Pakistan jails doctor who helped in bin Laden hunt

WASHINGTON, United States of America - The US State Department said that Pakistan had no basis to hold or charge a surgeon who was sentenced Wednesday to 33 years in prison for helping in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

A tribal court in Khyber, a lawless district and extremist hotbed, convicted surgeon Shakeel Afridi of treason after he agreed to collect DNA for US intelligence to verify the presence of the most-wanted Al-Qaeda leader.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland recalled that both US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had earlier raised concerns with Pakistan about the doctor's case.

"Our views on it haven't changed. We continue to see no basis for Dr. Afridi to be held," Nuland said. "We will continue to make those representations to the government of Pakistan."

When asked why she only referred to Afridi's charges and did not acknowledge his actual conviction and sentencing, Nuland said: "It's not clear that the legal process is over, OK? There may be other options for him legally."

Her muted remarks came as Washington and Islamabad, allies in the war on terror, struggle to repair ties that hit a low when US forces staged a secret raid into Pakistan that killed bin Laden in May last year.

Breaking point

They were strained to breaking point in November when US forces staged a botched raid that killed 24 Pakistani troops, prompting Islamabad to cut off the land route for supplies to NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan.

Carl Levin and John McCain, the top senators from the two major US parties on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Afridi's sentence "shocking and outrageous" and urged Pakistan to pardon and free him immediately.

"Dr. Afridi's continuing imprisonment and treatment as a criminal will only do further harm to US-Pakistani relations, including diminishing Congress's willingness to provide financial assistance to Pakistan," they warned. - Agence France-Presse

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Oxfam in Pakistan flooding plea

14 September 2011 Last updated at 17:37 GMT Some flood victims say they have been stranded for days without food Immediate relief must be provided to millions of people by floods in southern Pakistan or more lives will be lost, Oxfam has warned.

The international aid agency said it was launching an emergency aid response to help flood victims in the Sindh province.

It said that some 5.3m people were now affected by the floods, caused by days of torrential rains.

More than 200 people have already been killed by the floods, reports say.

The growing crisis is already being compared with last year's devastating floods.

Millions were displaced across the country and about 2,000 people died as torrential monsoon rains in 2010 caused rivers to burst their banks, washing away homes and property. Sindh was one of the worst affected regions.

'Slow repairs'

"There is an urgent need to provide immediate and life-saving relief to the millions affected," Neva Khan, Oxfam's country director in Pakistan, said on Tuesday.

"It hasn't stopped raining in Sindh for the last 10 days. Large swathes of land are underwater and people are desperately awaiting relief.

"They have lost their crops, homes and livestock for the second time - and been pushed from last year's disaster to this one."

Unicef's Dan Rohmann says two and half million children have been affected by the flooding

The agency - which is already providing drinking water and sanitation to thousands of people in the area - said the world community must act immediately because "the crisis is multiplying each passing day".

Zafar Qadir, the head of Pakistan's disaster management authority, told AFP news agency that 209 people had so far been killed.

In its appeal, Oxfam also warned that the government's slow repairs of river embankments and other defences damaged in last year's disaster had made the population more vulnerable this time.

On Monday, the UN said it had begun efforts to feed 500,000 people affected by the floods and rain, initially concentrating its efforts in Sindh's badly-hit Badin district.

The US has already send food aid. It is also promising tents, medicine and other non-food items.

China has pledged $4.7m (£3m) for urgent humanitarian assistance.

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Pakistan detains 3 al-Qaida suspects

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's spy agency arrested three senior members of al-Qaida in an operation assisted by American intelligence, the army said Monday.

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An army statement identified the most senior detainee as Younis al-Mauritani, who it said had been tasked by Osama bin Laden with targeting Western economic interests worldwide.

Potential targets included gas and oil pipelines, power-generating dams, and oil tankers through the use of explosive-laden speed boats in international waters, NBC News’ Amna Nawaz reported from Pakistan.

A Pakistani military spokesman called al-Mauritani's arrest "critical" and that it had dealt "another fatal blow" to al-Qaida, Nawaz reported.

The military statement said the arrests took place in the southwestern city of Quetta, but did not say when.

Strained relations
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency has cooperated with the CIA over the last 10 years to arrest scores of al-Qaida suspects, but ties between the two agencies have suffered greatly in recent months over CIA drone strikes inside Pakistani territory and the unilateral American raid that killed bin Laden.

The unusual announcement of the arrest of the three appears to signal that the relationship could be warming.

"This operation was planned and conducted with technical assistance of United State Intelligence Agencies with whom Inter-Services Intelligence has a strong, historic intelligence relationship. Both Pakistan and United States Intelligence agencies continue to work closely together to enhance security of their respective nations," the statement said.

Many top al-Qaida commanders are believed to live in Pakistan, and getting Islamabad's cooperation in cracking down on the network has been a top American goal since the Sept 11, 2001, attacks. U.S. officials have recently claimed al-Qaida's capabilities have been seriously weakened due to drone strikes and arrests in recent years.

