Pakistan probes links to bombing of U.S. force

3 special operations soldiers, children killed in suicide attack on convoy

ISLAMABAD – Suspicion intensified Thursday that a suicide car bomber who killed three U.S. soldiers training Pakistani troops along the Afghan border had inside information on their movements. If confirmed that Wednesday’s suicide attack was aimed at the Americans, it would indicate an increased sophistication in militant tactics, as well as potential infiltration of extremists in Pakistani security forces.

A Pakistani police officer at the site of a suicide bombing attack that killed three U.S. soldiers in Pakistan on Wednesday. Source

Thousands of Pakistanis in at least four cities, meanwhile, protested a New York jury’s conviction of a U.S.-educated Pakistani woman for shooting at American security officials in Afghanistan — shouting anti-U.S. slogans and burning the Stars and Stripes.

The attack on U.S. forces occurred in Lower Dir, a northwest district believed to be a crossroads for al-Qaida and the Taliban. The blast also killed three schoolgirls and a Pakistani paramilitary soldier. Two more U.S. soldiers were among dozens wounded.

Police official Naeem Khan said Thursday that authorities were investigating whether the suicide bomber knew the soldiers would be passing through Shahi Koto town and which vehicle to target in the five-car convoy, which also included Pakistani troops.

Such convoys usually include green military vehicles carrying armed troops who are clearly visible. The Pakistani forces could also have been the target as they have frequently been over the past several years.

‘Massive search’
“We launched a massive search in the area yesterday, and now about 35 suspects are in our custody, and we are questioning them in an effort to trace those who orchestrated the suicide attack,” Khan said. “God willing, we will capture those responsible for this carnage.”

Local resident Gohar Khan said he saw a small car attack the convoy.

“As soon as the convoy appeared it rushed to that place and exploded,” he told The Associated Press.

The soldiers killed were part of a small group of American troops training members of Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps.

Training local forces is considered an important way to reduce the threat of militants using Pakistani soil as a staging ground for attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan, especially since Pakistan does not allow U.S. combat troops on its territory.

The soldiers’ deaths were the first known U.S. military fatalities in nearly three years in Pakistan’s Afghan border region.

The latest attack drew rare attention to the training program, which officials rarely discuss because of anti-American feelings here.

Protests over N.Y. conviction
That sentiment flared Thursday as demonstrators protested a New York jury’s conviction of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman accused of shooting at American security personnel who came to interrogate her after her arrest in Afghanistan’s central Ghazni province.

Many Pakistanis believe the U.S. has fabricated the charges. Some suspect the Americans had held the thin neuroscience specialist in a secret prison — allegations the U.S. denies. Siddiqui had been missing for five years before being picked up in Afghanistan in 2008.

A Manhattan federal jury convicted Siddiqui on Wednesday on two counts of attempted murder, though it found the act was not premeditated. Siddiqui was also convicted of armed assault, using and carrying a firearm, and assault of U.S. officers and employees.

Pakistanis denounced the verdict against Siddiqui, a devout Muslim who studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University before returning to Pakistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

‘We hate America’
“We hate America,” “We hate U.S. judiciary,” and “Down with the US,” read some of the signs carried by burqa-clad women protesting in the southern city of Karachi, the hometown of Siddiqui’s family.

Another reason Pakistanis are upset with the U.S. is its use of missile strikes to target militants in the northwest.

Interview: Anwar al-Awlaki by Al-Jazeera (SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 07, 2010)

SOURCE: The US has accused the US-born Yemen-based religious scholar Anwar al-Awlaki of being linked to an attack on a military base in Texas and the alleged attempt to blow up a passenger plane over Detroit on Christmas Day.

US officials accuse al-Awlaki of either inciting or ideologically influencing Major Nidal Hasan, a US army psychiatrist who shot dead 13 people at the Fort Hood military base in November, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian suspect in the attempted bombing of a US-bound plane.

In this interview with Al Jazeera Arabic, al-Awlaki says he supports the failed bombing of the plane but did not encourage the attack.

Al Jazeera: The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have quoted CIA investigators as talking about the possibility of targeting you in a drone attack. Why do you think the Americans want to kill you?

