ALQAEDA MEMBER IN NEW YORK

OSAMA BIN LADEN SON-IN-LAW 

ON TRIAL IN NEW YORK

Son-in-law of Osama bin Laden and former al Qaeda spokesman goes on trial in New York, accused of complicacy to kill American and supporting terrorists. Suleiman who spent time with bin Laden in Afghanistan, is best known for making incendiary threats in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks that killed 3000 people in New York.

The 48 years old suspect from Kuwait is one of the most senior alleged al Qaeda members to face trial in the United States and faces life behind bars in an American prison if convicted. His trial, which could feature testimony from the self-declared mastermind of the 9/11 attacks will be watched closely by those pushing for all terror suspects to be tried in civilian courts. The defendant is best known for appearing alongside bin Laden and the current leader for al Qaeda.

He was married to bin Laden’s daughter Fatima, US prosecutors say Suleiman worked for al Qaeda until 2002, when he fled the US military presence in Afghanistan for neighboring Iran. The prosecution claims he was complicit in the December 2001 plot to bring down an airliner flying from Paris to Miami.

British al Qaeda recruit is serving a life sentence for trying to blow up the jet with bombs hidden in his shoes. But the defense says the United States has  no evidence that Suleiman was involved for even aware of such plots.

The defendant pleads not guilty to all three counts against him. Highlights in the trial are likely to be two witnesses testifying by video link from Britain and Yemen.

The defense tried repeatedly to delay the trial, most recently on the grounds of mistaken identity, but Kaplan ruled that selection for the anonymous jury will begin on Monday.

The trial in the US federal court in lower Manhattan is expected to last a month. Lawyers claims that Suleiman has effectively been declared guilty on the basis of his mere association with bin Laden and that he was tortured while being brought to the United States.

A string of terror cases has been transferred to New York in the last two years as US President has promised to close down the military prison at Guantanamo Bay. The same US federal court in Manhattan will put on trial radical preacher Suleiman who was extradited by Britain in 2012 and indicated on 11 terror counts that include kidnapping.

Pak-Saudi Arabia Strengthen Ties

PAKISTAN WANTS TO STRENGTHEN TIES WITH SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi Arabia is a great friend of Pakistan and has stood by it in every hour of need.

All it is discussed between the ambassador of Saudi Arabia and Chief Minister of Punjab, here in Lahore.

People of the two countries have deep affiliation with each other. Pakistan attaches high importance to its relations with Saudi Arabia. Historical fraternal relations between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were turning into useful economic ties. Energy crises and extremism would be rooted out  and Pakistan be put on the road to progress and prosperity. Economic and trade relations between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were strengthening and people of the two countries were bound together in deep rooted religious and fraternal ties.

The Saudi Arabian government, Khadim-e-Harmain Sharifain Abullah Bin Abdul Aziz and people of Saudi Arabia had helped Pakistan in every moment of trial. Pakistan had further strengthened brotherly relations between the two countries. Having to the problems being faced by Pakistan, the country was beset with the energy crisis and extremism; however it was determined to overcome these issues and had been making sincere efforts in this regard.

Saudi Arabia considers its relations with Pakistan “highly important” the ties between the two countries were strengthening and their friendship had stood the test of time. The public welfare programmes being implemented under the leadership of PM of Pakistan would help achieve the objectives of progress and prosperity of the country.

At last, it is said that Saudi Arabia would continue to support Pakistan in the future as well.

TAJ MAHAL IN PAKISTAN

NEWS ABOUT BEAUTIFUL HISTORY OF PAKISTAN

The highly controversial nature of how history is constructed in Pakistan allows for multiple competing narratives.

This is an absurd question. How on earth could the Taj Mahal be Pakistani and claim a nationality which was only imagined 400 years after the mausoleum was constructed and one hopes that no one in their senses would ask such a preposterous question.  

When in a class of undergraduate students at one of Pakistan’s best universities, precisely this question was animatedly debated during a session on Pakistan’s history, with some students stating that the Taj Mahal was part of Pakistan’s history, and others implying that it was Pakistani.

These students had all taken a course in Pakistan Studies prior to starting their undergraduate degree. Clearly the highly controversial and contested nature of how history is constructed in Pakistan, given the numerous possibilities of framing a history of Pakistan, allows for multiple competing narratives, including a claim to the Taj Mahal being Pakistani.

Pakistani history has been a contentious topic where different sets of narratives give differing accounts of what Pakistani history is and hence how one imagines Pakistan.

Given the eventual partition of British India and the creation of Pakistan, some historians have claimed that Pakistan was created in 712 AD when an Arab invader came to what is now part of Pakistan.

This incorrectly called the beginning of Muslim contract with what is now referred to as South Asia, yet it supports one of the many official narratives of when Muslim consciousness and identity were created in this region.

