ZemNews

WASHINGTON: Senior US Senator John Kerry said Thursday he and Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had discussed a Nato strike inside Pakistan that roiled ties between the uneasy “war on terrorism” allies.

“We had a good conversation about it. I think we will work through this,” Kerry told AFP after Pakistan shut down the main land route for Nato supplies into Afghanistan after charging the Nato raid killed Pakistani troops.

“Obviously they are concerned, and ought to be, when there is collateral damage. We need to try to avoid it, and we do,” said Kerry, who as Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman has worked to improve US ties to Pakistan.

The senior Democratic lawmaker has made multiple trips to the region and shepherded legislation to vastly increase US assistance to Pakistan in a bid to soothe Islamabad’s historic mistrust of Washington.

“They have some very critical day to day challenges right now and I think that’s really what’s preoccupying them to the greatest degree,” Kerry said, without elaborating.

His comments came after a brief public appearance with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who ignored a shouted question about whether the United States would consider suspending operations in Pakistan after the strike.

Nato has said its aircraft entered Pakistani airspace early Thursday in self defense and killed “several armed individuals” after air crews believed they had been fired at from the ground.

A Pakistan military spokesman in a statement said two helicopters from Afghanistan used cannon fire against an outpost of the Frontier Corps located 200 meters (650 feet) inside Pakistan.

When troops at the post retaliated with rifle fire to show the helicopters were entering Pakistan territory, the aircraft fired two missiles, destroying the site, killing three of the six Frontier Corps there, the spokesman said.

ISAF said it had been informed by Pakistani military officials that members of their border forces had been hit by coalition aircraft and said a review was underway “to verify the exact location of the two engagements and the facts”. -AFP

MIRANSHAH: Tribesmen in Pakistan’s most notorious militant stronghold observed a shut-down Thursday to protest against a major surge in US drone attacks, witnesses and elders said.

“We are protesting against the drone attacks. Americans are killing innocent civilians but the government has completely failed to protect us,”Malik Jalal, a tribal elder and one of the strike organisers told AFP.

Shops, markets and bazaars closed in the four main towns of North Waziristan on Thursday, including the district capital Miranshah, an AFP reporter said.

Pakistani officials have reported that at least 21 US drone attacks have killed around 120 people in September, the highest monthly tally of attacks.

The overwhelming majority of the attacks have been carried out in North Waziristan, considered Pakistan’s most notorious bastion of Al-Qaeda-linked and Taliban commanders opposed to the US-led war in Afghanistan.

Most of the strikes have targeted the Haqqani network, one of the strongest US foes in Afghanistan whose leadership is based in North Waziristan.

But local tribesmen claimed the US missiles were killing civilians.

“They are attacking civilians, they are killing women, children and old-age people,” Jalal told AFP.

“The government should take immediate steps to stop drone attacks otherwise it should resign,” said former lawmaker Maulana Mohammad Deendar.

Washington has classified Pakistan’s tribal belt on the Afghan border as a global headquarters of Al-Qaeda and the most dangerous place on Earth.

A covert US drone war in Pakistan has killed around 1,140 people in about 140 strikes since August 2008, including a number of senior militants, but the attacks fuel anti-American sentiment in the conservative Muslim country.

Under US pressure to crack down on Islamist havens, Pakistan has stepped up military operations against largely homegrown militants in the area.

But commanders have so far avoided a major offensive in North Waziristan, arguing that gains elsewhere need to be consolidated to prevent their troops from being stretched too thin.

KABUL: NATO said its aircraft entered Pakistani airspace early Thursday in self defence and killed “several armed individuals” after air crews believed they had been fired at from the ground.

After striking what was believed to be an insurgent group, “the aircraft received what the crews assessed as effective small arms fire from individuals just across the border in Pakistan,” NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.

“Operating in self defense, the ISAF aircraft entered into Pakistani airspace killing several armed individuals,” it said.

