they were training. The attack was the deadliest since the military regain control of most of Swat in July.

In another attack on the same day, suspected Taleban militants set fire to 18 container trucks carrying supplies for Western forces in neighbouring Afghanistan in the Pakistani border town of Chaman. Taleban militants were suspected in both the police station bombing and the attack on the trucks, which came hours apart.

Pakistan/Terrorism: Qaeda’s Zawahri calls for jihad

Ayman al-Zawahri, Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command on Friday accused the United States of leading a crusade to turn Pakistan into a divided nation and urged Pakistanis to join in a jihad to resist. “The war in the tribal areas and Swat is an integral part of the crusade on Muslims across the world,” Zawahri said in a tape posted on an Al-Qaeda-linked website.

Zawahri's statement comes after Pakistani Taleban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US missile strike on Aug. 5. “People of Pakistan ... back the jihad and mujahideen with your persons, wealth, opinion, expertise, information and prayers and by exhorting others to help them and preach their message.” Zawahri, in his 22-minute video address entitled “Path of Doom” reiterates comments made in July calling for Pakistanis to wage war against the American “crusaders” and the Pakistani army. "This is the battle, briefly and plainly; and this is why anyone who supports the Americans and Pakistan army -- under any pretext, ploy or lie -- is in fact standing with, backing and supporting the crusaders against Islam and Muslims."

The Pakistani military is fighting Taleban militants in the country's north, and missile attacks from suspected US drones have targeted militant leaders -- one of them killing Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taleban.

Pakistan/Terrorism: 5 killed on rebel death anniversary in Quetta

Pakistani police said on Thursday that five people have been killed and six injured, including three children, in several attacks in southwestern Pakistan on the third anniversary of the death of Baluch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Bugti. “Gunmen riding motorbikes shot dead four people outside a hospital in Quetta, the capital of the restive Baluchistan province, late Wednesday,” police officer Rana Khalid said.

Khalid said in a separate incident, suspected militants lobbed a hand grenade into a tailor shop in the city, killing a man wounding two others. In another incident a policeman and his three children were wounded when a home-made bomb was hurled into their home, Khalid said.

Nawab Akbar Bugti was killed in a military crackdown on August 26, 2006. To mark the death anniversary of the nationalist leader, separatist rebel groups ordered shops to close and public and private vehicles to stay off the roads in Quetta and several other cities for one day in observance of the anniversary.

Pakistan/Terrorism: suspected suicide bomber kills 15 near Afghan border

According to government officials at least 15 Pakistani border police were killed on Thursday in a suspected suicide bomb attack at the main crossing point into Afghanistan. The attack took place in the Khyber tribal region while policemen were gathering to break their fast. "A suicide bomber blew himself up in the residential barracks of the local policemen at Torkham town near the Afghan border, killing at least 15 people," local administration official Rehan Gul Khattak told reporters. Khattak said,"most of those killed in the attack were policemen".

A security official in the area also confirmed the attack and the number of casualties. Another local administration official, Naeem Afridi feared the death toll would rise. He said, "vehicles of local administration were shifting the injured and dead bodies to local hospital." The attack came hours after a US missile strike in Kaniguram village of South Waziristan tribal region killed at least four militants on Thursday. No group has claimed responsibility for Thursday's attack.

Pakistan/Terrorism: jets pound Taleban positions in South Waziristan

According to Pakistani intelligence officials on Wednesday, fighter planes bombarded Taleban hideouts in the Madi Jam area, east of the Wana town in South Waziristan. The air strikes reportedly came after two soldiers were killed in a Taleban attack earlier in the day. However, a military official said the operation was "basically a road clearance operation. Gunships and heavy artillery are taking part. Jet fighters also bombed their positions”. "We are facing some minor resistance, militants are firing rockets and using other weapons," declared another official.

The bombardment also came at a time when analysts are advising Islamabad to make full use of the apparent rifts in the Taleban insurgency regarding its leadership. The Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan (TeTP) had confirmed on Tuesday the death of its leader Baitullah Mehsud. Hakimullah Mehsud, an aide to Baitullah, and and his rival, senior militant Wali-ur-Rehman had also announced that Hakimullah will be the new chief and Rehman will lead the TeTP rebels in South Waziristan. However, ex-security chief Mahmood Shah said, "I don't think this power-sharing can work for long. Their differences can re-emerge any time".

