Osama bin Laden's villa was demolished in Abbottabad - PHOTO

Villa in Abbottabad (Pakistan) where bin Laden lived at least five years when he was killed by an American commando unit in May 2011, was demolished.Demolition started Saturday's three-story building took less than two days without interruption. "Demolition is complete, three-story building was demolished," said an official of the Pakistani security forces.Monday morning, only protective fence with four feet high was demolished."We were ordered to remain on site until further directives. Wall will remain intact for now. Next step is to  remove debris," according to the official.Villa located near Abbottabad (North West)

Pakistan: NATO Attack Killed 24 Soldiers

A predawn attack by North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces Saturday killed at least 24 Pakistani soldiers and injured 13 others, the Pakistani military said, adding further stress to the U.S.'s troubled relationship with Pakistan and complicating efforts to push forward peace talks with the Taliban.

Pakistan's army reacted angrily, calling the "unprovoked" raid on two Pakistani border posts an "irresponsible act." The army said NATO helicopters and fighter aircraft, under the cover of darkness, had bombed the posts in Mohmand tribal region, a lawless border area that which abuts Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province.

"Pakistan's sovereignty was attacked early this morning," said Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. "This is our Pakistan and we have to defend it."

In retaliation, Pakistan's security forces began to turn back scores of Pakistani-owned trucks that carry NATO supplies into Afghanistan.

The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan said it was looking into the latest Pakistani claim. The incident took place hours after Gen. John R. Allen, the coalition commander, met with government officials and army officers in Pakistan to discuss border issues.

"This incident has my highest personal attention and my commitment to thoroughly investigate it to determine the facts," said Gen. Allen. "My most sincere and personal heartfelt condolences go out to the families and loved ones of any members of Pakistan Security Forces who may have been killed or injured."

The U.S. claims Pakistan, while waging a three-year-old war against militants in the tribal regions, has continued to shelter some factions of the Taliban as a way to maintain influence inside Afghanistan after most international troops leave in 2014. U.S. military officials say NATO troops have repeatedly come under attack from Taliban forces based over the border and have urged Pakistan to do more about militants in its tribal regions.

But President Barack Obama's administration is also nudging Pakistan to use its influence over the Taliban, which Pakistan's military helped create in the 1990s, to bring them to the negotiating table to end the 10-year war in Afghanistan. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brought this dual message to Pakistan during a visit to Islamabad, the capital, in October, asking for stepped-up military action on Pakistan's side of the border but promising to keep Pakistan fully abreast of developments in Afghanistan, including nascent peace talks.

Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, faced with growing anti-U.S. sentiment, deepened by incidents like the one on Saturday, faces limited room to accede to any U.S. demands at the moment, said Talat Masood, a retired general and defense analyst.

"Those who have been more moderate, even those people are asking is it worth having a relationship with the U.S.," Mr. Masood said. "It will be very difficult for Gen. Kayani to defend the alliance."

Mr. Masood said he had taped a television chat show Saturday after the attack on the border posts during which he was the only participant arguing the U.S. wouldn't have targeted Pakistani soldiers in Mohmand as a deliberate act of aggression.

Western diplomats in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, said Saturday the raid is likely to hurt efforts to get Pakistan to play a significant role in forging peace talks, which are expected to take center stage at an international conference on Afghanistan to be held in Bonn, Germany, next month.

U.S. and Afghan officials say Pakistan continues to hold sway over the Taliban group controlled by Mullah Mohammed Omar, believed to be based in the western Pakistani city of Quetta, and the Haqqani faction, which shelters in North Waziristan, a Pakistani tribal region on the Afghan border. Pakistan denies this and blames the U.S.'s war in Afghanistan for sparking a war on its side of the border in which more than 3,000 Pakistani soldiers have died.

Few observers, though, expect a complete breakdown in relations. Pakistan might close its borders for a few days, temporarily hurting NATO's supply chain, but the country will continue to rely on billions of dollars in military and civilian aid from the U.S. Washington, likewise, needs Pakistan to keep up pressure on Taliban militants in the tribal region, and as a supply route, as it tries to work out an exit strategy from Afghanistan.

"This is a need-based relationship. It will have its temporary hiccup, probably in the form of the suspension of NATO cargo," said Imtiaz Gul, director of the Center for Research and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based think-tank.

In September 2010, a NATO helicopter attack on a Pakistani border post in the tribal regions killed two soldiers. Pakistan closed traffic for NATO convoys for a few days but later reopened the route. The U.S., wary of its part-time ally, begun moving more supplies for Afghanistan through Central Asia. The Pakistan land route, from the port city of Karachi across country to two major borders with Afghanistan, still accounts for roughly half of NATO supplies coming in to Afghanistan.

Since that incident, which blew over, the U.S.-Pakistan relationship has deteriorated. Pakistan' army was embarrassed and angered by the covert raid by U.S. Navy SEALs in May that killed Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani army garrison town. That came after a Central Intelligence Agency contractor shot dead two armed men in Lahore in January and was briefly jailed.

Just last week, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. was forced to resign amid allegations he had sought Washington's help to reduce the power of Pakistan's army, which plays a large role in domestic politics.

Pakistan's army, in response to growing anti-U.S. feeling, has began to more forcibly challenge the U.S. in public, including attacking Washington's policy of stepped-up unmanned drone strikes against Taliban targets in the tribal regions.

Al-Qaeda releases 9/11 anniversary

Al-Qaeda has released a video marking the anniversary of 9/11 which includes a message from its slain leader Osama bin Laden to the American people, monitoring group SITE Intelligence said Tuesday.

SITE said the 62-minute video titled "The Dawn of Imminent Victory" also includes a speech by Al-Qaeda's

new chief Ayman al-Zawahiri who applauds the "Arab Spring" revolutions.

The US intelligence monitoring service said the footage of bin Laden appears to be the same material found in the US raid on his Pakistan hideout in May, which Washington released but without its soundtrack.

Bin Laden, who was killed by US Navy SEALs in the covert operation, warned Americans against "falling as slaves" to the control of major corporations and "Jewish money capital", SITE said.

He recommended that Americans read the book "Obama's War" by Bob Woodward which details wrangles over US military decision-making, and told them that US President Barack Obama?s campaign slogan "Yes, we can" is untrue.

Zawahiri, who is now Washington's most wanted man, makes a long speech about events in the past year including the revolutions in the Arab world and the death of bin Laden whom he replaced after a long period as Al-Qaeda number-two.

"Zawahiri... declared that contrary to what is reported in the media, Al-Qaeda supports the revolutions and hopes it will establish true Islam and sharia-based governance," SITE said.

"The popular revolutions, he stated, are a form of defeat for the United States, just as the 9/11 attacks and its alleged lack of success in Afghanistan and Iraq were also defeats."

Al-Qaeda has been absent from the popular protests that have swept the Arab world this year, leading to the fall of leaders in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia and provoking major unrest elsewhere.

Analysts argue that the phenomenon has left the global terror outfit weakened and increasingly irrelevant.

Zawahiri lauded his predecessor bin Laden as a fighter who had taken on the Russians in Afghanistan as well as the Americans, and who he said had sacrificed everything for his campaign.

"America is denying the fact that it is not facing individuals or groups but the whole ummah (Muslim community) of Islam. After the martyrdom of Sheikh Osama, the Islamic face of the revolutions was shown," he said.

"America?s arrogant nature will push it to deny the facts that it is facing a rising ummah and that it may be a cause of defeat and its fall, with permission from Allah."

Zawahiri was only shown in a still picture in the video, which was released by Al-Qaeda's media arm, as-Sahab, and posted on jihadist websites Monday, SITE said.

Like his slain Saudi-born co-conspirator, Zawahiri has been in hiding since the United States declared its war on terrorism after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The US on Sunday marked the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 strikes in emotional ceremonies held under tight security after federal authorities warned of a new terrorism scare.

Americans mark 10th anniversary of September 11 attacks

Americans Sunday remembered the horror of September 11, 2001, and the nearly 3,000 people who died in the hijacked plane attacks as authorities worked to ensure the emotional 10th anniversary was peaceful.

