Yemen: Drone kills Al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaqi

The defence ministry in Sanaa said he was killed along with several other suspected Al-Qaeda operatives on Friday, and tribal sources said he died in a strike on two vehicles in Marib province, an Al-Qaeda stronghold in eastern Yemen.

Awlaqi was charged in November in Yemen for alleged ties with Al-Qaeda and incitement to kill foreigners.

Washington had linked the imam and son of a former Yemeni government minister to a shooting rampage in November 2009 at a US army base and to a botched Christmas Day attack that year on a US airliner.

A Yemeni court, under mounting US pressure to fight Al-Qaeda after a foiled air cargo bomb plot in late October last year, had ordered his arrest by any means for his alleged Al-Qaeda links.

“Mr Awlaqi is a problem,” US President Barack Obama s counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan said in January, 2010. “He s clearly a part of Al-Qaeda in (the) Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). He s not just a cleric.”

Brennan directly accused Awlaqi of having links with Major Nidal Hasan who is suspected of shooting dead 13 people at Fort Hood military base in Texas, and who is set to face trial in a military court on March 5, 2012.

Awlaqi may also have had contact with Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, accused of trying to blow up the Christmas Day plane, Brennan said.

Obama has accused AQAP of arming and training Abdulmutallab and said the group was also responsible for last October s parcel bomb plot, which originated in Yemen.

Two parcels addressed to Jewish institutions in Chicago and containing the explosive PETN hidden in ink toner cartridges were found to have been freighted from Sanaa on commercial airlines.

In July, 2010, Washington placed Awlaqi on its list of terrorism supporters, freezing his financial assets and banning any transactions with him.

In a video tape posted by AQAP on jihadist websites in May last year Awlaqi, who is in his late 30s, urged Muslims serving in the US army to follow Hasan s example and also defended Abdulmutallab.

Awlaqi, in a later Internet posting in November, went a step further and called for the murder of any US citizen. “Do not consult anyone in killing Americans,” he said, the US monitoring group SITE Intelligence reported.

“Killing the devil does not need any fatwa (religious edict),” he added. “It s either us or you,” Awlaqi said, addressing Americans in the video.

In May last year, the United States said it was actively hunting Awlaqi. “He has an agenda just like Al-Qaeda to strike targets in Yemen, throughout the world including here in the United States,” the White House spokesman said.

But an Awlaqi relative has insisted the imam “is not a fighter of Al-Qaeda.” “He is just a preacher,” he said.
Awlaqi comes from a well-off family. His father is a former minister of agriculture and was the president of the university of Sanaa.

He was born in the US state of New Mexico in 1971, attended school in Yemen and graduated from Colorado State University in civil engineering. He also holds a master s degree in education leadership from San Diego State University.

He made a name for himself delivering sermons in English in mosques across the United States, where he also worked for a charity association founded by Yemeni cleric Abdul Majeed al-Zendani, whom the US government has identified as a “global terrorist.”

Awlaqi met two of the bombers on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon building in the United States on September 11, 2001, according to the 9/11 Commission Report.

Awlaqi was arrested in Yemen in 2006 for his role in kidnapping the son of a rich Yemeni family and demanding ransom money “to finance Al-Qaeda,” Yemeni security sources said.

Two years later he was set free on condition that he report to police daily, but he fled to the eastern Shabwa region.
Awlaqi went to ground after an air raid on December 24, 2009 struck a meeting of Al-Qaeda leaders in Wadi Rafadh, in Shabwa province, killing 34.

In May this year, a Yemeni tribal source said Awlaqi narrowly escaped a US drone attack three days after American commandos killed Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

The strike in Shabwa was the first reported US targeting of other key figures in the terror network after a commando raid killed bin Laden inside Pakistan on May 2.

Awlaqi was married with five children.

Al Qaeda number two killed in drone attack

 According to reports, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman was killed in Pakistan in another big blow to the terrorist group that the US believes to be on the verge of defeat, a senior Obama administration official said Saturday.

The Libyan national who was the network s former operational leader rose to Al Qaeda s No. 2 spot after the US killed Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden during a raid on his Pakistan compound in May.

As per media report, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last month that Al Qaeda s defeat was within reach if the US could mount a string of successful attacks on the group s weakened leadership.

Al-Rahman was killed Aug 22 in the lawless Pakistani tribal region of Waziristan, the official disclosed Saturday on condition of anonymity.

The official would not say how al-Rahman was killed. But his death came on the same day that a CIA drone strike was reported in Waziristan.

Al-Rahman, believed to be in his mid-30s, was a close confidant of bin Laden and once served as bin Laden s emissary to Iran. Born in Libya, al-Rahman joined bin Laden as a teenager in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union.

ST launches ‘Save Pakistan’ long march

Staff Report

KARACHI: The Sunni Tehreek (ST) has started ‘Save Pakistan’ long march from Hazrat Abdullah Shah Ghazi’s shrine Karachi to Data Darbar Lahore.

The ST leader Sarwat Ijaz Qadri told media after visiting Ghazi’s shrine on Thursday that the long march meant to go against the opportunists, adding that the ST long march is against inflation, unemployment and terrorism.

Hundreds of ST members, led by their leader Shahid Ghouri departed from Cantonment railway station Karachi to Rawalpindi and will end at Data Darbar on November 27. Trend Pk

Afghan Taliban "leader" in reports a fake: report

KABUL: The New York Times said on Tuesday that a man it had described as a “Taliban leader” who had taken part in “secret peace talks” with the Afghan government was in fact an impostor.

The newspaper said the man had held three meetings with NATO and Afghan officials but that U.S. officials had confirmed on Monday “they had given up hope” he was the leader identified as Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour.

