Pakistan To Deport 5 U.S. Terror Suspects

Pakistan is planning to deport five Americans held on terror links to the United States after they were grilled by a special FBI team in the capital Islamabad, local media reported Saturday.

The five-member team of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) along with Pakistani intelligence officials, a legal advisor and a political counsellor of the U.S. embassy to Pakistan is engaged in grilling the five Americans about their alleged links with militant organizations and future plans, a senior interior ministry official told media.

“As soon as the investigations are over, they will be deported to their country,” the official said.

Pakistani authorities arrested the five people on Wednesday in the northeastern city of Sargodha, about 180 km south of Islamabad.

Police said that the suspects were arrested from a house of a local leader of banned militant organization Jaish-e-Muhammad.

Their local host has been handed over to police on a remand by a local court.

Pictures of the detainees shown on the private TV station Friday showed the five young men, most of them clean-shaven, in Western clothing.

It’s not a matter concerning to the U.S. only, said the interior ministry official.

“We too are concerned about this. Therefore, our interrogators are also grilling them to know about their aides here, and their future plans,” he said.

U.S. President Barack Obama has promised an investigation into how and why the five men left the U.S. for Pakistan.

Pakistan is in the grip of a fierce insurgency, with hundreds of people killed in attacks in the past months.

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Five Missing Americans Probed for Terror Links

UPDATE: Five Americans arrested at a house linked to a militant group in eastern Pakistan have told investigators they came to the country to take part in “jihad” or holy war, police said Thursday.

U.S. officials believe the five are men who were reported missing more than a week ago by their families in the Washington, D.C., area. The families asked the FBI for help after finding a farewell video left by the men showing scenes of war and casualties and saying Muslims must be defended.

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Five young Americans captured in Pakistan are under investigation for possibly trying to meet up with a terror group, authorities said Wednesday. Two U.S. officials said one of the men left a “farewell” video behind saying Muslims must be defended, and showing images of U.S. casualties.

Frantic relatives and worried FBI agents have been searching for the five college-age men for more than a week, since their disappearance in late November. The missing students have family roots in the northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., area.

Two U.S. officials said one of the group _ they did not say which one _ left behind what investigators believe was a farewell video message, in which he talks about defending Muslims and shows images of U.S. casualties. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.

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West Warned on Nuclear Terrorist Threat From Pakistan

The next few months will be crucial in defusing a global terrorist threat that would be even deadlier than the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, a leading Washington counter-terrorism expert warns.

David Kilcullen — a former Australian army lieutenant colonel who helped devise the US troop surge that revitalised the American campaign in Iraq — fears Pakistan is at risk of falling under al-Qaeda control.

If that were to happen, the terrorist group could end up controlling what Dr Kilcullen calls “Talibanistan”. “Pakistan is what keeps me awake at night,” said Dr Kilcullen, who was a specialist adviser for the Bush administration and is now a consultant to the Obama White House.

“Pakistan has 173 million people and 100 nuclear weapons, an army which is bigger than the American army, and the headquarters of al-Qaeda sitting in two-thirds of the country which the Government does not control.”

Compounding that threat, the Pakistani security establishment ignored direction from the elected Government in Islamabad as waves of extremist violence spread across the whole country — not just in the tribal wilds of the Afghan border region.

“We have to face the fact that if Pakistan collapses it will dwarf anything we have seen so far in whatever we’re calling the war on terror now,” Dr Kilcullen told The Age during an interview at his Washington office. Late last month, when US President Barack Obama unveiled his new policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, he warned that al-Qaeda would fill the vacuum if Afghanistan collapsed, and that the terror group was already rooted in Pakistan, plotting more attacks on the US.

As the US implements its new strategy in Central Asia, Dr Kilcullen warned that time was running out for international efforts to pull both countries back from the brink.

via West warned on nuclear terrorist threat from Pakistan.

Panel Fears Use of Biological, Nuclear or Other Unconventional Weapon By 2013

An independent commission has concluded that terrorists will most likely carry out an attack with biological, nuclear or other unconventional weapons somewhere in the world in the next five years unless the United States and its allies act urgently to prevent that.

In a report to be released this week, the Congressionally mandated panel found that with countries like Iran and North Korea pursuing nuclear weapons programs, and with the risk of poorly secured biological pathogens growing, unconventional threats are fast outpacing the defenses arrayed to confront them. Read more

Mumbai Terror Continues

Update: The standoff in the Indian commercial capital of Mumbai narrowed to a final running battle between commandos and at least one gunman who was still roaming the charred corridors of a luxury hotel, the Taj Mahal, but the murderous assault on this city continued to shake the nation and ratcheted up tensions with neighboring Pakistan.

American intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Friday there was mounting evidence that a Pakistani militant group based in Kashmir, most likely Lashkar-e-Taiba, was responsible for the deadly attacks on Mumbai.

After two days of fighting, Indian security forces killed the attackers in one luxury hotel in the city known as the Oberoi Trident, freeing civilians trapped inside, as well as gunmen occupying the headquarters of an Orthodox Jewish organization nearby, ending the conflicts there.

All told, police said, more than 150 people, including at least 22 foreigners, were killed in the attacks across the city, which began on Wednesday night, as more bodies were carried out from the two hotels and the community center.

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DAY 3: TERROR AT THE TAJ…

Gunmen seemed to be sure of hotel terrain…

Staff emerge as heroes…

Troops battle to end Mumbai siege…

Explosives found at hotel…

Commandos storm Jewish Center…

Rabbi and wife killed…

‘Still not under control’…

India points the finger at Pakistan…

British citizens among killers?