Law enforcement authorities in New York and Washington were on high alert against what was described

as a "credible but unconfirmed" threat of an al Qaeda plot to attack the United States again a decade after the toppling of the World Trade Center's twin towers by hijacked airliners.

Security was especially tight in Manhattan, where police set up vehicle checks on city streets as well as bridges and tunnels coming into the city.

President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush, who was president at the time of the attacks, were scheduled to be among the dignitaries at the Ground Zero site in New York.

They were set to join victims' families to hear the reading of the names of those who died on September 11. Bells will toll across the city.

In the attacks, 19 men from the Islamic militant group al Qaeda hijacked airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon outside Washington and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

To mark the attacks, Obama was set to visit all three sites.

"Thanks to the tireless efforts of our military personnel and our intelligence, law enforcement and homeland security professionals, there should be no doubt: today, America is stronger and al Qaeda is on the path to defeat," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

U.S. forces killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May.

Sunday's Ground Zero ceremony was set to include moments of silence marking when planes hit the twin towers as well as when they collapsed. Other moments of silence will mark when a plane hit the Pentagon and another crashed in Shanksville after passengers fought back against the hijackers.

Bush, who has kept a low profile since leaving office, was in Shanksville Saturday. "The memory of that morning is fresh, and so is the pain," Bush told a crowd at the site.

'THEIR LIVES MATTERED'

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie spoke Saturday at the opening of a monument to the 746 residents of his state killed in the attacks. The "Empty Sky" memorial in Liberty State Park, across the Hudson River from the World Trade Center, has the names of the dead etched on two 30-foot tall walls, each 208 feet and 10 inches long -- the exact width of the twin towers.

"Their lives mattered," Christie said at the ceremony, which began late because security slowed traffic. "That's why we built this memorial and that's why we come here today."

Security concerns were high in Washington, too. Authorities shut down part of Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia outside the U.S. capital Saturday because of a suspicious object but later said no explosives were found.

New Yorkers, accustomed to heightened security and alerts that have become commonplace over the past decade, appeared to take the increased police presence in stride.

A decade later, after a faltering start, there are signs of rebuilding progress at the World Trade Center site. The new One World Trade Center skyscraper rises more than 80 stories above the ground as it inches to its planned 1,776 foot height -- symbolic of the year of America's independence from Britain.

The memorial plaza is ready and the neighborhood has enjoyed a revival, making it a trendy Manhattan place to live.

The 2001 attacks were followed by U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the latter of which Obama opposed. The United States still has thousands of troops deployed in both countries.

But the weak U.S. economy has become the biggest concern for many Americans. Obama said, "After a hard decade of war, it is time for nation building here at home."

Authorities check 'credible' terrorist threats to NYC, D.C.

 Federal authorities investigated "specific, credible but unconfirmed" threats Thursday night involving possible plots to attack New York City and Washington around the 9/11 anniversary, the Department of Homeland Security said.

The threat involving possible bombings was shared with New York and Washington police.

The threat information was about three people who may have been dispatched to the U.S. to meet with associates to carry out the attacks, said a federal law enforcement official who was not authorized to speak publicly and asked not be identified.

President Obama was briefed about the matter Thursday morning and received updates during the day.

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler said documents recovered from the raid in May on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan revealed al-Qaeda's interest to strike the U.S. on meaningful dates.

"In this instance, it's accurate that there is specific, credible but unconfirmed threat information," Chandler said. "As we always do before important dates like the anniversary of 9/11, we will undoubtedly get more reporting in the coming days."

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the threat, while credible, was "not corroborated." He urged New Yorkers to go about their business as usual.

"There is no reason to change any of your routines," he said at a news conference Thursday night. He also urged citizens to report anything suspicious.

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the department was extending officers' shifts and would be increasing police presence on the streets.

He also said officers would be conducting additional bag checks at subway stations and warned citizens they might encounter police checkpoints throughout the city.

The threat information did not prompt an immediate elevation of the national threat level.

Earlier Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said there was "lots of chatter" among known terror associates and on jihadi websites in the run-up to Sunday's 10th anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people at the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., and Shanksville, Pa.

In the past several days, federal, state and local authorities have dispatched thousands of personnel to sensitive locations in New York City, Washington and elsewhere to guard against possible disruptions.

Even without a confirmed threat, officials said the heightened state of alert was necessary because of al-Qaeda's stated intent to strike on the 9/11 anniversary.

Attorney General Eric Holder said there would be noticeable increases in law enforcement at national landmarks and public gatherings commemorating the anniversary.

Napolitano said more air marshals would be riding commercial airlines, which al-Qaeda hijackers converted into guided missles during the 2001 attacks.

Amtrak is stepping up screenings of passengers and baggage throughout its rail system, including the heavily traveled Northeast corridor.

Information seized from bin Laden's compound shortly after the terrorist leader was killed by Navy SEALs revealed that al-Qaeda considered the U.S. rail system as a possible target.

John O'Connor, Amtrak vice president and police chief, said the railroad is expanding patrols and bomb-detection teams.

White House chief counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said U.S. efforts in the aftermath of 9/11 — specifically the elimination of top-level terror leaders — have "made it much more difficult" for operatives to launch large-scale attacks.

Al-Qaeda "has taken it on the chin," Brennan said.

The death of bin Laden, the architect of 9/11, was the most significant and symbolic of the organization's losses.

Brennan said the material shows the al-Qaeda chief was "a little out of touch about how debilitated his organization was" after years of battle with U.S. and other forces.

"He was pushing for these major types of attacks," Brennan said. "I think his lieutenants were trying to tell him, 'We know what you want to do — great aspirations — but our ability to do that is degraded because we are losing people.'"

31 Dead, US Helicopter Attacked by Taliban Insurgents

Thirty-one American soldiers have been killed as insurgents shot down a NATO Chinook transport helicopter early Saturday. That one incident made it the deadliest day for U.S. troops since the Afghan war began in 2001.

The service members were on a night-raid mission in the Tangi Valley of Wardak Province when a rocket-

propelled grenade, a coalition officer said, brought down their helicopter.

The official said the military does “not have any indication that it was anything other than militant fire that brought the helicopter down.

Of the thirty-one soldiers killed about twenty of them were Navy SEALS, five were Army air crew, and several U.S. airmen. Seven Afghan troops and one interpreter also died when the helicopter went down.

“The numbers are high,” said one official. “It’s a big loss.”

The SEALS were part of the SEAL Team Six, the unit that carried out the raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden. However, none of those killed in the crash were members of the actual SEALs mission that killed bin Laden.

President Obama issued a statement on the tragedy, saying, “My thoughts and prayers go out to the families and loved ones of the Americans who were lost earlier today in Afghanistan.”

“Their deaths are a reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices made by the men and women of our military and their families,” he said.

It is rare for Western helicopters to be taken down by hostile fire; more helicopters are lost to mechanical problems or bad weather.

The Taliban took responsibility for the attack and said its fighters had ambushed the American soldiers after learning about the night raid.

Abdul Qayuum Baqizoi, Wardak police chief, said the U.S. strike was aimed at a meeting of insurgent leaders in a really dangerous district.

“This area isn’t even safe for security forces to travel in,” Baqizoi said.

Zabiullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesman attested the “martyrdom” of eight Taliban fighters in what was described as a violent fight before shooting the helicopter down.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has not said how the incident occurred and it is not clear if the helicopter incident and raid are connected. Officials are keeping details under-wraps because recovery operations are still in progress. Also body identifications and family notifications are just starting, said a U.S. military official.

ISAF commander Gen. John R. Allen said, “No words describe the sorrow we feel in the wake of this tragic loss. All of those killed in this operation were true heroes who had already given so much in the defense of freedom.”

Targeted night time strikes have been the most successful tactic, and have usually been carried out by U.S. special-operations forces. These night time raids have caused considerable damage to the field-command structure of the Taliban and other insurgent groups.

Coming to terms with 'Christian terrorist'

When the "enemy" is different, an outsider, it's easier to draw quick conclusions, to develop stereotypes. It's simply human nature: There is "us," and there is "them." But what happens when the enemy looks like us - from the same tradition and belief system?