U.S. officials have said al-Qaida's deputy chief, Libyan national Atiyah abd al-Rahman, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan near the Afghan border on Aug. 22. But Pakistan officials have not confirmed his death.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Suicide car bomb kills 10 in southwest Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan — A suicide car bomber attacked Shiite Muslims in southwestern Pakistan on Wednesday as they were heading home after morning prayers at the start of an Islamic holiday. The blast killed 10 people, officials said.

The attack occurred in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but Baluchistan is believed to be home to many Taliban militants who have targeted Shiites in the past. Extremist Sunni Muslim groups like the Taliban view Shiites as heretics.

The bomber was apparently targeting a Shiite mosque but could not get close enough because the road was blocked, said Quetta police chief Ahsan Mahboob.

Instead, he detonated his explosives in a parking lot nearby, Mahboob said.

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It is unclear how many of the 10 people killed were Shiite worshippers or others who were hit by the blast as they were passing by, said Mahboob. The blast also wounded at least 17 people and damaged nearby vehicles and buildings, he said.

The attack was a somber beginning to Eid al-Fitr, the Islamic holiday that comes at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. In Pakistan, the three-day holiday started Wednesday while in many other parts of the Muslim world it began on Tuesday.

Many analysts believe Baluchistan is home to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and fighters have used the province as a convenient gateway to attack foreign troops in neighboring Afghanistan.

The Pakistani government has also fought a decades-long insurgency in Baluchistan waged by nationalists who demand a greater share of the province's natural resources.

____

Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed contributed to this report from Islamabad.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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U.S. drone strike kills 21 in northwest Pakistan (Reuters)

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – A U.S. drone fired two missiles into Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border on Wednesday, killing at least 21 suspected militants, including foreigners, local officials said, in one of the biggest attacks in weeks.

The drone targeted a house 3 km (2 miles) east of Miranshah, the main town of the region, known to be a hotbed of Taliban and al Qaeda militants.

"The dead included local Taliban as well as some Arabs and Uzbek nationals," one intelligence official in North Waziristan said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

It was not immediately known if any high-profile militants were among the dead. Militants often dispute official account of such strikes.

Initial reports said five militants were killed in the attack but officials said the toll had gone up to 21 after more bodies were found from the rubble of the house.

Drone strikes have been a major source of friction between the United States and Pakistan, with ties at their worst since U.S. Special Forces killed al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a secret raid in a Pakistani garrison town in May.

While Pakistan publicly opposes the strikes, it has privately allowed them and cooperated with the United States determining targets.

But since the May commando raid, which Pakistan considers a grievous breach of sovereignty, the powerful head of the army, General Ashfaq Kayani, has called for a halt.

Washington appears determined to press forward with drone attacks, which its sees as an effective tool to stem cross-border attacks by militants on foreign forces in Afghanistan.

(Writing by Augustine Anthony; Editing by Zeeshan Haider and Sanjeev Miglani)

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US warns Pakistan over diplomat travel curbs

WASHINGTON — The United States has warned the Pakistani government that its diplomats in the U.S. could be hit with travel restrictions similar to those recently imposed on American diplomats in Pakistan unless Pakistan lifts its restrictions, U.S. officials said Monday.

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The State Department said the U.S. and Pakistan were working to end the spat, the latest irritant in already strained ties, and it was confident the dispute would be resolved quickly. But the officials said Pakistan had been told the Obama administration would consider reciprocal steps to retaliate for the restrictions set down last month by Pakistan's foreign ministry if they are not rescinded.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to the delicacy of the matter.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner declined to comment on the warning but said "reciprocity is always a consideration" when dealing with such matters.

"We are working cooperatively with the government of Pakistan to resolve the issue," Toner told reporters. "We've met with Pakistani officials on this matter both in Washington and in Islamabad, and we believe it can be resolved. The issue is the right of our diplomats to freely travel."

Pakistan's foreign ministry in June issued rules forcing American diplomats to get special permission five days in advance to leave the capital of Islamabad, including to Pakistani cities in which the U.S. maintains consulates.

This led to an incident in which a carload of U.S. diplomats was refused entry to Peshawar after driving from Islamabad. Toner said travel between the two cities no longer appears to be a problem. Toner also noted that U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter had been briefly delayed from boarding a domestic flight to Karachi at the Islamabad airport because he was not carrying a special pass.

"We obviously raised our concerns," Toner said, adding: "We feel that we're making progress towards resolving the issue."

Latest sign of a breakdown
The imposition of the restrictions was the latest sign of a breakdown in ties between Islamabad and Washington since the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden on Pakistani territory on May 2. Pakistan reacted furiously to the raid because it was carried out with no warning to authorities in Islamabad.

The fallout battered an already frayed relationship seen as key to the fight against al-Qaida, and Washington's hopes of reaching a settlement in Afghanistan and withdrawing troops. Pakistan sent home at least 90 U.S. soldiers training Pakistani troops in counterinsurgency and severely cut back on intelligence cooperation.

The Obama administration, which took office pledging to strengthen ties with Islamabad, then announced it was suspending more than one-third of its military aid to the country.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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