Reuters reports that if Al Qaeda were in a position to do so, the terrorist organization would use Pakistan's nuclear weapons against the United States:
"God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans and the mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans," Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the leader of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, said in an interview with Al Jazeera television.
[. . .]
Asked about the group's plans, the Egyptian militant leader said: "The strategy of the (al Qaeda) organization in the coming period is the same as in the previous period: to hit the head of the snake, the head of tyranny -- the United States
The Associated Press reports the commander of the Pakistani Taliban said the group was planning a terrorist attack on the White House that would "amaze" the world:
"Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world," Mehsud told The Associated Press by phone.
[. . .]
In his latest comments, Mehsud identified the White House as one of the targets in an interview with local Dewa Radio, a copy of which was obtained by the AP.
Watch the following video report:
Mehsud is the prime suspect behind the December 2007 killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
Indian officials said they now believe that at least 15 gunmen carried out the operation after reaching Mumbai by sea. After an interrogation of one of the attackers, Indian intelligence officials said they suspected that a Pakistani Islamist group, Lashkar-i-Taiba, was responsible. An Indian intelligence document from 2006 obtained by The Washington Post said members of the group had been trained in maritime assault.
Authorities said that the death toll had risen to 195 as more bodies were discovered and that 295 people were wounded, the Associated Press reported, in attacks on the hotels, the Jewish center and several other sites in Mumbai.
The Associated Press provides the following video report:
CNN is more cautious reporting officials were not ready to declare the operation over until they finished their room-by-room search of the Taj Mahal Hotel.
The New York Timesalso reported evidence suggests Lashkar-e-Taiba, or possibly another
Pakistani group, Jaish-e-Muhammad were responsible for the terror attack:
Lashkar-e-Taiba on Thursday
denied any responsibility for the terrorist strikes. The group is
thought by American intelligence agencies to have received some
training and logistical support in the past from Pakistan’s powerful
spy service, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, but
American officials said Friday that there was no evidence that the
Pakistani government had any role in the Mumbai attacks.
American
and Indian officials for years have blamed Lashkar-e-Taiba for a
campaign of violence against high-profile targets throughout India,
including the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament building in
New Delhi and an August 2007 strike at an amusement park in Hyderabad.
At times, Indian officials have also said that Jaish-e-Muhammad was responsible for the 2001 attack on the Parliament building.
Haaretz also reports the prime suspect is Lashkar-e-Taiba:
Pakistani intelligence founded, aided and cultivated
this and other militant organizations as part of its battle against
India in the contested region of Kashmir. It was only in 2003, after
9/11 and under heavy pressure from India and the United States, that
the organization and similar ones were outlawed in Pakistan.
[. . .]
In the past, the group
had strong links to Osama Bin Laden, and its members trained in
Al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan. Abu Zubaydah, considered one of the most
senior Al-Qaida officials being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention
camp, was captured in March 2002 in a joint operation by United States
and Pakistani intelligence forces at a Lashkar a-Tayeb safe house.
Pakistan must do more to fight terrorists and control its intelligence service. Pakistan has never been a reliable ally in the War Against Islamic Extremists. In fact the U.S. coerced Pakistan to support the War.
The Mumbai massacre will at least slow the movement of India and Pakistan toward improved relations:
Reconciliation
between India and Pakistan has emerged as a basic tenet in the
approaches to foreign policy of President-elect Barack Obama, and the
new leader of Central Command, Gen. David H. Petraeus. The point is to
persuade Pakistan to focus less of its military effort on India, and
more on the militants in its lawless tribal regions who are ripping at
the soul of Pakistan.
Preventing better relations between the two hostile and nuclear-armed nations may be exactly the goal of the Mumbai terror attacks.
After the 2001 terrorists assault on the Indian Parliament, India
said Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence had backed the operation. For the next
year the countries teetered on the brink of a war that could have involved nuclear weapons.
Richard Fernandez sums it all up nicely. He writes that because the U.S. seeks Pakistan's help against al Qaeda and the Taliban from a position of weakness, Pakistan is strengthened at the expense of India:
Pakistan can continue to dangle the chimerical carrot in front of
Obama. ‘Hold back India and we will help you with Bin Laden’ Then
they’ll turn around and hit New Delhi in the face and there won’t be a
thing India can do about it.
Speaking on television from his presidential office here at 1 p.m., Mr. Musharraf, dressed in a gray suit and tie, said that after consulting with his aides, “I have decided to resign today.” He said he was putting national interest above “personal bravado.”
“Whether I win or lose the impeachment, the nation will lose,” he said, adding that he was not prepared to put the office of the presidency through the impeachment process.
Mr. Musharraf said the governing coalition, which has pushed for impeachment, had tried to “turn lies into truths.”
“They don’t realize they can succeed against me but the country will undergo irreparable damage.”