“The fake Taliban leader even met with President Hamid Karzai, having been flown to Kabul on a NATO aircraft and ushered into the presidential palace,” the newspaper said, again citing unidentified officials.

On October 20, The New York Times quoted an unidentified source as saying talks to end the war involved “extensive, face-to-face discussions with Taliban commanders.”

On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported two senior Afghan officials believed the

Karachi Shershah tragedy: 17 accused booked

As many as 17 people, belonging to Liyari, have been booked including their leader Baba Ladla for Shershah tragedy in Karachi in which around 12 people were gunned down.
According to police, a case has been registered in Pak Colony police station for killing 12 persons in Shershah. The case number 578/2010 in Pakistan penal code for acts 302, 386, 324 and anti terrorism act have been registered.
The wanted criminals listed in the case belong to Liyari gang war among which is the gang leader Noor Mohammad alias Baba Ladla along with Hameed alias Mulla Rao, Ejaz, Lal Mohammad, Nawaz, Iqbal and 11 other criminals.
Meanwhile, the target killers broke the temporary lull as 7 more people have been shot dead.

Musharraf staging political dramas in foreign theaters: Abbasi

Staff Report

Karachi: Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N) leader Hanif Abbasi has said that ex Military ruler Pervez Musharraf is staging political drama in foreign theaters while initiating personal attacks on our leader Nawaz Sharif.

Abbasi, reacting on Pervez Musharraf’s statement on PML-N Chief Nawaz Sharif, said to SAMAA that an effort to target Nawaz Sharif’s character is equivalent to spit towards the moon.

He added that Pervez Musharraf shall come to the streets and neighborhoods of Pakistan to carry on his political dreams, instead of staging political shows in the foreign halls.

“EX Military ruler sold Pakistanis to US for mere 5-5 thousand dollars each, and even sold out Kashmir to remain in power,” Hanif Abbasi alleged. SAMAA

Justice Deedar appointed as new Chairman NAB

The federal government has appointed Justice (r) Deedar Hussain Shah as Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB), while PML-N rejected the move, Dunya News reported on Friday.
Syed Deedar Hussain Shah was born on 11-12-1939 in Village Garhi Ghulam Hydra Qadri, District Larkana; did B.A. from Sindh University in 1962; graduated in Law from Sind University in 1965; was enrolled as an advocate for subordinate Courts with West Pakistan Bar Council in 1967 and as an Advocate of the High Court in 1974 and since then had been an active legal practitioner. In 1979, he was elected Member of District Council and remained Member of the District Council from 1979 to 1983; was also elected Chairman, Works Sub- Committee, District Council, Larkana in 1979 and was Chairman of the Council from 1979 to 1983; was elected unopposed as Charminl, Taluka (Tehsil) Council, Ratodero in 1979and served the said Council from 1979 to 1983; was again elected Member, District Council, Larkana in 1987 and served the said Council from 1987 to 1991. He was elected Member of Provincial Assembly of Sindh from 1988 to 1990 and from 1990 to 1993.On 1994, he was elevated as Additional Judge of Sindh High Court. His appointment as Additional Judge of the Sindh High Court was regularized as Judge of the Sindh High Court from the date of appointment.
It is pertinent to mention that the Supreme Court gave one month time with an extension of 10 more days to the government to appoint a new Chairman of National Accountability Bureau (NAB). A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Tariq Parvez and Justice Ghulam Rabbani took up a hurriedly moved request by the government seeking three weeks time for the appointment of NAB chairman in compliance with a recent apex court judgment which had declared illegal appointments of NABs Acting Chairman Javed Zia Kazi and Prosecutor General Irfan Qadir. In the same verdict the court had asked the government to make the appointment of the chief of the bureau by Sept 30. Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq, who had moved the application, explained to the bench that the mode of appointment required that the office be filled on the orders of the president after consultations with the prime minister as well as the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly. There has been no consensus on the issue so far because the names proposed by the government for the post of NAB chief have been turned down by the Leader of Opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. Media reports suggest that the government presented to the opposition the names of Justice (retd) Mukhtar Junejo, Justice (retd) Deedar Hussain, Chief Justice (retd) Abdul Hameed Dogar and former federal secretary Mehmood Saleem Mehmood, but none of them was acceptable to the PNL-N leadership.

Justice Deedar is a PPP loyalist: Kh Asif
Meanwhile, talking to Dunya News, Khawaja Asif of PML-N said that his party has rejected the appointment for Justice Deedar had been a PPP loyalist.
He maintained that it seemed as if the government wanted to exacerbate the situation and fan the inter-constitutional clash.
Asif said that his party wanted a neutral person to be appointed as chairman of NAB to ensure proper justice. The appointment would be backfired for the decision to this effect has been taken for personal interests.

Yaumul Quds rally leader apprehended in Quetta

Police in Quetta apprehended the leader of Yaumul Quds rally Syed Hashim Moshvi. He was alleged with charge that the route of the rally was altered on his instruction. As many as 73 people lost their lives during the suicide attack on the rally.
According to Police, the rally was to pass through a pre-determined route, but on last minute instructions from Hashim Moshvi the rally was rerouted and consequently the suicide bomber penetrated into the rally.

Jundallah leader hanged in Iran

TEHRAN: Leader of the Jundallah insurgent group, Abdulmalik Rigi was hanged Sunday after months of interrogation and trial, the official Iranian news agency reported.

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Jundallah leader hanged in Iran

Papers in world weather crisis better than US

PARIS: A new report suggests that U.

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Papers in world weather crisis better than US

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