Awlaki: Because I am a Muslim and I promote Islam. The charge is “incitement”; my relationships with Nidal Hasan, Umar Farouk and some 9/11 attackers, and now I am accused of being linked to 14 cases. All this comes as part of the attempt to liquidate the voices that call for defending the rights of the Umma [Muslim nation].

They reject the principle of pride and demanding justice, they want to promote the principle of humiliation and compliance. They want to market the democratic and peaceful US Islam that calls for obeying the superiors even if they were traitors and collaborators, they want an Islam that recognises the occupation and deals with it, they want an Islam that has no sharia ruling, no jihad and no Islamic caliphate.

We call for the Islam that was sent by Allah to Prophet Muhammad, the Islam of jihad and sharia ruling. Any voice that calls for this Islam, they either kill the person or the character; they kill the person by murdering or jailing them, or they kill the character by distorting their image in the media.

Have you met Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and did you issue a fatwa [a religious edict] allowing him to carry out the operation?

My fellow mujahid [a Muslim engaged in jihad] Umar Farouk, may Allah free him, is one of my students, and yes there was some contact between me and him, but I did not issue a fatwa allowing him to carry out this operation.

Does describing him as a “mujahid” mean you support what he did?

Yes, I support what Umar Farouk has done after I have been seeing my brothers being killed in Palestine for more than 60 years, and others being killed in Iraq and in Afghanistan. And in my tribe too, US missiles have killed 17 women and 23 children, so do not ask me if al-Qaeda has killed or blown up a US civil jet after all this. The 300 Americans are nothing comparing to the thousands of Muslims who have been killed.

You have supported Nidal Malik Hasan and justified his act by saying that his target was a military not a civilian one. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s plane was a civilian one, which means the target was the US public?

It would have been better if the plane was a military one or if it was a US military target. Al-Qaeda organisation has its options, and the American people live [in] a democratic system and that is why they are held responsible for their policies.

The American people are the ones who have voted twice for Bush the criminal and elected Obama who is not different from Bush as his first remarks stated that he would not abandon Israel, despite the fact that there were other anti-war candidates in the US elections, but they won very few votes. The American people take part in all its government’s crimes.

If they oppose that, let them change their government. They pay the taxes which are spent on the army and they send their sons to the military, and that is why they bear responsibility.

Do you think Yemen’s government would facilitate your assassination?

The Yemeni government sells its citizens to the United States, to earn the ill-gotten funds it begs the West for in return for their blood. The Yemeni officials tell the Americans to strike whatever they want and ask them not to announce responsibility for the attacks to avoid people’s rage, and then the Yemeni government shamelessly adopt these attacks.

For example, the people of Shabwa, Abyan and Arhab have seen the Cruz missiles, and some people saw cluster bombs that did not explode. The state lies when it claims responsibility, and it does so to deny collaboration. US drones continuously fly over Yemen. What state is that which allows its enemy to spy on its people and then considers it as “accepted cooperation”.

You accuse the Yemeni government of lying while it publicly rejects any direct intervention. Does this mean the country is occupied?

Undoubtedly. The sea is occupied; the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, Suqatra island, and the air is occupied by the drones.

There is also [a] US presence on the land, violating the state sovereignty under the pretext of the embassy’s practices. There is also [a] military presence training the interior forces to fight Muslims and kill the sons of Yemen. The Americans were training Yemeni forces to kill the sons of Yemen. This is occupation, Yemen is occupied.

Some people and governments are distinguished by certain qualities; as you may say this person is tall, and that is stubborn. The Yemeni government’s special quality is lying, the Yemeni government is a lying government, it lies internally and externally, it lies to its people, to its neighbours and to America, it lies to everyone. The government has claimed it killed this and that, and then it turned out to be lying. The Yemeni government only wants to offer presents to the United States, and you can see how low it has gone.

Some Yemeni scholars, who have issued fatwas of jihad in case of direct intervention by the US or the West in Yemen, disagree with your opinion that there is currently direct intervention in the country.

It is a good fatwa, but it is incomplete and conditioned. The United States has entered [Yemen] by all means, even if it has not sent its army like what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, it does not dare to [send troops] because the Yemeni people will “swallow” them and will make them forget the terrors they have seen in Iraq and still face in Afghanistan.

I want to draw these scholars’ attention to the fact that there are US officers, whether intelligence or army officers, now in Sanaa and other areas, and this is US intervention. Why do not these scholars issue fatwas to kill these officers? They are spying, killing and training Yemeni soldiers to kill.