Other competing narratives look to the Delhi Sultanat, or the Mughal Empire or events in the 19^th century and 1857, crystallizing into a separate Muslim identity which inevitably led to Muslim separatism and to the ration of Pakistan.

The question about the creation of Pakistan, when was Pakistan created, is one  which simply works around a Muslims are different from Hindus discourse, culminating in a separate homeland.

Hence if the history of Pakistan is the history of Muslims in India and just as Mohammad bin Qasim can become part of a certain legacy and heritage and can be caricatured as the first Pakistani, so too can the Taj Mahal as being Pakistani. Pakistani history and a history of Pakistan’s people and their land become two conflicting narratives.

as a consequence, Pakistani history, ignores the history of the people who live in what was Pakistan (West and East) and what is left of it. Mohenjodaro, Harappa, and the history of the people of Pakistan is dominated by a north Indian (largely Hindustani) Muslim history and that too only of kings and their courts.

The Pakistan freedom movement of course and not the movement for independence from British colonialism for all Indian peoples – shapes this discourse more teleological once politics dominate undivided India in the 20th Century.

The actors, or at least the heroes are almost always Muslim, and students seldom hear about the role Nehru, Gandhi, Ambedkar, Patel and Bose played in bringing about freedom for the 300 million Indians under colonialism.

One only hears of a handful of Muslim men who brought about freedom for Muslims from a Hindu majority. The British imperialists are inconsequential in this narrative, and are only responsible for making a mess of partition by not giving Pakistan many of the districts which are claimed on the basis of them being Muslim-majority areas.

Moreover, if this claim that Pakistan’s history lies outside its borders’ is valid and indeed in many critical ways this is certainly the cases, it also implies that the country which came into being called Pakistan in this hegemonic notion of history really has no history of its own. The so-called freedom movement was fought in a foreign land the land of the Taj Mahal not the land of the people who inherited a country called Pakistan where their ancestors had lived for millennia.

Ascribing a status of nationality to brick and mortar even the Taj Mahal poses numerous challenging epistemological questions yet the question of what Pakistani history is remains unaddressed in a land still searching for  understanding. Depending on how one answers this question, one is led through many ideological labyrinths and some geographical ones as well.

If Pakistan is imagined ideologically then all one has to do is determine when Pakistan came in to being, clearly so easy task, and limiting oneself to a history of the Muslims in India, or a history of Islam in South Asia. If Pakistan is imagined geographically, the connotations of how the history of the peoples and lands of Pakistan is taught and under stood varies hugely. 

KILLING OF AFGHAN IN PAKISTAN

AFGHANS KILLINGS IN PAKISTAN

Peshawar to Chaman and Quetta, Karachi  and Islamabad with likely many unknown places in between a spate of mysterious killings of Afghans in Pakistan has been taking place. The most recent death was in Chaman, where an Afghan customs official believed to be close to an Afghan government commander was killed on Thursday. With none of the deaths investigated so far, all that exists are theories of what may be happening. Privately, Pakistani officials blame the Afghan security apparatus for many of the killings, arguing that it is part of score-settling and posturing ahead of the Afghan transition to a new government and security paradigm. That theory could very likely account for at least some of the killings. But it doesn’t necessarily explain all of the deaths.

Hence further theories in the blame game that is often Pak-Afghan relations, there are some on the Afghan government side, particularly within the Karzai government that blame Pakistan itself for the killings. The explanation, or allegation as the case may be: some of the deaths involve Afghan Taliban figures who are believed to have either been open to talks with the Karzai government or already had channels of communication open and in doing so attracted the displeasure of elements within the Pakistani establishment who want any reconciliation with the Afghan Taliban to be routed through Pakistani channels. Certainly, the Afghan side often levels wild allegations against the Pakistani state, particularly the security establishment but in the murkiness of Pak-Afghan-Taliban relations nothing can ever be ruled out.

There is a third possibility, also likely responsible for  some of the deaths: hardliners smong the Afghan Taliban opposed to reconciliation are killing both Afghan government officials and Afghan Taliban interested in a negotiated settlement. Taking all together the theories do add up to one inescapable reality – that the next couple of the year will put new and unpredictable strains on the Pak-Afghan relationship that will require clear headedness, policy clarity and firm resolve on the part of both sides if the strains are not to overwhelm the relationship and cause it to spiral out of control again. For Pakistan, wrestling as it is with a domestic insurgency that is tenacious and resilient, getting drawn into a vicious tit-for-tat exchange with Afghanistan would be doubly harmful. Perhaps properly investigating the killings would be just the step Pakistan needs to take to help lessen these new tensions between both the countries.  

INCIDENT IN USA RADIATION PLANT

13 EXPOSED TO RADIATION AT US PLANT

In New Mexico, USA, 13 workers at a US underground nuclear waste dump have tested positive for radiation exposure after a recent leak.

