Bhutto family:  three generations - Bilawal, her son, Benazir and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, her father;  Marriot two.  On the assination:  US President George W Bush
condemned a "cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy".  New President of Pakistan, Benezir Bhuto's widower,
Asif Zardari (r.);  Marriot bomb September 2008 above.  The Wild Ones, Taliban-style.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pakistan 'takes key Taliban town'
Pakistani Army troops on patrol on 17 October
Page last updated at 09:02 GMT, Saturday, 24 October 2009 10:02 UK

Pakistani troops have captured the key Taliban town of Kotkai in South Waziristan, security officials say.  Troops took the town after
days of bombardments, officials said. Three soldiers and four Taliban were reported killed in the fighting overnight.

Kotkai, home to top Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, has seen fierce fighting since Pakistan launched its South Waziristan offensive
last week.  Journalists are being denied access to the area and cannot verify the reports.

Up to 100,000 civilians have fled the conflict zone, the army says.  

South Waziristan is considered to be the main sanctuary for Islamic militants outside Afghanistan.  Pakistan launched its offensive after
a wave of militant attacks, believed to have been orchestrated from South Waziristan, killed more than 150 people.

'Breakthrough'

Pakistani troops - backed by artillery, helicopters and fighter jets - were reported to have briefly taken control of Kotkai in the course of
fighting earlier this week.  But on Tuesday morning the Taliban hit back, destroying army checkpoints and killing seven soldiers, local
officials said.

However Pakistan's army said subsequently said it had secured the tactically important heights around Kotkai.  On Saturday, AFP
quoted an official as saying: "Security forces took control of Kotkai overnight and a clearance operation is in progress.

"It is a major breakthrough because it was the stronghold of Taliban and hometown of Hakimullah Mehsud and Qari Hussain," he added,
referring to a reputed trainer of suicide bombers.

The BBC's Mark Dummett, in Islamabad, says the fighting is now expected to move into more remote and mountainous areas, as the
army continues its drive deeper into this militant stronghold.

Meanwhile, at least 13 people were reported to have been killed by a US drone missile strike targeting a Taliban commander's house in
the tribal region of Bajaur.  Officials said the strike had hit the house of Maulvi Faqir in Damadola village.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Musharraf’s ’07 Actions Ruled Illegal
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 31, 2009Filed at 11:03 a.m. ET

ISLAMABAD (AP) -- Pakistan's Supreme Court ruled Friday that former President Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule in
2007 was unconstitutional, state and private media outlets reported.

Details were still coming to light, but the ruling could invalidate the appointments of judges made by Musharraf in the six weeks after
he suspended the constitution on Nov. 3, 2007.  It also may strengthen the case for bringing treason charges against the former military
ruler, further jolting Pakistan's political establishment at a time when the U.S. wants it to focus on battling a Taliban insurgency.

The 14-member bench that delivered the ruling was headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, whose attempted ouster by
Musharraf spurred much of the political turmoil that ultimately led to the former army chief's downfall.

Musharraf, a longtime U.S. ally, declared the emergency when it appeared the Supreme Court might challenge his eligibility for office.
The emergency -- which was accompanied by mass detentions and harsh media restrictions -- enraged an already emboldened
opposition. It was lifted after six weeks.

Eventually, under domestic and international pressure, Musharraf allowed elections that brought his foes to power in February 2008.
Under threat of impeachment, he stepped down in August 2008.  Ever since, many opponents have demanded he be held accountable.

Musharraf, who is staying in London, ignored a summons to appear before the court or send a lawyer this week to explain his actions.
In the past, he has defended the moves as being in the interest of the country.

The court's announcement Friday was eagerly awaited by many Pakistanis, especially lawyers who led a movement that helped push
Musharraf out of office. Many gathered at various locations across the country to await news of the ruling. Afterward, they danced in the
streets and cheered.

Musharraf seized power in a 1999 military coup and became a key ally in the U.S.-led war against al-Qaida following the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks that sparked the American-led invasion of neighboring Afghanistan.

In early 2007, Musharraf dismissed Chaudhry as chief justice. That triggered mass protests led by lawyers that damaged Musharraf's
popularity.

The court managed to bring Chaudhry back, but -- faced with growing rancor and fearing he could be ousted -- Musharraf declared the
emergency, tossing out Chaudhry and around 60 other judges. That only deepened popular anger against the military ruler.

Under domestic pressure, and prodding from the U.S., Musharraf lifted the emergency, stepped down as army chief and allowed
parliamentary elections to take place the following February.

The elections brought his political foes to power, but even after Musharraf's resignation, the fate of the judges, especially that of
Chaudhry, caused fissures among those who came to power.

A coalition government consisting of Asif Ali Zardari's Pakistan People's Party and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N fell apart
over the slow pace of reinstating the ousted jurists.

Ultimately, facing escalating lawyer-led protests reminiscent of Musharraf's era, now-President Zardari agreed to reinstate Chaudhry
-- whom he'd viewed as too political a figure -- in March.Ever since, there have been rumblings in some corners about whether Musharraf
would have to answer in court for his actions, and court petitions were filed over the issue.

Some argue that holding Musharraf accountable would deter military strongmen from trying to seize power in the future and give a
chance for democratic institutions to grow in a country that has spent about half its existence under army rule.

The flip side is that pursuing Musharraf could shake the political establishment and reopen old wounds at a time when Pakistan faces
huge tasks in battling Taliban insurgents and reviving its economy.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

U.N. Team Begins Inquiry Into Bhutto's Killing
NYTIMES
By REUTERS
Filed at 9:32 a.m. ET
July 1, 2009

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A U.N. fact-finding commission began an inquiry on Wednesday into the assassination of former Pakistani
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.  Bhutto was murdered in a suicide gun-and-bomb attack in the city of Rawalpindi on December 27,
2007, after a rally to drum up support for a general election she had hoped to win.

Her murder threw nuclear-armed U.S. ally Pakistan into crisis and her Pakistan People's Party rode a wave of sympathy to win the
election, which was delayed until February 2008.  Her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, later become president.

The three-member U.N. team is headed by Chile's U.N. Ambassador Heraldo Munoz and will take six months for its investigation.

"It's a fact-finding mission. It has started work today and it'll just inquire into the facts and circumstances of the assassination," said
the U.N. spokeswoman, Ishrat Rizvi.

While it started its work on Wednesday, the team was not yet in Pakistan but would arrive this month, Rizvi said.  The team will not be
empowered to launch criminal proceedings related to the assassination.

That will make it much less far-reaching than a U.N. investigation of the 2005 killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri,
which is intended to lead to a U.N.-organized trial in The Hague.

"It's been agreed between the government and the United Nations that the duty of determining criminal responsibility of the perpetrators
of the assassination remains with Pakistani authorities," said Rizvi.

Pakistan's previous government, led by Pervez Musharraf, and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency accused al Qaeda-linked Pakistani
Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud of killing Bhutto, a staunch supporter of the U.S.-led campaign against militancy.

Mehsud denied involvement.

ENEMIES

British police also investigated how Bhutto had been killed but not who had been responsible.  Some of Bhutto's aides have expressed
dissatisfaction over the previous investigations.  Bhutto had enemies apart from Islamist militants and conspiracy theories were fueled
when authorities ordered the scene of the attack hosed down shortly after it happened, washing away evidence.

About 20 people were killed when the suicide bomber struck as Bhutto was leaving a stadium waving to supporters from the roof
escape hatch of her armored vehicle.  A spokesman for President Zardari said the government had sought a U.N. inquiry to avoid
allegations of partiality. He also said the assassination had international ramifications, although he did not elaborate.

"It has ramifications and it's tentacles go far beyond the national boundary," said the spokesman, Farhatullah Babar.

"We also wanted an international independent body so there will be no allegations or accusations," he said.

The government recently ordered an offensive against Mehsud, based in South Waziristan on the Afghan border, who the army says is
responsible for 90 percent of terrorist attacks in Pakistan.  He carries a U.S. reward of $5 million and a Pakistani reward of 50 million
rupees ($615,000).

The other two members of the U.N. "Bhutto Commission" are Indonesia's former attorney general Marzuki Darusman and Peter
Fitzgerald, a retired senior officer with the Garda Siochana, Ireland's national police force.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

U.S. Presses Visiting Pakistani Leader on Taliban Threat
NYTIMES
By HELENE COOPER
May 7, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration sought Wednesday to ratchet up pressure on the Pakistani government to crack down on
the Taliban in the western part of the country, as congressional leaders and administration officials expressed increased concern over
the deteriorating situation in Pakistan, where insurgents have taken over territory just 60 miles from the capital.

President Obama will meet with both President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan on Wednesday
afternoon at the White House. The focus was to be ways that Afghanistan and Pakistan, both unstable, could work together, and with
the United States.

The challenges for the United States in the region were underscored Wednesday by reports of dozens of civilian deaths from American
airstrikes in western Afghanistan. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed deep regret for the loss of innocent life at a news
conference with Mr. Karzai and Mr. Zardari held at the State Department on Wednesday morning.

Ms. Clinton and the administration’s top envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, had earlier held an unscheduled meeting early
Wednesday with Mr. Zardari. The three huddled for an hour at Mr. Zardari’s hotel, the Willard, where they discussed steps which the
administration wants the government to take to deal with the Taliban insurgency, according to officials from both countries with
knowledge of the meeting.

Speaking later at the news conference, Mr. Zardari said that his government would act. “My democracy will deliver,” he said. “We are up
to the challenge.” He alluded to the United States’ own lengthy efforts to stabilize countries in the region. “Just as the United States is
making progress after seven years of engagement in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we too will make progress,” Mr. Zardari said.

In his remarks, Mr. Zardari alluded to the assassination of his wife, the former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, who was shot and killed
after a rally in Rawalpindi in 2007. “Democracy will avenge the death of my wife, and the thousands of Pakistani citizens around the
world,” he said.

The Willard Hotel session — held in advance of more formal meetings at the State Department and the White House — underscored
the concern that has gripped the Obama administration as Taliban insurgents battle government troops closer and closer to Islamabad.

Administration officials are worried that the Zardari government will make promises in Washington to do more to contain the insurgents,
but may not follow through once officials are back in Islamabad. Senior members of the Obama administration have been forthright in the
last week about their concern that the Pakistani Army is overly pre-occupied with its traditional foe to the east, India, when the Taliban is
taking over the western part of the country.

Mrs. Clinton also used her public remarks to announce a trade and transit accord to improve commerce between Afghanistan and
Pakistan, which the leaders of the two countries agreed to conclude by the end of the year. Mrs. Clinton called the accord “an important
milestone in their efforts to generate foreign investment, stronger economic growth and trade opportunities.”

The deadline of the end of this year to conclude the pact is notable because the two countries have been in talks on this agreement for
more than four decades.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Taliban Exploit Class Rifts to Gain Ground in Pakistan
NYTIMES
By JANE PERLEZ and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
April 17, 2009

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The Taliban have advanced deeper into Pakistan by engineering a class revolt that exploits profound fissures
between a small group of wealthy landlords and their landless tenants, according to government officials and analysts here.

The strategy cleared a path to power for the Taliban in the Swat Valley, where the government allowed Islamic law to be imposed this
week, and it carries broad dangers for the rest of Pakistan, particularly the militants’ main goal, the populous heartland of Punjab
Province.

In Swat, accounts from those who have fled now make clear that the Taliban seized control by pushing out about four dozen landlords
who held the most power.

To do so, the militants organized peasants into armed gangs that became their shock troops, the residents, government officials and
analysts said.

The approach allowed the Taliban to offer economic spoils to people frustrated with lax and corrupt government even as the militants
imposed a strict form of Islam through terror and intimidation.

“This was a bloody revolution in Swat,” said a senior Pakistani official who oversees Swat, speaking on the condition of anonymity for
fear of retaliation by the Taliban. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it sweeps the established order of Pakistan.”

The Taliban’s ability to exploit class divisions adds a new dimension to the insurgency and is raising alarm about the risks to Pakistan,
which remains largely feudal.

Unlike India after independence in 1947, Pakistan maintained a narrow landed upper class that kept its vast holdings while its workers
remained subservient, the officials and analysts said. Successive Pakistani governments have since failed to provide land reform and
even the most basic forms of education and health care. Avenues to advancement for the vast majority of rural poor do not exist.

Analysts and other government officials warn that the strategy executed in Swat is easily transferable to Punjab, saying that the
province, where militant groups are already showing strength, is ripe for the same social upheavals that have convulsed Swat and the t
ribal areas.

Mahboob Mahmood, a Pakistani-American lawyer and former classmate of President Obama’s, said, “The people of Pakistan are
psychologically ready for a revolution.”

Sunni militancy is taking advantage of deep class divisions that have long festered in Pakistan, he said. “The militants, for their part,
are promising more than just proscriptions on music and schooling,” he said. “They are also promising Islamic justice, effective
government and economic redistribution.”

The Taliban strategy in Swat, an area of 1.3 million people with fertile orchards, vast plots of timber and valuable emerald mines,
unfolded in stages over five years, analysts said.

The momentum of the insurgency built in the past two years, when the Taliban, reinforced by seasoned fighters from the tribal areas
with links to Al Qaeda, fought the Pakistani Army to a standstill, said a Pakistani intelligence agent who works in the Swat region.

The insurgents struck at any competing point of power: landlords and elected leaders — who were usually the same people — and an
underpaid and unmotivated police force, said Khadim Hussain, a linguistics and communications professor at Bahria University in
Islamabad, the capital.

At the same time, the Taliban exploited the resentments of the landless tenants, particularly the fact that they had many unresolved
cases against their bosses in a slow-moving and corrupt justice system, Mr. Hussain and residents who fled the area said.

Their grievances were stoked by a young militant, Maulana Fazlullah, who set up an FM radio station in 2004 to appeal to the
disenfranchised. The broadcasts featured easy-to-understand examples using goats, cows, milk and grass. By 2006, Mr. Fazlullah had
formed a ragtag force of landless peasants armed by the Taliban, said Mr. Hussain and former residents of Swat.

At first, the pressure on the landlords was subtle. One landowner was pressed to take his son out of an English-speaking school
offensive to the Taliban. Others were forced to make donations to the Taliban.

Then, in late 2007, Shujaat Ali Khan, the richest of the landowners, his brothers and his son, Jamal Nasir, the mayor of Swat, became
targets.

After Shujaat Ali Khan, a senior politician in the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, narrowly missed being killed by a roadside bomb, he fled
 to London. A brother, Fateh Ali Mohammed, a former senator, left, too, and now lives in Islamabad. Mr. Nasir also fled.