The Western media says that you are ‘inspiring’ Muslims in the US and the West. Is this an exaggeration?

I have said in an earlier interview with Al Jazeera’s Yusri Fouda that the United States is a tyrant, and tyrants across history have all had terrible ends. I believe the West does not want to realise this universal fact. Muslims in Europe and America are watching what is happening to Muslims in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, and they will take revenge for all Muslims across the globe.

On Sept. 23, 2007, U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Stephen A. Seche, USA Rear Adm. James Hart, as well as numerous other U.S. and Yemen government leaders attended the ceremony of Socotra’s newly built Usama Bin Zaid Primary School. The fruit of a combined effort of the U.S. military, U.S. State Department, and United States Agency for International Development.The Usama Bin Zaid school is part of a total U.S. government assistance program in Socotra, Yemen totaling more than $1,900,000 in projects for 2007.

Pakistan probes links to bombing of U.S. force

3 special operations soldiers, children killed in suicide attack on convoy

A Pakistani police officer at the site of a suicide bombing attack that killed three U.S. soldiers in Pakistan on Wednesday.

ISLAMABAD – Suspicion intensified Thursday that a suicide car bomber who killed three U.S. soldiers training Pakistani troops along the Afghan border had inside information on their movements.

If confirmed that Wednesday’s suicide attack was aimed at the Americans, it would indicate an increased sophistication in militant tactics, as well as potential infiltration of extremists in Pakistani security forces.

Thousands of Pakistanis in at least four cities, meanwhile, protested a New York jury’s conviction of a U.S.-educated Pakistani woman for shooting at American security officials in Afghanistan — shouting anti-U.S. slogans and burning the Stars and Stripes.

The attack on U.S. forces occurred in Lower Dir, a northwest district believed to be a crossroads for al-Qaida and the Taliban. The blast also killed three schoolgirls and a Pakistani paramilitary soldier. Two more U.S. soldiers were among dozens wounded.

Police official Naeem Khan said Thursday that authorities were investigating whether the suicide bomber knew the soldiers would be passing through Shahi Koto town and which vehicle to target in the five-car convoy, which also included Pakistani troops.

Such convoys usually include green military vehicles carrying armed troops who are clearly visible. The Pakistani forces could also have been the target as they have frequently been over the past several years.

‘Massive search’
“We launched a massive search in the area yesterday, and now about 35 suspects are in our custody, and we are questioning them in an effort to trace those who orchestrated the suicide attack,” Khan said. “God willing, we will capture those responsible for this carnage.”

Local resident Gohar Khan said he saw a small car attack the convoy.

“As soon as the convoy appeared it rushed to that place and exploded,” he told The Associated Press.

The soldiers killed were part of a small group of American troops training members of Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps.

Training local forces is considered an important way to reduce the threat of militants using Pakistani soil as a staging ground for attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan, especially since Pakistan does not allow U.S. combat troops on its territory.

The soldiers’ deaths were the first known U.S. military fatalities in nearly three years in Pakistan’s Afghan border region.

The latest attack drew rare attention to the training program, which officials rarely discuss because of anti-American feelings here.

Protests over N.Y. conviction
That sentiment flared Thursday as demonstrators protested a New York jury’s conviction of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman accused of shooting at American security personnel who came to interrogate her after her arrest in Afghanistan’ s central Ghazni province.

Many Pakistanis believe the U.S. has fabricated the charges. Some suspect the Americans had held the thin neuroscience specialist in a secret prison — allegations the U.S. denies. Siddiqui had been missing for five years before being picked up in Afghanistan in 2008.

A Manhattan federal jury convicted Siddiqui on Wednesday on two counts of attempted murder, though it found the act was not premeditated. Siddiqui was also convicted of armed assault, using and carrying a firearm, and assault of U.S. officers and employees.

Sherin Zada / AP People walk about the site of a bomb explosion in Lower Dir, Pakistan on Wednesday. Three U.S. soldiers traveling with Pakistan security force members were in a roadside bombing near a girl’s school in northwest Pakistan, Pakistani security officials said. Other casualties included school children.