TIMELINE…

New York guards against Mumbai-like attacks…

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Officials said as many as 30 people could still remain hostage in a luxury hotel tonight after terrorist attacks that have plunged the Indian financial capital of Mumbai into chaos.

Indian military commandos continued to exchange fire with an unknown number of militants one day after coordinated groups of gunmen shot and blasted their way through tourist sites around Mumbai on Wednesday night, apparently targeting American, Israeli and British citizens for use as hostages.

By late today, the toll had reached 125 dead and several hundred wounded. Among the dead were at least one Australian, a Japanese and a British national, officials say.

Indian officials say commandos are engaged in a fierce gunfight with terrorists holding an unknown number of hostages inside the luxury Oberoi-Trident hotel complex in Mumbai.

Police have taken at least seven people out of the two-hotel complex, one of three buildings where gunmen are still holding hostages in country’s financial capital.

The roof of the Oberoi hotel was ablaze as a result of explosions inside the building.

Commandos reportedly were sweeping through the adjoining Trident hotel, checking to see if terrorists were using it as an escape route.

There are reports that some of the terrorists may have fled Mumbai in stolen government Jeeps, and that police and military forces were setting up checkpoints and roadblocks around the city.

The Associated Press reports one of the rescued hostages told reporters he had seen many bodies inside the hotel. He did not give his name.

Indian TV, meanwhile, reports government officials fear the death toll at the Taj Mahal hotel could be high, with as many as 80-90 bodies inside. Some of the dead appear to have been killed by the gunmen, while others may have died in subsequent explosions and fires.

Reuters reports a militant at the Lubavitch Center phoned an Indian TV station with an offer to talk with government officials about the release of hostages.

The caller reportedly also complained about abuses in Indian Kashmir.

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CIA Getting Closer To bin Laden

Osama bin Laden is no doubt feeling that his days of hiding may soon be coming to an abrubt end. Watching his al Qaeda leadership getting picked off by predator drones day after day, almost at will, he almost certainly has to believe that it’s just a matter of time.

Hopes of capturing Osama bin Laden rose sharply among terrorist hunters in Pakistan last night as details emerged of the targeted weekend attacks by unmanned CIA Predator drones that killed Rashid Rauf, the alleged mastermind of the 2006 plot to blow up transatlantic airliners.

Rauf, a British citizen linked to al-Qa’ida’s leadership, was killed when the compound where he was hiding in the heart of Pakistan’s tribal belt was bombarded by Hellfire missiles fired from the US drones, which are said to have killed at least four major militant operatives this month.

The targeted bungalow in Khaisoor, North Waziristan, belonged to Khaliq Noor, who locals say is not a Taliban figure but who rented it to the militants. The village is a Taliban stronghold – it was here that Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud and Pakistan government officials signed the 2005 peace agreement that the Americans regard as a surrender to terrorism.

Rauf, who was hunted by US, British and Pakistani intelligence agencies, was being protected by al-Qa’ida, intelligence sources in Islamabad said last night.

It was reported that Pakistani intelligence had tracked him down and passed on the co-ordinates of where he was staying to the CIA. It is claimed he was killed in the strike, as well as Abu al-Asr Misri, an al-Qa’ida bomb maker and operations expert.

The CIA is said to be operating under new rules, approved by US President George W.Bush, that reduce the “confidence threshold” for “high value” targets believed to be in a target zone from 90 per cent likely to between 50 and 60 per cent before a strike can be ordered.

“I guess it’s a long way between saying, ‘Look, we’ve got Rauf and a bunch of other major al-Qa’ida and Taliban figures in the past two or three months’, and saying that if we can get them there’s no reason why we can’t get Bin Laden and (Ayman) al-Zawahiri – but that’s the way it’s shaping up,” a senior Western intelligence source in Islamabad said yesterday. “I guess that after this and all that’s happened in the past few weeks as a result of the drones, Osama’s sleeping a little less easily in his bed at night.”

Retired Pakistani general and defence analyst Talat Masood was quoted as saying that the killing of Rauf, if confirmed, “goes to show US intelligence is improving”. He said: “The effects of Pakistan’s protests against such strikes will be minimal if there is convincing proof the missiles strikes are hitting senior al-Qa’ida figures, which Pakistan has been unable to do.”

In a US drone attack beyond Pakistan’s tribal areas last week, and for the first time against a target in a so-called settled area, a Saudi militant, Abdullah Azan al-Saudi, was killed as the Hellfire missiles ripped into a compound where he was staying in the town of Bannu. Al-Saudi was the main operational link between the al-Qa’ida and Taliban leaderships.

Earlier in the month, an Egyptian identified as al-Qa’ida’s Abu Jihad al-Misri was killed in another US drone attack in the North Waziristan Tribal Agency.

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US Kills Al Qaeda Mastermind of Airline Liquid Bomb Plot – Rashid Rauf

In what would be another major blow to al Qaeda, a CIA missile strike reportedly killed the long-sought British al Qaeda figure believed to have coordinated and planned the 2006 plot to use liquid bombs to blow up eight aircraft bound for the United States and Canada.

27-year old Rashid Rauf was killed, according to Pakistani officials, in an unmanned Predator missile strike against a home in the North Waziristan village of Khaisur shortly before dawn today.

A senior Pakistani intelligence official told ABCNews.com his death cannot be officially confirmed until the results of DNA tests are known because the bodies were burned beyond recognition in the attack.

But the official said the U.S. believes it is certain Rauf was killed.

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