Later, the Taliban published a “most wanted” list of 43 prominent names, said Muhammad Sher Khan, a landlord who is a politician
with the Pakistan Peoples Party, and whose name was on the list. All those named were ordered to present themselves to the Taliban
courts or risk being killed, he said. “When you know that they will hang and kill you, how will you dare go back there?” Mr. Khan, hiding
in Punjab, said in a telephone interview. “Being on the list meant ‘Don’t come back to Swat.’ ”

One of the main enforcers of the new order was Ibn-e-Amin, a Taliban commander from the same area as the landowners, called Matta.
The fact that Mr. Amin came from Matta, and knew who was who there, put even more pressure on the landowners, Mr. Hussain said.

According to Pakistani news reports, Mr. Amin was arrested in August 2004 on suspicion of having links to Al Qaeda and was released
in November 2006. Another Pakistani intelligence agent said Mr. Amin often visited a madrasa in North Waziristan, the stronghold of
 Al Qaeda in the tribal areas, where he apparently received guidance.

Each time the landlords fled, their tenants were rewarded. They were encouraged to cut down the orchard trees and sell the wood for
their own profit, the former residents said. Or they were told to pay the rent to the Taliban instead of their now absentee bosses.

Two dormant emerald mines have reopened under Taliban control. The militants have announced that they will receive one-third of the
revenues.

Since the Taliban fought the military to a truce in Swat in February, the militants have deepened their approach and made clear who is
in charge.

When provincial bureaucrats visit Mingora, Swat’s capital, they must now follow the Taliban’s orders and sit on the floor, surrounded by
Taliban bearing weapons, and in some cases wearing suicide bomber vests, the senior provincial official said.

In many areas of Swat the Taliban have demanded that each family give up one son for training as a Taliban fighter, said Mohammad
Amad, executive director of a nongovernmental group, the Initiative for Development and Empowerment Axis.

A landlord who fled with his family last year said he received a chilling message last week. His tenants called him in Peshawar, the
capital of North-West Frontier Province, which includes Swat, to tell him his huge house was being demolished, he said in an interview
here.

The most crushing news was about his finances. He had sold his fruit crop in advance, though at a quarter of last year’s price. But even
that smaller yield would not be his, his tenants said, relaying the Taliban message. The buyer had been ordered to give the money to
the Taliban instead.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pakistan Seizes Terror Suspect
NYTIMES
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
January 23, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani forces arrested a Saudi Arabian believed to have been involved in the July 7, 2005, bombing
attacks in London, two Pakistani officials said Thursday. The Saudi, Zabi al-Taifi, was arrested with six other men in Khyber Agency,
one of the lawless tribal districts along the border with Afghanistan. It was not immediately known what Mr. Taifi’s alleged role in the
London bombings involved.

A British official who spoke in return for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case said the Saudi man’s name was not known to
British investigators who have followed events after the bombings, which killed 52 people.

One Pakistani security official said Mr. Taifi had recently been hiding in Bajaur, another western tribal district where the Pakistani
military has been fighting Taliban militants. According to a second security official, the seven men, including several other foreigners,
may have been planning attacks on NATO convoys that use the Khyber Pass to ferry troop supplies into Afghanistan.

Taliban guerrillas have recently increased efforts to attack the route, prompting American officials to secure pacts with Russia and
Central Asian nations to transport goods into Afghanistan from the north.  The second Pakistani official said that there was “a lot of
cooperation and coordination on the intelligence side” between the United States and Pakistan to apprehend Mr. Taifi. The official said
he could not address reports that American officers were present at the raid.

According to initial local reports, at least two Americans were on the scene when Mr. Taifi was arrested, and witnesses also reported
seeing a drone aircraft circling overhead. Unmanned American aerial drones have carried out dozens of attacks on Al Qaeda and other
terror suspects in western Pakistan in recent months.

Richard A. Oppel Jr. reported from Islamabad, Pakistan; Pir Zubair Shah contributed reporting from Peshawar, Salman Masood from
Islamabad, and Alan Cowell from Paris

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pakistan Is Given Evidence on Attacks
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:13 a.m. ET
January 5, 2009

NEW DELHI (AP) -- India gave Pakistan the most detailed evidence yet that it says ties the militants who attacked Mumbai to
''elements'' in Pakistan -- responding Monday to weeks of demands from Islamabad for proof that the siege was launched from across
the border.

India has blamed the November attacks that killed 164 people on Pakistani-based militants, but Islamabad has denied the accusations
and requested proof.

The evidence handed to the Pakistani High Commissioner in New Delhi on Monday included material from the interrogation of the lone
surviving gunman, details of conversations between the gunmen and their alleged handlers in Pakistan, recovered weapons, and data
from satellite phones, according to a statement from India's foreign ministry.

''This material is linked to elements in Pakistan,'' the statement said. ''It is our expectation that the government of Pakistan will promptly
undertake further investigations in Pakistan and share the results with us so as to bring the perpetrators to justice.''

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq said the authorities are reviewing the evidence and declined to comment
further.

India has blamed the three-day siege on Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group based in Pakistan. Authorities there have arrested at least
two men accused of planning the attacks and launched a nationwide crackdown on a charity believed to be a front for the militant group.

India has called on Pakistan to hand over the suspects and dismantle the terror network they say is based across the border. Pakistani
leaders say they will try any suspects in the attacks in their own courts.

India's top security official, Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, has said he suspects the Mumbai gunmen may have had ties to
Pakistani authorities and not just militants in that country.

''In fact I will presume that they are state actors or state-assisted actors until the contrary is proved. No non-state actor can mount this
attack without any kind of state help,'' Chidambaram told the news channel NDTV in an interview broadcast Sunday.

In the wake of the attacks, tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals have been high. Pakistan has redeployed troops toward India and
away from the Afghan border, where authorities are battling militants.

Critics say the troop movement will hurt the Pakistani army's attempts to gain control of the lawless tribal region, where on Monday
police found three bullet-riddled bodies they say were victims of the Taliban. The victims were a Pakistani construction contractor and
two Afghan men the Taliban accused of spying for the United States, said police official Akhtar Salam.

India has worked for weeks to marshal global pressure on Pakistan, and Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said the evidence handed
over to Islamabad would also be shared with the international community.

Pakistan's Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik said, however, ''we will not take pressure from anyone.''

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher arrived in Islamabad on Monday and met with Pakistani leaders, including Prime
Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who said he assured Boucher ''that we will not allow our soil to be used for any kind of terrorism. I also
said that to create conducive environment it would be the best for Pakistan and India that we resolve core issues like Kashmir.''

India and Pakistan have fought three wars against each other since they gained independence in 1947 -- two over Kashmir, a majority
Muslim region in the Himalayas claimed by both countries. Despite increased tensions, Indian leaders have made clear they do not
want to fight a fourth.

Pakistan's leaders have veered back and forth from confrontational statements to conciliatory ones and on Sunday Foreign Minister
Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the country wanted ''good relations with its neighbors.''

Much of India's evidence against the militants comes from interrogations of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the only gunman to survive the
attacks. He has reportedly told authorities he and nine others were Pakistani, he was trained in Pakistan, and his handlers are still there.

Pakistan has said it has no record of Kasab as a Pakistani citizen. Malik said Monday authorities were still examining his claim.

The Mumbai attacks began Nov. 26 and lasted for nearly three days. The 10 gunmen attacked 10 sites across India's financial capital,
including two five-star hotels, the main train station, popular restaurants and a Jewish center.
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Pakistan Moves Troops Toward India Border
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:32 a.m. ET
December 26, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan began moving thousands of troops away from the Afghan border toward India on Friday amid
tensions following the Mumbai attacks, intelligence officials said.

The move represents a sharp escalation in the stand off between the nuclear-armed neighbors and stands to weaken Pakistan's
U.S.-backed campaign against al-Qaida and Taliban close to Afghanistan.

Two intelligence officials said the army's 14th Division was being redeployed to Kasur and Sialkot, close to the Indian border. They
said some 20,000 troops were on the move. Earlier Friday, a security official said that all troop leave had been canceled.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Indian officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

An Associated Press reporter in Dera Ismail Khan, a district that borders the Afghan-frontier province of South Waziristan, said he
saw around 40 trucks loaded with soldiers heading away from the Afghan border.

India is blaming Pakistan-based militants for last month's attacks on Mumbai. Islamabad has said it will cooperate in any probe, but
says it has seen no evidence backing up India's claims.  Both countries have said they hope to avoid military conflict, but Pakistan has
promised to respond aggressively if India uses force, an option the Indian government has not ruled out.

Pakistan has deployed more than 100,000 soldiers in Waziristan and other northwestern regions to fight Islamic militants blamed for
surging violence against Western troops in Afghanistan.  A senior security official refused to comment directly on Friday's troop
movements, but said, ''Necessary defensive measures have been taken, they are in place and Pakistan's armed forces are prepared
to tackle any eventuality.''

He asked his name not be used, citing the sensitivity of the situation.  Pakistan and India have fought three wars since their
independence from Britain in 1947.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mumbai Gunman's Confession Sheds Light on Attack
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:17 a.m. ET
December 13, 2008

MUMBAI, India (AP) -- The gunman captured in last month's Mumbai attacks told police he had originally intended to seize hostages
and call the media to make demands, according to his confession statement obtained Saturday by The Associated Press.

Mohammed Ajmal Kasab said he and his partner, who assaulted the city's main train station, had planned a rooftop standoff, but they
couldn't find access to a roof, the statement says.

The two killed dozens of people inside the station, but it's unclear if they ever held hostages.

At least 164 people plus nine gunmen died in the three-day siege of India's financial capital that began Nov. 26. Kasab said the attacks
were originally set for Sept. 27, though he doesn't explain why they were delayed.

Police said Saturday that Kasab, who has been repeatedly interrogated since his arrest, has also written to Pakistani officials to request
legal help.

In a letter written Thursday, he asks for ''legal aid'' from the Pakistani consulate and to meet with a consular representative, said Rakesh
Maria, Mumbai's chief investigator.

The letter was forwarded to India's government to relay to Pakistani officials, but it was unclear whether it had been delivered, Maria said.

A number of Indian lawyers -- including a prominent group of Mumbai attorneys -- have refused to defend Kasab against criminal charges
amid outrage over the attacks.

Kasab is being held on 12 offenses, including murder and waging war against the country, but has not yet been formally charged.

According to police, 21-year-old Kasab said he was a Pakistani national and member of the banned terrorist organization
Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Islamabad has refused to acknowledge Kasab's nationality, complaining that India has yet to furnish any evidence.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pakistan Said to Arrest a Key Suspect in India Attacks
NYTIMES
By JANE PERLEZ and SALMAN MASOOD
December 9, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani authorities have arrested the operational leader of the Pakistani-based militant group suspected of
conducting the Mumbai attacks, a senior Pakistani security official said Monday.

The arrest Sunday of the group’s leader, Zakiur ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the supreme operational commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba, came as
Pakistan raided a camp run by the organization in Pakistani-held Kashmir, the first concrete steps by Pakistan in response to the
assault on Mumbai.

Mr. Lakhvi has been accused by India of being in control of the attackers in Mumbai as they terrorized the city during a three-day siege
in which 163 people were killed.

The leader commanded the attack and then kept in communication with the gunmen by mobile and satellite phone as they rounded up
guests in two hotels, killing some of them, according to Indian and Western investigators.

How far the arrest of Mr. Lakhvi and the raid will go to satisfy the Indian government remained an open question. It appears to be the first
time that Pakistan has captured a senior operational figure in Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group that was founded with the help of Pakistani
intelligence officers in the late 1980s to fight a proxy war against India in Kashmir.

Lashkar-e-Taiba was banned by the then Pakistan president, Pervez Musharraf, in 2002.

At around that time, Pakistan arrested Haffiz Muhammad Saeed, 63, the head and ideological director of Lashkar-e-Taiba, but then
released him.

Mr. Saeed maintains he is now only the head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the charity wing of the militant group. Mr. Lakhvi is believed to be the
operational chief of the organization working directly under Mr. Saeed, who gave a strong anti-India sermon at Friday prayers at his
mosque in Lahore last week.

Mr. Lakhvi, by all accounts a hardened fighter, has been accused by India of masterminding an attack in 2002 against a prominent
Indian military installation in New Delhi, the Red Fort, and of handling the bombings of commuter trains in Mumbai in July 2006.

Mr. Lakhvi was arrested in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-held Kashmir, according to Pakistani television reports. A camp run
by the group at Shawai, about three miles from Muzaffarabad, was closed by the Pakistani military on Sunday, television reports said.
Nearby residents said they saw a military helicopter hovering over the camp, and several loud explosions.

Lashkar-e-Taiba was banned in Pakistan in January 2002, a year after an assault on the Indian Parliament in December 2001, which
India said was the work of Lashkar-e-Taiba.

But despite the formal prohibition, the group continued to function, American and Pakistani officials said. After the ban, it broadened its
vision from fighting a proxy war in Kashmir against India to a more global jihadist agenda akin to that of Al Qaeda, American intelligence
experts said.

The connections between the Pakistani intelligence agency and the group continued after the ban, according to American and Pakistani
officials. But American officials cautioned that they did not detect involvement of the Pakistani intelligence agency in the Mumbai
assault. Pakistan has consistently denied any government connection with the Mumbai siege and has pledged to cooperate in the
investigation.

A formal session of Pakistan’s Defense Committee of the Cabinet gathered at the prime minister’s office in Islamabad Monday morning
to discuss the next options after the Mumbai attacks. Pakistan is under intense pressure from the United States and India to take
action against militant groups that operate on its soil. But at the same time Washington appears anxious not to put Pakistan under
such stress that the new and fragile civilian government is seen as acting at the behest of either the United States or India, an
impression that would jeopardize the government’s standing with the Pakistani people.

Even so, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was firm during an interview on CNN television Sunday. “Pakistan needs to cooperate
transparently,” she said. “They’ve said that they will. Clearly there are organizations that operate with longstanding involvement in this
kind of activity,” in Pakistan.

The defense committee, a civilian body which has the head of the army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, as a member, replaced a military
group, the National Security Council, which was disbanded as a national security decision-making body last week.

The meeting of the committee was hailed by the Pakistani civilian government as another move away from the military leadership of Mr.
Musharraf, who resigned as president in August.