Pakistanis denounced the verdict against Siddiqui, a devout Muslim who studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University before returning to Pakistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

‘We hate America’
“We hate America,” “We hate U.S. judiciary,” and “Down with the US,” read some of the signs carried by burqa-clad women protesting in the southern city of Karachi, the hometown of Siddiqui’s family.

Another reason Pakistanis are upset with the U.S. is its use of missile strikes to target militants in the northwest.

A senior intelligence official said Wednesday that U.S. counterterrorism officials believe Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is dead following one such strike last month. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters.

The statement came after days of posturing by Pakistani Taliban officials, who first said they would prove their leader was alive and well, then reversed course and said they saw no need to prove it.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Militants kill 6 Pakistanis for alleged US spying

BY RASOOL DAWAR, ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Authorities found the bodies of six Pakistani men near the Afghan border Sunday who were killed by militants for allegedly spying for the U.S. in an area that has been hit by a wave of drone missile strikes in recent weeks, said intelligence officials and residents.

The bodies of the men – one of whom had been decapitated – were found in North Waziristan, part of Pakistan’s lawless tribal region that is dominated by militant groups staging cross-border attacks against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

One of those groups, the Haqqani network, an al-Qaida-linked Afghan Taliban faction, is considered the most dangerous threat to coalition forces and is believed to have helped orchestrate the Dec. 30 suicide bombing at a remote base in Afghanistan that killed seven CIA employees.

In the roughly three weeks following the attack, suspected U.S. drones carried out 12 missile strikes in North Waziristan and neighboring South Waziristan, an unprecedented volley since the CIA-led program began in earnest in Pakistan two years ago. The strikes are part of a broader trend of President Barack Obama’s strategy of relying more heavily on the unmanned aircraft to kill militants in Pakistan than his predecessor.

The militants have responded by carrying out a wave of killings targeting people they suspect of helping facilitate the drone strikes. Pakistani intelligence officials have said at least 30 of their operatives were killed in North Waziristan in 2009, many with notes attached to the bodies alleging they were U.S. spies.

The six bodies found Sunday had similar notes, said intelligence officials and residents.

The bodies of five men who had been fatally shot were found on the outskirts of Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Authorities found the body of a sixth man who had been beheaded near Mir Ali, another town in the tribal area, said resident Razaullah Wazir.

“This is the fate of American spies,” said a note attached to the body written in the local Pashtu language, according to Wazir.

The U.S. does not discuss the drone strikes, but officials have said that they have killed senior al-Qaida and Taliban leaders in the country.

Pakistani officials protest the strikes as violations of the country’s sovereignty, but many analysts believe the U.S. has a secret deal with the government allowing them.

The U.S. has increased its use of the drones in response to Pakistan’s reluctance to target militants using its territory to attack coalition troops in Afghanistan. Pakistani officials say they have their hands full battling local Taliban militants waging war against the state.

The Pakistani army launched a major ground offensive in the Pakistani Taliban’s stronghold of South Waziristan in mid-October, triggering a wave of retaliatory violence that has killed more than 600 people.

Pakistani police said Sunday that they arrested four people suspected of carrying out a bombing against a Shiite Muslim procession in the southern city of Karachi that killed more than 40 people.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, but Karachi police chief Wasim Ahmed said the four men arrested were members of Jundallah, a militant group based in the city.

Analysts say the Pakistani Taliban has strengthened ties with militant groups throughout Pakistan, a dangerous development.

—

Associated Press writer Ashraf Khan contributed to this report from Karachi.

US spies walked into al-Qaeda’s trap

US spies walked into al-Qaeda’s trap
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD – The suicide attack on the United States Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) forward operating base of Chapman in the Afghan province of Khost last week was planned in the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan.

The attacker – a handpicked plant in the Afghan National Army (ANA) – detonated his explosive vest in a gym at the base, killing seven agents, including the station chief, and wounding six. The base was officially for civilians involved in reconstruction.

The plan was executed following several weeks of preparation by al-Qaeda’s Lashkar al-Zil (Shadow Army), Asia Times Online has learned. This was after Lashkar al-Zil’s intelligence outfit informed its chief commander, Ilyas Kashmiri, that the CIA planned to broaden the monitoring of the possible movement of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Well-connected sources in militant camps say that Lashkar al-Zil had become aware of the CIA’s escalation of intelligence activitiesto gather information on high-value targets for US drone attacks. It emerged that tribesmen from Shawal and Datta Khel, in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal area, had been invited by US operatives, through middlemen, to Khost, where the operatives tried to acquire information on al-Qaeda leaders. Such activitieshave been undertaken in the past, but this time they were somewhat different.