Pakistan shut down the main land route for NATO supplies into Afghanistan after officials accused NATO of killing Pakistani troops in the fourth cross-border attack this week.

A Pakistan military spokesman in a statement said two helicopters from Afghanistan used cannon fire against an outpost of the Frontier Corps located 200 metres (650 feet) inside Pakistan.

Troops present at the post manned by six soldiers “retaliated through rifle fire to indicate that the helicopters were crossing into our territory,” the spokesman said.

“Instead of heeding to the warning, helicopters went to fire two missiles, destroying the post.

As a result, three FC soldiers have embraced shahadat (martyrdom) and three have been injured.”ISAF said it had been informed by Pakistani military officials that members of their border forces had been hit by coalition aircraft and said a review was underway “to verify the exact location of the two engagements and the facts”.

“Both sides have in mind that it is the insurgents, operating on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan and violating the territorial sovereignty of both countries, that we are focused on fighting,” ISAF said.

NATO and the Pakistani government said earlier they were investigating the incident in the Kurram district of Pakistan’s tribal belt, which Washington has branded an Al-Qaeda headquarters and hub of militants fighting in Afghanistan.

The region is being targeted by a record number of US drone strikes and was reportedly where Al-Qaeda hatched a recent plot to attack cities in Britain, France and Germany uncovered by Western intelligence agencies.

“We have suspended NATO supply trucks for the time being due to security reasons,” an official in Pakistan’s Frontier Corps paramilitary unit told AFP in the northwestern city of Peshawar on condition of anonymity.

Khyber is on the main NATO supply route into Afghanistan, where more than 152,000 US and NATO forces are fighting a nine-year Taliban insurgency.

Pakistan has condemned cross-border air strikes by NATO helicopters pursuing militants into its territory. NATO has said previously it has the right to self-defence.

ISAF said its crews had “observed what it believed was a group of insurgents attempting to fire mortars at a coalition base in the border area of Dand Patan district, Paktiya province.

“An ISAF air weapons team was called to provide fire support and engaged the suspected insurgents’ firing position, located inside Afghanistan along the border area.

“ISAF aircraft did enter into Pakistani airspace briefly as they engaged this initial target,” it said.

The US presence in Afghanistan and US drone strikes in the tribal belt are the subject of fierce criticism and suspicion in Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani intelligence officer says an employee at the country’s state-run Islamic advisory body has been detained for allegedly playing an important role in the failed Times Square car bombing in New York City.

The officer said Thursday the suspect accompanied the Pakistan-American bomber to Pakistan’s northwest to meet militant leaders.

He identified the suspect as Faisal Abbasi, who works for the government’s Council of Islamic Ideology.

The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because the intelligence agency does not permit its operatives to be named in the media. – AP

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani intelligence official says eight Germans and two British brothers are behind a recent terror plot against European cities, and one of the Britons died in a recent CIA missile strike.

The official says Pakistan, Britain and Germany are tracking the suspects and their calls to Europe as they plan logistics.

But he says the plots are not an imminent threat.

The official spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information to the media.

He says the suspects are hiding in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region, where the US has focused many of its recent drone missile strikes.

He identified the dead Briton as Abdul Jabbar, originally from Pakistan’s Jhelum district. He said Jabbar died in a Sept. 8 US missile strike. – AP

HASSAN ABAD: As a donkeycart owner who lost everything in Pakistan’s devastating floods, Jan Pervez is broke but says he has borrowed heavily to rebuild his home.

Fed up waiting for government cash, the 44-year-old is sourcing bricks and cement to knock up a one-room shelter to protect the seven members of his family from the onset of winter and diseased refugee camps.

Barefoot and in rags, the family last saw their home on July 29, when they fled heavy monsoon rain and rising floodwaters with only the clothes on their backs, swapping their independence for a life of misery.

When they returned a month later, practically nothing was left in the village of Hassan Abad. On the outskirts of the northwestern city of Nowshehra, the area is one of the worst affected in Pakistan’s worst natural disaster.