The last significant meetings of the Defense Committee of the Cabinet were held after nuclear tests conducted by India in May 1998.
Those tests were followed by nuclear tests by Pakistan.

Few details are known about Mr. Lakhvi, except that he is from Punjab Province, the heartland of Pakistan. Although Lashkar-e-Taiba
was founded to fight in Kashmir, its leadership is almost entirely from Punjab. Its influence in Punjab has grown steadily in the last few
years, particularly through its charity wing, Jamaat-ud-Dawa.

A spokesman for Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Abdullah Muntazir, said his organization had no relationship with the camp closed by the military.
He maintained the charity has nothing to do with Lashkar-e-Taiba. The government would not close down the charity because such a
move would affect thousands of people who benefit from its good works, he said.

Mr. Muntazir said he did not expect Mr. Saeed to be arrested because he was now head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa not Lashkar-e-Taiba.

In an earlier interview another spokesman, Muhammad Yahya Mujahid, denied that Lashkar or Mr. Saeed had any connection to the
attack in Mumbai. The charity, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, is popular in Pakistan, and became well known for its efficient delivery of relief to
victims of the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir. Jamaat-ud-Dawa receives financial support from the Pakistani public in small and large
donations, and from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region.

It runs more than 100 Islamic schools, most of them in Punjab. These schools are viewed by many Pakistanis as recruiting grounds for
young fighters to enter the training operations of Lashkar-e-Taiba. At the gate of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa compound outside Lahore last
week, a young bearded man working as a guard said he was looking forward to going to Kashmir to become a fighter.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Calling All Pakistanis
NYTIMES
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
December 3, 2008

On Feb. 6, 2006, three Pakistanis died in Peshawar and Lahore during violent street protests against Danish cartoons that had satirized
the Prophet Muhammad. More such mass protests followed weeks later. When Pakistanis and other Muslims are willing to take to the
streets, even suffer death, to protest an insulting cartoon published in Denmark, is it fair to ask: Who in the Muslim world, who in
Pakistan, is ready to take to the streets to protest the mass murders of real people, not cartoon characters, right next door in Mumbai?

After all, if 10 young Indians from a splinter wing of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party traveled by boat to Pakistan, shot up
two hotels in Karachi and the central train station, killed at least 173 people, and then, for good measure, murdered the imam and his
wife at a Saudi-financed mosque while they were cradling their 2-year-old son — purely because they were Sunni Muslims — where
would we be today? The entire Muslim world would be aflame and in the streets.

So what can we expect from Pakistan and the wider Muslim world after Mumbai? India says its interrogation of the surviving terrorist
indicates that all 10 men come from the Pakistani port of Karachi, and at least one, if not all 10, were Pakistani nationals.

First of all, it seems to me that the Pakistani government, which is extremely weak to begin with, has been taking this mass murder
very seriously, and, for now, no official connection between the terrorists and elements of the Pakistani security services has been
uncovered.

At the same time, any reading of the Pakistani English-language press reveals Pakistani voices expressing real anguish and horror over
this incident. Take for instance the Inter Press Service news agency article of Nov. 29 from Karachi: “ ‘I feel a great fear that [the
Mumbai violence] will adversely affect Pakistan and India relations,’ the prominent Karachi-based feminist poet and writer Attiya Dawood
told I.P.S. ‘I can’t say whether Pakistan is involved or not, but whoever is involved, it is not the ordinary people of Pakistan, like myself,
or my daughters. We are with our Indian brothers and sisters in their pain and sorrow.’ ”

But while the Pakistani government’s sober response is important, and the sincere expressions of outrage by individual Pakistanis are
critical, I am still hoping for more. I am still hoping — just once — for that mass demonstration of “ordinary people” against the Mumbai
bombers, not for my sake, not for India’s sake, but for Pakistan’s sake.

Why? Because it takes a village. The best defense against this kind of murderous violence is to limit the pool of recruits, and the only
way to do that is for the home society to isolate, condemn and denounce publicly and repeatedly the murderers — and not amplify,
ignore, glorify, justify or “explain” their activities.

Sure, better intelligence is important. And, yes, better SWAT teams are critical to defeating the perpetrators quickly before they can do
much damage. But at the end of the day, terrorists often are just acting on what they sense the majority really wants but doesn’t dare
do or say. That is why the most powerful deterrent to their behavior is when the community as a whole says: “No more. What you have
done in murdering defenseless men, women and children has brought shame on us and on you.”

Why should Pakistanis do that? Because you can’t have a healthy society that tolerates in any way its own sons going into a modern
city, anywhere, and just murdering everyone in sight — including some 40 other Muslims — in a suicide-murder operation, without even
bothering to leave a note. Because the act was their note, and destroying just to destroy was their goal. If you do that with enemies
abroad, you will do that with enemies at home and destroy your own society in the process.

“I often make the comparison to Catholics during the pedophile priest scandal,” a Muslim woman friend wrote me. “Those Catholics that
left the church or spoke out against the church were not trying to prove to anyone that they are anti-pedophile. Nor were they
apologizing for Catholics, or trying to make the point that this is not Catholicism to the non-Catholic world. They spoke out because
they wanted to influence the church. They wanted to fix a terrible problem” in their own religious community.

We know from the Danish cartoons affair that Pakistanis and other Muslims know how to mobilize quickly to express their heartfelt
feelings, not just as individuals, but as a powerful collective. That is what is needed here.

Because, I repeat, this kind of murderous violence only stops when the village — all the good people in Pakistan, including the
community elders and spiritual leaders who want a decent future for their country — declares, as a collective, that those who carry out
such murders are shameful unbelievers who will not dance with virgins in heaven but burn in hell. And they do it with the same
vehemence with which they denounce Danish cartoons.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Fresh Blood From an Old Wound
NYTIMES
By PANKAJ MISHRA
December 2, 2008

MIDWAY through last week’s murderous rampage in Mumbai, one of the suspected gunmen at the besieged Jewish center called a
popular Indian TV channel. Speaking in Urdu (the primary language of Pakistan and many Indian Muslims), he ranted against the recent
visit of an Israeli general to the Indian-ruled section of the Kashmir Valley. Referring to the Pakistan-backed insurgency in the valley,
and the Indian military response to it, he asked, “Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir?”

In a separate phone call, another gunman invoked the oppression of Muslims by Hindu nationalists and the destruction of the Babri
Mosque in Ayodhya in 1992. Such calls were the only occasions on which the militants, whom initial reports have tied to the Pakistani
jihadist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, offered a likely motive for their indiscriminate slaughter. Their rhetoric seems all too familiar.
Nevertheless, it shows how older political conflicts in South Asia have been rendered more noxious by the fallout from the
“war on terror” and the rise of international jihadism.

Pakistan, a nation-state founded on Islam, has long claimed Muslim-majority Kashmir, and has fought three wars with India over it
since 1947. In the early 1990s, as an anti-India insurgency in Kashmir intensified, groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba became the Pakistani
government’s proxies in its war of attrition with its neighbor.

American pressure after 9/11 forced Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, to ban Lashkar-e-Taiba, which had developed links with
the Taliban and Al Qaeda. With General Musharraf’s departure from office in September, it would be no surprise if this turned out to be
the Muslim group’s first major atrocity since 2001.

Pakistan’s new civilian government is too weak to control either the extremist groups within the country or the various rogue elements
within its military and intelligence. The American military was reported to have started bombing supposed terrorist hideouts inside
Pakistan’s borders even as General Musharraf stumbled to the exit. As its increasingly desperate pleas to the Bush administration to
stop the attacks go unheeded, Pakistan’s government appears pathetically helpless to its own citizens.

The sense of humiliation and impotence that this loss of sovereignty creates in Pakistan, a country with a strong tradition of populist
nationalism, cannot be underestimated.

Meanwhile, India’s influence in Afghanistan has grown as it pours reconstruction money into the country, as have its military ties with
Israel. Add to this the Bush administration’s decision to reward India with an extraordinarily generous nuclear deal and to more or less
ignore Kashmir, where in August Indian security forces brutally suppressed the biggest nonviolent demonstrations in the valley’s history,
and recent attacks against the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, and now in Mumbai begin to appear to be
connected by more than chronology.

Meanwhile, Indian intelligence experts and others suspect that jihadists and disaffected members of Pakistan’s armed forces and
intelligence agencies have forged closer links and, as the string of recent bomb attacks on Indian cities reveals, are rapidly making new
allies among the 13 percent of Indians who are Muslim.

It is very likely that Barack Obama will take a different tack from the Bush administration in antiterrorism efforts in South Asia. In an
interview with MSNBC last month, he said that his administration would encourage India to solve the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan,
so that Islamabad can cooperate with the United States in Afghanistan.

The idea that the road to stability in South Asia goes through Kashmir is as persuasive as the notion that the path to peace in the
Middle East goes through Jerusalem. It is also equally hard to realize. Mr. Obama could act quickly to stem growing extremism in
Pakistan and strengthen civilian authority by ending American missile attacks within its borders and shifting the allied strategy in
Afghanistan away from military force and toward political nation-building and economic reconstruction. At the same time, he will have
to find a solution in Kashmir that endows its Muslims with a measure of autonomy while pacifying extremists in both India and Pakistan.

The new president’s moral and intellectual authority will be vital in negotiations with India, which, like China regarding Tibet, adamantly
rejects third-party mediation in Kashmir. Mr. Obama could point out the obvious to Indian leaders: they have paid a huge price for their
intransigence over Kashmir, with an estimated 80,000 dead in the valley in the last two decades and a resultant rise in terrorist attacks
across India.

Indeed, the outrage in Mumbai is the latest and clearest sign that the price of India’s uncompromising stance on Kashmir has become
too high, imperiling its economy as well as its security. Indian anger over the fumbling response to the brazen attacks disguises the
panicky realization that there can be no effective defense against terrorists in a country with a long coastline and densely populated
cities. The best India can hope for is to improve what Ratan Tata — the country’s leading industrialist and the owner of last week’s main
terrorist target, Mumbai’s Taj hotel — calls “crisis management.”

As the economy falters (Mumbai’s stock market has lost nearly 60 percent of its value this year), India can barely cope with homegrown
violent movements like the Maoist insurgency in its central states, which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described as the biggest
internal security threat to India since independence.

Pointing to the Bush administration’s vigorous response to 9/11, Indian commentators lament that India is a “soft state,” unable to
defend itself from internal and external enemies. But India cannot turn into a “hard” state without swiftly undermining its secular,
multicultural democracy.

The government has already experimented with draconian laws like the Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act of 2002, which among other
measures allowed the police to hold suspects without charge for six months. It was repealed in 2004 after many abuses against
Muslims were revealed. While these attacks may lead to calls for more tough measures, Indians cannot lose sight of the peril that 150
million Muslims would lose their faith in India’s political and legal system. And it is obviously dangerous to threaten Pakistan, a
nuclear-armed state, with war.

As president, Mr. Obama could conceivably persuade India and Pakistan to see the virtue of a political solution to Kashmir. But he
would first have to set an example by rejecting the false assumptions of a global war on terrorism based primarily on military
force — assumptions that the elites of powerful countries with restive minorities like India, China and Russia have eagerly embraced
since 9/11.

“The people of India deeply love you,” Prime Minister Singh said to President Bush in September while thanking him for the nuclear
deal. Yet it is President-elect Obama who has the opportunity to create deeper and more enduring alliances for the United States in
South Asia — and he should start with Kashmir.

Pankaj Mishra is the author of “Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet and Beyond.”
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Op-Ed
Jihad’s True Face
NYTIMES
By WILLIAM KRISTOL
December 1, 2008

Much of the reporting from Mumbai the last few days has been informative, gripping and often moving. Some of the commentary, on the
other hand, has been not just uninformative but counterinformative — if that’s a term, and if it’s not, I say it should be.

Consider first an op-ed article in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times by Martha Nussbaum, a well-known professor of law and ethics at the
University of Chicago. The article was headlined “Terrorism in India has many faces.” But one face that Nussbaum fails to mention
specifically is that of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Islamic terror group originating in Pakistan that seems to have been centrally involved in the
attack on Mumbai.

This is because Nussbaum’s main concern is not explaining or curbing Islamic terror. Rather, she writes that “if, as now seems likely,
last week’s terrible events in Mumbai were the work of Islamic terrorists, that’s more bad news for India’s minority Muslim population.”
She deplores past acts of Hindu terror against India’s Muslims. She worries about Muslim youths being rounded up on suspicion of
terrorism with little or no evidence. And she notes that this is “an analogue to the current ugly phenomenon of racial profiling in the
United States.”

So jihadists kill innocents in Mumbai — and Nussbaum ends up decrying racial profiling here. Is it just that liberal academics are
required to include some alleged ugly American phenomenon in everything they write?

Jim Leach is also a professor, at Princeton, but he’s better known as a former moderate Republican congressman from Iowa who
supported Barack Obama this year. His contribution over the weekend was to point out on Politico.com that “the Mumbai catastrophe
underscores the importance of vocabulary.” This wouldn’t have been my first thought. But Leach believes it’s very important that we
consider the Mumbai attack not as an act of “war” but as an act of “barbarism.”

Why? “The former implies a cause: a national or tribal or ethnic rationale that infuses a sacrificial action with some group’s view of
heroism; the latter is an assault on civilized values, everyone’s. ... To the degree barbarism is a part of the human condition, Mumbai
must be understood not just as an act related to a particular group but as an outbreak of pent-up irrationality that can occur anywhere,
anytime. ... It may be true that the perpetrators viewed themselves as somehow justified in attacking Indians and visiting foreigners,
particularly perhaps Americans, British and Israeli nationals. But a response that is the least nationalistic is likely to be the most
effective.”

If, as Leach says, “it may be true” the perpetrators viewed themselves as justified in their attacks, doesn’t this mean that they did in
fact have a “rationale” that “infused” their action?

But Leach doesn’t want to discuss that rationale — even though it’s not hard to find. Ten minutes of Googling will bring you to a fine
article, “The Ideologies of South Asian Jihadi Groups,” from the April 2005 issue of Current Trends in Islamist Ideology. It’s by the
respected journalist and diplomat Husain Haqqani, who, as it happens, is now Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States.

Lashkar-e-Taiba, Haqqani explains, is a jihadi group of Wahhabi persuasion, “backed by Saudi money and protected by Pakistani
intelligence services.” He notes that “Lashkar-e-Taiba has adopted a maximalist agenda for global jihad.” Indeed, the political arm of
the group has conveniently published a pamphlet, “Why Are We Waging Jihad?,” that lays out all kinds of reasons why the United
States, Israel and India are “existential enemies of Islam.”

