Washington, The US has confirmed to have participated in three-way talks with the Afghan government and Taliban. According to White House spokesman Jay Carney, the US side "supported an Afghan-led process of reconciliation," and "we are obviously part of this process that is Afghan-led". Speaking to reporters on board the Air Force One, Carney said: "Almost all insurgencies come to an end through a political settlement. We believe that an end to the conflict in Afghanistan will come when there is a reconciliation." Carney also said the US side insist any Taliban who wants to participate in the process "would have to renounce Al-Qaeda, lay down their arms, renounce violence, and pledge allegiance to the Afghan constitution, and its requirement that the rights of minorities and women are respected". Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in an interview published Thursday by The Wall Street Journal, said talks among the US, the Afghan government and the Taliban had taken place in the last month. However, a Taliban spokesman denied that such three-way talks had taken place. On the same day, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta also said Karzai's statement confirms that ...
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Washington, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has said that Al Qaeda still remains a "real threat" to America despite the killing of Osama bin Laden. Panetta told CBS News: "I'll have to stop and think about that because, you know, obviously we're going after Al Qaeda wherever they're at. And clearly we're confronting al Qaeda in Pakistan." "We're confronting the nodes of Al Qaeda in Yemen, Somalia, North Africa. And obviously whatever al Qaeda links are involved in Afghanistan," he added. When asked if al Qaeda had been defeated, Panetta stressed that the terror group was still a threat. "Not yet. They're still a real threat. There's still Al Qaeda out there. And we've gotta continue to put pressure on them wherever they're at," Panetta ...
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Washington, The US government has designated the Al Qaeda Kurdish Battalions (AQKB), which operates between Iraq and Iran, as a "specially designated global terrorist entity" that will be subject to US sanctions. "As a result of the designation, any assets that AQKB holds under US jurisdiction are frozen and US persons are prohibited from engaging in any transactions with the organisation. This action will help stem the flow of financial and other assistance to AQKB," Xinhua quoted a state department statement as saying. The action taken against the organisation demonstrated the US' resolve in eliminating AQKB's ability to execute violent attacks, the statement said. Established in 2007 from the remnants of other terrorist organisations, the AQKB has sworn allegiance publicly to other terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda. "Operating along the border between Iran and Iraq, AQKB believes the leaders of the Kurdistan regional government are traitors and has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks against Kurdish targets in Iraq," the statement said. The statement listed a series of attacks launched by AQKB, including a May 2007 attack in Erbil, Iraq, in ...
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Islamabad, The US is gearing up to have curtailed ties with Pakistan, which it believes will complicate its efforts to target extremists and provide supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan. The tensions in US-Pak ties were escalated after Pakistan vowed to review its ties with the US after the deadly NATO airstrike in Mohmand Agency on November 26 that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. But the recent telephonic conversation between US Joint Chief Of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey and Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani assessing Pak-US ties indicated that the latter is determined to maintain ties with Pakistan. American and Pakistan officials said the United States will be forced to restrict drone strikes, reduce the number of its spies and soldiers on the ground and increase transport cost of providing supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan as a part of their reduced co-operation with Pakistan. The American aid to Pakistan will also be scaled down, including the continued suspension of over one billion dollar in military assistance and equipment, which was frozen after the Abbottabad raid that killed former Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden on May ...
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Islamabad, Senior al-Qaeda members are feared to be moving to north Africa to open up a new front after being targeted in Pakistan. A British official said several Al Qaeda members have been killed in US drone attacks and added "only a handful of the key players" remain alive. Sources close to Islamist groups in north Africa told the Guardian at least two senior al-Qaida operatives have already reached Libya, provoking fears that north Africa could become a new "theatre of jihad" in future. "A group of very experienced figures from north Africa left camps in Afghanistan''s [north-eastern] Kunar province where they have been based for several years and travelled back across the Middle East. Some got stopped but a few got through," a source said. It is, however, unclear whether they are shifting to north Africa to achieve greater security or to exploit the current scenario after the Arab spring revolution. The Al Qaeda move might signal shifting of its centre of operations to North Africa, which is the homeland of majority of its members, as increasing number of volunteers are making makeshift bases in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Officials described al-Qaeda''s ...