In an emotional ending to a speech lasting more than an hour, Mr. Musharraf raised his clenched fists to chest height, and said, “Long live Pakistan!”
Maybe now the government of Pakistan can focus on confronting the Islamic insurgency in Pakistan's tribal areas.
The BBC covers the story in the following video report:
The New York Times report that in response to al Qaeda and Taliban efforts to destabilize the Pakistani government, U.S. officials are considering expanding covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
Many of the specific options under discussion are unclear and highly classified. Officials said that the options would probably involve the C.I.A. working with the military’s Special Operations forces.
[. . .]
The United States now has about 50 soldiers in Pakistan. Any expanded operations using C.I.A. operatives or Special Operations forces, like the Navy Seals, would be small and tailored to specific missions, military officials said.
Even the report that officials are considering expanding covert operations in the tribal areas upsets the Pakistani's.
Watch the following CNN International video report about how the Times report, is damaging U.S. relations with Pakistan:
According to the Times, some experts, argue that American-led military operations in Pakistan could result in a backlash and ultimately do more harm than good. Especially if Americans were captured or killed in the territory. That argument sounds like the naysayers who didn't want us to help the Afghans defeat the Soviets.
We should not leave al Qaeda and the Taliban unmolested inside Pakistan. But the New York Times shouldn't be discussing our covert plans in the newspaper.
Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's first reaction to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was a diplomatic blunder. Huckabee expressed "our sincere concern and apologies for what has happened in Pakistan." After criticism, Huckabee's campaign said he meant to say "sympathies" not "apologies." In the same statement, Huckabee revealed that he was unaware that martial law was lifted in Pakistan about two weeks ago.
On Thursday night he told reporters in Orlando, Fla.: “We ought to have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our borders and particularly to make sure if there’s any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country.”
On Friday, in Pella, Iowa, he expanded on those remarks.
“When I say single them out I am making the observation that we have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all other nationalities except those immediately south of the border,” he told reporters in Pella. “And in light of what is happening in Pakistan it ought to give us pause as to why are so many illegals coming across these borders.”
[. . .]
Asked how a border fence would help keep out Pakistani immigrants, Mr. Huckabee argued that airplane security was already strong, but that security at the southern United States border was dangerously weak.
“The fact is that the immigration issue is not so much about people coming to pick lettuce or make beds, it’s about someone coming with a shoulder-fired missile,” he said.
The Associated Press reports that many more illegal immigrants living in the United States are from India, Korea, China and Vietnam than Pakistan:
Homeland Security officials say there are more people in the U.S. illegally from the Caribbean, China and Canada than from Pakistan. Officials deported 435 Pakistanis in the 2007 fiscal year, which ran from Oct. 1, 2006 to Sept. 30, 2007, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement statistics. During this time, 766 people from China were deported, as were 521 from the Philippines.
[. . .]
Homeland Security does not publicize the number of people from each country who are caught trying to enter illegally or are turned away at legal border crossings, said Customs and Border Protection spokesman Bill Anthony. But without providing specific details — because they are considered sensitive for law enforcement — Anthony said Pakistanis do not top the list after Latin American countries.
In fiscal 2007, about 600 Pakistanis were turned away at the border or arrested in between entry points.
A senior aide to Mike Huckabee admitted Friday that the former Arkansas governor had "no foreign policy credentials:"
This isn't the first time Huckabee has been caught unprepared on foreign policy/national security matters. Early this month, after the release of a National Intelligence Estimate concluding that had stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003, Huckabee told journalists that he wasn't aware of the report, even though it had been widely reported in the news for more than 30 hours.
The Al-Qaeda terrorist network has claimed responsibility for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto:
A spokesperson for the al-Qaeda terrorist network has claimed responsibility for the death on Thursday of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
“We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen,” Al-Qaeda’s commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English. Al-Yazid is the main al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan.
It is believed that the decision to kill Bhutto, who is the leader of the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP), was made by al-Qaeda No. 2, the Egyptian doctor, Ayman al-Zawahiri in October.
Bush administration officials said it was too early to identify a clear suspect in Thursday's assassination.
But one U.S. official said: "There are a number of extremist groups within Pakistan that could have carried out the attack ... Al Qaeda has got to be one of the groups at the top of this list."
Bhutto's assassination, and al qaeda's claim of responsibility for the cowardly act of murder, ought to serve as a wakeup call for those that believe we can just walk away from the war.
"The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy. Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice," Bush said in a statement to reporters at his Texas ranch.
You can watch the Presiden'ts entire statement in the following video:
The Wall Street Journal's Susan Davis reports the terrorist assassination of Benazir Bhutto is likely to force Pakistan and Islamic terrorism back into the forefront in Washington and on the campaign trail with the Iowa Caucuses only a week away.
In the following video report, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough says the Bhutto assassination will help Giuliani and Hillary:
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