Word: karachi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
There was good news from other fronts too. In Pakistan, a joint operation in Karachi by the CIA and Pakistan's own spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), had netted a very big fish: Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Afghan Taliban's military chief. In quick succession, the ISI had also rolled up two of the Taliban's "shadow" governors of Afghanistan's provinces and another senior figure. And in North Waziristan, near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, a missile launched from a CIA drone had struck at the heart of the Haqqani network, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group responsible...
Pakistan has watched warily as both Iran and archrival India have expanded their influence with anti-Pakistani forces in Afghanistan - a country many in Islamabad still view as their backyard. The arrest earlier this month of Mullah Abdul Baradar, rumored Taliban deputy commander, by Pakistani authorities in Karachi has been seen as a sign of Islamabad's desire to now dismember some of the terror networks it once helped create. Handing over Rigi may be another gesture of goodwill. "Actions like this ease pressure on India and Iran," says Abbas. "There's now a chance for more cooperation and coordination...
Counter-arguments abound, of course. There are two interpretations regarding Baradar, who was leaving a seminary in a dingy slum outside Karachi when Pakistani operatives, acting on a tip from the CIA, picked him up. The first theory is that Pakistan owed the U.S. big time for knocking out one of their troublesome insurgents and could not dither when the CIA demanded that Baradar be grabbed. But the second theory, put out by local Pakistani journalists with reliable Taliban contacts, suggests that Baradar was dispensable for the Pakistani intelligence since he broke last December with Omar. According to Peshawar journalist...
...Thursday, possibly acting on information provided to interrogators by Baradar, security forces arrested three suspected top al-Qaeda militants, who according to Pakistani intelligence sources quoted in the local press were in Karachi on a shopping trip for washing-machine timers and other parts for triggering bombs. Most important among the trio of suspects was Ameer Mauawia, described by Pakistani intelligence officers as the commander of al-Qaeda's foreign fighters on the Pakistani tribal lands along the Afghan border. Mauawia is said to be a trusted and longtime ally of bin Laden's, whom he allegedly followed when...
...management of the operation is said to be handled by his No. 2, the Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was nearly killed in a drone attack in the Pakistani tribal territory several years back. Nevertheless, the capture of top Taliban and al-Qaeda commanders in Karachi may help solve the mystery: Is bin Laden still alive, and if so, where is he hiding...