That is the conundrum in the case of Norway and Anders Behring Breivik, who is being called a "Christian extremist" or "Christian terrorist."

As Westerners wrestle with such characterizations of the Oslo mass murder suspect, the question arises: Nearly a decade after 9/11 created a widespread suspicion of Muslims based on the actions of a fanatical few, is this what it's like to walk a mile in the shoes of stereotype?

"Absolutely," said Mark Kelly Tyler, pastor of Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. "It clearly puts us in a position where we can't simply say that extreme and violent behavior associated with a religious belief is somehow restricted to Muslim extremists."

During the first reports that someone had detonated a car bomb and then opened fire at a youth camp in Norway, many assumptions clicked into place.

"In all likelihood the attack was launched by part of the jihadist hydra," Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote within hours on the Weekly Standard website.

The massacre was actually committed, police say, by a blond Norwegian. As Breivik's 1,500-page manifesto emerged, calling for violence to rid Europe of non-Christians and those he deemed traitors to Christian Europe, some seized on the religious aspect of his delusions.

Mark Juergensmeyer, editor of the book "Global Religions: An Introduction" and a sociology professor at UC Santa Barbara, wrote an essay likening Breivik to Timothy McVeigh, the American who killed 168 people in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. It was the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil until 9/11.

McVeigh and Breivik were both "good-looking young Caucasians, self-enlisted soldiers in an imagined cosmic war to save Christendom, and both were Christian terrorists," Juergensmeyer wrote.

In a column for Salon.com, Alex Pareene said Breivik is not an American-style evangelical, but he listed other connections to Christianity. "All of this says 'Christian terrorist,' " Pareene wrote.

Such claims drew strong resistance. "Breivik is not a Christian. That's impossible. No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder," Bill O'Reilly said on his Fox News show.

That makes sense to Joyce Dubensky, CEO of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding. She said it also makes sense that "millions of Muslims say Osama bin Laden is not a Muslim, that no one who believes in the prophet Muhammad commits mass murder."

"We need to hear Bill O'Reilly, but we also need to hear and understand the voices of the overwhelming Muslim majority around the world who condemn those who are terrorists in the name of their faith," she said.

Arsalan Iftikhar, an international human rights lawyer and author of the upcoming book "Islamic Pacifism: Global Muslims in the Post-Osama Era," said the Norway attacks "proved that terrorism can be committed by a person of any race, nationality or religion."

New al-Qaeda chief praises Syrian protesters

Al-Qaeda's new leader praised Syrian protesters seeking to topple the regime of President Bashar Assad while trying to portray the uprising as an Islamic battle against American and Israeli interests.

The video message posted on extremist websites Wednesday is Ayman al-Zawahri's first since al-Qaeda

named him its new leader in June following the death of Osama bin Laden in a U.S. commando raid in Pakistan.

The Egyptian-born al-Zawahri, who long served as bin Laden's top deputy, directly addressed the Syrian protesters who have risen up against Assad's rule despite a bloody government crackdown. The message appeared to be an attempt to place al-Qaeda firmly on the side of the anti-government demonstrators.

"You are an example, explaining lessons to your Arab and Muslim nation in sacrifice, steadfastness and the struggle against oppression," al-Zawahri said of the protesters. "How could you not? You are the sons of the Levant, the front for jihad and martyrdom."

In the past, al-Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden himself in a video released after his death, have sought to associate themselves with the uprisings sweeping the Arab world this year, offering guidance on how the protests should be led to serve al-Qaeda's extremist version of Islam.

Many experts, however, think the uprisings have shown how out of touch the terror group has become with the aspirations of Arab youth who have been the uprising's main activists. Most seek greater freedom from dictatorial regimes, not the Islamic rule al-Qaeda advocates.

And in Syria, activists have said religion has played little role in their uprising to topple Assad.

In the video, Zawahri — dressed in a white robe, large glasses and a turban, with an assault rifle at his side — also warned the Syrian protesters not to believe that President Barack Obama and the United States stand with them.

"Tell America and Obama: … we are waging a battle of freedom and liberation, freedom from corrupt tyrants and the liberation of the religion of the Muslims," al-Zawahri said.

Al-Zawahri claimed that Washington wants to replace Assad with "a new ruler who follows America, protects Israel's interests and grants the (Muslim) nation a few freedoms."

The U.S. administration has toughened its rhetoric toward Assad's regime, declaring recently that the Syrian leader has lost all legitimacy as a leader.

Al-Zawahri also attacked Assad, calling him "the leader of the criminal gang, descendant of the traitors, biggest of those who spread corruption, head of the executioners, America's partner in the war on Islam in the name of terrorism, and border guard for Israel."

U.S. Withholding $800 Million in Aid to Pakistan as Ties Reach ’Low Point’

The U.S. is withholding about $800 million in military aid to Pakistan over actions by the nuclear- armed country since the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden, said White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley.
“They’ve taken some steps that have given us reason to pause on some of the aid which we’re giving to the

military, and we’re trying to work through that,” Daley said yesterday on ABC’s “This Week” program. “Until we get through these difficulties, we’ll hold back some of the money that the American taxpayers have committed to give.”
After crises this year worsened long-standing tensions, the countries’ relationship is “at its low point” following the May 2 U.S. raid that killed the al-Qaeda leader in a Pakistani army garrison town, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview with the U.S. military-affairs website This Week in Defense News that was broadcast yesterday.
In those 10 weeks, Pakistan has arrested an army major for allegedly helping the Central Intelligence Agency target bin Laden, according to U.S. officials cited by the New York Times and other newspapers, and has expelled more than 100 U.S. military personnel.
Recent criticisms of the Pakistani military by U.S. officials cited by the Times amount to “a direct attack” on Pakistan’s security, its armed forces spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, said in an interview two days ago, Reuters reported.
Anger and Humiliation
The announced aid cutoff may deepen “a feeling of anger and humiliation” that political analyst and retired Pakistani army Lieutenant General Talat Masood says has grown in the country’s military this year. Tensions have risen steadily since January, when a CIA contract employee, Raymond Davis, shot dead two Pakistani men he said were trying to rob him in Lahore.
“We have not received any formal intimation or letter from the U.S. informing us” of a decision to withhold aid, Abbas said by phone to Bloomberg News. He said Pakistan’s operations against Taliban guerrillas in the country’s northwest will be unaffected because the country has conducted them since 2009 “without any external support whatsoever.”
The New York Times, which reported the deferral of military aid earlier, said the amount being withheld represents more than a third of the $2 billion in security assistance given to Pakistan. It includes about $300 million to cover some of the costs of posting more than 100,000 Pakistani soldiers along the Afghan border as well as training assistance and military hardware, the newspaper reported.
Withholding Visas
A full description of the U.S. assistance on hold is classified, said Navy Captain John Kirby, a spokesman for Mullen. Night-vision devices, helicopter spare parts, radios, and equipment to counter guerrilla-made bombs are delayed because Pakistan is withholding visas for U.S. personnel required to assist with them, Kirby said in an e-mail yesterday.
Since the bin Laden raid by U.S. Navy commandos, American officials have questioned whether some in the Pakistani military were helping to hide the al-Qaeda leader, and whether Pakistan’s investigation of the incident may be aimed more at those who might have helped the U.S. find him. The U.S. didn’t notify the Pakistani government before the raid out of fear that someone might tip off bin Laden.
“Obviously there’s still a lot of pain that the political system in Pakistan is feeling by virtue of the raid,” Daley said. “Something that the president felt strongly about. We have no regrets over.”
Support for Taliban
Another irritant in relations is Pakistan’s covert support for the Taliban and allied groups fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan, say analysts such as Imtiaz Gul, chairman of the Center for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad. “Pakistan is tied in to these groups because it wants to use them to gain influence over Afghanistan in coming years,” and thus block its foe, India, from gaining sway there, Gul said by phone last week.
Mullen said April 20 that Pakistan’s main military spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, still “has a longstanding relationship” with a Taliban faction led by Jalaluddin Haqqani that a recent Defense Department report called “the most significant threat” to U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said in May the U.S. should curtail more than $1 billion in annual economic aid to Pakistan unless the Islamabad government stops harboring groups such as Haqqani’s.
Mullen said July 7 there are indications that suggest the Pakistani government sanctioned last month’s abduction and killing of Saleem Shahzad, 40, a journalist who had written about the infiltration of militants in the military.
Daley echoed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statement last month that U.S. interests give it no option but to work with Pakistan. “The Pakistani relationship is difficult, but it must be made to work over time,” Daley said on ABC.
Pakistan has been “an important ally in the fight on terrorism,” he said.

