ISLAMABAD, Pakistan News: Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani has summoned an especial federal cabinet meeting on one point agenda in connection with peace and order situation in country.
The meeting was scheduled to be held on March 17.

Also, Premier invited Chief Minister Punjab Mian Mohammed Shahbaz Sharif on phone to attend the meeting.

According to a statement released from PM House, Chief Minister of all four provinces and Inspector Generals have been invited to the meeting.

The meeting will review law and order situation in country, it said.

PM Gilani also expressed grief with CM Punjab over killings of innocent people who lost their lives in Lahore suicide attack, statement further said.

KANDAHAR: A big blast near Pakistani Consulate in southern Afghanistan city of Kandahar jolted the town on Sunday morning. It was unclear what caused the blast.

KANDAHAR: A big blast near Pakistani Consulate in southern Afghanistan city of Kandahar jolted the town on Sunday morning. It was unclear what caused the blast.
“No casualties reported in the incident,” security sources said.
The explosion close to Pakistan mission in the eastern part of the city came after a series of overnight attacks by Taliban that killed some 35 people in various parts of Kandahar, the expected next target of a NATO-led offensive.
The governor of Afghanistan’s Kandahar province is demanding more troops to provide security after 12 explosions in the largest southern city killed dozens of people.
Gov. Turyakai Wesa says he is talking to the central government in Kabul about getting Afghan military reinforcements following the coordinated attacks that killed at least 33 people, including 10 attending a wedding. He told reporters Sunday that he also wants to coordinate with NATO forces to improve security.
Wesa said the attacks wounded at least 53. Kandahar is the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban insurgency and the next target of NATO and Afghan forces after a major push to take another militant stronghold in next-door Helmand province.

A six-member delegation of the National Assembly and Senate returned to Pakistan in protest after refusing a body scan at the Washington International Airport.

Head of the delegation Senator Abbas Khan Afridi said they were asked for a body-scan but they refused, as they considered it an insult to parliamentarians of a sovereign country.

He said they were informed before their arrival in the US that they would not face any such discrimination during their visit. The delegation comprised Senator Hafiz Rasheed, Member National Assembly Akhwand Zada Chattan, Sajid Hussain Toori, Muhammad Kamran and Jawad.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asserted that the Sept 11 attacks on US World Trade Centre and Pentagon a ‘big lie’ which was used by the US as an excuse for the war on terror.

Ahmadinejad, while addressing the Intelligence Ministry staff, said “September 11 was a big lie and a pretext for the war on terror and a prelude to invading Afghanistan,” calling the attacks a “complicated intelligence scenario and act.” Ahmadinejad also questioned US claims that the death toll reached 3,000 saying that the Americans never published the names of those who died.

Back in 2007, New York officials have rejected the Iran leader’s request to visit the World Trade Center during his NY visit for a UN meeting.

US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen expressed his concern over the ‘unintended consequences’ of an attack on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Speaking during a joint press conference with Defence Secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon, Adm Mullen said Iran’s path towards building of a nuclear weapon was an overarching concern from all the countries he visited. Those countries include Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. “I worry a lot about the unintended consequences of any sort of military action. For now, the diplomatic and the economic levers of international power are, and ought to be, the levers first pulled.” Both the men said that though the Afghan war is going on a slow pace, however, they added that it was not affecting the US Afghan policy.
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US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen expressed his concern over the ‘unintended consequences’ of an attack on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Speaking during a joint press conference with Defence Secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon, Adm Mullen said Iran’s path towards building of a nuclear weapon was an overarching concern from all the countries he visited. Those countries include Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. “I worry a lot about the unintended consequences of any sort of military action. For now, the diplomatic and the economic levers of international power are, and ought to be, the levers first pulled.” Both the men said that though the Afghan war is going on a slow pace, however, they added that it was not affecting the US Afghan policy.
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CAIRO: Osama Bin Laden Vows to Keep up Attacks on US, Al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden issued a new audio message claiming responsibility for the Christmas day bombing attempt in Detroit and vowed further attacks.

In a recording carried by the Al-Jazeera Arabic news channel, Bin Laden addressed President Barak Obama saying the attack was a message like that of Sept. 11 and more attacks against the U.S. would be forthcoming.

“The message delivered to you through the plane of the heroic warrior Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a confirmation of the previous messages sent by the heroes of the Sept. 11,” he said.

“America will never dream of security unless we will have it in reality in Palestine,” he added. “God willing, our raids on you will continue as long as your support to the Israelis will continue.”