The United Nations has issued a record two-billion-dollar appeal for funds to deal with the aftermath of the disaster, which UN agencies say affected 21 million people and left 12 million in need of emergency food aid.

Floodwaters have receded but left small children, women and the elderly battling to survive on food handouts in refugee camps on roadsides, increasingly angry at a government they say has failed them.

People swarm around cars, begging for help. Their homes and crops were completely washed away. Their fields are covered in mud and rubbish.

“Nobody has visited our village. Nobody has helped us,” Pervez said.

“My house, furniture – everything was destroyed. We had no support from the government,” Pervez told AFP next to the remains of his house, where he is camped out in a tent handed out by a charity.

The four homes of his four brothers in the same village were also destroyed. The donkeys on which the brothers depended to earn a livelihood drowned.

“Even the home of my widowed sister was washed away, and no government official came to help,” he said.

Pervez said he has started re-building one room because he cannot afford a whole house. So far he has knocked up part of two walls, using bricks and cement paid for with borrowed money.

“Just this one room will cost me Rs. 50,000 ($ 580). The government has announced only 20,000 for us,” he said.

An AFP reporter saw dozens of people rebuilding their houses, some cleaning wells and removing debris. Villagers were using carts pulled by bulls and tractor trolleys to take away mud and rubbish.

Amal Masud, spokeswoman for Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority, told AFP that the organisation had started handing out the first installments of government cash payments in the northwest this week.

“This is the first installment. The government will provide a total of 100,000 rupees to all the flood victims,” she said.

While people were welcome to use the money towards rebuilding their homes, the NDMA was still concentrating on emergency aid.

“At the moment we are in the rehabilitation and relief phase. The reconstruction phase will start from January next year,” she said.

But Pervez and his family say they are still waiting. During the family’s one month stay in a relief camp, Pervez says his children complained of abdominal pains, diarrhoea, vomiting and skin diseases.

The family were given a tent, food and medicine, he acknowledged. “But I need cash, or construction material from the government,” he added.

“We have nothing but Allah’s help. We’re still waiting.” Pervez’s elder brother, Rahmanuddin Khan, 60, said everyone in the village was still waiting for government help.

“You are the first person who came here. Nobody helped us. We’re doing all this on our own,” he said.

“We all want to go home, but our mud houses were completely washed away. Where should we go?” asked Yousaf Shah, 40, in a nearby government-run camp.

Noor Akbar Khan, head of the camp, said about 12 of 567 families had already returned to their villages.

“We are motivating them to go back. They will be provided the cash amount of 20,000 rupees in their villages,” Akbar khan said.

“We’re planning to open this college next week, so they will have to go back,” he said.

In the nearby village of Shalakhel, an AFP reporter saw dozens of volunteers cleaning a girls’ primary school, removing badly damaged desks and chairs.

“It will take another month to start classes here,” Wasim Ullah, a volunteer told AFP. –AFP

LONDON: Former president Pervez Musharraf warned Wednesday that Pakistan’s military could launch another coup, as he prepared to launch a new party and rejoin the country’s turbulent politics.

The retired general said army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kayani could be forced to intervene against the goverment of President Asif Ali Zardari which he said had failed to tackle rampant extremist militancy and a crumbling economy.

Musharraf — who himself came to power in a coup in 1999 and has lived in London since quitting in 2008 — cited as evidence a reported crisis meeting this week between Kayani, Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Asked whether he thought there was a likelihood of a new coup, he told the Intelligence Squared debating forum in London: “Well, you see the photographs of the meeting with the president and the prime minister and I can assure you they were not discussing the weather.

“There was a serious discussion of some kind or other and certainly at this moment all kinds of pressures must be on this army chief.”

The 67-year-old said similar “pressures” when he was head of the army in the nuclear-armed Islamic republic from 1998 to 1999 had led him to launch the coup against then prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

“In that one year Pakistan was going down and a number of people, including politicians, women, men, came to me telling me ‘Why are you not acting? Are you going to act for Pakistan’s good?” Musharraf said.

