Arif Mubashir, 40, shot the teen-aged girls after his son told him that they were dating boys who attend a nearby college in Faisalabad.

Mushabir unregrettably admitted to police that he had killed his daughters because they were both “without honour.”

The father said he shot the other daughters, because they “sided with each other.”

Police took Mushabir into custudy, and filed a case against him, according to The Express Tribune.

He does not regret what he did. He boasted that he would do it all over again if he had to,” Police Inspector Javed Sial told reporters.

Read more at Tribune.pk

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DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – A top al-Qaida commander and possible replacement for Osama bin Laden was killed in an American drone-fired missile strike close to the Afghan border, a fax from the militant group he heads and a Pakistani intelligence official said Saturday.

Ilyas Kashmiri’s apparent death is another blow to al-Qaida just over a month after bin Laden was killed by American commandos in a northwest Pakistani army town. Described by U.S. officials as al-Qaida’s military operations chief in Pakistan, the 47-year-old Pakistani was one of five most-wanted militant leaders in the country, accused of a string of bloody attacks in South Asia, including the 2008 Mumbai massacre, as well as aiding plots in the West. Washington had offered a $5 million bounty for information leading to his location.

His death was not confirmed publicly by the United States or Pakistani officials. Verifying who has been killed in the drone strikes is difficult. Initial reports have turned out to be wrong in the past, including one in September 2009 that said Kashmiri had been killed. Sometimes they are never formally denied or confirmed by authorities here or in the United States.

But a fax from the militant group he was heading — Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami’s feared “313 Brigade” — confirmed Kashmiri was “martyred” in the strike at 11:15 p.m. Friday in South Waziristan tribal region. It was sent to journalists in Peshawar.

“God willing, America, which is the ‘pharaoh’ of this, will soon see a revenge attack, and our real target is America,” it said. The statement was handwritten written on a white page bearing name of the group, which has not previously communicated with the media.

The Pakistani official also said Kashmiri was among nine militants killed in the strike. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with his agency’s policy. On Friday night, officials said several missiles hit a compound. The official Saturday said the men were meeting in an apple orchard near the house when the missiles hit.

Kashmiri’s name was on a list of militants that the United States and Pakistan recently agreed to jointly target, officials have said. The successful strike could help repair ties between the two countries that were badly damaged by the unilateral American raid, especially if Islamabad helped provide intelligence leading up to the attack.

Said to be blind in one eye and missing a finger, Kashmiri was one of the country’s most accomplished — and vicious — militants. He fought with jihadi fighters in Afghanistan and in Indian-held Kashmir in the 1990s and was so close to al-Qaida’s central command that he had been mentioned as a contender for replacing bin Laden, though many analysts thought the fact that he was not an Arab meant he was unlikely to get the post.

Indian officials have alleged he was involved in the 2008 Mumbai siege that killed more than 160 people. He has also been named a defendant in an American court over a planned attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in 2005.

In an ongoing terror trial in Chicago, testimony from an American-Pakistani militant has alleged that Kashmiri helped plan the Mumbai siege and wanted to attack U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Kashmiri had been angry over U.S. drone attacks inside Pakistan and wanted to target the company, David Coleman Headley testified.

Kashmiri has most recently been linked to last month’s 18-hour assault on a naval base in Karachi. He is also accused of masterminding several bloody raids on Pakistan police and intelligence buildings in 2009 and 2010, as well as a failed assassination attempt against then-President Pervez Musharraf in 2003.

The U.S Department of State says he organized a 2006 suicide bombing against the U.S. consulate in Karachi that killed four people, including an American diplomat.

American drones began firing missiles at al-Qaida and Taliban targets along the border in 2005, but the attacks picked up pace in 2008 and have risen in frequency ever since. Pakistani army officers and politicians publicly protest them, too weak to admit to working with the ever unpopular America in targeting fellow Pakistanis, but the country’s intelligence agencies have been known to occasionally provide targeting information.

Opposition to the strikes grew this year after a CIA contractor shot and killed two Pakistanis in the street, triggering ever more intense anti-American anger. After the bin Laden raid, which was seen by many here as an outrageous violation of the country’s sovereignty, the parliament issued a declaration calling for the attacks to end.

Pakistani leaders were not immediately available for comment on Friday’s attack. Kashmiri was accused of killing many Pakistanis, including police and army officers, so their public reaction may be muted.

The United States does not acknowledge the CIA-run program, though its officials have confirmed the death of high-value targets before, including the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, in 2009 — a strike welcomed by many Pakistan officials because he too was a sworn enemy of the country.

Washington says the strikes are accurately killing militants and are disrupting plots against the West as well as planned attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

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Political pundits and critics have questioned whether the country’s senior leadership knew and did not disclose of  Bin Laden hideout since news that Bin Laden was found hiding in the Pakistani Garrison town of Abbottabad, a small city located about 30 miles from the country’s capitol.

Such assertions have complicated an already tenuous relationship between the Obama administration and Pakistan, a key ally in the War on Terror.

Working to lay such claims to rest, Gates told reporter, “somebody knew,” but said it is irresponsible to wage accusations on the Pakistani government without justifiable evidence.

Read More At NYTimes

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WASHINGTON — United States Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates stated that there was no evidence that anyone in the upper echelons of Pakistan’s leadership knew that Osama Bin Laden was hiding in their country.

The New York Times reports:

“I have seen no evidence at all that the senior leadership knew,” Mr. Gates said. “In fact, I’ve seen some evidence to the contrary.”

Asked if the Pakistani senior leadership should pay a price for apparently not knowing that Bin Laden was there, Mr. Gates replied swiftly. “If I were in Pakistani shoes, I would say I’ve already paid a price — I’ve been humiliated, I’ve been shown that the Americans can come in here and do this with impunity,” he said.

At the same news conference, Mr. Gates said that there had been too much public discussion about the details of the raid and that there were concerns about security for the families of the Navy Seal members who had carried it out.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

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The blasts in the northwest were a reminder of the savagery of al-Qaida-linked militants in Pakistan. They occurred even as the country faces international suspicion that elements within its security forces may have been harboring bin Laden, who was killed in a raid in Abbottabad, about a three hours’ drive from the scene of the bombing.

“We have done this to avenge the Abbottabad incident,” Ahsanullah Ahsan, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, told The Associated Press in a phone call.

The bombers blew themselves up at the main gate of the facility for the Frontier Constabulary, a poorly equipped but front-line force in the battle against al-Qaida and allied Islamist groups like the Pakistani Taliban close to the Afghan border. Like other branches of Pakistan security forces, it has received U.S. funding.

Sixty-six of the dead were recruits, said police officer Liaqat Ali Khan.

The scene of the blast was littered with shards of glass mixed with blood and human flesh. The explosions destroyed at least 10 vans the recruits were boarding to go home for a break at the end of a recent training session.

Khan said at least 80 people died in the attack, while around 120 were wounded.

It was the first major militant attack in Pakistan since bin Laden’s death in a May 2 U.S. raid in the city of Abbottabad, and one of the deadliest to hit the country ever.