So much for Leach’s notion that the Mumbai terrorists had no “cause” or “rationale.” But Leach’s refusal to see this is in the service of
persuading India not to respond in a “nationalistic” way — and of persuading the United States not to see itself primarily as standing
with India against our common enemies.

But if terror groups are to be defeated, it is national governments that will have to do so. In nations like India (and the United States),
governments will have to call on the patriotism of citizens to fight the terrorists. In a nation like Pakistan, the government will have to be
persuaded to deal with those in their midst who are complicit. This can happen if those nations’ citizens decide they don’t want their
own country to be dishonored by allegiances with terror groups. Otherwise, other nations may have to act.

Patriotism is an indispensable weapon in the defense of civilization against barbarism. That was brought home over the weekend in an
article in The Times of India on Sandeep Unnikrishnan, a major in India’s National Security Guards who died fighting the terrorists at the
Taj hotel. The reporter spoke with the young man’s parents as they mourned their son: “His father, dignified in the face of such a
personal tragedy, was stoic, saying he was proud of his son who sacrificed his life for the country: ‘He died for the nation.’ ”
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Pakistanis Deny Any Role in the Attacks on Mumbai
NYTIMES
By JANE PERLEZ and SALMAN MASOOD
November 30, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Apprehensive about potential reprisals by India over the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the Pakistani government
insisted Saturday that it had not been involved. It pledged to take action against Pakistan-based militants if they were found to be
implicated.

“Our hands are clean,” the Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said at a news conference. “Any entity or group involved
in the ghastly act, the Pakistan government will proceed against it.”

The government called a crisis cabinet meeting on Saturday, a day after Indian officials suggested that a militant group with Pakistani
ties, Lashkar-e-Taiba, was responsible for the attacks. Similar accusations after an attack on the Indian Parliament by another group,
Jaish-e-Muhammad, brought the two governments to the brink of war in 2002.

But while the civilian leaders, including President Asif Ali Zardari, called for calm on Saturday, Pakistani security officials warned that
they were preparing to move troops toward the border if need be. The security officials, speaking at a press briefing in which the ground
rules prohibited identifying them by name, said that if the situation worsened, troops stationed in western Pakistan could be moved
within 72 hours. “We’re ready for any contingency,” one security official said.

The security officials also noted that such a move would be likely to upset the United States, because it would mean resources were
being moved away from the fight against Islamic militants in the western areas bordering Afghanistan.

Even Mr. Qureshi, at his news conference, suggested that conflict could not be ruled out. “We should hope for the best, plan for the
worst,” he said.

At the center of the Pakistan’s concern is the suggestion by Indian officials that Lashkar-e-Taiba, which originated in Kashmir, was
responsible for the Mumbai attacks. American intelligence and counterterrorism officials have also said there was mounting evidence
that the group had been involved.

Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has a track record of attacks against India, has received training and support from Pakistan’s premier intelligence
agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, according to widespread intelligence reports. The United States has contended that Pakistan
has turned a blind eye to Lashkar-e-Taiba training camps in Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan territory over which India and Pakistan
have fought two wars.

The group, along with Jaish-e-Muhammad, was banned in 2002 by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who was president at the time, and the links
between the ISI and the groups were sharply reduced, according to United States intelligence officials.

But members of Lashkar-e-Taiba joined other groups and moved much of their activity from Kashmir to the Federally Administered Tribal
Areas, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda operate, Pakistani experts on the groups said. Now, Lashkar-e-Taiba militants operating as Al
Badar and under other names participate in training camps in the tribal region and cooperate with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, they said.

Even though Mr. Musharraf banned Lashkar-e-Taiba and apparently severed official connections, the group was able to flourish in other
incarnations in part because until early this year, Islamist parties supported by Mr. Musharraf controlled the North-West Frontier
Province, next to the tribal areas.

What particularly worries the Pakistani government is the prospect of a repeat of the high tension between India and Pakistan when the
two nuclear-armed countries mobilized troops on their borders and remained on the brink of war for much of 2002, after the attack on
Parliament.

In that situation, Pakistan, under the leadership of General Musharraf, refused to accede to India’s demands to hand over the leaders of
Jaish-e-Muhammad for trial, a refusal that pushed India to mobilize one of its biggest military operations.

In contrast to its stance then, however, the civilian Pakistani government now seems eager to avoid a military confrontation.The new
government has participated in talks to improve relations with India, including joint efforts to counterterrorism and to build trade.

Mr. Qureshi, sounding almost impassioned at times in his news conference, noted that he was in India when the Mumbai attacks
unfolded Wednesday night and that he stayed until Friday night. While in India, he pleaded with the Indian news media to be
“responsible” and to stop the accusations of Pakistani “without complete evidence,” he said.

It is important, he said, that so far the Indian government has not blamed the government of Pakistan for the attacks. “They are
suspecting perhaps groups or organizations that could have a presence here,” he said.

The Pakistani government also faces opposition at home in its handling of the crisis.

When Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani promised Friday to dispatch the chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency to India to
confer with the investigators there, the opposition parties in Pakistan immediately objected.

The parties accused the government of capitulating to the Indians, who had asked for the intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja
Pasha, to go to New Delhi. Much was made in Pakistan of a headline in The Times of India that said the Indian prime minister,
Manmohan Singh, had “summoned” General Pasha.

The Pakistani Army objected to General Pasha’s visiting India, and by late Friday, the government announced it had changed its mind,
saying that a lower-level intelligence official would go to India in connection with the Mumbai investigation at an undetermined time in the
future.
_______________________________________________________________________________________

More Bodies Pulled From Hotel Rubble in Pakistan
NYTIMES
By SALMAN MASOOD
Published: September 21, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The death toll in the truck blast outside the Marriott Hotel here on Saturday rose to 53, with at least 266
people wounded, officials said on Sunday, adding that the numbers weren’t expected to grow much more. Two Americans were among
the dead.

The blast was described by the government on Sunday as an attack on democracy. “Our enemies don’t want to see democracy
flourishing in the country,” said Rehman Malik, a senior Interior Ministry official, at a press conference here, adding that the attack
was meant to sabotage Pakistan’s integrity and economy.

The hotel, a six-story structure, was favored by the new government of President Asif Ali Zardari as a place to do business. One of the
reasons it was popular with Pakistani officials was its relatively easy access. Security at the hotel building, which was set about only
100 yards from the street, had been considered to be somewhat problematic by Western security officials at the Marriott. But the
security was beefed up in the last year, and, increasingly, American officials visiting Pakistan stayed there.

Mr. Malik gave details of one of the biggest terrorist attacks in the country’s history. He said that more than 1,300 pounds of explosives
were used, adding that the blast created a crater about 60 feet wide and 25 feet deep.

He also released a videotape. It showed that a six-wheel dump truck was stopped by security guards at a barrier in front of the main
entrance of the hotel. A few gunshots were heard, and the front part of the truck caught fire. It burned for about three minutes as three
to four security guards were seen running away and one guard tried to put out the fire with an extinguisher.

Mr. Malik said investigators were still trying to conclude whether the attacker was killed by gunfire from the security guards, explosives
detonating inside the truck cabin or whether he got out of the truck and then detonated an improvised device.

Rescue workers pulled five dead bodies out of the wreckage on Sunday, as excavators and cranes worked to clear the debris and
wreckage of the building. Officials had believed, at first, that people were trapped inside the burning hotel and had feared a much higher
death toll.

There were no claims of responsibility, but Pakistani officials suspected participation by militants operating in the rugged territory in
northern Pakistan known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA.

“All roads lead to FATA,” Mr. Malik said, but he stressed that it was premature to name any group or individual.

Mr. Malik said that the investigation into the attack would be conducted by only Pakistani authorities. “We don’t need any help; we
reject it,” he said when asked about the offer from the United States to send special F.B.I. agents for assistance.

Pakistani officials said that at least 106 people had been admitted in different hospitals in Islamabad, including 11 foreigners. These
included four Americans, four Saudis and one each from Britain, Afghanistan and Lebanon. One Vietnamese and the Czech
ambassador to Pakistan were among the dead.

On Sunday afternoon, distraught relatives milled about anxiously outside the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, or PIMS.

Dr. Samia Ali, 33, said she had been visiting Islamabad to attend her sister’s wedding and came to the hospital to volunteer. Dr. Ali
said that most of the patients she had seen had severe burns, head injuries and cuts.

Luqman Khan, 25, was lying on a bed in a surgical ward of PIMS on Sunday. He had had surgery Saturday night. Mr. Khan said that
he had worked at a government building across the road from the Marriott. “I saw it with my eyes,” he said referring to the blast.

“A truck filled with bricks was aflame near the entrance. People were shouting, ‘Get away! Run away!’ After a few minutes, there was a
big explosion. I fell unconscious.”

At the traffic square leading to the hotel, police had cordoned off the blast site and dozens of people stood in a somber mood.

Abdul Khaliq, 41, a professor in a private university, said that he had been inside the Marquee Hall Saturday having iftar, the evening
meal when Muslims break their fast during the holy month of Ramadan, when the blast shook the hotel. “The false ceiling fell after the
blast. I hid under the table as power went out. It was restored after a few minutes and we came out from the backside. I went toward
where my car was parked, but it was badly damaged. So, I left it there and went home in a cab.”

When asked who he thought was behind the attack, Mr. Khaliq said that he had other worries in mind. “I am more concerned about
retrieving my driving license and other documents from my car.”

Shahid Kamal, 42, a freelance editor, said: “I came here to see the devastation. We are sick” of the wave of terrorism that has engulfed
the country, especially in the north.

“This is a reaction of what is going on in FATA,” he said, as his little niece stood by his side. “We have been implementing a reckless
and careless policy for a number of years. What’s happening in FATA is that Pakistanis are killing Pakistanis.”

Others offered different explanations and apportioned blame elsewhere.

Muhammad Qadeer, 36, a security guard in an office nearby, said that he thought Indians could be involved, as the blast could have
been a reaction to the July bombing outside of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, and recent blasts in the Indian capital.

“It can be the work of America also,” said Mr. Qadeer, a bearded man wearing a blue uniform. “Maybe our new president didn’t agree
to its dictations,” he said when asked why, referring to President Zardari, who was elected two weeks ago.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Deadly bomb hits Pakistan hotel
A suspected bomb attack has hit a luxury hotel in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, killing at least 40 people.
Page last updated at 19:25 GMT, Saturday, 20 September 2008

FROM EARLIER STORY:  The BBC's Barbara Plett who is at the scene says that the entire front section of the Marriott Hotel has been
blown out and wreckage was everywhere.

She describes plumes of black smoke and rescue workers carrying out bloodied victims, as well as bodies.  Some reports say the
explosion was caused by a suspected suicide bomber, but this is unconfirmed.

Our correspondent says that the centre of the blast was at the front of the building close to the area where security checks are carried
out.  She says that about two-thirds of the building is on fire, and the wounded and dead are still being brought out, on stretchers or
wrapped in sheets.

The Marriott is located near government buildings and diplomatic missions. Security there is tight, with guests and vehicles subject to
checks.

The attack comes just hours after Pakistan's newly installed President, Asif Ali Zardari, said he would not allow Pakistan's territory to
be violated by terrorists or foreign powers fighting them.

In his first speech to MPs since he replaced Pervez Musharraf in August, he vowed instead to "root out terrorism and extremism
wherever and whenever they may rear their ugly heads".

Last year a suicide bomber killed himself and one other in an attack at the hotel...more.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Breaking news on Saturday morning, September 20, 2008:
Huge explosion heard in Pakistani capital
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 20, 2008
Filed at 10:14 a.m. ET

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- A large explosion has occurred in the vicinity of the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan's capital.

The blast resounded through Islamabad but there was no immediate word on casualties or the cause.

Many foreigners stay in the hotel while visiting Pakistan and it is heavily guarded.

Pakistan has faced a wave of violence in recent weeks following military offensives against insurgents in its border regions.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Bhutto Widower and U.S. Ally Elected in Pakistan
NYTIMES
By JANE PERLEZ and SALMAN MASOOD
Published: September 6, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of the assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who has little
experience in governing, was elected president of Pakistan on Saturday by a wide margin.

Supporters of the Pakistan Peoples Party celebrated the victory of Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain former prime minister Benazir
Bhutto, in Islamabad on Saturday.  Mr. Zardari, 53, who spent 11 years in jail on corruption charges that remain unproved, succeeds
Pervez Musharraf, who resigned last month under the threat of impeachment. He is expected to be sworn in on Monday or Tuesday,
Pakistani officials said.

Mr. Zardari has the tacit approval of the United States, which views him as an ally in the campaign against terrorism. He has promised
a tougher fight against members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda ensconced in the nation’s tribal areas, from where they mount assaults on
American and NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan.

His election coincides with a stepped-up effort by the United States to root out the Taliban and Al Qaeda from the tribal areas. American
commandos attacked militants in a village near the Afghan border on Wednesday, in what American military officials said could be a
continuing campaign in Pakistan’s tribal region.

Mr. Zardari is ascending amid increasing evidence that the Pakistani government and military face almost overwhelming difficulties in
battling the militants, who now virtually control the tribal areas. In a reminder of that challenge, a suicide bomber killed at least 14 people
and wounded dozens at a police checkpoint near Peshawar on Saturday.

Unofficial results from voting in the two houses of Parliament and four provincial assemblies showed that Mr. Zardari, the leader of the
Pakistan Peoples Party, won 479 of 702 votes. His closest competitor, Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqui, of the Pakistan Muslim League-N,
won 153 votes, and a third candidate, Mushahid Hussain Syed, received 43 votes. The results were expected to be certified by the
Election Commission.

After Ms. Bhutto was killed in December, Mr. Zardari became the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, which was founded by Ms.
Bhutto’s father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and is considered to be almost a cult of the Bhutto dynasty.

Mr. Zardari led the party to victory in a parliamentary election on Feb. 18 and formed a coalition with Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the
Pakistan Muslim League-N.

That coalition collapsed last month amid recriminations over the reinstatement of some 60 judges fired by President Musharraf when
he imposed emergency rule in November.

In a sign of conciliation, Mr. Sharif telephoned Mr. Zardari on Saturday to congratulate him on his victory and pledge his support,
according to television accounts of the call.

Mr. Zardari’s aides have promised that as president, Mr. Zardari would agree to the elimination of a constitutional provision that allows
the president to dismiss Parliament, long considered a weak institution.