“This time there was clearly an obsession to hunt down something big in North Waziristan. But in this obsession, they [operatives] blundered and exposed the undercover CIA facility,” a senior leader in al-Qaeda’s 313 Brigade said. The brigade, led by Ilyas Kashmiri, comprises jihadis with extensive experience in Pakistan’s Kashmir struggle with India.

Once it became clear that efforts to track down al-Qaeda were being stepped up and that the base in Khost was being extensively used by the CIA, the Lashkar al-Zil (Brigade 055) moved into top gear. It is the soul of al-Qaeda, having being involved in several events since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US. Under the command of Ilyas Kashmiri, its intelligencenetwork’s coordination with its special guerrilla action force has changed the dynamics of the Afghan war theater. Instead of traditional guerrilla warfare in which the Taliban have taken most of the casualties, the brigade has resorted to special operations, the one on the CIA base being the latest and one of the most successful.

Lashkar al-Zil comprises the Pakistani Taliban, 313 Brigade, the Afghan Taliban, Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan and former Iraqi Republican Guards. It has taken on special significance since the US announcement of a 30,000 troop surge in Afghanistan, due to kick into action this week.

Leaders of the Lashkar al-Zil now knew that CIA operatives were trying to recruit reliable tribal people from Afghanistan so that the latter could develop an effective intelligence network along the border with North Waziristan’s Shawal and Datta Khel regions, where high-profile al-Qaeda leaders often move around.

Laskhar al-Zil then laid its trap.

Over the past months, using connections in tribal structures and ties with former commanders of the Taliban and the Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan, the militants have planted a large number of men in the ANA.

One of these plants, an officer, was now called into action. He contacted US personnel in Khost and told them he was linked to a network in the tribal areas and that he had information on where al-Qaeda would hold its shura (council) in North Waziristan and on the movement of al-Qaeda leaders.

The ANA officer was immediately invited to the CIA base in Khost to finalize a joint operation of Predator drones and ground personnel against these targets.

Once inside, he set off his bomb, with deadly results.

“It’s a devastating blow,” Times Online quoted Michael Scheuer as saying. “[Among others] we lost an agent with 14 years’ experience in Afghanistan.” Scheuer is a former head of Alec Station, the unit created to monitor bin Laden five years before the attacks of September 11.

Unlike the Taliban’s mostly rag-tag army, Laskhar al-Zil is a sophisticated unit, with modern equipment such as night-vision technology, the latest light weapons and finely honed guerrilla tactics. It has a well-funded intelligence department, much like the Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan had during the resistance against the Soviets in the 1980s when it had access to advance information on the movement of the Red Army.

However, Laskhar al-Zil is one step ahead of the Hezb’s formerintelligence outfit in that it has been able to plant men in the ANA, and these “soldiers” are now at the forefront of al-Qaeda-led sabotage activities in Afghanistan.

In addition, a large number of senior government officials both in the capital, Kabul, and in the provinces are sympathetic to the Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan, and, by extension, to the Taliban. Similarly, several former top Taliban commanders have been given responsibilities by the central government in district areas, and as the insurgency has grown, these former militants have been increasingly useful to the Taliban-led insurgency.

In sum, the US troop surge, coupled with increased US efforts to track down al-Qaeda, has resulted in a shift in southeastern Afghanistan. There has been hardly any uprising against foreign troops in which the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) could hit the Taliban hard. The insurgents now select specific targets for the most effective outcome, such as the spy base in Khost – it took just one insurgent’s life for the “devastating” result.

Consequently, for the first time in the many years that Afghanistan has been at war, the winter season is hot. Last October, the US withdrew its troops from its four key bases in Nuristan, on the border with Pakistan, leaving the northeastern province as a safe haven for the Taliban, under the command of Qari Ziaur Rahman. Kurangal Valley in Kunar province is heavily under siege and Taliban attacks on US bases there could see US forces pulling back from Kunar as well.

