An American jailed in Pakistan for the fatal shooting of two armed men was working secretly for the CIA and scouting a neighborhood when he was arrested, a disclosure likely to further frustrate U.S. efforts to free the man and strain relations between the two countries.
The four men imprisoned for killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl were not present during his beheading but were convicted of murder because Pakistani authorities knowingly relied on perjured testimony and ignored other leads, says a report released Thursday.
PAKISTAN
The plaintiffs in two U.S. lawsuits accusing Pakistan's spy chief of nurturing terrorists involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks are hoping for a historic outcome recalling the Lockerbie settlement, but they would have to overcome serious legal obstacles first, lawyers and experts say.
Pakistan's top spy agency denied Saturday that it helped unmask the CIA's station chief in Islamabad, dismissing speculation it was retaliating for a U.S. lawsuit linking the Pakistani intelligence chief to the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India.
Pakistan's military and intelligence service took the extraordinary action of going to war against the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad this year, harassing employees, sabotaging contracts and denying the purchase of protective gear.
The State Department has stated in a cable from Peshawar, Pakistan, that it is skeptical about eventually winning the military struggle in Pakistan's badlands, saying peace talks go nowhere and murderous militants control key towns.
The Treasury Department on Thursday acted against three senior members of Pakistan-based terrorist groups that have been behind attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, including the kidnapping and beheading of a U.S. journalist.
Some can't wait to get out of Afghanistan, and some can't wait to see us leave. NATO allies want out ASAP. Some have left already (Dutch troops), others are preparing to leave (Canadians), and soon the allied fighting force will be reduced to 100,000 Americans and 9,000 Brits. And Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants the United States to reduce its military footprint countrywide - just as U.S. commander Gen. David H. Petraeus seeks to widen it - and begin negotiations with the Taliban.