The minister of information, Sherry Rehman, a senior member of the Pakistan Peoples Party, said the relationship between the
presidency and Parliament would be better balanced under Mr. Zardari, resulting in a “new era of democratic stability.” Ms. Rehman
added, “Today, every Pakistani can raise his head with pride.”

After the vote, Mr. Zardari spoke briefly outside the prime minister’s residence. Flanked by his two teenage daughters, Bakhtawar and
 Asifa, Mr. Zardari said he would uphold the democratic philosophy of Ms. Bhutto.

“Parliament will be sovereign,” he said. “This president shall be subservient to the Parliament.”

But there was considerable skepticism among politicians and in the news media that Mr. Zardari would agree to a diminution of power.
An editorial on Saturday in the daily newspaper Dawn said it hoped that “his commitment to make himself a titular head of state will not
 waver.”

Most Pakistanis looked on the presidential vote with considerable indifference, a sharp contrast to the excitement during the political
campaign leading to the parliamentary elections.

In the Aabpara market in Islamabad, storekeepers preferred to talk about the high cost of electricity and food rathern than about their
attitudes toward Mr. Zardari, whose victory they viewed as a foregone conclusion.

Several men said that it was good for Pakistan to have a president and a prime minister from the same political party, reflecting the
official line of the Pakistan Peoples Party. “He can be a good president because the whole party is behind him,” said Malik Zahoor, 50.

But some vendors said that the corruption charges against Mr. Zardari made him unsuitable for the presidency.

“He’s a certified thief,” said Akhlaq Abbasi, 60, the owner of a fabric and tailoring shop. ____________________________________________________________________________________
Pakistani Leader Escapes Gunfire
DAY
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 3, 2008
Filed at 7:54 a.m. ET

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Snipers fired on the motorcade for Pakistan's prime minister on Wednesday as it drove to the airport
to pick up the premier, striking his car window at least twice, officials said.

Neither the prime minister nor his staff were in the vehicles, but the assassination attempt comes as Pakistan's new civilian
government -- under pressure from American officials -- is cracking down on Islamist militants after ousting U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf
from the presidency.

At least two bullets hit the front window on the driver's side of Yousuf Raza Gilani's limousine on the main highway linking Islamabad
with the nearby city of Rawalpindi, officials said.

Zahid Bashir, the premier's press secretary, said unknown assailants fired ''multiple sniper shots'' in what he described as a
''murder attempt.''

Interior Secretary Kamal Shah said later Wednesday, however, that the vehicles were attacked on their way to the airport to pick up
the prime minister, who had been in Lahore, and that Gilani's plane had not even landed yet.

''The driver reached Islamabad airport, but the prime minister or his staff was not traveling in the vehicles,'' Shah said.

Television footage showed Gilani's black Mercedes parked at his office in the capital with two impact points clearly visible on the driver's
window. The glass was cracked but intact.

Information Minister Sherry Rehman also confirmed that Gilani was not in the motorcade at the time and was safely back in Islamabad.
The attack was the second apparent assassination attempt in Pakistan in quick succession.

Shots were fired last week at a car carrying Lynne Tracy, the top U.S. diplomat in Pakistan's troubled northwest, as she was headed
to her office in the city of Peshawar. No one was hurt in that shooting.

On Wednesday afternoon, plainclothes police with a dog searched for clues on a small hill from which they believed the shots were
fired at the premier's car. They gathered snack wrappers and juice cartons and took them away from beneath a huge portrait of
Pakistan's founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, which greets travelers arriving in the capital.

The road was temporarily blocked, with traffic jammed in both directions.

Four workers for a company that is involved in a construction project on the road said they heard no shots and were not aware anything
had happened until police arrived.

''We were working here, and the police came and questioned us,'' said Mohammad Zada.

Another worker, Shah Zeb, said he had been making his afternoon prayers when the incident occurred, and when he returned, '
'Police grabbed me. They searched me.''

Pakistani political leaders have repeatedly faced the threat of assassination.

Musharraf, who was despised by militants for allying with Washington after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, escaped at least four attempts
on his life. In December, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto died in a gun-and-bomb attack during an election rally two months after
returning from exile.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Sharif ’s Party Quits Pakistan Coalition
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 25, 2008
Filed at 9:05 a.m. ET

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says he is withdrawing his party from Pakistan's ruling coalition.

The move will likely concentrate power in the hands of the main ruling Pakistan People's Party, which wants to maintain the country's
close ties with the United States.

Sharif said Monday that he is pulling out of the five-month-old alliance because it has failed to restore judges ousted by ex-President
Pervez Musharraf.

Lawmakers are expected to choose People's Party leader Asif Ali Zardari as Musharraf's successor on Sept. 6.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Party Picks Bhutto Widower for Pakistan President
NYTIMES
Associated Press
By SALMAN MASOOD
Published: August 22, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The senior party in Pakistan’s governing coalition on Friday nominated Asif Ali Zardari, widower of former
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, as its candidate in elections for president, now set for Sept. 6.   The Election Commission on Friday
set Sept. 6 as the date lawmakers will elect a new president, after the resignation earlier this week of President Pervez Musharraf.

Hours later, members of the Pakistan Peoples Party said that Mr. Zardari, 53, who is a leader of the party, would be their candidate.

The new president will confront an escalating insurgency by militants in the country. The announcement of the election date came a
day after twin suicide attacks outside the country’s biggest weapons factory complex, in Wah, 20 miles north of the capital, Islamabad.

The death toll in those attacks rose to 78 on Friday, said Rao Muhammad Iqbal, the city police chief of Rawalpindi. Mr. Rao said 103
people were wounded in the bombings, the deadliest strike by the Taliban in the past 18 months.

The Taliban said the bombings were in response to a fierce Pakistani military operation against militants that has unfolded over the past
two weeks in the tribal region of Bajaur. The insurgents threatened more suicide attacks if the government continued its military
campaign.

Leaders of the governing coalition met in Islamabad on Friday to discuss a plan to reinstate judges deposed by Mr. Musharraf during a
state of emergency last November, a move that contributed to his downfall.

One leading member of the governing coalition, former Prime Minister Nawaz al-Sharif, the head of Pakistan Muslim League-N, has
threatened to pull out of the coalition if the judges are not reinstated.

Kanwar Muhammad Dilshad, secretary of the Election Commission, said at a news conference in Islamabad on Friday that nomination
papers will be filed Tuesday and will be considered on Thursday. Members of Parliament and the four provincial assemblies will vote on
Sept. 6, and the result will be announced on the same day.

The ruling coalition has wavered on the issue of restoration of the judges, despite showing unity in engineering the ouster of Mr.
Musharraf.

The reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and other Supreme Court and high court judges fired by Mr.
Musharraf was one of Mr. Sharif’s main election promises. On Friday, at a press briefing in Islamabad, Mr. Sharif said a drafting
committee would finalize a resolution for the reinstatement of the judges over the weekend and that it would be introduced in Parliament
on Monday.

“After debate,” he said, “it should be passed on Wednesday and judges should be restored.”

Mr. Sharif said he would not accept the reinstatement of judges if it did not include Mr. Chaudhry. “Without him, the restoration of the
judiciary will be a joke,” he said.

Despite Mr. Sharif’s deadline of Wednesday, other members of the ruling coalition, especially the Pakistan Peoples Party, appeared to
be in no rush.

Mr. Zardari fears that Mr. Chaudhry, if reinstated, might undo an amnesty agreement that absolved Mr. Zardari of corruption charges.
The amnesty was part of a package arranged by Mr. Musharraf when Mr. Zardari returned to Pakistan after his wife, Ms. Bhutto, was
assassinated in December.

Some members of the Pakistan Peoples Party said Mr. Sharif’s demands on the judiciary were distracting the government from other
pressing issues as its leaders focused instead on keeping the fledgling governing coalition together.

“The biggest problem we face is militancy in the North-West Frontier Province,” said Sheik Mansoor Ahmed, a senior Pakistan Peoples
Party official. “There is great resentment in the southwestern Baluchistan province against the federation. The economy is a shambles.”

“There are far more important issues than the restoration of judiciary,” he said.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
President Musharraf of Pakistan Resigns
NYTIMES
By JANE PERLEZ
Published: August 18, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Under pressure over impending impeachment charges, President Pervez Musharraf announced he would
resign Monday, ending nearly nine years as one of the United States’ most important allies in the campaign against terrorism.

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!”

His resignation came after 10 days of intense political maneuvering in Pakistan, and cleared the way for the four-month-old coalition
government to choose a new president by a vote of the Parliament and provincial assemblies. But there were intense concerns in
Washington that Mr. Musharraf’s departure would open a new era of instability in the nuclear-armed country of 165 million people, as
the fragile coalition jockeys for his share of power.

Mr. Musharraf, 65, will stay in Pakistan in the immediate future, a request he had insisted on, according to Nasir Ali Khan, a senior
member of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, a partner in the coalition. The coalition, led by Asif Ali Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan
Peoples Party, and Nawaz Sharif, the chairman of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, were scheduled to meet here in the capital Monday
afternoon to discuss the way forward, Mr. Khan said.

There were few indications of who the next president would be. According to the Constitution, a new president must be chosen within 30
days. American officials have said that Mr. Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister who was assassinated in
December, would like the post. But Mr. Sharif, who maintains a barely civil relationship with Mr. Zardari, is strongly opposed to the
elevation of Mr. Zardari.

Mr. Musharraf has been under strong pressure in the past few days, as the coalition said it had completed a charge sheet to take to
Parliament for his impeachment. The charges were centered on “gross violations” of the Constitution, according to the minister of
information, Sherry Rehman.

The rhetoric from the coalition mounted over the weekend, but the leading politicians wavered on an exact date for bringing the charges,
thus leaving a window for Mr. Musharraf to leave.

In his speech, Mr. Musharraf tore into the coalition for what he called their failed economic policies. He said Pakistan’s critical
economic situation — a declining currency, capital flight, soaring inflation — was their responsibility. In contrast, he said, his policies
had brought prosperity out of near economic collapse when he took charge in 1999.

He then gave a laundry list of his achievements, ranging from expanded road networks to a national art gallery in the capital. Although
Pakistan’s literacy rate hovers around 50 percent, and is much lower among women, he took credit for new schools.

The army, the most powerful institution in Pakistan, stayed publicly above the fray in the past 10 days. But in remaining studiously
neutral and declining to come to Mr. Musharraf’s rescue, the new leader of the army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvaz Kayani, tipped the scales
against the president, politicians said.

Mr. Musharraf grabbed power in a bloodless coup in October 1999, ousting Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the man who had picked Mr.
Musharraf as army chief. For eight years, he ruled as head of the army and president, positions that gave him almost unfettered power
and allowed the Bush administration to rely on Mr. Musharraf in the campaign on terrorism.

Lou Fintor, the spokesman at the United States Embassy in Islamabad, declined to comment on the announced resignation.

Across the border in Afghanistan, government officials expressed satisfaction that Mr. Musharraf was leaving. The relationship between
the neighboring countries has long been tense, with Afghan officials blaming increasing violence there on Pakistan’s failure to crack
down on militants in the border region.

An Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman, Zemeri Bashary, said on Monday that Mr. Musharraf had been an ally of the United States
 “in words only, not by actions” and argued that his rule had not been good for Afghanistan, The Associated Press reported. Also, a
 Foreign Ministry spokesman, Sultan Ahmed Baheen, said Afghanistan hoped the resignation would strengthen democracy in both
countries, the A.P. said.

As Mr. Musharraf began to lose popularity last year, Washington tried to forge a power-sharing relationship between him and Ms.
Bhutto, who had been in exile since the late 1990s and returned to Pakistan last fall. She was assassinated Dec. 27.

The Musharraf government accused the Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud of her murder. By then Mr. Sharif had also returned from exile
to run in elections. The Pakistan Peoples Party of Ms. Bhutto, under the stewardship of her husband, Mr. Zardari, and the Pakistan
Muslim League-N, under Mr. Sharif, swept into power in elections in February.

Mr. Musharraf leaves office as the Taliban insurgency in the tribal areas has taken on renewed vigor in the past week, prompting
civilians to leave their homes there, and pitting the paramilitary Frontier Corps, directed by the army, directly against the insurgents.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Musharraf spokesman denies he's set to quit 
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 15, 2008
Filed at 8:11 a.m. ET

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- President Pervez Musharraf's spokesman on Friday rejected reports that the embattled Pakistani leader
was set to resign, even as another ally said back-channel talks were under way on ways to avoid his impeachment.

The spokesman, Rashid Qureshi, also called claims that Musharraf was seeking legal immunity in case he did step down ''nonsense.''

''These unsubstantiated spate of reports are totally baseless and malicious,'' Qureshi said, adding such reports were having a ''negative
impact'' on the country's economy.

Former army chief Musharraf dominated Pakistan for years after seizing power in a 1999 military coup, gaining favor from the United
States after supporting it in the war on terror.

But his rivals won February parliamentary elections and formed a coalition that has sought to push him chief out of office and already
largely sidelined him. Ruling coalition officials have said an impeachment motion could reach Parliament as early as next week.

The coalition claims an impeachment could be wrapped up by the end of the month, but officials in the president's office say it could
take months, as the procedure is not laid out in the constitution.

''There is a lot of background talks going on, whereby a way is trying to be found so that there is no impeachment,'' Sen. Tariq Azim,
a top official in the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q party, said earlier Friday.

He said the president's possible resignation, with legal protections, was an option, as was the idea of stripping down the presidency to
a figurehead role.

Asked if Musharraf had decided to quit, Azim told The Associated Press: ''There are people who are advising him to avoid confrontation,
but I don't think he has made up his mind.''

Azim said people on all sides generally agreed an impeachment battle would strain the country at a time when it faces critical
challenges, such as a sinking economy -- inflation is running at over 20 percent -- and an emboldened Islamic militant movement.

''It is at the moment that Pakistan cannot afford confrontation,'' Azim said. ''And it's obvious that the present government and President
Musharraf cannot get along. So it is in the best interest of Pakistan that some way is found whereby this mode of confrontation can
be changed or can be more conciliatory.''

A president has never been impeached in Pakistan's turbulent 61-year history. The constitution says that the grounds for impeachment
are a violation of the constitution or gross misconduct.

Pakistan's Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar said Friday that the ruling coalition was in touch with Musharraf's aides.

''We have conveyed to them that the coalition is determined for impeachment, and if he wants to save himself, the best way is for him to
quit,'' Mukhtar said.

