Saudi diplomat shot dead in Karachi

KARACHI: A Saudi diplomat was killed in a drive-by shooting near the consulate in Karachi on Monday, the second attack on Saudi interests in Pakistan's biggest city in less than a week, officials said.

The motive of the attack was not immediately clear, but authorities said they were investigating whether it was connected to the death of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, who was killed by US forces in Pakistan on May 2.

An official from the media section of the Saudi embassy identified the man as a Saudi diplomat. Karachi police named him as Hassan al-Khatani.

Police said that the Saudi had been driving a vehicle with diplomatic plates when two motorcycle riders unleashed a hail of gunfire at a crossroads in Defence.

"The consulate employee died of multiple bullet wounds on the spot," said Inspector General of Sindh Police Fayyaz Ahmad Leghari.

"The attackers fled on the motorbike," he added. "At this moment, we can't say who killed him," Leghari said.

Provincial home ministry official Sharfuddin Memon identified the dead man as a junior officer at the consulate.

"We are investigating if it was linked to the Abbottabad operation or was an isolated incident," he said.

Last Wednesday, drive-by assailants threw two grenades at the consulate in Karachi in what officials said could have been reaction to bin Laden's death.

But there was no claim of responsibility for the attack.

Saudi Arabia condemned the grenade assault a "terror attack" and said it had "full confidence" in Pakistan's ability to arrest the assailants, bring them to justice and provide the necessary protection to the Saudi mission. (AFP)

IMF Chief in custody sex attack

New York : IMF Chief Mr Strauss-Kahn sex attack on hotel maid being questioned New York police arrest JFK airport on Saturday. Mr Strauss-Kahn John F Kennedy airport minutes before it left for Paris New York police was taken into custody IMF chief.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, 62 years old.He had not been charged woman 32 who filed the complaint against.woman who worked at the hote. Strauss-Kahn, a possible candidate in the French presidency election.Next Aprial French presidency election but complaint against sex attack Mr Strauss.Police said emergency medical service to the Roosevelt Hotel minor injuries woman.The IMF had no comment on the incident.

President, PM ordered Raymond Davis release: ISI chief

ISLAMABAD: Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha told the joint parliamentary session that CIA contractor and killer of two Pakistanis Raymond Davis was handed over to the US on orders of President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, a PML-N MP quoted the chief spymaster as saying.

When contacted by The News, Senator Mushahidullah said Gen Pasha stated: “We advised the government to resolve the issue. But we did what we were finally asked by the president and the prime minister to do.”

The issue of Raymond Davis figured when Pasha faced critical inquires from the PPP’s Fauzia Wahab besides the PML-N’s Mushahidullah and Anusha Rehman.

“Pasha initially tried to evade the questions but later said the ISI has acted on the advice of the prime minister and the president,” confirmed another MNA. He left untouched the questions like who paid the blood money, where the deal was done and the present whereabouts of the families, thereby confirming the suspicions already lingering in the mind of the public and politicians.

Senator Mushahidullah recounted several relevant and revolutionary couplets from the works of different poets including Habib Jalib and others to buttress his arguments. He asked: Who paid the blood money (Diyat); where are its recipients and how was Davis sent out of Pakistan when his passport is still with the Punjab government? He said when no response came to his question, he repeated it and ultimately got the reply.

He said that as the ISI chief has talked about forging unity in the nation at this point of time on the Abbottabad episode, there would be instant matchless national harmony and cohesion, more than that of the 1965 war, if just two announcements are made: one, Gen Pasha should declare that from now onward his agency would not make or break political parties, or create favourites in any political force by taking certain politicians to its safe houses; second, the Army chief or the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on his behalf should announce that the military would never destabilise the democratic system or impose martial law.

Responding to this, Lt-Gen Pasha, according to Mushahidullah, said: “On our own, we have decided to stay away from politics; and when I meet the Army chief, he too says there will be no derailing of the democratic system.”

The senator said in his remarks that it was a pity that the colonel and the major who tortured Makhdoom Javed Hashmi in the Sarwar Road Lahore police station served in the Army later as well and one of them recently retired as general.

Gen Shuja Pasha raised many eyebrows when he disclosed that there was not a single written Pak-US agreement over counter-terrorism operations inside the country starting from drone strikes to providing logistic facilities and joint operations.

He, therefore, stressed on the government to put in writing the degree of cooperation and the extent of operations to be carried out jointly or single-handedly in Pakistan.

Pasha also apprised the parliamentarians of the backlash of the ongoing Afghan war on Pakistan that, he said, would continue suffering for another five to 10 years.