India/Pakistan/Security: Interpol issues Red Corner notice against Saeed, Lakhvi

India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said Interpol on Wednesday issued Red Corner Notice against  Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder chief, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, and mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi in connection with with the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.

The Interpol issued notice against Abu Hamza, accused of motivating and training the 10 terrorists sent to Mumbai for carrying out the terror strike. Ajmal Iman Kasab, the lone arrested terrorist in the attack, had revealed the names of his Pakistani handlers, including Abu Hamza, Abu Jindal, Abu Qama and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, who saw them off when they boarded a ship at Karachi.

The Red Corner notice were issued after the Central Bureau of Investigation approached the international agency for the same with non-bailable warrants against the Pakistan-based Saeed and Lakhvi. CBI spokesman said Blue Corner notices were issued against 19 people including Col R Sadat Ullah, believed to be a Pakistani army personnel.

Pakistan/Terrorism: Islamabad calls for action against Taleban's fund sources

Pakistan on Monday called for a unified action with Western governments against various sources that have been funding the Taleban insurgency. Pakistani ambassador to Turkey, Sardar Tariq Azizuddin, said it is high time that people should question Taleban's potential – that it has grown strong enough to attack NATO and US forces. “What is the source of Taleban funding and what is the source of their weapons supply? Nobody either talks about it or wants to talk about it.” The statement was made during a meeting of the “Friends of Democratic Pakistan” in Ankara. The United States, China, Saudi Arabia and the World Bank are included in the group.

Meanwhile, 13 Islamist militants were arrested in separate police raids in Pakistan on Monday. Police sources said the arrest uncovered plans for major terror attacks in the country. They also found drug money help fund the Taleban. Heroin and bomb-making material were recovered during a raid in Karachi.

Pakistan/Terrorism: police arrest 7 plotting Karachi attacks

Superintendent of Police Fayyaz Khan announced that seven militants belonging to an Al-Qaeda linked militant group who were planning to attack high profile targets in the country's biggest city, Karachi has been arrested. "The militants, belonging to the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) group, were arrested in a raid in the upmarket Defence neighbourhood where they had rented a bungalow,” Khan, said late on Sunday. "All of these militants belong to the LeJ and they were planning to attack important government buildings and senior government officials," Khan added. "We have recovered three suicide jackets, four AK-47 rifles, four pistols and 15 kg (33 lb) of explosives," he also said. The police superintendent said one of the detained men, Muhammad Shahzad, had also been involved in planning an attack on former president Pervez Musharraf and another attack on former prime minister Shaukat Aziz.

Separately on Sunday, three passers-by were killed and 15 injured in a suicide bombing in Pakistan's northwest city of Peshawar triggered by an apparent feud between rival militant groups. "There was a man who came in Momin town and opened fire on a house," senior Peshawar police official Sefwat Ghayour told reporters. "There was retaliatory fire from the house, and in the cross-fire, the suicide bomber blew himself up. In the suicide blast, two ladies and one man were killed and 15 are injured. Among the 15 injured, four are children."

Pakistan/Terrorism: journalist shot dead in Khyber Pass

Unidentified gunmen shot dead Janullah Hashimzada, an Afghan journalist after pulling him out of a bus in Pakistan's Khyber Pass on Monday, a Pakistani government official said.  "The attackers in a Toyota Corolla car intercepted the bus and made it stop and then they went inside and shot him dead," Rehan Khattak, a government official in Jamrud, the main town in the Khyber region, told reporters.

Khattak said one passenger was wounded. However, he declined to say who might have been behind the attack.  Hashimzada, 40, was the bureau chief in Peshawar for Afghanistan's Shamshad television channel. The journalist  was returning from Afghanistan in a passenger coach when militants ambushed the vehicle near Jamrud town of Khyber tribal district, a known stronghold of Taleban militants.

Over the past two years six journalists have been killed in north-west Pakistan.  The Vienna-based International Press Institute has previously said, branding the region "one of the world's most dangerous for journalists".