And in the meantime, Lashkar al-Zil can be expected to be planning more strikes of its own.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online’s Pakistan BureauChief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

Insurgents hack into US drones

Militants were able to watch live video streaming from US predator drones in Iraq and Afghanistan after they hacked into the drones’ software.( Wall Street Journal’s Siobhan Gorman) BBC reports

Al-Qaida double-agent (Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi) blew up 7 CIA officers

On martyrdom
After he arrived in Afghanistan last year, al-Balawi was interviewed by one of al-Qaida’s main Internet sites, the Vanguards of Khurasan, on the subject of martyrdom.  NBC reports.

“When you ponder the verses and hadiths that speak about jihad and its graciousness, and then you let your imagination run wild to fly with what Allah has prepared for martyrs, your life become cheap for its purpose, and the extravagant houses and expensive cars and all the decoration of life become very distasteful in your eyes,” he told the interviewer.

BBC reports : The bombing was one of at least three deadly incidents across Afghanistan on Thursday. Elsewhere:

• Taliban militants beheaded six men they suspected of being spies for the government in the southern province of Uruzgan, police said
• Four Canadian soldiers and a journalist died in a roadside bomb attack in Kandahar, in the most deadly attack on Canadians in the country for more than two years
• Two French journalists were kidnapped in Kapisa province, north-east of Kabul, along with their Afghan driver and interpreter, reports say

FOB Chapman operates from Khost Airfield 32km from Pakistan border

Former Soviet base is reportedly used for launching US drones

Airfield extended to allow C-130 transporter planes to land

Named after Nathan Chapman, first US soldier killed in Afghanistan in 2002

Officials: Perpetrator of Afghan attack was supposed to infiltrate al-Qaida  <<lol>>

By Robert Windrem and Richard Engel

NBC News

The suicide bombing on a CIA base in Afghanistan last week was carried out by a Jordanian doctor who was an al-Qaida double-agent, Western intelligence officials told NBC News. Initial reports said that the attack, which killed seven CIA officers, was carried out by a member of the Afghan National Army. According to Western intelligence officials, the perpetrator was Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, 36, an al-Qaida sympathizer from Zarqa, which is also the hometown of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant Islamist believed responsible for several devastating attacks in Iraq.

Al-Balawi was arrested by Jordanian intelligence more than a year ago. He had moderated the main al-Qaida chat forum before his arrest and was known online as Abu Dujanah al-Khurasani.

“Abu Dujanah was an active member of jihadi forums,” said Evan Kohlmann, who tracks jihadi Web sites for NBC News. “He was actually an administrator on the now-defunct Al-Hesbah forum, previously al-Qaida’s main chat forum.”

The Jordanians believed that al-Balawi had been successfully reformed and brought over to the American and Jordanian side. They set him up as an agent and sent him to Afghanistan and Pakistan to infiltrate al-Qaida.

His specific mission, according to officials, was to find and meet Ayman al Zawahiri, al-Qaida’s No. 2, also a physician.

However, a Taliban spokesman, quoted on the Al-Jazeera Web site, said al-Balawi misled Jordanian and U.S. intelligence services for a year. The spokesman, Al-Hajj Ya’qub, promised to release a video confirming his account of the Afghanistan attack.

On martyrdom

After he arrived in Afghanistan last year, al-Balawi was interviewed by one of al-Qaida’s main Internet sites, the Vanguards of Khurasan, on the subject of martyrdom.

“When you ponder the verses and hadiths that speak about jihad and its graciousness, and then you let your imagination run wild to fly with what Allah has prepared for martyrs, your life become cheap for its purpose, and the extravagant houses and expensive cars and all the decoration of life become very distasteful in your eyes,” he told the interviewer.

He added, “They say ‘there’s love that kills.’ And I only see that as truthful in the love for jihad, as this love is either going to kill you in repentance should you choose to sit away from jihad, or will kill you as a martyr for the cause of Allah if you choose to go to Jihad, and the human must choose between these two deaths.”

Last week, according to the Western officials, al-Balawi reportedly called his handler to say he needed to meet with the CIA’s team based in Khost, Afghanistan, because he said he had urgent information he needed to relay about Zawahiri.

Close relations with Jordanian intelligence
His handler was a senior intelligence official, identified in Jordanian press accounts as Sharif Ali bin Zeid.

But bin Zeid was not just a Jordanian intelligence officer; he was also a member of the Jordanian royal family and was a first cousin of the king and grandnephew of the first king Abdullah.