“Now I am in a dilemma — the army chief, what does he do? There is no constitutional provision, what does he do?”

Musharraf confirmed that he would launch a new political party in London on Friday to contest the next elections in 2013 but refused to say when he would return to Pakistan, where he could face treason charges.

He said Zardari’s government had failed adequately to deal with Pakistan’s moribund economy, the threat from Taliban militants, and the after effects from devastating floods earlier this year.

Pakistan’s powerful military has ruled the country for over half of the country’s existence since independence from Britain in 1947. —AFP

LAHORE: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s government has decided in principle not to ‘force’ the National Reconciliation Ordinance-tainted ministers to resign.

“The NRO-tainted ministers are already facing courts. They will not be forced to quit unless proved guilty. The cases against most of them were instituted on political grounds in the past. As far as the government officials are concerned, they have been asked to quit immediately and face courts otherwise they will be shown the door,” Advocate Sardar Latif Khosa, adviser to the prime minister, told Dawn.

He was responding to a question about implementation of the apex court decision on the NRO.

Giving time to the government it had asked for, the Supreme Court had on Monday adjourned the proceedings till Oct 13 in the NRO case. The same day the court will hear the review petition filed by the government.

Advocate Khosa further said there was consensus among the PPP men on not writing to the Swiss authorities about reopening of cases against President Asif Ali Zardari as he enjoyed immunity under the Constitution.

“How can we write to a Swiss magistrate about reopening of cases against the head of the state. The president is the symbol of federation and supreme commander of the armed forces. How can we ask the authorities abroad to investigate him,” he wondered.

The PPP government is now pinning hope on the ‘positive’ outcome of the review petition. “We hope that the immunity granted to the office of the president by the constitution will remain intact,” Advocate Khosa said.

Meanwhile, some senior leaders of the party have asked President Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to seek the advice of legal experts.

The leadership is reportedly annoyed with those who had advised it not to defend the NRO in the Supreme Court.

Khawar Khatana, a Supreme Court lawyer, told this reporter that the court needed to revisit its judgment while hearing the review petition. “The president office has immunity under the constitution which cannot be reinterpreted by court,” he said.

Citing the additional note written by Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza Khan aside from the NRO verdict, Khatana said this view should also be given consideration. The additional note says: “Many accountability cases were politically motivated, politically indicted, and politically prolonged, obviously as a Sword of Damocles. If genuine, why were those cases dishonestly prolonged and no verdict was obtained against the accused involved. Attaining benefit from the NRO is no crime in itself neither does it prove that the beneficiaries are all guilty. The verdict rather provides them a chance to prove their innocence via courts of law.”

Mr Khatana further said the government technically had a “strong review petition”.

ISLAMABAD: After a long time, a pro-Jihad rally was held in the federal capital which was participated by the top leadership of rightist parties along with a representation from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Wednesday.

Tehrik Azadi-i-Kashmir (TAK), an organisation launched by Jamaatud Dawa Pakistan, organised the gathering titled: ‘National Kashmir Conference’ at Aabpara after culmination of a three-day Azadi-i-Kashmir Karvan’ that started from Mirpur in Azad Kashmir and after passing through Kotli, Bagh and Muzafarabad culminated here.

Speaking on the occasion, Tehrik chairman Hafiz Saifullah Mansoor drew the attention of the world towards the situation in Kashmir and said there had to be a reason why the general public had taken to the streets in Kashmir.

“How can we turn a blind eye to such a situation where innocent people are bleeding at the hands of

strong and well-equipped forces?”

The rally was held to mobilise the masses and create awareness about the atrocities being faced by the Kashmiris.

Apart from PML-N spokesman Siddiqul Farooque, most of the occupants of the stage belonged to religious rightist groups including Jamaat-i-Islami chief Syed Munawar Hasan, Maulana Samiul Haq, the chief of his own faction of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, and representatives of All Parties Huryyiet Conference (APHC).