Militants had pledged to avenge the killing and launch reprisal strikes in Pakistan.

Ahsan, Taliban spokesman, suggested the attack was aimed as punishment against Pakistani authorities for failing to stop the unilateral U.S. raid that killed bin Laden, something that has sparked popular nationalist anger.

“Also, the Pakistani army has failed to protect its land,” he said.

The explosive vests were packed with ball bearings and nails, police said.

A vegetable vendor at the site said some recruits were seated in white minivans and others were loading luggage atop the vehicles.

“There was a big blast,” he said. “I saw smoke, blood and body pieces all around.”

Police official Nisar Khan said a suicide bomber in his late teens or early 20s set off one of the blasts.

“The first blast occurred in the middle of the road, and after that there was a huge blast that was more powerful than the first,” said Abdul Wahid, a 25-year-old recruit whose legs were wounded in the blasts.

He said he was knocked to the ground by the force of the explosions.

“After falling, I just started crawling and dragging myself to a safer place … along the wall of a roadside shop,” he said.

The Sept. 11 mastermind and at least four others were killed by U.S. Navy SEALs who raided bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, a garrison city not far from the capital. Bin Laden is believed to have lived in the large house for up to six years.

Pakistani officials have denied knowing he was there but have criticized the American raid ordered by President Barack Obama as a violation of their country’s sovereignty. To counter allegations it had harbored bin Laden, they have pointed out that tens of thousands of their own citizens have died in suicide and other attacks since Sept. 11, 2001, when Islamabad became an ally of the U.S. in taking on Islamist extremists.

Many of the attacks in Pakistan have targeted security forces, but government buildings, religious minorities, public places and Western targets have also been often hit.

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ISLAMABAD — Suspicion rose Monday that Pakistan’s intelligence service leaked the name of the CIA chief in Islamabad to local media in anger over the raid that killed Osama bin Laden – the second outing of an American covert operative here in six months.

The U.S. said it has no plans to pull the spy chief, but the incident is likely to exacerbate an already troubled relationship between the two countries a week after Navy SEALs in helicopters swooped down on bin Laden’s compound without first telling the Pakistanis. The CIA and Pakistan’s spy agency have long viewed each other with suspicion, which the death of the terror leader has laid bare.

The Pakistani military and intelligence services have suffered withering criticism at home for failing to stop the U.S. operation. Many Pakistanis view the raid as a violation of their sovereignty – even if they were pleased that bin Laden was killed.

U.S. officials have said they didn’t tell Pakistanis in advance because they were worried someone might tip off bin Laden. American forces also used helicopters with radar-evading technology so the Pakistanis couldn’t track them.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani defended the military and intelligence services Monday, telling parliament it was “disingenuous for anyone to blame Pakistan … for being in cahoots with al-Qaida.”

He acknowledged his nation’s failure to track bin Laden but said the failure wasn’t Pakistan’s alone.

“Yes, there has been an intelligence failure,” Gilani said. “It is not only ours but of all the intelligence agencies of the world.”

U.S. officials have said they see no evidence that anyone in the upper echelons of Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment was complicit in hiding bin Laden in Abbottabad, an army town only 35 miles from the capital. But suspicions remain, and members of Congress have threatened to cut off U.S. aid if evidence is found.

President Barack Obama said the U.S. believes bin Laden must have had a support network inside Pakistan.

“But we don’t know who or what that support network was,” Obama said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes.” “We don’t know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that’s something that we have to investigate, and more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate.”

Gilani proclaimed the death of bin Laden as “indeed justice done” since al-Qaida has launched many attacks inside Pakistan. But he warned the U.S. not to try a similar covert raid in the future.

“Unilateralism runs the inherent risk of serious consequences,” Gilani said. “Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force. … No one should underestimate the resolve and capability of our nation and armed forces to defend our sacred homeland.”

At the same time, however, he stressed the importance of Pakistan-U.S. ties and insisted the relationship was still strong.

“Our communications at the official and diplomatic levels with the U.S., during this phase, have been good, productive and straightforward,” said Gilani.

Gilani’s speech and the suspected leak of the CIA station chief’s name illustrate the balancing act that Pakistani officials seem to be trying to achieve in responding to the bin Laden raid.

Civilian and military leaders must placate a domestic population that is upset at the U.S. for violating the country’s sovereignty and outraged at the country’s army and intelligence agency for allowing it to happen. But they must also worry about preserving their relationship with the U.S., which provides billions of dollars in military and civilian aid for cooperation on the war in Afghanistan.

“Gilani’s statement and the leak of the name of the name of the supposed CIA station chief appear to be in keeping with Islamabad’s need to maintain relations with the United States and at the same time try and counter growing U.S. pressure in the wake of the Osama bin Laden killing,” said Kamran Bokhari, an analyst with STRATFOR, a private security think tank in Austin, Texas.

Even before the discovery of bin Laden, many U.S. officials accused Pakistan of playing a double game by taking American aid, promising its support and then failing to target key Islamist militants wanted by the U.S., including Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar.

But the U.S. is in a difficult position because it is reliant on Pakistan’s help to go after Taliban militants on its territory and ships a large percentage of its non-lethal goods to its forces in Afghanistan through the country. Pakistan also allows the CIA drones to carry out missile strikes on militant targets in the border regions. Pushing Pakistan too hard could jeopardize the relationship with the critical, if fickle, ally.

On Friday, the private TV channel ARY broadcast what it said was the current CIA station chief’s name. The Nation, a right-wing newspaper, picked up the story Saturday.

Although the name was misspelled, the publication of any alleged identity of the U.S. spy agency’s top official in this country could be push-back from Pakistan’s powerful military and spy agency in retaliation for the American raid.

The Associated Press is not publishing the station chief’s name because he is undercover and his identity is classified. A spokesman for Pakistani intelligence declined to comment.

ARY’s news director, Mazhar Abbas, said the television station’s reporter gleaned the name from a source. He defended the broadcast, saying it was “based on fact” and rejected suggestions the name was leaked to the television channel by an official with a motive.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of discussing CIA personnel issues, told the AP that there are no plans to remove the station chief from Pakistan.

Asad Munir, a former intelligence chief with responsibility for Pakistan’s militant-populated tribal areas, said very few people know the name of the CIA station chief in Islamabad. But he said that releasing it would not necessarily jeopardize the American’s safety.

“Normally people in intelligence have cover names,” Munir said. “Only if there is a photograph to identify him could it put his life in danger.”

In December, the CIA pulled its then-station chief out of Pakistan after a name alleged to be his surfaced in public and his safety was deemed at risk. That name hit the local presses after it was mentioned by a lawyer who planned a lawsuit on behalf of victims of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal belt.

Suspicions have lingered that that outing was orchestrated by Pakistan’s spy agency to avenge an American lawsuit that named its chief over the 2008 terror attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai. The Pakistani agency denied leaking the CIA operative’s name.

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Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani also expressed confidence in Pakistan’s military and Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which have been heavily criticized for failing to confront the U.S. Navy SEALs who conducted last week’s helicopter raid without notifying Pakistan first.