As he spoke on the question of slippage of al-Qaeda leadership into Pakistan after 9/11, the ISI chief argued they could have been sorted out inside Afghanistan had the US shared information with the Pakistani authorities but this was not done despite repeated requests.

Background interviews with different lawmakers revealed the briefing went well after a bumpy start as Pasha’s opening remarks offended parliamentarians, in particular the PML-N, as they were said to be ‘couched in taunts and showed arrogance’.

The ISI DG, for example, opened his speech complaining about the indifference of the political class towards the sacrifices the spy agency had rendered in the war against terrorism after losing 86 officials whose families were now being looked after by the agency. As he said this, many lawmakers raised their hands to affirm that they had either met the families or spoke to the ISI officials regarding them.

Senator Pervez Rashid intervened, pointing towards Pasha’s speech terming it ‘political’, and saying they still have many questions to answer but that the spy chief must remain focused to the point for which he has been summoned. Opposition leader Ch Nisar Ali Khan and Tehmina Daultana echoed the same line, thereby putting Pasha and his supporters on the defensive.

According to insiders, Pasha spoke at length answering several key questions. Among them were the reported Pak-US agreements on drone strikes, unilateral strikes inside Pakistan in hunt for high-value targets, logistic facilities to Americans and granting them permission to operate inside Pakistan.

There have been many reports in the western media indicating that Pakistan had agreed on unilateral strikes, like the Osama bin Laden operation, drone strikes and the use of Pakistani bases by the Americans. A denial of these reports by the spy chief before the joint sitting of parliament was considered highly significant.

Bin Laden’s communication system evaded US intelligence

AL Arabiya : Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden had developed sophisticated tactics to communicate with his followers worldwide via the Internet without leaving digital traces for the US government, American intelligence officials have said.

Bin Laden would type a message on his computer without an Internet connection, then save it in flash memory. Then a trusted courier would take the flash drive to a distant Internet café, plug it into a computer, copy Bin Laden’s message into an email and send it, an intelligence official told the Associated Press.

Reversing the process, the courier would copy any incoming email to the flash drive and return to the compound, where Bin Laden would read his messages offline.

Bin Laden’s traditional system of secrecy was built on trust, which made it difficult to trace using modern-day digital means. The system was so slow and tedious that veteran intelligence officials have marveled at Bin Laden’s ability to maintain it for so long.

The US always suspected Bin Laden was communicating through couriers but did not anticipate the breadth of his communications as revealed by the materials he left behind.

Navy SEALs hauled away roughly 100 flash memory drives after they killed Bin Laden, and officials said they appear to archive the back-and-forth communication between Bin Laden and his associates around the world, according to the Associated Press.

Al Qaeda operatives are known to change email addresses, so it’s unclear how many are still active since Bin Laden’s death on May 1. But the long list of electronic addresses and phone numbers in the emails is expected to touch off a flurry of national security letters and subpoenas to Internet service providers.

The US Justice Department is already coming off a year in which it significantly increased the number of national security letters, which allow the FBI to quickly demand information from companies and others without asking a judge to formally issue a subpoena.

Officials gave no indication that Bin Laden was communicating with anyone inside the US, but terrorists have historically used US-based Internet providers or free Internet-based email services.

The cache of electronic documents is so enormous that the US government has enlisted Arabic speakers from around the intelligence community to pore over it.

Officials have said the records revealed no new terror plots but showed Bin Laden remained involved in Al Qaeda’s operations long after the US had assumed he had passed control to his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The files seized from Bin Laden’s compound not only have the potential to help the US find other Al Qaeda figures, they may also force terrorists to change their routines. That could make them more vulnerable to making mistakes and being discovered.

Six Pakistanis charged in US for aiding Taliban

WASHINGTON: US officials arrested three Pakistani Americans on Saturday and charged them and three others with providing or conspiring to provide "material support" to the Pakistani Taliban, the US Justice Department said.

"All six defendants are charged with conspiring to provide, and providing, material support to a conspiracy to murder, maim and kidnap persons overseas, as well as conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, specifically, the Pakistani Taliban," the department said in a statement.

Hafiz Sher Ali, 76-year-old man and his two his two sons, Irfan Khan and Izhar Khan were arrested from different parts of the country, the Justice Department said.

FBI arrested Hafiz Sher Ali and Izhar Khan from South Florida while Irfan Khan was rounded up from Los Angeles.

The US Justice Department further said three others including Ali Rehman alias Faisal Ali Rehman, Alam Zaib and Amina Bibi (daughter of Hafiz Sher Ali) had also been charged but, added that they were at large in Pakistan.