Asked if Musharraf could get legal protections, Mukhtar replied, ''If a person moves to the side, we are not in the habit of bothering him.
This would not be a good attitude, if someone is lying on the ground and we go aggressively against him.''

But it was increasingly unclear as the day wore on Friday how much some of Musharraf's rivals would tolerate granting him favors.

On Thursday, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who leads the second biggest party in the ruling coalition, said he opposed granting
legal immunity to Musharraf. Sharif's party has previously said Musharraf should be tried for treason.

Sharif, whom Musharraf pushed out of power in his coup, alleged the president had violated the constitution and compromised the
nation's sovereignty, a reference to Musharraf's alliance with the U.S. in the war on terror.

On Friday, Sharif aide Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan reiterated the stance against granting a safe exit or indemnity to Musharraf.

''Only a few people are still with him and he only wants two things: Indemnity for the sins and crimes he committed in the past eight
years, and a piece of land ... so he can live rest of his life there,'' Khan said.

The pressure on Musharraf has been ramped up in recent days. Three of Pakistan's four provincial assemblies passed resolutions this
week denouncing the president and urging him to seek a vote of confidence or resign.

Musharraf, who gave up his dual role as army chief late last year, has grown increasingly unpopular through his tenure.

Many Pakistanis blamed rising violence in their country on his partnership with the United States. His popularity hit new lows in 2007
when he ousted dozens of judges and imposed emergency rule in bids to avoid challenges to his rule.

As president, Musharraf still retains the power to dissolve Parliament, but taking such a step would be enormously controversial, and
even his allies have advised him against it.

Such a move also would require the support of the army, which has indicated it wants to stay out of politics. There have been no public
signs that the army is coming to rescue its former chief -- a significant factor in a country that has spent more than half of its 61 years
under military rule.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Musharraf Is Expected to Resign in Next Few Days
NYTIMES
By JANE PERLEZ
Published: August 14, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Faced with desertions by his political supporters and the unsettling neutrality of the Pakistani military,
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, an important ally of the United States, is expected to resign in the next few days rather than
face impeachment charges, Pakistani politicians and Western diplomats said Thursday.

The details of how he would exit, and whether he would be able to stay in Pakistan — apparently his strong preference — or would
seek residency abroad were now under discussion, the politicians said.

Mr. Musharraf was expected to resign before the coalition presented charges for impeachment to the Parliament early next week,
said Nisar Ali Khan, a senior official in the Pakistani Muslim League-N, the minority partner in the coalition government. Similarly,
Sheikh Mansoor Ahmed, a senior official of the Pakistan People’s Party, the major party in the coalition, said on Thursday that the
president would probably leave in the “next 72 hours.”

Inexorable pressure has built on Mr. Musharraf, a member of the military by profession and often impetuous by nature, to take a way
out from the current crisis that would save him from embarrassing disclosures during impeachment procedures, and that would protect
the nation from a prolonged political agony.

The United States and Britain, which last year together sought to put a democratic face on the unpopular Mr. Musharraf — who was
then also chief of the army — by engineering the return of opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, as his partner in a putative power-sharing
arrangement are now virtual bystanders as Mr. Musharraf’s rule comes to an end.

Ms. Bhutto was assassinated in December, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, now the leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, emerged
as a major force urging Mr. Musharraf’s ouster last week.

The American Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, met with senior officials of the political parties seeking Mr. Musharraf’s ouster
in the past few days, and a senior diplomat in the British Foreign Office, Sir Mark Lyall Grant, met with Mr. Musharraf here this week,
Pakistani officials and a Western diplomat said.

The envoys did not argue against Mr. Musharraf’s departure but rather stressed that he should be granted as dignified an exit as
possible, the Pakistani officials said. The officials and politicians spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized
to speak publicly on the matter.

“The United Sates is now accepting Musharraf’s removal as a fait accompli,” said Mr. Khan, the official in the coalition government.
 “They just want that he should not be humiliated. We don’t want his humiliation either.”

The continued support of Mr. Musharraf by the Bush administration, anchored by the personal relationship between President Bush and
Mr. Musharraf, has infuriated the four-month-old civilian coalition, which routed the president’s party in February elections. “Now the
reaction from the American friends is positive,” Mr. Khan said.

The coalition parties said that the impeachment charges would be presented to Parliament early next week, and that the charges would
be far-ranging, and touch on, among other things, Mr. Musharraf’s decision to suspend the constitution last November and introduce
emergency rule.

The leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, Nawaz Sharif, has demanded that if Mr. Musharraf is impeached, a trial must follow, a
proceeding that would be very messy, and could potentially rip the country apart.

In his hour of need, as the politicians move against him, Mr. Musharraf has been greeted by silence from the military, his former power
base.

As army chief of staff, Mr. Musharraf grabbed power in October 1999, overthrowing Mr. Sharif, who was then prime minister.

Mr. Sharif has maneuvered for Mr. Musharraf’s ouster since he returned to power in the February elections.

Mr. Musharraf served as president and army chief, working hand-in-hand with the United States on the campaign against terror, until
last November when he handed the army post to Gen. Ashfaq Parvaz Kayani, who promised to keep the army out of politics.

Since assuming the army leadership, General Kayani has remained true to his promise.

The neutrality of the military has actually tipped the scales against Mr. Musharraf, said Arif Nizami, editor of the daily newspaper, The
Nation.

“They are not even putting pressure on the civilians,” to stop the president’s ouster, Mr. Nizami said of the military. “They are saying if
you do it according to the book, it’s none of our business. They have pushed against Mr. Musharraf.”

Mr. Musharraf gave a routine but subdued national day address on Wednesday, calling for reconciliation. But by then many of his
supporters had left him. He was seeking solace from “only a handful of people,” most of whom harbored personal interests in Mr.
Musharraf’s survival, according to an account in the national newspaper, Dawn, by Zaffar Abbas, a respected political journalist.

Many members of Mr. Musharraf’s political party have deserted him, although a powerful political group, Muttahida Qaumi Movement,
which is based in Karachi, still supported him, Mr. Abbas wrote.

One prominent supporter, Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, who served as the minister of interior in Mr. Musharraf’s government, said Thursday
he could no longer justify his allegiance to the president.

Mr. Sherpao represents a parliamentary constituency in the North West Frontier Province on the edge of the tribal area where the
Taliban are winning control in village after village with little opposition from the military or government forces.

After consulting “with every friend” in his area “not a single person was in favor of Musharraf,” Mr. Sherpao said.

“With one voice they said: ‘This is the time you have to be with the democratic forces.’“

While it appeared almost certain that Mr. Musharraf would leave before facing impeachment, there was great uncertainty over what
would follow his expected decision.

“Everyone feels that the Musharraf era is over,” the Daily Times wrote in an editorial Thursday. “But no one is actually in the mood to
see what it is going to be like to be in the post-Musharraf era.”

Many Pakistanis believe that the country could suffer even greater instability after Mr. Musharraf goes.

The coalition partnership between Mr. Zardari and Mr. Nawaz became troubled by deep suspicions between the two sides soon after the
February elections, and the current accord on ousting Mr. Musharraf is likely to fragment as soon as he is gone, politicians say.

There is little agreement, for example, between the two men on the choice of the next president. The question of the future president is
a subject of almost as much jockeying within the coalition as the plan to get rid of Mr. Musharraf.

Mr. Zardari, a highly controversial figure in Pakistan who was jailed on corruption charges for more than eight years, would like the post,
according to his party supporters and senior members of the Pakistan Muslim League-N. The charges against Mr. Zardari were
dismissed as part of an amnesty agreement when Ms. Bhutto returned to Pakistan.

Mr. Sharif is opposed to Mr. Zardari’s ascendancy to the presidency, but would go along with it if the presidency was stripped of many
of its current powers, Pakistan Muslim League-N officials said.

According to the Constitution, an election for the president by the national parliament and four provincial assemblies must be held 30
days after the office becomes vacant.

“We very, very strongly feel it has to be a man of national consensus, a man of stature, a man everyone looks up to as a head of
state,” Mr. Khan said.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Musharraf Won’t Resign, Allies Say
NYTIMES
By JANE PERLEZ
Published: August 8, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Pervez Musharraf will stage a spirited defense against impeachment charges the governing
coalition is pursuing against him, and has no intention of resigning under pressure, his key allies said Friday.

Mr. Musharraf, who has been president for eight years, faces the first impeachment proceedings in Pakistani history, after the leaders
of the two major political parties in the ruling coalition announced Thursday they would seek to remove him.

The grounds for impeachment included mismanagement of the economy, along with Mr. Musharraf’s imposition last November of
emergency rule and the firing of nearly 60 judges, the party leaders said.

Mushahid Hussain, the secretary general of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q party, which supports Mr. Musharraf, said part of the
president’s defense strategy would be to draw a distinction between himself and the two leaders of the ruling coalition, Asif Ali Zardari,
of the majority party in the coalition, the Pakistan Peoples Party, and Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N.

“He will say: ‘Look here, I’ve been in office for eight years. I’ve made some mistakes, but at least I am not a crook. I have no foreign
bank accounts, no properties abroad, unlike the opposition leaders who are gunning for me,’” Mr. Hussain said.In the 1990s, both Mr.
Zardari and Mr. Sharif faced corruption charges in Pakistan. Mr. Zardari served nearly eight years in prison on charges that included
paying for a country manor in Britain with illegal gains from Pakistan.

On Mr. Zardari’s return to Pakistan earlier this year after the assassination of his wife, the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, the
corruption charges were dropped as part of an amnesty deal with the Musharraf government.

Mr. Hussain said Mr. Musharraf would also seek to draw a sharp distinction between himself, a two-term president and an experienced
soldier and former chief of the Pakistani Army, and Mr. Zardari, who served in the cabinet when his wife was prime minister in the 1990s.

“What is the choice? It is between President Musharraf and President Zardari. That is the question for 160 million people of Pakistan,"
Mr. Hussain said.

Mr. Zardari has made it known that he would like to be president, according to Pakistani and Western officials. As leader of the majority
party, he could seek the nomination for president. The appointment of the president is decided by a vote of the national legislature and
the provincial assemblies.

The coalition has called a session of the National Assembly for next Monday to start the impeachment process. It would probably take
at least a week to formally approve the start of proceedings. After those preliminaries, the speaker of the National Assembly is required
to call a joint sitting of both houses of Parliament not earlier than 7 days and not later than 14 days after receiving the approval of
Parliament to hear charges.

The joint sitting would then amount to a jury on Mr. Musharraf’s tenure, according to Babar Sattar, a constitutional lawyer.

Many politicians and analysts said Friday they hoped Mr. Musharraf would take the “graceful” way out and decide some time next week
to step aside. “For the sake of all of us, please maintain your dignity and go quietly,” a daily newspaper, The News, said in an editorial
Friday.

But Mr. Hussain, and even opponents of the president like Mr. Sattar, said they believed Mr. Musharraf would fight to the end. “He’s going to take this as a personal challenge that has to be fought,” Mr. Sattar said. Aiming to show a more united front within the fractious coalition, Mr. Sharif’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, announced that four of nine cabinet members who left the cabinet in protest two months ago would return to their posts. None of the four held senior posts. The respected finance minister, Ishaq Dar, among the nine who resigned, will not be rejoining the cabinet, according to Chaudry Nisar Ali Khan, a senior member of the Pakistan Muslim League-N.

The effort to remove Mr. Musharraf through impeachment proceedings received criticism even from some of the president’s fiercest
opponents.

Aitzaz Ahsan, the leader of a lawyers’ movement that has called for the resignation of the president, said in a television interview from
the United States on Friday that the four-month-old coalition government should have quickly restored the judges, including the chief
justice of the Supreme Court, who were fired by Mr. Musharraf last November after the imposition of emergency rule.

If the judges had been restored, protracted and potentially chaotic impeachment proceedings would not have been necessary, Mr.
Ahsan said. And, if Mr. Musharraf prevails against the impeachment charges, he will remain in office, more solidly entrenched than ever,
Mr. Ahsan argued.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Page last updated at 14:09 GMT, Thursday, 7 August 2008 15:09 UK

President Musharraf has said he would rather resign than be impeached Musharraf faces impeachment bid Pakistan's ruling coalition parties say they will begin impeachment proceedings against President Pervez Musharraf. Party leaders Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif made the announcement after three days of talks. They would need a two-thirds majority to impeach. Mr Musharraf took power in a bloodless coup in 1999. He gave up control of the army last year and his allies were defeated in February's elections but he retains the power to dissolve parliament. Mr Musharraf has previously said he would resign rather than face impeachment proceedings but he has made no comment yet on the latest move. The BBC's Mark Dummett in Islamabad says an impeachment would take Pakistani politics into new territory, since no Pakistani leader has faced it before. Sacked judges Mr Zardari, of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), and the PML-N's Narwaz Sharif announced the impeachment move at a press conference in Islamabad. STEPS TO IMPEACHMENT Impeachment proposers need 50% majority in Senate or National Assembly President given notice of impeachment, and has three days to respond Joint session of Senate and Assembly must be held between 7 and 14 days later to investigate charges If resolution presented, joint session must approve with two-thirds majority Mr Zardari said: "We have good news for democracy. The coalition believes it is imperative to move for impeachment against General Musharraf." Mr Zardari, the widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, derided Mr Musharraf's economic policies, adding: "He has worked to undermine the transition to democracy." He also warned Mr Musharraf not to dissolve parliament, saying: "If he does it, it will be his last verdict against the people." Mr Sharif said: "Pakistan cannot afford to see democracy derailed, this is not the same Pakistan as was the case in the 1980s and 1990s. People will not accept it now..." Mr Zardari (r) vowed to try to restore judges sacked under emergency rule The leaders say they will also move to have Mr Musharraf face votes of confidence in the national and four provincial assemblies. Our correspondent says these will not be enough to dislodge President Musharraf but might weaken him ahead of any impeachment showdown. Impeachment would need a two-thirds majority in the upper and lower houses of the national assembly but, our correspondent says, getting those numbers might be difficult. The two leaders also promised to restore judges sacked under Mr Musharraf's emergency rule once impeachment was successful. How to proceed on that issue had caused deep divisions between the two coalition parties since the elections. Military role Mr Musharraf had been scheduled to attend the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing but has cancelled his trip and will be replaced by Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani. Mr Musharraf was elected president for a five-year term last October in a controversial parliamentary vote. One presidential source told Agence France-Presse news agency Mr Musharraf was discussing a course of action and had the options of dissolving parliament or imposing emergency rule again. The president is still thought to have heavy influence over the military and its reaction will remain crucial. Pakistan has been ruled by military leaders for more than half of its existence since Partition in 1947.