The operation took place May 2 in Abbottabad, an army town only two and a half hour’s drive outside the capital. The location of bin Laden’s hide-out has sparked suspicion that Pakistani officials knew where the al-Qaida leader was hiding and may have been helping him.

Gilani adamantly rejected those allegations, saying, “It is disingenuous for anyone to blame Pakistan or state institutions of Pakistan, including the ISI and the armed forces, for being in cahoots with al-Qaida.”

“Allegations of complicity or incompetence are absurd. Pakistan is not the birthplace of al-Qaida,” said Gilani in a speech to parliament. “We did not invite Osama bin Laden to Pakistan or even to Afghanistan.”

Gilani agreed that the failure to find bin Laden, who was reportedly living in Abbottabad for up to six years, was a mistake. But he insisted it wasn’t Pakistan’s alone.

“Yes, there has been an intelligence failure,” said Gilani. “It is not only ours but of all the intelligence agencies of the world.”

He said that the army will conduct an inquiry into the raid and military officials will brief parliament later in May.

The Pakistani military scrambled F-16 fighters and sent forces to bin Laden’s compound as soon as they were aware of the raid, said Gilani. Even though they were unable to interdict U.S. forces before they were on their way back to Afghanistan, he expressed confidence in their performance.

“Our response demonstrates that our armed forces reacted, as was expected of them,” said Gilani.

He warned the U.S. against launching future such attacks, saying “unilateralism runs the inherent risk of serious consequences.”

“Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force,” said Gilani. “No one should underestimate the resolve and capability of our nation and armed forces to defend our sacred homeland.”

But he insisted that relations with the U.S. remain strong and the two countries have worked well together during this period of crisis.

“Our communications at the official and diplomatic levels with the U.S., during this phase, have been good, productive and straight forward,” said Gilani.

He also praised the result of the raid.

“Osama bin Laden was the most wanted terrorist and enemy number one of the civilized world,” said Gilani. “Elimination of Osama bin Laden, who launched waves after waves of terrorists attacks against innocent Pakistanis, is indeed justice done.”

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WASHINGTON  – Pakistan’s Washington lobbyists have launched an intense campaign on Capitol Hill to counter accusations that Islamabad was complicit in giving refuge to Osama bin Laden.

Alarmed by lawmakers’ demands to cut off billions of dollars of U.S. aid after bin Laden was found living in a Pakistani safe house for six years, President Asif Ali Zardari has ordered a full-court press to quell mounting accusations that it helped the al Qaeda leader avoid capture.

Mark Siegel, a partner in the Washington lobbying firm of Locke Lord Strategies — which is paid $75,000 a month by the Pakistani government — told Reuters on Thursday he had spoken twice to Zardari since U.S. special forces killed bin Laden on Sunday, and “countless” times to the Pakistani ambassador in Washington.

“They are certainly concerned,” Siegel said, adding that suggestions the Pakistani government knew about bin Laden’s whereabouts was nothing more than speculation.

Referring to a statement by President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, that there must have been a support system for bin Laden inside Pakistan, Siegel said: “There is no proof that a support system was government-based.”

There is much at stake for Pakistan as many lawmakers question how bin Laden could have lived in a large fortified compound close to a Pakistani military base for so long.

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“I think this tells us once again that, unfortunately, Pakistan at times is playing a double game,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a Senate Armed Services Committee member who indicated that Congress could put limits on funds for Pakistan.

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CNN is reporting that the recent flooding in Pakistan has left 1/5th of the country under water.

With about one-fifth of the country underwater, almost 900,000 homes have been damaged, the agency said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Sunday that while he has visited sites of natural disasters around the world, he has never seen anything like the devastation created by flooding in Pakistan. He said the disaster is worse than the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the 2005 Pakistani earthquake combined.

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WASHINGTON (AP) – Five young American Muslims captured in Pakistan are under investigation for possible links to terrorism after their families found a disturbing farewell video the missing men left behind showing scenes of war and casualties and saying Muslims must be defended.

Frantic relatives and worried FBI agents have been searching for the five men for more than a week, since their disappearance in late November. The missing men, ranging in age from 19 to 25, have family roots in the northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., area. One, Ramy Zamzam, is a dental student at Howard University.

Two U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said the five are believed to be under arrest in Pakistan.

On the heels of charges against a Chicago man accused of plotting international terrorism, the case is another worrisome sign that Americans can be recruited within the United States to enlist in terrorist networks.

Leaders of an Islamic American group said the families of the five men asked the FBI for help and were particularly disturbed to see the video message.
“One person appeared in that video and they made references to the ongoing conflict in the world, and that young Muslims have to do something,” said Nihad Awad, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR.

“The video’s about 11 minutes and it’s like a farewell. And they did not specify what they would be doing. But just hearing and seeing videos similar on the Internet, it just made me uncomfortable,” Awad said. The video has not been made public.

Before the men left, they did not seem to have become militant, a local imam said.

“From all of our interviews, there was no sign they were outwardly radicalized,” said Imam Johari Abdul-Malik.

One of Zamzam’s younger brothers, interviewed at the family’s Alexandria, Va., apartment, said Zamzam has a 4.0 grade-point average and is “a good guy.”

“He’s a normal Joe,” said the brother, identifying himself only by a nickname, Zam.

In Pakistan, police officer Tahir Gujjar said five Americans were picked up in a raid on a house in Sarghoda in the eastern province of Punjab. He did not identify them, but said three are of Pakistani descent, one is of Egyptian descent and the other has Yemeni heritage.

S.M. Imran Gardezi, press minister at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, said the men “are under arrest in Pakistan. The investigation is to see whether they had any links to any extremist groups.” No charges have been filed.

Pakistani regional police chief Mian Javed Islam told The Associated Press that the men spent the past few days in the city of Sarghoda, which is near an air base about 125 miles (200 kilometers) south of the capital, Islamabad.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Rick Snelsire said officials there were aware of the reported arrests, but could not confirm them.

Pakistan has many militant groups based in its territory and the U.S. has been pressing the government to crack down on extremism. Al-Qaida and Taliban militants are believed to be hiding in lawless tribal areas near the Afghan border.

In Washington, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s local office said agents have been trying to help find the men.

“The FBI is working with the families and local law enforcement to investigate the missing students and is aware of the individuals arrested in Pakistan,” said the spokeswoman, Katherine Schweit. “We are working with Pakistan authorities to determine their identities and the nature of their business there if indeed these are the students who had gone missing.”
She said the investigation continues, declining to comment further.

According to officials at CAIR, the five left the country at the end of November without telling their families.

After the young men left, at least one phoned his family still claiming to be in the United States, but the caller ID information suggested they were overseas.

The families, members of the local Muslim community, took their concerns to CAIR, which put them in touch with the FBI and got them a lawyer, the group said.

A Howard University spokesman confirmed Zamzam was a student there but declined further comment.

Samirah Ali, president of Howard University’s Muslim Student Association, said the FBI contacted her last week about Zamzam, and told her he had been missing for a week.