The accident is the first known release of radiation since the dump began taking plutonium-contaminated waste from US nuclear bomb building sites 15 years ago.

The US Department of Energy and the contractor that runs the Waste Isolation Pilot Project declined to comment further on the preliminary test results announced on Wednesday.

All employees who were working at the plant when the leak occurred late  Feb 14 were checked for contamination before being allowed to leave according to the news. But biological samples were also taken to check for possible exposure from inhaling radioactive particles.

Elevated radiation levels have been detected in the air around the plant, but officials have stated the readings are too low to constitute a public health threat. And they have also stated that all indications are that a filtration system designed to immediately kick in when radiation is detected and keep 99 % of contamination from being released above ground worked flawlessly.  

Officials stated that they can tell from their analyses of air samples in and around the plant that a container of waste leaked, but it could be weeks before they can get underground to find out what caused it.

Possible scenarios include a ceiling collapse or a forklift puncturing a canister, the president of Nuclear Waste Partnership stated on Monday before a community meeting in Carlsbad. The leak came just nine days after a truck hauling salt in the plant’s deep mines caught fire, but officials states they are confident the incidents are unrelated.

WIPP is the first deep underground nuclear repository in the US and the only facility in the country that can store plutonium-contaminated clothing and tools from Los Alamos National Laboratory and other federal nuclear sites. 

AL QAEDA NETWORK IN AFGHANISTAN

AL QAEDA COMEBACK IN AFGHANISTAN

Al Qaeda’s Afghanistan leader is laying the groundwork to relaunch his war-shattered organization once the United States and international forces withdraw from the country, as they have warned they will do without a security agreement from the Afghan government, according to the US official statement. Al Qaeda has been cementing local ties and bringing in small numbers of experienced militants to train a new generation of fighters, and US military and intelligence. They have stepped up drone and jet missile strikes against him and his followers in the mountainous eastern provinces of Kunar and Nuristan.

The objective is to keep him from restarting the large training camps that once drew hundreds of followers before the US-led invasion began. The Obama administration agreed to keep any troops in Afghanistan after this year – could be jeopardized by the possibility of a total pullout.

The number of Al Qaeda members  in Afghanistan has risen, but not much higher than as many as the several  hundred or so the US as identified in the past.

After taking to Afghan President the US president ordered the Pentagon to begin planning for the so-called zero option. US military and intelligence officials says unless they can continue to fly drones and jets from at least one air base in Afghanistan either Bagram ini the north or Jalalabad in the east. The US could eventually wind down counter-terrorism operations like drone strikes in the region after reducing the Al Qaeda network, leaving local forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan to control the remnants.

But Al Qaeda is not weakened enough yet, and the US has testified that the inexperienced Afghan forces aren’t ready to take over the task unaided. The United States will take the steps necessary to combat terrorism and protect interests. Al Qaeda in Afghanistan is less of a threat than when the occupation begin; it is estimated to be as many as several hundred forced to shelter in the remotest part of the country.

AFGHAN-US DEAL

THE US STILL HOPEFUL FOR AFGHAN DEAL

  

The United States can still work out a deal with a willing partner in Afghanistan, according to the US official, as lawmakers and military leaders warned that pulling out all troops from the war-ravaged country could bring the terrorist back.

The US Special Representative selected for Afghanistan and Pakistan has told a gathering in Washington that although President Obama ordered the Pentagon earlier this week to prepare for a complete with drawl from Afghanistan, he did not close all doors.

The Obama’s decision to leave open the possibility of concluding the necessary agreement with a willing partner later this year provides hope that this all can still be worked out.

The US president blamed Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s continued refusal to sign a bilateral security agreement for his decision to prepare for a final pullout.  But his order alarmed many in Washington and at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday, US Admiral warned. If we do go to zero and there is no special operations component left in Afghanistan, it will certainly make it more difficult to be able to deal with, the potential resurgence of Al Qaeda in the area.

The Admiral who heads the US Special Operations Command, oversaw the 2011 raid that killed Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden in his compound in Abbottabad - Pakistan. According to him the danger posed by Al Qaeda is “inherent within the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas 9in Pakistan), and in the northern part of Afghanistan, in Kunar and Nuristan (provinces).”

Afghanistan is the birthplace of Al Qaeda and is unique in its vulnerability to once again becoming a safe haven for terrorists if a strong government is not supported, warned House Armed Services Committee.

The US official believed Al Qaeda’s Afghanistan leader is laying the groundwork to re-launch his war-shattered organization once the United States and international force withdraw from the country.

US military and intelligence officials said to prevent Al Qaeda from regrouping they needed to continue to fly drones and jets from at least one air base in Afghanistan but this would not be possible if a security agreement was not signed.

The threat that was emanating out of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas with the support of the Pakistanis, we have really decimated the core Al Qaeda.