On Christmas Day, Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up the Northwest Airlines flight he was sitting on as it approached Detroit Metro Airport. But the bomb he was hiding in his underwear failed to explode.

Abdulmutallab told federal agents shortly afterward that he had been trained and instructed in the plot by al-Qaida operatives in Yemen.

There was no way to confirm the voice was actually that of Bin Laden, but it resembled previous recordings attributed to him.

KANDAHAR : The Taliban on Thursday claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a base in eastern Afghanistan that killed eight Americans.

“We claim responsibility for the attack,” purported Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid.
The US government said eight Americans were killed in the attack on a military base in Khost province on Wednesday afternoon.

However, claimed the attack killed 16 Americans.

The Islamist militia, which has been fighting for eight years to overthrow the Western-backed Afghan government and eject foreign troops from Afghanistan, routinely exaggerate claims about the losses their attacks inflict.

WASHINGTON: What can Washington do to face down a growing threat posed to US national security by al-Qaeda’s affiliates in Yemen? After a failed bomb attack on a US airliner last week, this question is soaring up the national security agenda.

Barack Obama, the president, has pledged to use “every element” of US national power to hunt down those who threaten America’s safety. While the Yemeni affiliate of al-Qaeda – known as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) – risks becoming a significant threat to western security, Washington’s policy options are far from simple.

The risk posed by al-Qaeda in Yemen has long been of concern to western intelligence services. In 2000 Yemeni suicide bombers killed 17 people when they struck the USS Cole. The US waged a largely successful counter-terrorism campaign over the next three years, using unmanned drones to kill key operatives. But in the past three years AQAP has been thriving again in eastern Yemen, amid the ravages of its civil war.

Today western intelligence chiefs believe the risk posed by Yemeni jihadism has become especially serious. About 100 Yemenis have been held in the Guantánamo Bay detention centre since 2002. Yemen’s foreign minister said last year that the country hosted 1,000 al-Qaeda militants. These jihadists have claimed responsibility for a range of attacks, notably the attempted assassination of Prince Mohammed bin Naif, the Saudi deputy interior minister, in August.

As Mr Obama examines his options, one possibility can be ruled out: there will be no US invasion of Yemen to echo those in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Most political strategists believe that US public opinion would not tolerate such a move. But Richard Fontaine, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think-tank in Washington, also believes it is unnecessary.

“After 9/11, the US had to invade Afghanistan because it faced a Taliban government that was totally hostile to America and with whom no deals could be done,” he says. “In Yemen you have a weak government led by President Ali Abdullah Saleh with an array of problems. But you do have the possibility of partnering that government to face down al-Qaeda militants.”

Boosting such a partnership is certain to be a key goal for the US. Washington already gives security and intelligence support to Mr Saleh’s government – and may have provided such help for two air strikes conducted by Yemeni forces on December 17 and 24.

However, such cooperation might only go so far, amid signs that Mr Saleh’s government is not as determined to take on al-Qaeda as Washington would like. “There’s a problem of will and a problem of capacity,” says Mr Fontaine.

The next few weeks are almost certain to see European Union governments pressing the US to take a different tack: focusing on trying to boost the economic and political conditions in Yemen in order to ensure that it does not become a breeding ground for jihadism.

European diplomats believe that no matter what is achieved on the security front in the short-term, Yemen’s long-term economic problems guarantee that it could become a failed state over time. Its petroleum output will fall to zero by 2017 and its water resources are running dry, according to analysts. Meanwhile, Yemen’s population will double by 2035.

BAGHDAD: Staggered explosions killed 23 people Wednesday including the governor of Anbar, Iraqi officials said, in the latest violence to roil a turbulent province that is still struggling to stamp out the remnants of the al-Qaida insurgency.

The western province of Anbar is strategically important because it was once the heartland of support for al-Qaida linked militants before American officials paid Iraqi fighters to join a pro-government force.

Police official Lt. Col. Imad al-Fahdawi said two bombs exploded in Anbar’s capital of Ramadi, 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad. He says a suicide bomber in a car caused the first blast on the main road near the provincial administration buildings.

Gov. Qassim al-Fahdawi, the deputy police chief and other officials came to inspect the damage, the police official said, when a suicide bomber on foot detonated a vest full of explosives nearby.

The governor and deputy police chief were killed and other officials wounded, al-Fahdawi said. Police have put a curfew in place, he added.

“The leadership in the province have requested support from U.S. forces in response to the attacks near the provincial government center in Ramadi,” said military spokesman Lt. Col. Curtis Hill. He said American forces were helping evacuate casualties, establish security and forensic investigation.