Somalis, Kenyans hail al Qaeda mastermind's death

The killing of an al Qaeda mastermind who planned the devastating bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa drew praise on Sunday from Kenyans and Somalis, while Somalia's president showed documents linking the dead man to militants who are trying to topple his nation's fragile, UN-backed government. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed eluded capture for 13 years and topped the FBI's most wanted list for planning the Aug. 7, 1998, U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. His death, reported Saturday by Somali officials,

was the third major blow to al Qaeda in six weeks. The worldwide terror group was headed by Osama bin Laden until his death last month. But Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed said Mohammed also posed a grave threat to Somalia, which has been ravaged by two decades of anarchy and conflict. Ahmed congratulated government soldiers for killing Mohammed on Tuesday at a Mogadishu security checkpoint. "His aim was to commit violence in and outside the country," Ahmed said, showing reporters documents and pictures he said government troops recovered from Mohammed. Ahmed did not let reporters check the documents, but he held up photos he said were of Mohammed's family and operational maps for the militants in Mogadishu. Ahmed also held up a condolence letter he said Mohammed sent after bin Laden's death. He didn't say who it was addressed to, but said Mohammed co-authored the letter with a known Islamist leader in Somalia, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys. Aweys, a veteran Islamist in Somalia since the 1990s, was the leader of the Hizbul Islam militant group that merged with al-Shabab last December. Aweys did not immediately return calls seeking comment. Lawmaker Abdirashid Sheik said Muhammed's death was good for Somalia. "Somalis have every reason to be happy today because foreign elements within al-Shabab are the real obstacle to stability in Somalia," he said. "Foreigners' universal ideologies don't suit Somalia's local interest. We ask them to leave us alone. We can solve our own problems by ourselves." U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also honored the victims of the bombings during a visit to the American compound in Tanzania. She put flowers on a large rock just inside the main gate of the embassy, said a silent prayer and spoke with three Tanzanian employees who were at the embassy when it was bombed. Clinton told embassy workers that the U.S. has not forgotten its pledge "to seek justice against those who would commit such atrocities." She added: "Last month al Qaeda suffered a major setback with the death of Osama bin Laden and yesterday we received news of another significant blow." The attacks in Tanzania and Kenya killed 224 people. Most of the dead were Kenyans. Twelve Americans died. One of the survivors, Douglas Sidialo, was blinded by the bombing in Kenya's capital of Nairobi. "God the creator has delivered Fazul Abdullah Mohammed to his destiny the same way he delivered bin Laden to his destiny," he said. "When you kill by the sword, bullets and bombs you die through a similar tragedy." Sidialo, who said he once wanted to skin bin Laden alive, said Sunday he has "moved on" and now would have preferred to see Mohammed captured alive and asked to account for his decisions. "Any death is not a cause of celebration," he said. Thousands were wounded when a pickup truck rigged as a bomb exploded outside the four-story U.S. Embassy building. Within minutes, another bomb shattered the U.S. mission in Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam. "Killing terrorists only breeds more terrorists. We must find a lasting solution to this menace," said Sidialo. Another Nairobi resident, Philip Nyakundi, said he welcomed the news. "Let these people be wiped out on the face of the earth, innocent kids were killed here ... in 1998 on August 7th. Let these people be wiped!" he said. Mohammed, a native of the Comoros Islands, had been on the run for more than a decade with a $5 million bounty on his head. He was thought to be hiding in Somalia, whose ineffective government has been unable to stop terror groups from operating. Mogadishu residents said Sunday they hoped Mohammed's death would also bring peace after decades of conflict. "I am undoubtedly happy with his death because he was a killer, a plotter and a violence organizer," said Ali Abdi, 27, a trader. "The death of a blood-absorber like Fazul will help peace and demoralize terrorism. As Somalis, we suffered a lot as the result of actions like his violent ones." Somali civilians are regularly caught in the crossfire between militants and forces defending the UN-backed government. The top militant group, al-Shabab, also uses harsh punishments, such as executions, in a bid to coerce the public into submission. Somalia has been mired in violence since 1991, and al-Shabab militants are trying to topple the weak, UN-backed government. Another resident, Abdirahman Ali Hassan, said al Qaeda "ruined our country and mutilated our people. Hassan said Mohammed "was going to extend our country's violence and our deaths and his survival could cost the lives of many people." Representatives of al-Shabab did not immediately confirm Mohammed's death, but Somali Information Minister Abdulkareem Hassan Jama said DNA tests confirmed that Mohammed was killed. "His killing is removal of a problem, a person that was causing death and destruction to the people of Somalia, the region and the world," he said. Mohammed was killed Tuesday at a security checkpoint in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, and Somali officials admit that they didn't immediately realize who he was. The body was even buried before it was later exhumed. Mohammed's death is the third major blow against al Qaeda in the last six weeks. Navy SEALs killed bin Laden on May 2 at his home in Pakistan. Just a month later, Ilyas Kashmiri, an al Qaeda leader sought in the 2008 Mumbai siege and rumored to be a longshot choice to succeed bin Laden, was reportedly killed in a U.S. drone attack in Pakistan. The strike against Kashmiri was not the direct result of intelligence material seized from the bin Laden compound, U.S. and Pakistan officials say. If the account of the killing at the security checkpoint killing is confirmed, it would appear Mohammed's death is also not the result of new intelligence.

Pakistan shuts down U.S. 'intelligence fusion' cells

Pakistan also tells the U.S. to cut back its troops in the country, in a move amid deepening mistrust after the U.S. raid to kill Osama bin Laden and a CIA contractor's shooting of two Pakistani men. Joints Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen heads to Pakistan for talks. In a clear sign of Pakistan's deepening mistrust of the United States, Islamabad has told the Obama administration to reduce the number of U.S. troops in the country and has moved to close three military intelligence liaison centers,