Ali said she’s known Zamzam for three years and never suspected he would be involved in radical activities.
“He’s a very nice guy, very cordial, very friendly,” Ali said, adding that he has a bubbly personality. “It really caught me off guard.”

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There is growing evidence that battle-hardened extremists are filtering out of safe havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and into East Africa, bringing sophisticated terrorist tactics that include suicide attacks.

The alarming shift, according to U.S. military and counterterrorism officials, fuels concern that Somalia is increasingly on a path to become the next Afghanistan — a sanctuary where al-Qaida-linked groups could train and plan their threatened attacks against the western world.

So far, officials say the number of foreign fighters who have moved from southwest Asia and the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region to the Horn of Africa is small, perhaps two to three dozen.

But a similarly small cell of militant plotters was responsible for the devastating 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. And the cluster of militants now believed to be operating inside East Africa could pass on sophisticated training and attack techniques gleaned from seven years at war against the U.S. and allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.

“There is a level of activity that is troubling, disturbing,” Gen. William “Kip” Ward, head of U.S. Africa Command, told The Associated Press. “When you have these vast spaces that are just not governed it provides a haven for support activities, for training to occur.”

Ward added that American officials already are seeing extremist factions in East Africa sharing information and techniques.

Several military and counterterrorism officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters cautioned that the movements of the al-Qaida militants do not suggest an abandonment of the ungoverned Pakistan border region as a safe haven.

Instead, the shift is viewed by the officials more as an expansion of al-Qaida’s influence, and a campaign to gather and train more recruits in a region already rife with militants.

Last month, Osama bin Laden made it clear in a newly released audiotape that al-Qaida has set its sights on Somalia, an impoverished and largely lawless country in the Horn of Africa. In the 11-minute tape released to Internet sites, bin Laden is heard urging Somalis to overthrow their new moderate Islamist president and to support their jihadist “brothers” in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine and Iraq.

Officials said that in recent years they have seen occasional signs that sophisticated al-Qaida terror techniques are gaining ground in East Africa. Those harbingers include a coordinated series of suicide bombings in Somalia in October.

In the past, officials said, suicide attacks tended to be frowned on by African Muslims, creating something of an impediment to al-Qaida’s efforts to sell that aspect of its terrorism tactics.

But on Oct. 29, 2008, suicide bombers killed more than 20 people in five attacks targeting a U.N. compound, the Ethiopian consulate, the presidential palace in Somaliland’s capital and two intelligence facilities in Puntland.

The coordinated assaults, officials said, amounted to a watershed moment, suggesting a new level of sophistication and training. The incident also marked the first time that a U.S. citizen — a young Somali man from Minneapolis — carried out a suicide bombing.

The foreign fighters moving into East Africa complicate an already-rising crescendo of terror threats in the region. Those threats have come from the Somalia-based al-Shabab extremist Islamic faction and from al-Qaida in East Africa, a small, hard-core group also known by the acronym EEAQ.

While not yet considered an official al-Qaida franchise, EEAQ has connections to the top terror leaders and was implicated in the August 1998 embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya that killed 225 people. The bombings were al-Qaida’s precursors to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a plot spawned by a small cell of operatives as far back as 1992. Four men accused as al-Qaida plotters were later convicted in federal court in New York for those bombings.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and several other EEAQ members remain under indictment in the United States for their alleged participation in those bombings. Mohammed is on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list with a reward of up to $5 million on his head.

Al-Qaida has the skills while al-Shabab has the manpower, said one senior military official familiar with the region. The official said EEAQ appears to be a small cell of a few dozen operatives who rarely sleep in the same place twice and are adept at setting up temporary training camps that vanish days later.

What worries U.S. military leaders, the official said, is the that EEAQ and al-Shabab may merge in training and operations, potentially spreading al-Qaida’s more extremist jihadist beliefs to thousands of clan-based Somali militants, who so far have been engaged in internal squabbling.

The scenario could become even more worrisome, the officials said, if the foreign fighters transplant their skills at bomb-making and insurgency tactics to the training camps in East Africa.

Africa experts, however, said it won’t be easy for Islamic extremists to win many converts in East Africa.

Francois Grignon, Africa program director for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research organization, said in an interview that many clan members generally practice a more moderate Islam, and militants are not inclined to join a fight they do not see as their own.

The U.S., he said, needs to encourage the new government in Somalia to deal with the growing terror threats there and to marginalize the jihadists so they are not able to sustain their activities in Somalia.

Ward said U.S. Africa Command is working with a number of nations to build their ability to maintain security. But he said commanders are less able to do much in Somalia, where the new government is still fragile.

Meanwhile, he said, officials continue to watch as the ties between the terror groups grow.

“I think they’re all a threat,” said Ward. “Right now it’s clearly a threat that the Africans have, but in today’s global society that threat can be exported anywhere with relative ease.”

At least a dozen men ambushed Sri Lanka’s cricket team with rifles, grenades and rocket launchers Tuesday as they drove to the stadium ahead of a match in Pakistan, killing six policemen and a driver.

The attackers struck as a convoy carrying the squad and match officials reached a traffic circle 100 yards (meters) from the main sports stadium in the eastern city of Lahore, triggering a 15-minute gunbattle with police guarding the vehicles.

Seven players, an umpire and a coach were wounded, none with life-threatening injuries.

The assault was one of the worst terrorist attacks on a sports team since Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Tuesday’s attackers melted away into the city, and none was killed or captured, city police chief Haji Habibur Rehman said. Authorities did not speculate on the identities of the attackers or their motives, but the chief suspects will be Islamist militants, some with links to al-Qaida, who have staged high-profile attacks on civilian targets before.

The bus driver, Mohammad Khalil, accelerated as bullets ripped into the vehicle and explosions rocked the air, steering the team to the safety of the stadium. The players _ some of them wounded _ ducked down and shouted “Go! Go!” as he drove through the ambush.

The attack reinforced perceptions that nuclear-armed Pakistan is veering out of control under terrorist assault.

The head of Pakistan’s Interior Ministry, Rehman Malik, said the country was “in a state of war.”
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“We will flush out all these terrorists from this country,” he vowed late Tuesday.

Sri Lanka had agreed to this tour _ allowing Pakistan to host its first test matches in 14 months _ only after India and Australia backed out of scheduled trips over security concerns. The assault will end hopes of international cricket teams _ or any sports teams _ playing in the country for months, if not years.

Tuesday’s attack came three months after the Mumbai terror strikes that killed 164 people. Those raids were allegedly carried out by Pakistan militants, and the assault in Lahore resembled them in many respects. Both were coordinated, used multiple gunmen, apparently in teams of two, who were armed with explosives and assault rifles and apparently had little fear of death or capture.

Authorities will also consider possible links to Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger separatist rebels who are being badly hit in a military offensive at home, though Sri Lankan military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said it was unlikely the group was involved.

Authorities canceled the test match against Pakistan’s national team, and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa ordered his foreign minister to immediately travel to Pakistan to help assist in the team’s evacuation.

A special flight is expected to bring the players home in the early hours of Wednesday, according to a Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry official.