______________________________________________________________________________________
Pakistan Moves to Impeach Musharraf
NYTIMES
By REUTERS
Published: August 7, 2008
Filed at 8:09 a.m. ET

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's ruling coalition agreed on Thursday to begin impeachment proceedings against President Pervez
Musharraf, a move likely to deepen political instability in the country.  The uncertainty has taken a toll on Pakistani markets, with the
main share index at its weakest in almost two years and the rupee headed back towards all-time lows posted in early July.

"Yes, we have agreed in principle to impeach him," a senior official of the coalition, led by the party of slain former prime minister
Benazir Bhutto, told Reuters.

He added that the National Assembly, parliament's lower house, is expected to be called next week to begin proceedings against the
president.  Another official said Musharraf might be asked to seek a vote of confidence from parliament -- dominated by his opponents
-- and impeachment proceedings would begin if he failed to do so.

Both officials said leaders of the coalition are expected to announce the decision at a news conference later on Thursday.  Shortly
afterwards, the foreign ministry announced Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, instead of Musharraf, would leave for China on Thursday
to attend opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics.  The move against the U.S. ally in the war against terrorism could plunge the
nuclear-armed Muslim nation into a new bout of political instability unless former army chief Musharraf, who came to power in a coup
nine years ago, decided to go quietly.

On Thursday, Pakistani stocks had nudged up 0.3 percent, closing at 9,707.29 on turnover of 88.5 million shares, kept in check by
anticipation of the formal announcement of the impeachment by the ruling parties.  The response of the army to the prospect of a
humiliating exit for its former chief will be crucial.

Army commanders met in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, close to Islamabad, on Thursday but a military official said "it was a routine
meeting."

"The meeting will continue on Friday in which they will discuss issues relating to promotions of brigadiers and other senior officers,"
the official said on condition of anonymity.

Musharraf has become increasingly unpopular at home and lost parliamentary support after his allies suffered a massive defeat in
February elections, but has resisted calls to stand down.  The coalition led by Bhutto's widower and political successor, Asif Ali
Zardari, has been negotiating the fate of Musharraf with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and other coalition partners since Tuesday.

While Musharraf has not yet commented on the impending move against him, his allies have said he would fight the impeachment. 
Musharraf has previously said he would resign rather than face impeachment proceedings but Pakistani political circles are awash with
speculation he could dismiss parliament, even though he has said he would not.

An aide to Sharif warned Musharraf against attempting to dismiss the parliament and government.

"Democratic forces will confront this move together ... Pakistan is not a pasture for any dictator who can trample it any time," Ahsan
Iqbal, main spokesman for Sharif's party, told reporters.

Under the Pakistani constitution, a president could be ousted by passing an impeachment motion with a two-thirds majority of the
combined strength of the National Assembly and the Senate.  If the resolution were passed, Musharraf would be the first president of
the country to be impeached.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Bhutto party in coalition offer 
Last Updated: Tuesday, 19 February 2008, 15:29 GMT
 
The party of Pakistan's late former PM Benazir Bhutto - the biggest winner in Monday's election - says it is ready to form a coalition
with the PML-N party.  If finalised, an alliance of Ms Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the PML-N would have more than
half the seats in a new parliament.

Both opposition parties fared strongly in the elections that saw the defeat of President Pervez Musharraf's allies.  The president has
never looked more vulnerable, a BBC correspondent says.  
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CIA: Al-Qaida Had Role In Bhutto's Death 
DAY
By Joby Warrick, The Washington Post    
Published on 1/18/2008 

Washington — The CIA has concluded that members of al-Qaida and allies of Pakistani tribal leader Baitullah Mehsud were responsible
for last month's assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and that they also stand behind a new wave of
violence threatening that country's stability, the agency's director, Michael Hayden, said in an interview.

Offering the most definitive public assessment by a U.S. intelligence official, Hayden said Bhutto was killed by fighters allied with
Mehsud, a tribal leader in northwestern Pakistan, with support from al-Qaida's terrorist network. That view mirrors the Pakistani
government's assertions.

The same alliance between local and international terrorists poses a grave risk to the government of President Pervez Musharraf, a
close U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism, Hayden said in 45-minute interview with The Washington Post. “What you see is, I think,
a change in the character of what's going on there,” he said. “You've got this nexus now that probably was always there in latency but
is now active: a nexus between al-Qaida and various extremist and separatist groups.”

Hayden added, “It is clear that their intention is to continue to try to do harm to the Pakistani state as it currently exists.”

Days after Bhutto's Dec. 27 assassination in the city of Rawalpindi, Pakistani officials released intercepted communications between
Mehsud and his supporters in which the tribal leader praised the killing and, according to the officials, appeared to take credit for it.
Pakistani and U.S. officials have declined to comment on the origin of that intercept, but the administration has until now been cautious
about publicly embracing the Pakistani assessment.

Many Pakistanis have voiced suspicions that Musharraf's government played a role in Bhutto's assassination, and Bhutto's family has
alleged a wide conspiracy involving government officials. Hayden declined to discuss the intelligence behind the CIA's assessment,
which is at odds with that view and supports Musharraf's assertions.

“This was done by that network around Baitullah Mehsud. We have no reason to question that,” Hayden said. He described the killing
as “part of an organized campaign” that has included suicide bombings and other attacks on Pakistani leaders.

Some administration officials outside the agency who deal with Pakistani issues were less conclusive, with one calling the assertion
“a very good assumption.” One of the officials said there was no “incontrovertible” evidence to prove or rebut the assessment.

Hayden made his statement shortly before a series of attacks occurred this week on Pakistani political figures and army units.
Pakistani officials have blamed them on Mehsud's forces and other militants. On Wednesday, a group of several hundred insurgents
overran a military outpost in the province of South Waziristan, killing 22 government paramilitary troops. The daring daylight raid was
carried out by rebels loyal to Mehsud, Pakistani authorities said.

For more than a year, U.S. officials have been nervously watching as al-Qaida rebuilt its infrastructure in the rugged tribal regions along
the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, often with the help of local sympathizers.

In recent months, U.S. intelligence officials have said, the relationship between al-Qaida and local insurgents has been strengthened by
a common antipathy toward the pro-Western Musharraf government. The groups now share resources and training facilities and
sometimes even plan attacks together, they said.

“We've always viewed that to be an ultimate danger to the United States,” Hayden said, “but now it appears that it is a serious base of
danger to the current well-being of Pakistan.”

Hayden's anxieties about Pakistan's stability are echoed by other U.S. officials who have visited Pakistan since Bhutto's assassination.
 White House, intelligence and Defense Department officials have held a series of meetings to discuss U.S. options in the event that
the current crisis deepens, including the possibility of covert action involving Special Forces.

Hayden declined to comment on the policy meetings but said that the CIA already was heavily engaged in the region and has not
shifted its officers or changed its operations significantly since the crisis began.

“The Afghan-Pakistan border region has been an area of focus for this agency since about 11 o'clock in the morning of September 11,
(2001), and I really mean this,” Hayden said. “We haven't done a whole lot of retooling there in the last one week, one month, three
months, six months and so on. This has been up there among our very highest priorities.”

Hayden said the United States has “not had a better partner in the war on terrorism than the Pakistanis.” The turmoil of the past few
weeks has only deepened that cooperation, he said, by highlighting “what are now even more clearly mutual and common interests.”

Hayden also acknowledged the difficulties — diplomatic and practical — involved in helping combat extremism in a country divided by
ethnic, religious and cultural allegiances. “This looks simpler the further away you get from it,” he said. “And the closer you get to it,
geography, history, culture all begin to intertwine and make it more complex.”

Regarding the public controversy over the CIA's harsh interrogation of detainees at secret prisons, Hayden reiterated previous agency
statements that lives were saved and attacks were prevented as a result of those interrogations.

He said he does not support proposals, put forward by some lawmakers in recent weeks, to require the CIA to abide by the Army Field
Manual in conducting interrogations. The manual, adopted by the Defense Department, prohibits the use of many aggressive methods,
including the simulated-drowning technique known as waterboarding.

“I would offer my professional judgment that that will make us less capable in gaining the information we need,” he said. But if Congress
sets a standard for interrogations, he added, “I guarantee you, to the best of human ability, this agency will ... not go beyond it.”

— Staff writer Robin Wright and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
 _______________________________________________________________________________________
Bhutto inquiry 'unsatisfactory' 
I-BBC Breaking news
3 Jan 2008
 
Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has said he is not "fully satisfied" with the investigation into the killing of
opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

But Mr Musharraf said he did not believe government or intelligence agencies had tried to hide "secrets" after Ms
Bhutto's murder last Thursday.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is sending a team of detectives from London to help establish what happened.

Ms Bhutto's party has been calling for a wider, United Nations inquiry.
----------------------------------------------------
Pakistan Election Delayed Until Feb. 18 
DAY
By CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press Writer 
Posted on Jan 2, 9:46 AM EST

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan's elections will be delayed six weeks until Feb. 18 because of unrest following the
assassination of Benazir Bhutto, authorities said Wednesday. Opponents condemned the postponement but said they would take
part in the vote anyway.

The polls - seen as a key step in Pakistan's transition to democracy after years of military rule - had been scheduled for Jan. 8.

Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party believes the government is not sincere in holding fair elections, but the party's central executive
committee decided to take part in the polls anyway, committee member Nabeel Gabol told The Associated Press.

The party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif quickly followed suit.

"We will not leave the field open for the king's party under any circumstances," party spokesman Ahsan Iqbal told the AP, referring to
the ruling party, which is allied to President Pervez Musharraf.

The opposition alleged authorities were postponing the polls to help the ruling party, amid expectations that Bhutto's group could get a
sympathy boost at the polls. The ruling party could also suffer a backlash. Bhutto had accused elements within the group of plotting to
kill her, a charge it vehemently denies.

It was not immediately clear if Bhutto's party would pursue threats to take to the streets because of the delayed vote. Earlier, party
Sen. Babar Awan warned that the delay may trigger street protests and riots...

_______________________________________________________________________________________
Pakistan Peoples Party: an Introduction (from their website)

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) was launched at its founding convention held in Lahore on November  30 - December 01, 1967.
At the same meeting, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was elected as its Chairman. Among the express goals for which the Party was formed were
the establishment of an egalitarian democracy and the application of socialistic ideas to realize economic and social justice. A more
immediate task was to struggle against the hated military dictatorship at the height of its power when the PPP was formed. 

The Party also promised the elimination of feudalism in accordance with the established principles of socialism to protect and advance
the interests of peasantry...  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

Profile: Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

As Bilawal Bhutto Zardari made his first public appearance before the world, his father announced the boy would from now on be known by his mother's name - Bhutto. Three days after Benazir Bhutto's assassination, Bilawal Bhutto finds himself inheriting not just one of the most celebrated names in politics, but a history steeped in power and bloodshed. He has been chosen as the chairman of the Pakistan People's Party. It is a party founded and always led by a Bhutto. While friends of Benazir say she always envisaged Bilawal becoming her political heir, they agree that she would not have wanted him to have to bear that burden so young. Only 19 years of age, Bilawal is still some way from completing his education. He has followed his mother to Oxford University, where he studies history, and he says he will complete his studies before entering the maelstrom of Pakistani politics. He is described as a keen sportsman, enjoying cricket, shooting, horse-riding and Taekwondo. In joining Oxford's Christ Church college, he also followed in the footsteps of his grandfather, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's first elected prime minister and founder of the PPP, who was executed under martial law in 1979. Bilawal also echoed his mother's own experience of tragedy when he quoted her at his first press conference. "My mother always said democracy is the best revenge," he declared, raising his voice. But he looked not entirely at ease as party supporters broke into chants of: "Bilawal, step forward! We are with you!" 'Want to help Born in September 1988, a month before his mother was elected prime minister, Bilawal was given a name meaning "one without equal". Since then he has spent most of his life outside Pakistan, travelling with his mother, who went into self-imposed exile in 1999, moving between London and Dubai. In an interview in 2004 he was asked if he wanted to enter Pakistani politics. "We will see, I don't know. I would like to help the people of Pakistan, so I will decide when I finish my studies," he said. He has been forced into a decision even earlier.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Bhutto's Son, Husband to Succeed Her
By ZARAR KHAN | Associated Press Writer
11:59 AM EST, December 30, 2007

NAUDERO, Pakistan - Benazir Bhutto's 19-year-old son was chosen Sunday to succeed her as chairman of her opposition party,
extending Pakistan's most famous political dynasty but leaving the real power to her husband, who will serve as co-chairman.

Both major opposition parties also decided to run in parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 8, apparently ending the threat of a
wholesale boycott as Pakistan struggles to move to full democracy after years of military rule.

But earlier, a spokesman for the country's ruling party said the vote may be delayed up to four months, claiming the parliamentary
elections would lose credibility if held as scheduled. He expected a formal announcement within 24 hours.

"How long the postponement will be for will up to the Election Commission," Tariq Azim, information secretary of the ruling Pakistan
Muslim League-Q, told The Associated Press. "I think we are looking at a delay of a few weeks ... of up to three or four months."

Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party central executive committee met privately to choose her successor three days after the two-time
prime minister was assassinated in a suicide attack that thrust the volatile Islamic nation deeper into crisis.

Her son, Bilawal Zardari, a student with no experience in politics, said he would remain at Oxford University, leaving his father, Asif
Ali Zardari, who was officially designated co-chairman, as the effective leader of the country's largest political party.

"The party's long struggle for democracy will continue with renewed vigor," Bilawal told a news conference. "My mother always said
democracy is the best revenge."

Supporters chanted "Benazir, princess of heaven" and "Bilawal, move ahead. We are with you."

Bhutto's grandfather was a senior figure in the Pakistan Muslim League, the party that helped Pakistan split from India and lead it to
independence in 1947. Her father -- Pakistan's first elected prime minister -- founded the party in 1967 and its electoral success since
then has largely depended on the Bhutto name.

Bilawal said that Zardari would "take care" of the party while he continued his studies. Zardari then told reporters to direct questions to
him, saying his son was at a "tender age."

Zardari, who spent eight years under detention on corruption charges in Pakistan before his release in late 2004, is a party powerbroker
who served as environment minister in Bhutto's second government. He has denied the charges of large-scale graft during his wife's rule.

He immediately announced the group's participation in the elections but said another party leader, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, would likely
be their candidate for prime minister if they won.