setting back American efforts to eliminate insurgent sanctuaries in largely lawless areas bordering Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. The liaison centers, also known as intelligence fusion cells, in Quetta and Peshawar are the main conduits for the United States to share satellite imagery, target data and other intelligence with Pakistani ground forces conducting operations against militants, including Taliban fighters who slip into Afghanistan to attack U.S. and allied forces. U.S. special operations units have relied on the three facilities, two in Peshawar and one in Quetta, to help coordinate operations on both sides of the border, senior U.S. officials said. The U.S. units are now being withdrawn from all three sites, the officials said, and the centers are being shut down. It wasn't immediately clear whether the steps are permanent. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew Thursday to Pakistan for a hastily arranged meeting with Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the head of the Pakistani army. A Pentagon official said the two will probably discuss Pakistan's demands for a smaller U.S. military presence. The closures, which have not been publicly announced, remove U.S. advisors from the front lines of the war against militant groups in Pakistan. U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus spearheaded the effort to increase the U.S. presence in the border areas two years ago out of frustration with Pakistan's failure to control the militants. The collapse of the effort will probably hinder the Obama administration's efforts to gradually push Pakistan toward conducting ground operations against insurgent strongholds in North Waziristan and elsewhere, U.S. officials said. The Pakistani decision has not affected the CIA's ability to launch missiles from drone aircraft in northwest Pakistan. Those flights, which the CIA has never publicly acknowledged, receive assistance from Pakistan through intelligence channels separate from the fusion centers, current and former officials said. The move to close the three facilities, plus a recent written demand by Pakistan to reduce the number of U.S. military personnel in the country from approximately 200, signals mounting anger in Pakistan over a series of incidents. In January, Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor, shot dead two men in Lahore who he said were attempting to rob him. He was arrested on charges of murder but was released and left the country in mid-March, prompting violent protests in several cities. Soon after, Pakistan ordered several dozen U.S. special operations trainers to leave the country in what U.S. officials believe was retaliation for the Davis case, according to a senior U.S. military officer. Then, on May 2, five U.S. helicopters secretly entered Pakistani airspace and a team of U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden and four others at a compound in Abbottabad, a military garrison city near the capital, Islamabad. The raid deeply embarrassed Pakistan's military and inflamed anti-U.S. sentiment across the country. Javed Hussain, a retired Pakistani brigadier, blamed the decision to close the three intelligence centers on the mistrust that has plagued U.S.-Pakistani relations in recent months. Washington's decision to carry out the raid against Bin Laden without informing Pakistan's security establishment brought that mistrust to a new low, he said. "There is lot of discontent within Pakistan's armed forces with regard to the fact they've done so much in the war on terror, and yet they are not trusted," Hussain said. "Particularly after the Abbottabad raid … the image of the armed forces in the eyes of the people has gone down. And they hold the U.S. responsible." The two intelligence centers in Peshawar were set up in 2009, one with the Pakistani army's 11th Corps and the other with the paramilitary Frontier Corps, which are both headquartered in the city, capital of the troubled Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. The third fusion cell was opened last year at the Pakistani army's 12th Corps headquarters in Quetta, a city long used by Taliban fighters to mount attacks in Afghanistan's southern provinces. U.S. troops have staffed the Quetta facility only intermittently, U.S. officials said. The closures have effectively stopped the U.S. training of the Frontier Corps, a force that American officials had hoped could help halt infiltration of Taliban and other militants into Afghanistan, a senior U.S. military officer said. The Frontier Corps' facility in Peshawar, staffed by a handful of U.S. special operations personnel, was located at Bala Hissar, an old fort, according to a classified U.S. Embassy cable from 2009 that was recently made public by WikiLeaks. The cable, which was first disclosed by Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, hinted at U.S. hopes that special operations teams would be allowed to join the paramilitary units and the Special Services Group, a Pakistani army commando unit, in operations against militants. "We have created Intelligence Fusion cells with embedded U.S. Special Forces with both the SSG and Frontier Corps" at Bala Hissar, Peshawar, the 2009 cable says. "But we have not been given Pakistani military permission to accompany the Pakistani forces on deployments as yet. Through these embeds, we are assisting the Pakistanis [to] collect and coordinate existing intelligence assets." Another U.S. Embassy cable said that a "U.S. Special Operations Command Force" was providing the Frontier Corps with "imagery, target packages and operational planning" in a campaign against Taliban insurgents in Lower Dir, an area of northwest Pakistan considered an insurgent stronghold. In September 2009, then U.S. ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, wrote in another classified message that the fusion cells provided "enhanced capacity to share real-time intelligence with units engaged in counter-insurgency operations" and were "a significant step forward for the Pakistan military." The intelligence fusion cell in Quetta was not nearly as active as the facilities in Peshawar, current and former U.S. officials said. Pakistan has long resisted pressure to intensify operations against Taliban militants in Quetta. The city, capital of Baluchistan, is outside the tribal area, which explains Pakistan's reluctance to permit a permanent U.S. military presence, a U.S. official said. Despite the ongoing tensions, Pakistani authorities have agreed to allow a CIA team to inspect the compound where Bin Laden was killed, according to a U.S. official. The Pakistanis have signaled they will allow U.S. intelligence analysts to examine documents and other material that Pakistani authorities found at the site. A U.S. official briefed on intelligence matters said the reams of documents and electronic data that the SEALs seized at the compound have sparked "dozens" of intelligence investigations and have produced new insights into schisms among Al Qaeda leaders.

Whose side is Pakistan's ISI really on?

If there was one telling moment in Pakistan in the 10 days since Osama bin Laden's death, when a Hollywood-style American assault on a suburban house left the country reeling, torn between anger, shame and denial, it occurred late one evening on a prime-time television show hosted by Kamran Khan.

Chatshow hosts are the secular mullahs of modern Pakistan: fist-banging populists who preach to the nation over supper, often through a rightwing lens. Khan, a tubby 50-year-old journalist with neat glasses and a small chin, is the biggest of them. Every night on Geo, the largest channel, he rails against "corrupt" civilian politicians and America, and lionises the armed forces; some colleagues nickname him "the brigadier".

But as the country seethed over Bin Laden last week, Khan tore off his metaphorical stripes and stamped them into the ground.

The army had failed its people, he railed. To Pakistan's shame US soldiers had invaded the country; their finding Bin Laden in Abbottabad, two hours north of Islamabad, was a disgrace. The country's "two-faced" approach to extremism had disastrously backfired, he said, reeling off a list of atrocities – New York, Bali, London, Madrid – linked to Pakistan. "We have become the world's biggest haven of terrorism," he declared. "We need to change." Viewers watched in astonishment. The unprecedented attack targeted not only the army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, but also the most sensitive policies of the military's premier spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). Feared, reviled and admired in equal measure, the ISI is considered the embodiment of army power in Pakistan, the object of hushed deference. But now, as one US official told me, "the world has changed". And the ISI finds itself in the line of fire.

The Bin Laden debacle has triggered a blizzard of uncomfortable questions, the sharpest come from Washington. How, President Barack Obama wondered aloud last Sunday, could Bin Laden shelter for years in a garrison town that is home to three regimental headquarters, the local version of Sandhurst, and thousands of soldiers? One retired US officer who has served in the region told me he had been mulling the same question. "All those times we drove up to Abbottabad, and we could have taken out our pistols and done the job ourselves," he said. The CIA chief Leon Panetta, meanwhile, says he didn't warn the ISI about the special forces raid because he feared word might leak to the al-Qaida leader. Behind the pointed statements lies an urgent question: was the ISI hiding Bin Laden?

The answer may lie inside the ISI's headquarters in Abpara, on the edge of Islamabad. The entrance, beside a private hospital, is suitably discreet: no sign, just a plainclothes officer packing a pistol who direct visitors through a chicane of barriers, soldiers and sniffer dogs. But inside, past the smooth electric gates, lies a neatly tended cluster of adobe buildings separated by smooth lawns and tinkling fountains that resembles a well-funded private university. Cars purr up to the entrance of the central building, a modern structure with a round, echoing lobby. On the top floor sits the chief spy: the director general Ahmed Shuja Pasha, a grey-haired 59-year-old three-star general. One American counterpart describes him as "brilliant and extremely intelligent . . . Thoughtful, pensive and extremely well read; if he was in the US military he would be a very successful officer."

Pasha and the ISI are the heart of Pakistan's "establishment" – a nebulous web of generals, bureaucrats and hand-picked politicians (not always elected ones) who form the DNA of Pakistan's defence and security policies. It has at least 10,000 employees (some say twice as many), mixing serving army officers, many on three-year rotations from other services, with thousands of civilian employees, from suited analysts to beefy street spies. In theory they answer to the prime minister; in reality they are a tool of the army chief, Kayani. To supporters, the ISI safeguards national security – monitoring phones, guarding the country's nuclear weapons. But to its many critics, the ISI is the army's dirty tricks department, accused of abduction and assassination, vote-rigging and torture, and running Islamist terrorist outfits. "The ISI," said Minoo Bhandara, an outspoken Parsi businessman who ran a brewery across the road from army headquarters before he died in 2008, "is an institution full of intelligence but devoid of wisdom."

Oddly, it was founded by an Australian. As Pakistan recovered from its disastrous first war with India in 1948, Major General R Cawthorne, on secondment from the British army, decided the fledgling military needed a proper intelligence outfit. The first decades were inauspicious. The ISI mishandled the 1965 war with India and failed to predict the East Pakistan conflict in 1971, which sundered Pakistan in two and created Bangladesh. All changed, however, eight years later when Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan on Christmas Day 1979. The decade-long war of resistance – bankrolled by the United States, fought by Afghans and Arabs, but largely run by the ISI from Pakistan's tribal areas – revolutionised the agency's fortunes. It ran a network of secret training camps along the Afghan border that trained more than 80,000 fighters. It controlled a weapons pipeline, funded by the CIA and Saudi intelligence, that smuggled Kalashnikovs and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles from Karachi to the Khyber Pass. And it grew powerful and rich.