TV footage of the attack showed at least two pairs of gunmen with backpacks firing from a stretch of grass and taking cover behind a small monument before moving on. It was taken from the offices of a Pakistani news channel overlooking the site of the ambush.

“These people were highly trained and highly armed. The way they were holding their guns, the way they were taking aim and shooting at the police, it shows they were not ordinary people,” said Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province. “This is the same style as the terrorists who attacked Mumbai.”

An Associated Press reporter saw police handling what looked like two suicide jackets. Officers also recovered two backpacks apparently used by the attackers before fleeing, as well as walkie-talkies.

“It is a terrible incident, and I am lost for words,” said Steve Davis, an Australian who was to have umpired the match.

Lahore police chief Rehman said “between 12 and 14 men” took part in the assault and they resembled Pashtuns, the ethnic group that hails from close to the Afghan border, the stronghold of al-Qaida and the Taliban. He said officers were hunting them down.

Two Sri Lankan players _ Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavitana _ were being treated for bullet wounds in a hospital but were stable, said Chamara Ranavira, a spokesman for the Sri Lankan High Commission.

Umpire Ahsan Raza was hit in his abdomen, medical Superintendent of the Services Hospital, Mohammad Javed, said.

Team captain Mahela Jayawardene and four other players had minor injuries, the Sri Lankan Cricket Board said. Ranavira said British assistant coach Paul Farbrace also sustained minor injuries.

Haider Ashraf, another police officer, said six policemen and a driver of a Pakistan Cricket Board vehicle were killed.

Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona said little could be done to stop such an attack, saying “there is never enough security to counter a well organized and determined terrorist group.”

The Dubai-based International Cricket Council condemned the attack. But ICC President David Morgan told the British Broadcasting Corp. that the organization had no role in deciding on whether Pakistan was safe enough for a tour since Sri Lanka and Pakistan agreed to the match.

One militant group likely to fall under particular suspicion is Lashkar-e-Taiba, the network blamed for the Mumbai terror attacks in November, in which 10 gunmen staged a three-day siege targeting luxury hotels, a Jewish center and other sites.

In the past, India and Pakistan have blamed each other for attacks on their territories. Any allegations like that will trigger fresh tensions between the countries, which are already dangerously high.
___

Pakistan acknowledged for the first time that the Mumbai terrorist attacks were launched from its shores and at least partly plotted on its soil, saying Thursday that it had arrested most of the chief suspects including one described as “the main operator.”

Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik said Pakistan has started criminal proceedings against eight suspects _ some of them also named by India as the masterminds of the attacks _ but he reiterated that authorities needed more evidence from New Delhi to secure convictions.

The revelations suggest Pakistan is serious about punishing those behind the November attacks, which killed 164 people and stirred fear that the nuclear-armed neighbors could slide toward war and that Pakistan might be distracted from its struggle against the Taliban and al-Qaida.

India and the U.S. have pressed Pakistan hard to dismantle Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned Pakistan-based group fighting Indian rule in the divided Kashmir region that is widely blamed for the Mumbai carnage. Islamabad and New Delhi have fought two out of their three wars since 1947 over the region.

India’s Foreign Ministry called Pakistan’s announcement “a positive development” and said it would consider Islamabad’s request for further information.

Malik said investigators had traced a boat engine used by the attackers to sail from Pakistan to India and busted two hideouts of the suspects near the southern city of Karachi.

Other leads pointed to Europe and the United States, and Malik said Pakistan would ask the FBI for help.

“I want to assure the international community, I want to assure all those who have been victims of terrorism that we mean business,” Malik said, waving a copy of Pakistan’s initial findings at reporters gathered inside his ministry.

“We will continue our investigation, but we want tenable evidence from India. We want full cooperation from India so that this kind of ring be smashed.”

India says all 10 gunmen _ only one of whom was captured alive _ were Pakistanis and that their handlers in Pakistan had kept in close touch with them by phone during the three-day assault.

New Delhi provided a dossier of evidence to Islamabad, testing Pakistan’s insistence that it would do all in its power to punish those responsible _ and that it has truly abandoned its past sponsorship of Islamist militants including the Taliban.

In Pakistan’s first detailed response, Malik said criminal cases had been opened against eight suspects on charges of “abetting, conspiracy and facilitation” of a terrorist act.

He said six of them were in custody, including Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarrar Shah, both Lashkar-e-Taiba leaders named by India as the masterminds of the attack, and a person who sent an e-mail claiming responsibility for the attacks.

Indian media said at the time that they received an e-mail in the name of the previously unknown Deccan Mujahideen _ a name which suggested an Indian rather than Pakistani group was behind the attacks and which now appears to have been a decoy.

Malik said the culprits were “non-state actors,” a phrase used by Pakistani authorities to counter allegations that its intelligence agencies had a hand in the attacks.

Malik said the assailants used three boats to travel from Pakistan to Mumbai.

He said detectives had traced an engine recovered from one of the vessels to a shop in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi. He said the shopkeeper had provided the phone number of the buyer which led to a bank account in the name of Hammad Amin Sadiq.

Malik said authorities had arrested Sadiq and obtained from him information that led them to bust two “hide-outs of the terrorists,” one in Karachi and one about two hours drive away.

He described Sadiq, a 37-year-old who had been living in Karachi, as “the main operator” but didn’t elaborate.

He said the detainees had told of how the group used a spot on the Pakistani coast to practice their sea-borne attack.

To stiffen its case, Pakistan was sending 30 questions to India about the attacks, Malik said. Among the additional details sought are the DNA of the 10 gunmen and information on intercepted phone conversations between the militants and their handlers.

He also asked New Delhi to investigate what contacts _ and help _ the attackers had inside India. The terrorists also used phones with Indian SIM cards, he noted. Their two suspected handlers are still at large.

India’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the government will consider Islamabad’s request. “After that examination, we will share whatever we can with Pakistan,” the statement said.

On Thursday, Malik also suggested a wider international dimension to the crime.

One suspect, Javed Iqbal, had been “lured” back from Barcelona, Spain, where he had been living, and was now in Pakistani custody. While in Spain, Iqbal had arranged Internet telephone accounts used in the attacks and bills had been paid in Italy, Malik said.

Suspects also used a digital teleconferencing system whose service provider is based in Houston, Texas, while a Thuraya phone was issued in a Middle Eastern country, he said.

Other bills were paid by a company in Islamabad and two people have been arrested as a result, Malik said.

“It is not only Pakistan, but the system of the other countries has also been used,” Malik said.

From Foreign Policy Watch:

When President-elect Barack Obama takes office in two weeks, he will immediately be faced with two elusive foreign policy problems whose resolution has evaded every post-war US president: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Indo-Pakistani rivalry. Each has visibly reasserted itself in its own way in recent weeks, as Israel has trounced Hamas-related installations in Gaza in retaliation for the latter’s rocket attacks, and as Pakistan has diverted troops to its border with India in the wake of New Delhi pressure over November’s attacks in Mumbai.

While both are messy and seemingly intractable, they have only assumed greater urgency over the last few months. And both old problems pose new challenges for the incoming administration.

Click here for the full report.