Zardari appealed to the party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to drop plans to boycott the polls. Sharif's party later agreed to the
appeal and said it would take part in the elections.

Some people have called for a delay in the elections given the turmoil in the country following Bhutto's killing, but a senator from her
party said it was demanding that they take place on time.

"We want elections on Jan. 8 and we will not let the government run away from the elections," said Sen. Safdar Abbasi.

The government has blamed an al-Qaida-linked militant for the murder of Bhutto but her party disputes that and claims elements in the
Pakistan Muslim League-Q -- the ruling party that supports President Pervez Musharraf -- could have been behind the slaying.

Zardari repeatedly called the ruling party the "killer league."

He also rejected as "lies" the government's account of how his wife died, amid a dispute over whether she sustained fatal gunshot
wounds or was killed by the force of the suicide blast that struck her vehicle as she left a campaign rally on Thursday.

Bhutto was buried without an autopsy and the debate over her cause of death has undermined confidence in the government and further
angered her followers.

Zardari appealed to the United Nations and British government to help investigate the crime. He said the party wanted a U.N.i
investigation like the one probing the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The government has already
said international involvement in the investigation is not necessary.

The killing triggered violence throughout Pakistan but there was no fresh rioting reported Sunday.

Since Thursday, unrest has killed at least 44 people and caused tens of millions of dollars of damage. Rioters have destroyed 176
banks, 34 gas stations, 72 train cars, 18 rail stations, and hundreds of cars and shops, the government says.

They have also wrecked nine election offices -- along with the voter rolls and ballot boxes inside -- hampered the printing of ballot
slips and the training of poll workers, the election commission said. The commission has called an emergency meeting for Monday.

Zardari urged supporters to show restraint.

"We will avenge the murder of Bhutto through the democratic process after winning the elections," he said.

"God willing, when it is the Peoples Party's reign, when the Peoples Party government is formed, then we would have taken revenge
for Bibi's blood and that blood would not have gone waste," Zardari said, referring to his late wife by her nickname.

In fresh militant violence, two men blew themselves up Sunday near the residence in eastern Pakistan of Ijazul Haq, the former
religious affairs minister and senior leader of the ruling party, said district police chief Zafar Abbas Bukhari. Both men died, but there
were no other casualties.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Benazir Bhutto killed in attack 
Benazir Bhutto had been addressing rallies in many parts of Pakistan
I-BBC
28 Dec 2007

Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated in a suicide attack.
 
Ms Bhutto - the first woman PM in an Islamic state - was leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi when a gunman shot her in the neck
and set off a bomb.

At least 16 other people died in the attack and several more were injured.  President Pervez Musharraf condemned the killing and
urged people to remain calm. Security forces were placed on a state of "red alert" nationwide.  There were no immediate claims of
responsibility for the attack. Analysts believe Islamist militants to be the most likely group behind it.

Ms Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), had served as prime minister from 1988-1990 and 1993-1996, and had been
campaigning ahead of elections due in January.

It was the second suicide attack against her in recent months and came amid a wave of bombings targeting security and government
officials.  Nawaz Sharif, also a former prime minister and a political rival, said her death was a tragedy for "the entire nation".

"It is not a sad day, it is [the] darkest, gloomiest day in the history of this country," he said, speaking at the hospital where she was
taken.

The United Nations Security Council is to meet for emergency consultations shortly to discuss the situation in Pakistan after the killing.

Scene of grief

The attack occurred close to an entrance gate of the park in Rawalpindi where Ms Bhutto had been speaking. 

Police confirmed reports Ms Bhutto had been shot in the neck and chest before the gunman blew himself up.

She died at 1816 (1316 GMT), said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of the PPP who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital.

Some supporters at the hospital wept while others broke into anger, throwing stones at cars and breaking windows.

Protesters in Karachi, capital of the PPP's heartland province of Sindh, started fires in the streets and demonstrations were reported
in the north-western city of Peshawar and other cities.

Mr Sharif said there had been a "serious lapse in security" by the government.  But an old friend of Ms Bhutto, Salman Tassir, told the
BBC World Service he did not think criticism should be directed at the government.

"There have been suicide attacks on Gen Musharraf also," he told Newshour.

"I mean it is extremism and the fanatics who are to blame."

Earlier on Thursday, at least four people were killed ahead of an election rally Mr Sharif had been preparing to attend close to
Rawalpindi.  Ms Bhutto's death has plunged the PPP into confusion and raises questions about whether January elections will go
ahead as planned, the BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says.

'Cowardly act'

The killing was condemned by India, the US, the UK and others.   Protesters set vehicles on fire in the streets of Lahore 

"The subcontinent has lost an outstanding leader who worked for democracy and reconciliation in her country," said Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh.

US President George W Bush condemned a "cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's
democracy".

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband said "extremist groups... [could] not and must not succeed".

Ms Bhutto returned from self-imposed exile in October after years out of Pakistan where she had faced corruption charges.  Her
return was the result of a power-sharing agreement with President Musharraf

He had granted an amnesty that covered the court cases she was facing.  But relations with Mr Musharraf soon broke down.  On the
day of her arrival, she had led a motor cavalcade through the city of Karachi.  It was hit by a double suicide attack that left some
130 dead.

Rawalpindi, the nerve centre of Pakistan's military, is seen as one of the country's most secure cities.

Many analysts say attacks like those on Thursday show the creeping "Talebanisation" of Pakistan.  Radical Muslims calling for
Islamic law, and fiercely opposed to the US, have become increasingly active in Pakistani politics in recent years, analysts say.

Ned Lamont And Benazir Bhutto Shared A Friendship Going Back To The 1970s
By CHRISTOPHER KEATING | Courant Capitol Bureau Chief
January 19, 2008

In the late 1980s, two college friends exchanged letters, congratulating each other on the political victories each had recently enjoyed.
One had just been elected third selectman of Greenwich.  The other had just been elected prime minister of Pakistan.  It was just a
small event in the friendship of Democrat Ned Lamont and Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in Pakistan Dec. 27 as she
attempted to regain power.

About a week into the new year, Lamont received a late-arriving Christmas card from Bhutto, mailed days before she was killed,
becoming the fourth member of her family to die as a result of political violence.

The card read, "Praying for Peace in the World and Happiness for your Family in 2008."

Lamont had not seen his old friend in four years — when they reminisced over lunch about their days together as undergraduates at
Harvard, when she was known on campus as "Pinkie."

Despite knowing that his friend was in danger, Lamont was still stunned by her assassination two months after Bhutto returned home
from exile.

"I was shocked — even though this woman lived every day knowing it could be her last," said Lamont. "It really gets you right in the gut.
 ... She was told not to go. She was told her life was in danger."

Lamont, who met Bhutto in the 1970s, became well-known statewide in 2006 after spending $16 million of his own money to defeat
U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in a Democratic primary before eventually losing to him in the general election.

But back in the 1970s, Lamont was just a college student when he met the young member of a famous family of Pakistani royalty.

"I knew her in college pretty well, and I knew her brother very well," Lamont said in a telephone interview from Greenwich. "Her brother,
Mir Bhutto, lived right across the hall from me. It was through him that I met his older sister."

Benazir Bhutto made history at the age of 35 in 1988 when she became the first woman elected prime minister in a Muslim country.
She served a second term before being ousted more than a decade ago.

Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was ousted as prime minister in a military coup in 1977 and executed by hanging two years later.
One brother committed suicide under mysterious circumstances in France; another was slain after a public rally in Karachi, Pakistan.

Benazir Bhutto was later imprisoned for opposing the country's military dictator, but she eventually succeeded her father.

When Lamont was at Harvard, students knew that Bhutto's father was the prime minister. But she was never pompous about her
status — while at the same time taking her studies seriously and speaking perfect English, Lamont said. She entered Harvard at the
age of 16.

"Unlike almost anybody else you meet in college, you could see her being prime minister," Lamont said.

The two became close enough friends that he visited her in England after she graduated from Harvard and was president of the famed
Oxford Union debating society. Another Harvard classmate, David Ignatius, wrote recently that he, too, visited Bhutto at Oxford and
remembers her "wearing a Rolling Stones T-shirt, the one with the sassy tongue sticking out."

The Christmas card exchange was a long-running tradition between Lamont and Bhutto.

Lamont, 54, admits that it was "weird" to receive the card after his friend's death. "I was just so staggered to hear that she had died,"
he said.

Bhutto appeared fearless in the weeks before her death, and she was not deterred even after she returned home in October and her
motorcade was attacked by a suicide bomber. When Bhutto was asked by a reporter for NBC News if it would be worth it if she died,
Bhutto responded, "Everybody has to die one day."

For nearly a decade, Bhutto had been living in self-imposed exile in London and Dubai, but she once again felt the call to return to her
own country despite the risks.

"To me, it was fatalistic," Lamont said. "She felt like she and her family had a greater responsibility to a greater Pakistan. She had a
really nice life in Dubai. She could have stayed there and had a very nice life."
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Many regard K2 as the world's most deadly mountain to climb Nine climbers feared dead on K2 At least nine climbers are feared to have died in north Pakistan trying to scale the world's second-highest peak, K2, expedition organisers say. There are fears more climbers could have been killed or still be trapped, after an avalanche, but others did manage to reach safety. A chunk from an ice pillar snapped away on Friday and broke ropes on a feature called the Bottleneck, reports said. Only a few hundred people have climbed K2 and dozens have died in the attempt. Many regard the mountain, at 8,611m (28,251ft), as the world's most difficult peak to climb. The Death Zone Expedition organisers only learned of the avalanche after a group of climbers arrived back at the mountain's base camp on Saturday evening. See route to climbing K2 "I can confirm nine dead and three missing," Nazir Sabir - a Pakistani mountaineer who scaled K2 in 1981 and whose tour company organised one of the expeditions - told AFP news agency. The mountaineers include Koreans, Pakistanis, Nepalis, a Dutchman and an Italian, reports say, but exact details remain unclear. Several search parties have since been despatched to rescue the remaining climbers, organisers said. There are reports some mountaineers may be stuck above the Bottleneck, unable to descend as the fixed ropes are broken. Climbers call the area the Death Zone as lack of oxygen at that altitude can cause bodies to degenerate. The weather is thought to be fair but the Pakistani military is still unsure whether it can launch a rescue attempt at such an altitude. Renowned climber Reinhold Messner told the BBC the situation was "very critical" and those above the Bottleneck might have to try to climb down on the Chinese side to survive. Buried on the mountain A total of 22 climbers were thought to be high up on the mountain when the avalanche hit on Friday morning, says the BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan in Islamabad. Reports from the mountain's base camp say that two separate parties of Serbian and Norwegian climbers have been able to make it back and that a Serbian and a Norwegian had died on the slopes, our correspondent says. Mountaineer Chris Bonnington talks about the dangers of K2 The Serbians say they buried their team member as it was impossible to bring his body back. The Norwegians say their companion was lost in the avalanche. One other climber is confirmed dead, our correspondent says, but there are no further details. One of the climbers reported missing is Gerard McDonnell, 37, from County Limerick in Ireland, the first Irish person to reach the mountain's summit. He was on the Norit K2 expedition. The Dutch leader of the expedition, and an Italian climber, were reported to be safe, but a French mountaineer was missing. The fatality rate for those who reach the summit at 27% is about three times higher than that for Mount Everest. One of the worst single-day death tolls was on Everest on 11 May 1996, when eight people died in summit attempts. Six people fell to their deaths or disappeared during a storm on K2 on 13 August 1995. The summit of K2 was first reached by two Italians, Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni, on 31 July 1954.

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Recalling epic K2 first ascent 
By Alastair Lawson
BBC News Online South Asia 
30 July 2004
 
The achievement of the Italians rivals the first conquest of Everest (All photos courtesy of K2 2004 - 50 years later) 
Over the years it has been called the mountain of mountains, the savage mountain and in more contemporary parlance, a death trap.

So perilous is K2, that Hollywood movies have been made that dramatically chronicle its perils.

Fifty years ago on 31 July, two Italian climbers, Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni, braved wind, rain and storm to climb the
second highest - and arguably most dangerous - mountain in the world.

Their ascent was every bit as heroic as the conquest of Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953.

Close run thing

At 8,150 metres, immediately below a 200m steep wall leading to the summit, four members of the Italian team faced an agonising
decision.

Their oxygen had run out, so should they carry on or do the sensible thing and descend?


In the event, Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni decided to go on and make history, while two others opted for the safer alternative.

But it was a close-run thing. The difficulties of breathing at such a high altitude and the fact that the weather was closing in made it a
tough struggle for the exhausted pair.

They did not even have that much time to savour the experience. With visibility fast deteriorating, they were unable to stay on the
 summit for long.

Their descent resembles a cliff-hanging Boy's Own adventure story.

'Great experience'

One of the partners fell but saved himself falling thousands of metres by clinging on to the mountain-side with his ice axe.

The pair worked together to extricate themselves from their predicament and returned to base camp where members of their party
greeted them with a mug of tea.

As part of the 50th anniversary celebrations, Mr Compagnoni returned to Pakistan.

"It was a great experience," he said.
 
The treacherous return from K2 in 1954

"We left Italy with a dream of conquering K2 and had lots of enthusiasm combined with a sense of foreboding over the dangers we
might face.

"We knew it would not be easy, yet we were determined to see the challenge through to the bitter end.

"We stayed 70 days at base camp and of those at least 40 days were in bad weather.

"Although it was very hard not to lose hope at times, such was the high morale in our team we never stopped believing that eventually
we would do it. Collaboration and teamwork were the keys to our success."

Fatality rates

For Mr Compagnoni, there was an additional source of pride at the 50th anniversary. His nephew, Michele Compagnoni, successfully
scaled K2 on 26 July this year.

The scale of their achievement can easily be put in perspective.

Just 198 people have climbed the world's second highest peak, which stands 8,611 metres above sea level.   Of those, it's estimated
that around 53 have died, making K-2's overall fatality rate over 26%.

Compare that to Mount Everest, which has been climbed close to 2,000 times. Of those around 179 people have perished - a fatality
rate of around 9.3%.

The two Italian climbers succeeded in 1954 above all because they were well organised, fit and experienced.  The 10 Italians in the
party all had to pass a strenuous medical test before going to Pakistan, which included time spent in a pressure chamber to see
how they reacted physically and mentally to high altitudes.

It was obviously time well spent: such is the reputation of the mountain that it's arguable that climbers fear it more today than they
did 50 years ago. During the three years prior to the anniversary, it has not been climbed.
 
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