Pakistan/Kidnapping: French hostage released

A French hostage, who had been kidnapped last May 23 by gunmen as he made a trip in South of Pakistan, has been freed this Friday morning. According to an official of the Pakistani police, “he has been released and he is safe in the hands of the Pakistani authorities,” somewhere in the Balochistan region, South-west of Pakistan.

The man had been kidnapped last May 23 as he was on a trip with five other French tourists, including 2 children, in an area infested by Taleban, Islamist and Baloch fighters.

Pakistan/Terrorism: 12 militants killed in army offensive

According to the paramilitary Frontier Corps of Pakistan  on Friday, 12 militants were killed during a military operation in the Michni area of Mohmand tribal region near the Afghan border. Several militant hideouts were also destroyed during the raid. "Twelve militants were killed and four of their hideouts destroyed during the operation," said the military statement. "The troops also seized heavy arms, ammunition and explosives during the operation."

The tribal semi-autonomous regions in northwest Pakistan, which borders Afghanistan, has become a stronghold for hundreds of pro-Taleban militants. Pakistan blames the militants for carrying out several deadly attacks. Recently, the Army also carried out a months-long offensive against militants hiding in North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The military had also declared that they have successfully quelled militants in three districts of Swat, Lower Dir and Buner.

The United States also carry out frequent drone attacks in the country's tribal regions. One of its recent air-raids struck Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud.

Pakistan/Terrorism: Pak Taleban deputy declared himself temporary chief

Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, the deputy commander of the Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan, declared Wednesday that he will be temporarily leading the group. He also declined claims by Washington and Islamabad that Baitullah Mehsud has been killed. "As the deputy leader, and now since Baitullah Mehsud is unable to perform as head of the organization due to health reasons, I am assuming the role of acting as the chief," he said.

Earlier, it was reported that the 42-member Taleban council, a.k.a Shura, elected Mohammad as the new successor. However, he has clarified the reports were baseless. “Commanders Wali-ur-Rehman and Hakimullah Mehsud had no right to elect a new Taleban chief without consulting all militant factions.”

Meanwhile, he also said Muslim Khan would replace Maulvi Omar as the new spokesman for the group. Security forces arrested Omar in the Mohmand tribal region earlier on Monday. He had confessed during interrogation that Mehsud was killed in a US drone attack. On this, Muhammad claimed the statement was "forcibly extracted" from Omar.

Pakistan/Terrorism: troops capture Tehrik-e-Taleban spokesman

Pakistani intelligence officials declared Tuesday that their security forces have captured Mauvi Omar, a Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan spokesman, in an operation in the Khawazeo village of Mohmand tribal region near the Afghan border. The officials, who requested not to be named, further said local tribal elders helped the forces in finding Omar.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani military has not yet released any official confirmation. "A very, very important militant has been arrested," said Major Fazal-Ur-Rehman, the head of the military's media department. Indeed the seizure would be a blow to the terror group, specially after the reported killing of Taleban chief Baitullah Mehsud in a US missile strike on August 5.

Police sources, on the condition anonymity, also declared capturing “a senior Pakistani Taleban commander and close aide to Mehsud” on Monday night. “Militant commander Qari Saifullah was arrested after he arrived in Islamabad seeking medical treatment after he got injured during a US drone strike in South Waziristan,” said the sources.

Pakistan/India/Defence: Islamabad asks New Delhi to share information on possible terror attacks

Pakistan asked India on Monday to share information about any possible terrorist attacks that India claims will occur in the near future. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry expressed its concern by summoning India's deputy high commissioner in Islamabad. It came as a response to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement that there was "credible information" of plans by Pakistan-based terrorist groups to attack India.

"The Indian prime minister's remarks warrant serious and prompt attention. We would request India to share information that they have and for our part we stand ready to cooperate fully in preempting any act of terror," said Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

Besides warning about the possible attack, Prime Minister Singh also urged security forces to stay on high alert. "After the Mumbai attacks, we have put in place additional measures. There is need for continued utmost vigilance," he added. Relations between the two nations considerably deteriorated after Mumbai terror attack, that left 166 people dead. However, both nations agreed in July to resume dialogue – without resuming their peace process.