The revelation could add to pressure on Islamabad to either bring Zarar Shah and other suspects to trial or extradite them to India.

“(Shah) has made some statement that he was involved,” said the government official, without providing specific details. “I can tell you that he is singing.”

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the disclosure, which was first reported in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday

A senior intelligence officer said Shah and another suspect, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, were cooperating with investigators, but cautioned that authorities had not reached a definite conclusion as to their involvement yet.

He too asked for anonymity. Indian officials were not immediately available for comment.

Gunmen targeted 10 sites including two five-star hotels and a Jewish center during the November siege on Mumbai‘s financial capital, killing 164 people in a three-day reign of terror.

India and the United States say the militants who planned and carried out the attacks were Pakistani and are demanding Islamabad root out and punish those responsible.

The official also told The Associated Press that India has shared some evidence of its suspicions but he said it was “very very little.” Pakistan’s president and other top officials have said India has yet to provide any evidence.

The intelligence officer also said the country had received “information” on the attacks from other, unspecified, nations.

“They (India) gave us a list of numbers and phone calls, most of them useless,” the official said.

Shah and Lakhvi have been identified as members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned militant group accused by India of carrying out the Mumbai attacks and others on its soil.

They were taken into custody soon after the attacks.

India says both were involved in planning the siege but hasn’t made any evidence public or provided many details about their role in the plot.

Accusations of Lashkar-e-Taiba’s involvement have put Islamabad in a difficult position because the group is widely believed to have been created by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies to battle Indian-rule in Kashmir, a Himalayan region claimed by Pakistan and India.

The United States and its Western allies are concerned Pakistan will lose focus on the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban if tensions with India persist.

Washington has called for calm on both sides, but has made it clear it wants to see Pakistan crack down on the attackers. On Wednesday, President George W. Bush called his counterparts in India and Pakistan to discuss the situation.

“All three leaders … agreed that no one wanted to take any steps that unnecessarily raise tensions,” White House deputy press secretary Gordon Johndroe told reporters.

President Asif Ali Zardari told Bush that Pakistan would not tolerate any one using its territory to launch attacks on other countries, said Zardari spokesman Farhatullah Babar.

From Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic Monthly:

It’s quite unsettling to talk to members of Barack Obama’s transition teams these days, especially those who are helping with the economics portfolio. Without going into details, the sense I get from them is that they are very worried that the economy will get a lot worse before it gets better. Not just worse… a lot worse. As in — double digit unemployment without the wiggle factors. Huge declines in aggregate demand. Significant, persistent deficits. That’s one reason why the Obama administration seems to be open to listening to every economist with an idea and is stocking the staff with the leading lights of the field. In one sense, the general level of concern among Obama advisers and transition staffers is reassuring; they get the magnitude of the problems, and they’re not going to assume that, just because the bottom has never dropped out before — certainly not in the lifetimes of most people doing policy these days, the bottom will never drop out.

Where the discussion isn’t going, at least in public,  (or the PR level), is the possibility that the first foreign policy crisis the administration will face will be the complete economic collapse of a large, unstable nation.

Click here for the rest.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Security forces overran a militant camp on the outskirts of Pakistani Kashmir’s main city and seized an alleged mastermind of the Mumbai attacks, two officials said Monday.

Backed by a helicopter, the troops grabbed Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi among at least 12 people taken Sunday in the raid on the riverbank camp run by the banned group Laskhar-e-Taiba in Pakistani Kashmir, the officials said. There was a brief gunfight in the camp near Muzaffarabad before the militants were subdued, the officials said.

The officials – one from the intelligence agencies and one from a government agency – spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Indian officials say the sole Mumbai attacker captured alive has told them that Lakhvi recruited him for the mission and that Lakhvi and another militant, Yusuf Muzammil, planned the operation, which left 171 people dead in India’s commercial capital.

The capture of Lakhvi was likely to please India as well as U.S. officials, who allege he also directed Laskhar-e-Taiba operations in Chechnya, Bosnia and Southeast Asia, training members to carry out suicide bombings and attack populated areas. In 2004, he allegedly sent operatives and funds to attack U.S. forces in Iraq.

It was not immediately clear what Pakistan intended to do with Lakhvi.

Pakistan and India do not have an extradition treaty. Last week, President Asif Ali Zardari indicated anyone arrested in Pakistan in connection with the attacks would be tried in Pakistan.

A Pakistani militant group apparently used an Indian operative as far back as 2007 to scout targets for the elaborate plot against India’s financial capital, authorities said Thursday, a blow to Indian officials who have blamed the deadly attacks entirely on Pakistani extremists.

As investigators sought to unravel the attack on Mumbai, stepping up questioning of the lone captured gunman, airports across India were put on high alert amid fresh warnings that terrorists planned to hijack an aircraft.

Also Thursday, police said there were signs that some of the six victims of the attack on a Jewish center may have been tortured. “The victims were strangled,” said Rakesh Maria, a senior Mumbai police official. “There were injuries noticed on the bodies that were not from firing.”

Members of an Israeli rescue group which had a team in Mumbai said it was impossible to tell if the bodies had been abused, however, because no autopsies were conducted in accordance with Jewish tradition.

The surviving gunman, Ajmal Amir Kasab, 21, told interrogators he had been sent by the banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and identified two of the plot’s masterminds, according to two Indian government officials familiar with the inquiry.

Kasab told police that one of them, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Lashkar’s operations chief, recruited him for the attack, and the assailants called another senior leader, Yusuf Muzammil, on a satellite phone after hijacking an Indian vessel en route to Mumbai.

The information sent investigators back to another reputed Lashkar operative, Faheem Ansari, who they hope could be key in pulling together different strands of the investigation.

Ansari, an Indian national, was arrested in February in north India carrying hand-drawn sketches of hotels, the train terminal and other sites that were later attacked in Mumbai, said Amitabh Yash, director of the Special Task Force of the Uttar Pradesh police.

During his interrogation, Ansari also named Muzammil as his handler in Pakistan, adding that he trained in a Lashkar camp in Muzaffarabad — the same area where Kasab said he was trained, a senior police officer involved in the investigation said.

In Pakistan, Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik told reporters he had no information on Lakhvi or Muzammil but that authorities would check.

Ansari “told us about a planned Lashkar attack on Bombay, on southern Bombay,” said Yash, referring to Mumbai by its previous name. “He gave us eight or nine specific locations where the attack would be carried out,” he said, adding that Ansari had detailed sketches of the places and escape routes from the sites.

Ansari said he carried out the reconnaissance in the fall of 2007, which also included the U.S. consulate, the Bombay stock exchange and other Mumbai sites that were not attacked.

Ansari is now in Indian custody, according to Yash. It was unclear if he was being questioned again, but Maria said they were working to determine if Ansari played a role in how the attackers “got such intricate knowledge of the sites.”

Indian authorities have faced a torrent of criticism about missed warnings and botched intelligence, and revelations that Ansari disclosed details of the Mumbai plot 10 months ago will be added to the list. Linking an Indian national to the plot also undermines India’s assertion that Pakistan is solely responsible.