A legendary figure from that period was a man named Colonel Imam, whom I first met five years ago. He was tall and burly, with a thick beard and a crooked smile that suggested several missing teeth. He wore a white turban and an olive-green, British issue second world war-issue paratroop jacket, which he told me he had been wearing since he joined the army in 1971. During the 80s, Imam ran many of the ISI training camps, becoming popular among ethnic Pashtun fighters for his love of Islam and his fondness for killing Soviets. "Those were wonderful times," he told me. Although his real name was Sultan Amir, to the Afghans he became "Colonel Imam". "I loved the fight. And the mujahideen were very fond of me," he said with a smile.

The US liked him too. On the wall of his Rawalpindi home hung war trophies from the 80s – daggers, faded photos, a Russian general's gun – but on the table sat a chunk of the Berlin wall, cased in glass. "To one who helped deliver the first blow," it read. "The Americans gave me that," he said.

With the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the CIA largely abandoned Pakistan. But the spirit of "jihad" – fighters imbued with Islamist vim – lived on in the ISI. Pakistani officers, having imbibed too much of their own ideology, transformed the spy agency. It started to support Islamist groups across Asia – Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Burma, India – and the US placed Pakistan on a terrorist watchlist. In 1993, Javed Ashraf Qazi, a secular-minded general officer, was sent in to clean up the mess. "I was shocked at what I found," he tells me. Senior ISI officers had jettisoned their uniforms for shalwar kameez; their subordinates would disappear off to the mosque for hours on end. The ISI had bought a hotel in Bangkok, probably to facilitate gun-running. The outgoing spy chief, Javed Nasir, was a playboy turned zealot who had grown a scraggly beard and refused to shake women's hands. On his first day in the office Qazi found him running out of the door to a Muslim missionary conference. "When people say the ISI is a rogue agency, it was true in those days," he says.

Qazi fired the ideologues, sold the hotel and ordered his subordinates to wear their uniforms (some struggled to fit in them). "We cleaned it up," says Qazi, who later became a minister under Pervez Musharraf.

But the ISI was not done with jihad; it had merely narrowed its focus. The proof is on the wall of Qazi's home. I notice an unusual rifle hanging on the wall. It is an Indian service rifle, Qazi admits half bashfully – a present from one of the "mujahideen" fighters the ISI started to send into Indian-occupied Kashmir from the mid 90s, when he was in charge. "We turned a blind eye to some groups," he says. They included Lashkar-e-Toiba, he admits – the terrorist outfit that in 2008 would attack hotels and train stations in the Indian city of Mumbai, killing 170 people.

In the early 90s, the ISI also started to support an obscure Islamist movement in Afghanistan called the Taliban. Colonel Imam was sent back into Afghanistan to advise the one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar. They had history: Imam, it turned out, had trained Omar back in the mujahideen camps in the 80s. With ISI backing, the Taliban swept to power in Kabul; at the UN in New York, a beleaguered Afghan official complained that Imam was the "de facto governor" of the newly conquered territories. "Ah, they are naughty people," Imam told me of the Taliban with his shy smile. "Rough people, good fighters, but respected. And they were all my friends."

Over the past decade, however, the ISI has professed to have abandoned jihad. As American troops swarmed across Afghanistan, in search of Bin Laden in late 2001, President General Pervez Musharraf disavowed the Taliban, sacked his most Islamist generals (including the then ISI director, Mahmud Ahmed) and brought Colonel Imam home. The following January he made a signature speech banning a slew of jihadi groups. "We need to rid society of extremism," he declared.

On the ground, though, things have looked different. US diplomatic cables released through WikiLeaks last year claimed the ISI was still covertly supporting the Afghan Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Haqqani network, as part of its decades-old grudge match with India. And despite billions of dollars in American assistance, wrote ambassador Anne Patterson, "no amount of money" was likely to make the army – or the ISI – change direction.

Simultaneously, though, the ISI has become a victim of jihadi violence. The Pakistani Taliban – related to the Afghan movement, but separate, and heavily influenced by al-Qaida – is seeking to oust the Pakistani state. The ISI, deemed to have betrayed them, has become the enemy. Hundreds of ISI officials have died in recent years, killed in bombings of buses and offices, and ISI spies have been beheaded in the tribal belt. In the latest atrocity on 8 March a massive car bomb outside an ISI office in Faisalabad destroyed an airline office and killed 32 people.

I last saw Colonel Imam in January 2010 at his home in Rawalpindi. He joked about media articles describing him as the "father of the Taliban". Weeks later he set off for Waziristan with another former ISI man, Khawaja, and a British journalist, Asad Qureshi, who had been commissioned by Channel 4, to interview the Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud. But the Taliban took them hostage. After a few weeks Khawaja was executed, after confessing on video to being a "CIA spy". Qureshi was released in September after his family paid a hefty ransom. Then last January, a video of Imam surfaced showing him kneeling before a group of masked, armed men. Mehsud appeared, and said a few words. Then a Talib opened fire, pumped Imam with bullets.

"When you're Frankenstein, and you create a lot of baby monsters who are running round your ankles looking sort of cute, they eventually grow up to be recalcitrant adults," a US official tells me in Islamabad. "And you hope you can get them back into the fold so they become useful. But the Pakistanis can't control everything they create."

Could the ISI's complex policy towards jihadi militants have caused it to harbour Bin Laden? Its many critics have little doubt, particularly in Afghanistan; last week the former Kabul spy chief Amrullah Saleh said he warned Musharraf about Bin Laden four years ago, only to be rowdily shouted down. Now Musharraf himself admits it's a possibility, albeit one limited to "rogue" officers. Yesterday he told ABC News there was a "possibility" of a "lower-level operative . . . following a policy of his own and violating the policy from above". But could it be done with the knowledge of the top generals? Opinion is split between agnostics and sceptics. "Did Pasha know? It's entirely implausible that he didn't," says a former western military official who has worked in Pakistan. A senior diplomat sees it differently. Perhaps the ISI is neither complicit or incompetent, he says. Maybe they just didn't look. "Looking for Osama may not have been a big priority when not finding him earns you billions of dollars a year, and if you did the Americans would leave the region," he says.

The ISI itself points to its consistent record in fighting al-Qaida. Over the past decade it has rounded up hundreds of Islamist suspects, many dispatched to Guantánamo Bay. They include the most notorious al-Qaida henchmen: Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, architect of the 9/11 attacks, snatched from a Rawalpindi safehouse in 2003; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, captured after a gun battle a year earlier; Abu Faraj al-Libi, then the al-Qaida number three, arrested in Mardan in 2005 by ISI commandos wearing burka disguises. Not finding Bin Laden was "a failure on our side," admits an ISI official. "Unfortunate, but a fact. We are good but we are not God."

Yet the questions remain. How did Bin Laden avoid ISI surveillance in a military area, just a few hundred metres from a major military base, in a zone where military intelligence traditionally keeps a close eye? And what about the army major who recently built his house just behind Osama's? Did he not wonder about his neighbour with the barbed-wire fence and the security cameras perched on the wall? "I find it entirely implausible that the military and intelligence agencies knew nothing," says Dr Farzana Sheikh, author of Making Sense of Pakistan. "There must have been knowledge at the highest levels." But, along with so many other critics, she concedes "there is no proof". In a country where so many pressing mysteries remain unresolved – from the plane crash that killed General Zia ul-Haq in 1988, to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in 2007 – few are holding their breath.

There could, at least, be accountability, although hopes are fading fast. As television anchors raged and criticism of the army swelled last week, some hoped Pakistan's civilian leadership would seize the moment to claw back part of the power it has ceded over the past 30 years. Yet those hopes were dashed on Monday when prime minister Gilani stood up in parliament for a stout defence of the generals. "The ISI is a national asset," he said. The battle, if it had ever been contemplated, was lost.