Bin Zeid’s prominent role offers rare insight into the close partnership between American and Jordanian intelligence officials and how crucial their relationship has become to the overall counterterrorism strategy.

“We have a close partnership with the Jordanians on counterterrorism matters,” a U.S. official told The Washington Post. “Having suffered serious losses from terrorist attacks on their own soil, they are keenly aware of the significant threat posed by extremists.”

Jordan’s official news agency, Petra, said bin Zeid was killed “on Wednesday evening as a martyr while performing the sacred duty of the Jordanian forces in Afghanistan” and provided no further details about his death.

Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera reported that al-Balawi’s family refused to speak to the media on instructions from Jordanian security services.

Sources close to the family told Al-Jazeera’s Web site that Jordanian Intelligence arrested the perpetrator’s younger brother and ordered his father not to set up a condolence tent for his son so that it would not turn into a gathering place for jihadist sympathizers.

Awlaki’s CDs now Available in Pakistan

Awlaki’s CDs “The HereAfter vol 1-2”   “Lives of the Prophets vol 1-2”   now Available in Pakistan under Copyrights Act by Jin Technologies private limited.

Jin Technologies Private Limited

Applications & Software Outsourcing Services

Mujahedeen Group Under The Command Of Ali Abu Muhammed Al Azeri

Download: http://www.archive.org/details/azeri_ali_abu_muhammed_avi Watch Online: http://forum.tak-va.com/showthread.php?t=5540

Islam-Abad? (Marriot Blast)

Following is gathered from Wikipedia
American presence
An unnamed senior security official stated that about 30 U.S. Marines, scheduled to go to Afghanistan, were staying at the hotel, and they were believed to be the targets of the bombing. This conflicted with information given by another unnamed official who stated that the marines were in Pakistan in connection with the visit by US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen who met the Pakistani Prime MinisterYousaf Raza Gillani and other government officials on Wednesday^[35] The personnel were staying on the fourth floor of the hotel, which also the most severely damaged by the fire which ensued following the bomb blast.^[36] According to the Dawn, a number of the marines who stayed at the hotel sustained injuries; the newspaper also cited an unnamed law enforcement official stating “personnel of a US security agency” were in all likelihood the target of the attack.^[37] There are also reports that more Americans were present at the hotel, as several senior CIA officers were visiting Islamabad at the time of the attack and believed to be staying at the hotel, according to unnamed “well placed sources”.May 29 2009 press release from NSA reads: CTM3 Matthew J. O’Bryant, USN, a Navy Cryptologist, was assigned to Navy Information Operations Command (NIOC) Maryland. CTM3 O’Bryant made the ultimate sacrifice on 20 September 2008 while performing a cryptologic mission in Pakistan. The hotel has a direct line of sight to the telecom system in Islamabad Pakistan. ^[38]
Claims of US soldiers breaching security
An MP for the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party, Syed Mumtaz Alam Gillani, has come forward with testimony evidencing a purportedly serious security breach at the Marriott on the night between the 16th and 17th, several days before the bombing.^{[39][40][41][42]} Alam Gillani and two friends are said to have witnessed several large steel boxes being unloaded from a US Embassy truck by a group of US Marines and, according to someone at the hotel, transported to the fourth and fifth floors.^[39][40] Among the several people who witnessed this incident was Pakistan Peoples Party leader Sajjad Chaudhry.^[39] However, Alam Gilani was the only one who objected to and protested the apparent security breach taking place, but was met with silence from the American Marines. The hotel security staff did not respond to Alam Gilani’s protests as they passively watched what was taking place, not being allowed to go near the boxes by the US Marines.^[39][40] Alam Gillani has since denounced the newspaper account, asserting that he was merely making light conversation with the journalist, however, the newspaper stands by its account.^[43]Pakistani authorities are also investigating this issue.^[41]
The American Embassy has said that it routinely rents rooms at the Marriott. Confronted with the activities of the US Marines on the night between September 16 and 17, embassy spokesperson Lou Fintor stated: “A team of support personnel often and routinely precede and/or accompany certain US government officials. They often carry communication and office equipment required to support large delegations, such as high-level administration officials and members of the US Congress.” However, the incident occurred after Admiral Mullen’s departure.^[41]

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