Yash said during extensive interrogations Ansari confessed to scouting Mumbai, arranging a safe-house there for Lashkar militants and provided details on his involvement in the group. “We got everything out of him, whatever he knew,” he said.

Ansari linked up with Lashkar while working at a printing press in Dubai. He was taken by sea to Pakistan to the Lashkar camp in Muzaffarabad and received a false Pakistani passport and citizenship papers, which police recovered when he was arrested.

In 2007, Ansari said, he traveled to Katmandu, Nepal, and then crossed back into India and settled in Mumbai, where he conducted reconnaissance for a future attack, Yash said.

He was arrested Feb. 10 in the northern city of Rampur after suspected Muslim militants attacked a police camp, killing eight constables. He said he was there to collect weapons to bring to Mumbai for a future attack.

Yash said Ansari’s arrest did not derail Lashkar’s plans for an attack. “When they found that their mole in Bombay had been caught…they carried out the operations in a different way,” he said.

Meanwhile, police officers said they were trying to get as much detail as possible from Kasab.

“A terrorist of this sort is never cooperative. We have to extract information,” said Deven Bharti, the head of the Mumbai crime branch.

Indian police are known to use interrogation methods that would be regarded as torture in the West, including questioning suspects drugged with “truth serum.”

Bharti provided no details on interrogation techniques, but said “truth serum” would probably be used next week. He did not specify what drug would be used.

During questioning, details of Kasab’s recruitment by Lashkar began to emerge, said police, describing him as fourth grade dropout from an impoverished village who was gravitating to a life of crime.

“Lashkar recruited him, preying on a combination of his religious sentiments and his poverty,” said Maria.

The revelations came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with leaders in Islamabad after visiting India’s capital — part of a U.S. effort to pressure Pakistan to share more intelligence and pursue terrorist cells believed to be rooted in the country.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari promised Rice his country would take “strong action” against any elements in Pakistan involved in the siege.

On Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department designated as terrorists four individuals who hold leadership positions in Lashkar, including Lakhvi, and ordered any of their U.S. assets to be frozen. Also named were Muhammad Saeed, the group’s leader; Haji Muhammad Ashraf, its chief of finance; and Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq, a financier with the group.

Meanwhile, India put its airports on alert following threats of possible airborne attacks. Security forces swarmed New Delhi’s international airport early Friday after the sound of gunfire was heard, police said, but no one was injured or killed. Police said it was not a terrorist incident.

The warning received by the airports “spoke of possibility of aircraft being hijacked by terrorists,” India’s air force chief, Fali Homi Major, told reporters Thursday.

The alert focused on three major airports — New Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai — but security was stepped up across India.

Several extra layers of security were set up and some passengers’ bags were scanned for explosives.

“Passengers have been asked to pass through six-stage security checks,” said Brij Lal, a senior police official organizing security at the airport in the northern city of Lucknow.

Nirmala Sharma, a passenger who flew from New Delhi to Lucknow, said her bags were checked a half dozen times and she went through a metal detector three times. “Sometimes it seemed tedious, but it seems to be the need of the hour,” she said.

A list of about 20 people — including India’s most-wanted man — was submitted to Pakistan’s high commissioner to India on Monday night, said India’s foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee.

India has already demanded Pakistan take “strong action” against those responsible for the attacks, and the U.S. has pressured Islamabad to cooperate in the investigation. America’s chief diplomat, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will visit India on Wednesday.

The Indian government faces widespread accusations of security and intelligence failures after suspected Muslim militants carried out a three-day attack across India’s financial capital, killing 172 people and wounding 239.

Also Tuesday, Israelis began burying the six Jews killed in one of those attacks, the assault on a Jewish center run by the ultra-Orthodox Chabad Lubavitch movement.

Several thousand ultra-Orthodox mourners gathered in Jerusalem for the first funeral, that of Leibish Teitelbaum, an American who lived in Jerusalem.

Four Israelis and a Mexican Jewish woman were also killed. A memorial ceremony was scheduled for later Wednesday for the 29-year-old rabbi who ran the Jewish center, Gavriel Holtzberg, and his 28-year-old wife, Rivkah.

Indian officials continued to interrogate the only surviving attacker, who reportedly told police that he and the other nine gunmen had trained for months in camps in Pakistan operated by the banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

India’s foreign intelligence agency received information as recently as September that Pakistan-based terrorists were plotting attacks against Mumbai targets, according to a government intelligence official familiar with the matter.

The information was then relayed to domestic security authorities, said the official, who was not authorized to talk publicly about the details and spoke on condition of anonymity. But it’s unclear whether the government acted on the intelligence.

The famous Taj Mahal hotel, scene of much of the bloodshed, had tightened security with metal detectors and other measures in the weeks before the attacks, after being warned of a possible threat.

But the precautions “could not have stopped what took place,” Ratan Tata, chairman of the company that owns the hotel, told CNN. “They (the gunmen) didn’t come through that entrance. They came from somewhere in the back.”

A day after soldiers finishing removed the last bodies from the hotel, where the standoff finally ended Saturday morning, wood boards covered its marble latticework and seafront entrance as plain-clothes police searched for evidence.

The building was the last to be cleared, following the five-star Oberoi hotel, the Jewish center, and other sites struck in this city of 18 million.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has promised to strengthen maritime and air security and look into creating a new federal investigative agency, met Tuesday with top security aides to review any government lapses.

Among those sought by India is fugitive Dawood Ibrahim — a powerful gangster, the alleged mastermind of 1993 Mumbai bombings, and India’s most-wanted man.

Also included is Masood Azhar, a terror suspect freed from an Indian prison in exchange for the release of hostages aboard an Indian Airlines aircraft hijacked on Christmas Day 1999.

In the past, Pakistan has denied harboring the men. However, Pakistan said it would consider India’s request and respond after receiving the list.

“We must try to dampen down the discourse of conflict and work toward regional peace,” said Pakistani Information Minister Sherry Rehman.

While the cross-border rhetoric between Pakistan and India has increased since the attacks, both countries — by their often-bellicose standards — carefully refrained from making statements that could quickly lead to a buildup of troops along their already militarized frontier.

Mukherjee appeared to tone things down further Tuesday, telling reporters that “nobody is talking about military action,” according to the Press Trust of India news agency. Mukherjee, responding to questions on what actions India would take, said only “time will show.”

India had summoned Pakistan’s high commissioner late Monday, telling him India “expects that strong action would be taken against those elements,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash.

In Pakistan, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi pledged full cooperation.

Qureshi said Pakistan has offered a “joint investigative mechanism and joint commission.” He didn’t say when the offer was made or if India had responded.

With the investigation still under way, and FBI and Scotland Yard teams assisting, more details emerged about the suspects and the attacks.

The sole surviving attacker, Ajmal Qasab, told police his group trained over about six months in camps operated by Lashkar in Pakistan, learning close-combat techniques, hostage-taking, handling of explosives, satellite navigation, and high-seas survival skills, according to two Indian security officials familiar with the investigation. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the details.