Pakistan/Terrorism: blast  6 kills in Peshawar

At least six people including two children were reportedly killed and several others wounded when a car bomb exploded near a petrol station in Charsadda town, about 30 kilometres northeast of Peshawar, the capital of the troubled North West Frontier Province on Monday. "Six people were killed and eight injured in the explosion. It was a passenger vehicle... the bomb was planted in a pick-up," district police chief Mohammad Riaz Khan, said.

The district police chief said that two women and two children were among the dead, and police were investigating the motive behind the blast. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred hours after two security personnel were killed and three more injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up shortly after he was stopped at a check post in Mingora, the main city in Swat on Sunday night.

Separately on Monday, Ali Sher Haideri, chief of the Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan, a banned Sunni Muslim militant party in Pakistan was shot dead on Monday in an apparent sectarian attack. “He was killed along with one of his companions who was driving the car, while one of the six attackers was also killed when his guards returned fire,” Pir Muhammad Shah, chief of police in Khairpur, said. Haideri was the spiritual leader of Sipah-e-Sahaba, an extremist Sunni group blamed for attacks against the country’s minority Shiites, whom they regard as heretics.

Pakistan/Terrorism: 1 killed, 18 injure in 3 separate bomb blasts

According to police Sources, 1 person was killed and 18 others injured in 3 separate bomb explosions on Friday in the province of Baluchistan in Pakistan. Police officer Abdul Hameed Lasi gave accounts of an explosion in a crowded market in the industrial town of Hub, about 570 kilometers south of the Quetta city that killed one man and injured 15 other. “The explosives was rigged to a motorcycle,” he said, further noting the attack was likely the work of a separatist group.

Meanwhile, police officer Abdul Qadoos said 2 more bomb exploded in a street in the town of Mach, 50 kilometers east of Quetta. Three people were injured in the attack.

Pakistan/Terrorism: military helicopters pounds Taleban commander's bases, 12 killed

At least 12 suspected Taleban have been killed when Pakistani warplanes attacked several bases of a key Taleban commander in the country's northwest on Thursday, intelligence officials said. "Military helicopters destroyed several bases and hide-outs Thursday morning near the Kurram and Orakzai tribal regions run by militant commander Hakimullah Mehsud," intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity.

The officials said troops saw the bodies from the air but did not retrieve them. Several militants were also wounded, and the casualties could rise because some people were believed to be still buried under the rubble of their hide-outs. The fighting followed days of confusion claims over Baitullah Mehsud's fate. While US and Pakistani officials say they are almost certain he is dead. On the other hand,Taleban commanders announced that he is alive.

Thursday's assault followed fierce clashes broke out between fighters loyal to Mehsud, and a pro-government warlord, Turkistan Bitani, on the fringes of the South Waziristan region. At least 70 people were reported killed. “The fighting broke out in the Jandola area, just outside Mehsud's stronghold in South Waziristan, between Mehsud's group and that of Turkistan Bitani, a tribal warlord allied with the government,” an official, who preferred not to be named said.

Pakistan/Security: three attacks on Pak nuclear sites by jihadists

Shaun Gregory, director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom, claimed that Taleban and Al-Qaeda terrorists have attacked nuclear sites in Pakistan at least thrice in the last two years. "Militants have recently attacked a number of Pakistan's nuclear facilities, including an August 20, 2008 incident at the Wah cantonment, widely understood to be one of Pakistan's main nuclear weapons assembly sites," Gregory said.

In an article, "The Terrorist Threat to Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons" that has been published in July issue of CTC Sentinel, published by a research institution based in the Department of Social Sciences at the US Military Academy, West Point, Gregory wrote, “The concern, however, is that most of Pakistan's nuclear sites are close to or even within areas dominated by Pakistani Taliban and home to Al-Qaeda.” "A series of attacks on nuclear weapons facilities has also occurred. These have included an attack on the nuclear missile storage facility at Sargodha on November 1, 2007, an attack on Pakistan's nuclear airbase at Kamra by a suicide bomber on December 10, 2007, and perhaps most significantly the August 20, 2008" he said