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London, The Al Qaeda leadership, which has been weakened in Pakistan following the killing of many of its senior members -- including Osama bin Laden -- in drone strikes, is now suspected to be shifting to north Africa, a media report said Monday. British officials believe that a "last push" in 2012 may destroy Al Qaeda's remaining senior leadership in Pakistan, The Guardian reported. Many senior Al Qaeda members have been killed in air strikes by unmanned drones and "only a handful of the key players" remain alive, said an official. Al Qaeda's top leader Osama bin Laden was gunned down in Pakistan's Abbottabad town May 2 by US commandos who launched a daring operation using stealth helicopters. Sources said at least two relatively senior Al Qaeda leaders have made their way to Libya, with others intercepted en route. This has caused fears that north Africa could become a new "theatre of jihad". "A group of very experienced figures from north Africa left camps in Afghanistan's (northeastern) Kunar province where they have been based for several years and travelled back across the Middle East," a source said, adding: "Some got stopped but a few got through." The ...
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Washington, The Obama administration’s tentative accord with Taliban negotiators that would have included the transfer of five Afghans from U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the Taliban’s public renunciation of international terrorism, has collapsed. According to the Washington Post, it was the closest that the parties have come to genuine peace negotiations after nearly a year of talks. American officials said the agreement ultimately collapsed after Afghan President Hamid Karzai balked at its terms. “Right now, things have stopped. Everybody is taking a deep breath. Contacts with the Taliban are expected to be reestablished early in the New Year,” said a senior Obama administration official. The negotiations reflect a marked change over the past year in what the administration believes is both acceptable and achievable in Afghanistan, apart from the core objective of eliminating al-Qaeda and the possibility that it could reestablish an Afghan presence. U.S. commanders have said that the Taliban’s interest in talks stems from coalition gains on the battlefield. But officials said they believe the insurgents are more or less in the same position ...
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Washington, A federal jury Tuesday convicted a US man of conspiring to kill American soldiers in Iraq. Prosecutors alleged that Tarek Mehanna, who hails from the Boston suburb of Sudbury, travelled to Yemen in 2004 seeking terrorism training, Xinhua reported. Mehanna, an Egyptian descent, has been held without bail since he was indicted on terrorism charges in November 2009. The 29-year-old had a doctorate degree from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. After failing to get training there, he returned to the US and started distributing propaganda materials of Al Qaeda. Defence lawyers argued that Mehanna did not provide support to Al Qaeda but was expressing his own views in opposition to US foreign policy, particularly to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But a number of Mehanna's former friends testified against him that he had promoted extreme ideology, endorsed the Sep 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. FBI agents also told jurors that a search of Mehanna's computer uncovered countless documents promoting Al Qaeda, including materials that Mehanna had translated into ...
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Washington, Somalian-based Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group Al-Shabaab has reportedly taken to the micro-blogging site Twitter to win the support for its control of the country. The move represents an attempt to counter Kenya''s military spokesperson Major Emmanuel Chirchir, who uses his Twitter to highlight the government’s success in combating the al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab opened its account titled @HSMPress, (HSM stands for Harakat Al-Shabaab Al Mujahideen Press Office) on September 16, but tweeted for the first time on December 9. Its first tweet was an Arabic phrase, which, according to the BBC, comes from the Koran and means ''In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful''. The group updated its progress of ''martyrdom seekers'', described the Mogadishu battle and reaffirmed its ideology in a nutshell in its 23 tweets. One Al-Shabaab tweet accused Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) soldiers of being addicted to qaat, which is enlisted by the World Health Organisation as ''a drug of abuse''. “By time the intoxicated #TFG militia sober up from their excessive Qaat sessions, the scales of war would have turned rather ...
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London, A US aid worker has been held hostage by Al-Qaeda, the terror group's chief Ayman al-Zawahiri stated Thursday in a video. Warren Weinstein was kidnapped from Pakistan's Lahore city by armed men, the Guardian reported. Al-Qaeda abducted the elderly USAID contractor Aug 13. Zawahiri, in the video, termed him being "neck-deep in American aid to Pakistan". Weinstein, a development expert, has lived in Pakistan for seven years and headed the office of an American contractor working for the US government's agency for international development to enhance Pakistan's dairy and gem trades. "Just as the Americans detain whomever they suspect may be connected to al-Qaida or the Taliban even in the slightest of ways, we have detained this man who has been involved with US aid to Pakistan since the 1970s," said Zawahiri. Zawahiri also said that the White House could secure his release by halting air strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, and releases the 1993 World Trade Centre bombers and relatives of Osama bin Laden. Zawahiri, who had been a long-standing deputy to bin Laden, took over the Al-Qaeda chief's post this year after the latter was killed in a ...
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