Lashkar was outlawed in Pakistan under pressure from the U.S. in 2002, a year after Washington and Britain listed it a terrorist group.

Qasab told investigators the militants hijacked an Indian vessel and killed three crew members, keeping the captain alive long enough to guide them into Mumbai, the two security officials said.

The men, ages 18-28, then came ashore in a dinghy at two different Mumbai areas before slipping into the city in two teams, officials said.

The gunmen hired two separate taxis after reaching Mumbai, planting bombs that later exploded in each vehicle, officials said. Two more unexploded bombs were found outside the Taj Mahal hotel.

The gunmen struck at several sites, including a train station, where they mowed down police and passers-by; the Jewish center; and the two luxury hotels, representing the city’s wealth and tourism, reportedly seeking out Westerners.

The 19 foreigners killed were Americans, Germans, Canadians, Israelis and nationals from Britain, Italy, Mexico, Japan, China, Thailand, Australia, Singapore and Mexico.

Tensions between Muslim Pakistan and Hindu-majority India flared after the attacks last week in Mumbai that killed at least 172 people and wounded 239 others.

“Such a tragic incident must bring opportunity rather than the defeat of a nation,” Zardari said in an interview with Aaj television. “We don’t think the world’s great nations and countries can be held hostage by non-state actors.”

A top Indian police officer said Sunday that the only gunman captured after the attacks said he belonged to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group with links to the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir

Joint Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria added that the gunman, Ajmal Qasab, said he was trained at a camp in Pakistan.

Lashkar has long been seen as a creation of the Pakistani intelligence service to help fight India in Kashmir. The group was banned in Pakistan in 2002 under pressure from the U.S., a year after Washington and Britain listed it a terrorist organization.

Other Indian leaders have blamed “elements in Pakistan” for the attack, but have not said whether they believe the terrorists had the backing of any state agencies.

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani said his country “would itself take action against the miscreants if there is any evidence against a Pakistani national,” according to a statement released by his office.

He also cautioned that India should not make allegations in the media. “The blame game should be avoided at all costs as (it) may affect the state of relations between the two countries,” he said.

Zardari’s spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, said Islamabad has “demanded evidence of the complicity of any Pakistani group” but has received none.

The nuclear-armed nations have fought three wars since the subcontinent was divided at the end of British colonial rule in 1947, two over the Himalayan region of Kashmir.

The United States is watching the situation closely, knowing that any flare-up in tensions between the two countries could damage its hopes of defeating al-Qaida and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she expects Pakistan to cooperate fully with any probe, something Islamabad has already said it will do so long as India gives it the evidence.

“What we are emphasizing to the Pakistani government is the need to follow the evidence wherever it leads,” Rice told reporters in London. “I don’t want to jump to any conclusions myself on this, but I do think that this is a time for complete, absolute, total transparency and cooperation and that’s what we expect.”

Rice is cutting short a European trip to visit India later this week

Pakistan’s prime minister, president and foreign minister have reached out to their counterparts in Asia, the U.S. and Europe since the attack to talk about the tensions.

Prime Minister Gilani has called for a meeting of all political party leaders Tuesday to reach consensus on post-Mumbai policy.

Parliamentary opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ahmed Khan urged the government to be firm with India, saying any evidence of involvement by a Pakistani citizen should be presented to the country.

“Put up or shut up,” he said.

In this case, Zardari is accused of making “indecent gestures, filthy remarks, and repeated praise of a non-Muslim lady wearing a short skirt.” His death has been called for by a radical Islamic prayer leader out of Lahore, Pakistan.

However, he managed to gain the ire of others outside the religious community. Members of feminist groups in Pakistan, such as the Women’s Action Forum, were outraged, saying he was disrespectful and treated Palin as an attractive woman rather than as a politician in her own right.

Watch Zardari’s flirting session with Sarah Palin here:

Two American OH-58 reconnaissance helicopters, known as Kiowas, were on a routine afternoon patrol in the eastern province of Khost when they received small arms fire from a Pakistani border post, said Tech Sgt. Kevin Wallace, a U.S. military spokesman. There was no damage to aircraft or crew, officials said.

“They did not cross the border and they did not fire back,” Wallace said.

The Pakistani military disputed that assertion, saying its troops fired warning shots when the two helicopters crossed over the border _ and that the U.S. helicopters fired back.

“When the helicopters passed over our border post and were well within Paskitani territory, own security forces fires anticipatory warning shots. On this, the helicopters returned fire and flew back,” a Pakistani military statement said.

The Pakistani military said the matter was “being resolved” in consultations between the army and the NATO force in Afghanistan. A NATO statement said the militaries were “working together to resolve the matter.”

The U.S. has stepped up attacks on suspected militants in the frontier area, mostly by missiles fired from unmanned drones operating from Afghanistan. The incursions _ especially a ground raid into South Waziristan by American commandos Sept. 3 _ have angered many Pakistanis.

Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said last week that Pakistani field commanders have previously tolerated international forces crossing a short way into Pakistan because of the ill-defined and contested nature of the mountainous frontier.

“But after the (Sept. 3) incident, the orders are clear,” Abbas said. “In case it happens again in this form, that there is a very significant detection, which is very definite, no ambiguity, across the border, on ground or in the air: open fire.”

On Wednesday, Pakistan’s army said it had found the wreckage of a suspected surveillance drone in South Waziristan, but denied claims by Pakistani intelligence officials that troops and local people shot down the aircraft.

Abbas said Pakistan’s military was awaiting a full report from Afghanistan on Thursday’s shooting, but that Pakistani units had “very clear” orders not to fire across the border. “We are getting it investigated,” he said.

In Washington, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said the coalition immediately requested an explanation from Pakistan for what he described as “an unfortunate incident.”

“The Pakistanis have to provide us with a better understanding as to why this took place,” Whitman told Pentagon reporters.

He said the militants have always tried to exploit the border region.

“It’s a challenge along the border and that’s why we continue to look for ways to improve our coordination,” Whitman said.

Asked how Pakistani forces could mistake U.S. helicopters for enemy forces _ especially since Taliban and al-Qaida forces don’t have aircraft _ Whitman said: “Only Pakistan can articulate their intent.”

Pakistani civilian leaders have condemned the cross-border operations by U.S. forces, which have been authorized by President Bush, while the army has vowed to defend Pakistan’s territory “at all cost.”

“We will not tolerate any act against our sovereignty and integrity in the name of the war against terrorism,” Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told journalists Wednesday. “We are fighting extremism and terror not for any another country, but our own country. This is our own war.”

Pakistan’s tribal areas have become a breeding ground for Taliban and al-Qaida militants, who are launching attacks inside Pakistan but also across the border into Afghanistan, where the levels of violence have reached record heights since the ouster of the Taliban from power in the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. More than 4,600 people _ mostly militants _ have died this year in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan, and the levels of violence in the eastern Afghanistan are 30 percent higher compared to the same period last year, officials say.

In other violence, a remote-controlled bomb struck a police vehicle Wednesday in Spin Boldak district of Kandahar province, killing two officers, said provincial police chief Matiullah Khan.