In America the scrutiny will not vanish so easily. Angry congressional leaders have called for Pakistan's $3bn annual aid package to be slashed; hostile media coverage portraying the ISI as an enemy unit is growing. Government officials, however, are more circumspect. With Nato's main military supply line running through Pakistan, other al-Qaida figures still at large including Bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and a peace settlement to be negotiated in Afghanistan, many quietly speak of the need to eventually patch up the Pakistan relationship – although few doubt that it has been utterly changed over the past 10 days. "We can't break it, it's too important," says one US official. "We're going to have to sit down across the table and try and tell some truths to each other."

Still, he adds: "There are degrees in truth. We would like to have a degree of the truth."

American popular opinion may be less nuanced. The forthcoming trial of David Headley, an American jihadi accused of helping Lashkar-e-Taiba carry out the Mumbai attacks, is likely to bring fresh accusations of ISI "double-game". And movie culture is likely to have a strong influence. Even before Bin Laden died an action thriller called tentatively "Kill Bin Laden", by Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow, was in the works. Now many more will surely follow. In the coming months, casting directors will start seeking actors to play macho navy Seals, a tense American president and an elusive Saudi fugitive. And, almost certainly, they will be looking for a clutch of double-dealing Pakistani spies. In the ISI, Hollywood may have found a new bad guy.

Taliban leader Mullah Omar killed, Taliban deny

Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has been killed in Pakistan, many private television channels in Afghanistan reported on Monday, while Taliban denied the report.

"Mullah Omar was killed on way from Quetta to North Wazirustan, " TOLO television aired in its news bulletin. Several other local TV channels including Shamshad, Ariana and Noor also reported it as the same.

However, the local media did not say the details on how he was killed and by whom.

Meantime, a security official contacted by Xinhua confirmed the incident, saying "it is correct that Mullah has been killed."

The official also emphasized that Mullah Omar was killed inside Pakistan.

"The report about the death of Mullah Omar is merely a propaganda to demoralize Mujahideen. Mullah Omar is alive. He is inside Afghanistan and is leading Mujahideen against foreign troops," Zabihulla Mujahid told media on Monday.

Mullah Omar had escaped the massive U.S. military manhunt in the region since the collapse of his regime in late 2001 by U.S- led military campaign would be a big blow to his fighters operating in Afghanistan.

U.S. forces during a special operation killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan on May 2.

Osama Bin Laden: Al-Qaeda releases posthumous message

A recording purported to have been made by Osama Bin Laden shortly before he died has been released by al-Qaeda.

In the message, he praises the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and speaks of a "rare historic opportunity" for Muslims to rise up.

The 12-minute audio message appeared on a video posted on Islamist websites, and has been translated by the US monitoring group SITE intelligence.

Bin Laden was shot dead by US Navy Seals at a Pakistan compound on 1 May.

In the recording, Bin Laden refers to the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt but makes no mention of the uprisings in Syria, Libya and Yemen.

"I think that the winds of change will blow over the entire Muslim world, with permission from Allah," he says.

"There is a serious crossroads before you, and a great and rare historic opportunity to rise up with the Ummah (Muslim community) and to free yourselves from servitude to the desires of the rulers, man-made law, and Western dominance," he also says.

"So, what are you waiting for? Save yourselves and your children, because the opportunity is here".

Al-Qaeda is generally perceived to have been caught off guard by the Arab Spring uprisings that began in January in Tunisia and swiftly followed in Egypt - toppling the long-time leaders of both countries.

Analysts say that while both al-Qaeda and the West back the uprisings sweeping across several Arab nations, they seek very different outcomes. The West hopes they will lead to democratic reforms, while al-Qaeda wants to see new governments based on their interpretation of Islamic law.

Miami imam, 2 sons charged with supporting Taliban

MIAMI - A 76-year-old Miami imam and two of his sons have been arrested on federal charges they provided some $50,000 to the Pakistani Taliban, while three others in Pakistan have been indicted on charges of handling distribution of the funds, authorities say.

Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, 76, was arrested Saturday at the Miami Mosque, also known as the Flagler Mosque, where he is an imam. One of his sons, Izhar Khan, 24, an imam at the Jamaat Al-Mu'mineen Mosque in nearby Margate, Fla., was arrested there. Another son, Irfan Khan, 37, was detained at a Los Angeles hotel. The men are U.S. citizens. Their mosques are not suspected of wrongdoing, officials said.

Also named in the indictment are three others at large in Pakistan - Hafiz Khan's daughter, grandson and an unrelated man, all three charged with handling the distribution of funds, authorities said. The Pakistani Taliban are designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization.

Attempts to reach the men's attorneys and families were unsuccessful on Saturday. However, another son of Hafiz Khan, Ikram Khan, told The Miami Herald that his father was too old and sick to be involved in the plot.

"None of my family supports the Taliban," he told the newspaper. "We support this country."

If convicted, the South Florida men face 15 years in prison for each of the four counts listed in the indictment. All three are expected in court Monday.

U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said suspicious financial activity triggered the investigation three years ago. "This is based on the defendant's words, actions and records," Ferrer said at a news conference Saturday.

The indictment lists about $50,000 in transactions.

According to the indictment, the funds were used to buy guns, support militants' families and promote the cause of the Pakistani Taliban. It also alleges that Hafiz Khan owns a madrassa, or religious school, in his native Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan that shelters members of the Pakistani Taliban and trains children to become militants.

The indictment recounts recorded conversations in which Hafiz Khan allegedly voices support for attacks on the Pakistani government and American troops in the region, officials said.

The Pakistani Taliban is a wing of the terrorist group that originated in Afghanistan. It claimed responsibility for a pair of suicide bombings Friday that killed 87 people in what it said was vengeance for the killing of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. The group has also been linked to the Times Square car bombing in New York in May 2010.

The Pakistani militant group is allied with al-Qaida, is based in the northwest of Pakistan near the Afghan border and has links to that country's Taliban insurgency.

The Miami Mosque - a small, white house in a crowded residential area - was founded in 1974 and is the oldest mosque in the city, according to Mohammad Shakir, a local Muslim community leader. Hafiz Khan has been leading prayers at the mosque for about 14 years, Shakir added.

Hafiz Khan has been suspended indefinitely as imam, said Asad Ba-Yunus, a spokesman for the Muslim Communities Association of South Florida, which runs the mosque. He said his organization is not aware of any attempts to raise funds for illegal activity that took place on its properties.

Nezar Hamze, executive director of the South Florida chapter of Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights and advocacy group, described the father and son imams as "very quiet individuals" who seemed pious. He said he never heard them preach extremism.

"I was very shocked, just as others in the community were shocked," Hamze said. "We absolutely don't support terrorism or support of terrorism."

Muslim leaders said they were reluctant to speculate about whether the alleged financial support to the Pakistani Taliban did in fact take place and whether it was intentional.

"I think it's important to get all the facts before any decisions or statements are made," Hamze said.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, said in a statement late Saturday that the indictments show the U.S. must be vigilant in dealing with extremist threats.

Pakistan government skipping chance to weaken army

The U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden gave Pakistan's weak civilian government a rare chance to wrest some power away from an influential military establishment that suddenly faced unusual public criticism over its failure to detect the al-Qaida leader and prevent the foreign incursion.

Instead, the ruling party is defending the army and allowing it to investigate its own intelligence fiasco, undermining the notion that Pakistan's elected leaders will ever be able to assert their full authority in a country prone to military coups. The civilians' timidity doesn't bode well for U.S. and Pakistani hopes that the nuclear-armed nation will evolve into a stable democracy.

"The civilian-military imbalance is the greatest threat to Pakistani democracy. It is also the issue the civilian politicians are least capable of tackling," said Cyril Almeida, a prominent Pakistani commentator.

It's not easy for the ruling Pakistan People's Party to take on the army, even as the military brass reel from the humiliation of the U.S. raid.

The May 2 Navy SEALs operation in Abbottabad left bin Laden and at least four others dead, giving the U.S. a huge victory against al-Qaida. Pakistan's military said it had no warning of the raid, disappointing many citizens, some of whom said the army and intelligence chiefs should resign.

The popular uproar was extraordinary in a country where many live in fear of the security forces.

But the civilian government itself is deeply unpopular. It is generally regarded as less competent than — and at least as corrupt as — the military. Its failure to address the pressing problems in Pakistan — a struggling economy, chronic power shortages, deteriorating security — has disillusioned many Pakistanis who were thrilled to see it take power three years ago after nearly a decade of military rule.

At this point, the government's sole focus appears to be surviving for a full five-year term. That would be a historic achievement for a democratically elected government in the nation's 63 years of existence, but one which apparently has left the current administration too nervous to challenge the generals.

The wariness showed in the changing messages that have emanated from Islamabad since the raid on bin Laden's compound north of the capital. At first, the country's civilian leaders declared bin Laden's killing a great victory. But within days, the Foreign Ministry had issued a statement that slammed the U.S. for violating Pakistan's sovereignty and warned against any future raids. The army issued a similar warning.

At the same time, the military appeared to launch a subtle campaign to shift the blame to the civilians.

Former Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, a People's Party member who has tangled with the party leadership and is believed to be close to the military, publicly called on President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to resign. That raised many eyebrows considering Gilani and Zardari have essentially no control over security issues, and have ceded to the army much of the country's foreign policy as well.

On Monday, Gilani addressed Pakistan's parliament in a speech that appeared heavily influenced by the military and the army-run spy network. Although he said bin Laden's death was "indeed justice done," he also heaped praise on his nation's armed forces and its Inter-Services Intelligence agency. He said "all the intelligence agencies of the world" failed in allowing bin Laden to hide in a garrison town Pakistan.

Instead of appointing an independent, or at least civilian-led, panel to probe the debacle, he said the military would handle the investigation.

That drew criticism from some Pakistanis, who noted that the military does not have much of a history of holding its leadership accountable for mistakes.

For instance, in 1999, then-army chief Pervez Musharraf masterminded an operation at Kargil, a Pakistani push into the Indian-held part of Kashmir. The offensive nearly brought the nuclear-armed neighbors to war, but Musharraf kept his job, and later that year ousted the civilian government.

"The history of heads rolling and the history of people being held to account is not a very bright one in Pakistan," said Ayaz Amir, an opposition lawmaker.

Some were hoping Gilani would push for a rethink of Pakistan's entire security policy, which many critics say is too focused on archrival India instead of the threat from Islamist insurgents threatening the Pakistani state. Pakistan's army has fought three wars with India, including one in 1971 that saw Pakistan's eastern flank break off and become Bangladesh.

"Gilani did not take this opportunity to launch a kind of transformation or sort of commission that this country desperately requires," said Mosharraf Zaidi, a Pakistani columnist. "So I think Pakistanis, in general, continue to be confused and continue to want real answers instead of rhetoric."

In many ways, the most frustrating thing for many Pakistanis is watching the one institution that seemed all-powerful in their downtrodden, struggling country, be so spectacularly hoodwinked by the United States. But it's also tough to watch the men and women they elect flounder.

"The common man is really pissed off. They've lost faith," said Khawaja Asif, an opposition lawmaker. "You can't imagine how sad they are feeling."

Bin Laden assault team was prepared to fight Pakistani forces

President Obama insisted that the assault force hunting down Osama bin Laden last week be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if confronted by hostile local police officers and troops, senior administration and military officials said yesterday

In revealing additional details about planning for the mission, senior officials also said that two teams of specialists were on standby: one to bury bin Laden if he was killed, and a second composed of lawyers, interrogators, and translators in case he was captured alive.

That team was set to meet aboard a Navy ship, most likely the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea.

Obama’s decision to increase the size of the force sent into Pakistan shows that he was willing to risk a military confrontation with a close ally in order to capture or kill the leader of Al Qaeda.

Such a fight would have set off an even larger breach with the Pakistanis than has taken place since officials in Islamabad learned that helicopters filled with members of a Navy SEALs team had flown into one of their cities and burst into a compound where bin Laden was hiding.

One senior Obama administration official, pressed on the rules of engagement for one of the riskiest clandestine operations attempted by the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command in many years, said: “Their instructions were to avoid any confrontation if at all possible. But if they had to return fire to get out, they were authorized to do it.’’

The planning also illustrates how little the administration trusted the Pakistanis as they set up their operation. They also rejected a proposal to bring the Pakistanis in on the mission.

Under the original plan, two assault helicopters were going to stay on the Afghanistan side of the border, waiting for a call if they were needed. But the aircraft would have been about 90 minutes away from the bin Laden compound.

About 10 days before the raid, Obama reviewed the plans and pressed his commanders as to whether they were bringing along enough forces to fight their way out if the Pakistanis arrived on the scene and attempted to interfere with the operation.

That resulted in the decision to send two more helicopters carrying additional troops. These followed the two lead Black Hawk helicopters that carried the actual assault team. Although there was no confrontation with the Pakistanis, one of those backup helicopters was ultimately brought in to the scene of the raid when a Black Hawk was damaged while making a hard landing.

“Some people may have assumed we could talk our way out a jam, but given our difficult relationship with Pakistan right now, the president did not want to leave anything to chance,’’ said one senior administration official, who like others would not be quoted by name in describing details of the secret mission. “He wanted extra forces if they were necessary.’’

With tensions between the United States and Pakistan escalating since the raid, US officials yesterday sought to tamp down the divisions and pointed to some encouraging developments.

A US official said that US investigators will soon be allowed to interview bin Laden’s three widows now being held by Pakistani authorities, a demand that Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, made on television talk shows Sunday.

US officials say the widows, as well as a review of the trove of documents and other data the SEALs team collected from the raid, could reveal important details, not only about bin Laden’s life and activities since fleeing into Pakistan from Afghanistan in 2001, but also information about Al Qaeda plots, personnel, and planning.

“We believe that it is very important to maintain the cooperative relationship with Pakistan precisely because it’s in our national security interest to do so,’’ said the White House spokesman, Jay Carney.

In an effort to help mend the latest rupture in relations, the CIA director, Leon E. Panetta, will meet soon with his counterpart, Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, head of the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, “to discuss the way forward in the common fight against Al Qaeda,’’ a US official said.

Obama says he OKd bin Laden raid despite warnings

President Obama faced sharply divided counsel and, to his mind, barely better-than-even odds of success when he ordered the May 1 commando raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the president said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

Obama acknowledged having only circumstantial evidence placing bin Laden at the Abbottabad compound in Pakistan. There was not a single photograph or confirmed sighting of the man, he said, and he worried the Navy SEALs would find only a "prince from Dubai" instead of the terrorist leader responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"At the end of the day, this was still a 55-45 situation," Obama told CBS' "60 Minutes" in his first broadcast interview since bin Laden's death. "Had he not been there, then there would have been some significant consequences."

Obama said he weighed the risks and judged that he should proceed with what was, by all accounts, the most promising opportunity to capture or kill bin Laden in nearly a decade. In doing so, he rejected the advice of a substantial number of his national security advisers, who worried that the plan to send ground troops deep into Pakistan was too risky, he said.

Earlier Sunday, the White House's chief security officer, Thomas Donilon, said there was no evidence showing that Pakistan's intelligence, military or political establishment knew of bin Laden's hideout in the army garrison town 35 miles from the capital.

The president acknowledged surprise at learning that bin Laden had managed to remain hidden in Pakistan since 2005 without being discovered by the country's security officials. He said White House officials believe there had to have been "some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan," though it was unclear who or what that support network was.

Donilon said Pakistan remains a critical partner in battling al Qaeda. But he acknowledged that Pakistani officials have not granted Americans access to critical information gathered since the raid or allowed interviews with bin Laden's three widows who are now in Pakistan's custody.

"We've asked for access, obviously," Donilon said on ABC's "This Week with Christiane Amanpour," one of four television news shows he visited Sunday.

A Pakistani intelligence official said Sunday that his government needed permission from the wives' home countries before Pakistan could allow U.S. officials to question them. One of the wives is from Yemen; the official said he did not know the other wives' nationalities.