Amid high pitched pro-Jehad slogans, leader of Tehrik-i-Azadi, J&K chapter, Abdur Rehman Makki warned India to respect the rights of Kashmiris.

“If they did not resolve the Kashmir issue peacefully, we are left with no other option but to take the course of Jehad,” he said.

The speakers also took oath from the participants of the gathering to rise for the solidarity with the people of Kashmir.

While Maulana Samiul Haq called for Jehad saying it was the only way to resolve the Kashmir issue, saner speeches were delivered by the Jamaat-i-Islami and PML-N leaders.

Talking to Dawn, Siddiqul Farooq said his participation was not to strengthen the idea of Jehad for resolution of Kashmir issue.

“PML-N believes in peaceful struggle for the resolution of Kashmir issue and we were here to express solidarity with the rightful struggle of Kashmiris.”

The JI leader, however, criticised the government and accused the country’s leadership of speaking in the tone of Indian government.

The conference adopted resolutions demanding the government of Pakistan to call an all parties conference for devising a national policy that could play a role in ending atrocities in Kashmir.

LAHORE: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) has decided to protest levy of new taxes and plans a civil disobedience movement if the government goes ahead with the taxation plan.

“In the first phase, we’ll protest the government’s bid to introduce new taxes and convert this protest drive into a civil disobedience movement if the rulers do not defer their plans,” PTI Chairman Imran Khan told a press conference on Wednesday.

He demanded that before burdening the masses through new taxation, the government must make public the assets of the ruling classes and the amount of taxes they paid.

He said power consumers were also being made to pay more as even the public sector institutions were steeling power.

He said according to a Pepco report, against 2.8 million sold air-conditioners, owners of only 185,000 air-conditioners were paying bill.

He said Pepco unearthed 400,000 illegal connections, but no action was taken.

He said the judiciary would lose its credibility if it failed to hold accountable the beneficiaries of now defunct National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).

The PTI chief said Pakistan was the only country whose leadership’s assets were stashed in foreign banks.

He said mid-term polls were the only option to avert the crisis, adding that his suggestion was a democratic one.

He said the mid-term polls should have been held the day the NRO was declared null and void.

About the immunity the head of state enjoys, he said going by the logic of the PPP meant that all criminals should join a race to occupy the presidency so that all their crimes were pardoned.

About joining the alliance Pir Saheb Pagaro is busy forging these days, he said he would consider the option only if the PML-Functional chief put forth an alliance capable of bringing about a change in the country.

He said forces of status quo would continue to dominate the national scene until a change in the system. He, however, was optimistic that the recent flooding would wash away with it the incumbent system too.

GENEVA: The UN Human Rights Council on Wednesday agreed to back a report which found “clear evidence” for legal action against Israel over its attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.

The resolution, which was moved by Pakistan on behalf of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, was approved with 30 votes in favour and 15 abstentions. The United States opposed the resolution.

It “endorses the conclusions contained in the report” of an inquiry ordered by the council on the May 31 incident during which nine Turkish nationals were killed when Israeli soldiers stormed ships carrying aid to Gaza.

The inquiry said Israel broke international humanitarian and human rights law in the incident, and found “clear evidence to support prosecutions” for crimes including “wilful killing; torture or inhuman treatment; wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health.”Of the nine fatalities in the incident, the probe said that six were victims of actions “consistent with … summary execution.”Israel had rejected the probe from the outset, but it is backing another separate inquiry set up by the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon on the incident, as well as conducting its own.

Explaining the European Union’s decision to abstain in the vote, Belgian ambassador Alex Van Meeuwen expressed regret that the resolution failed to include reference to the separate UN inquiry.

US ambassador Eileen Donahoe said the United States had opposed the resolution as it called on the UN General Assembly to consider the report, a move deemed unhelpful in light of ongoing Arab-Israeli peace talks.

The flotilla “incident underscores the need to move ahead quickly with negotiations that can lead to a comprehensive Arab and Israeli peace,” said Donahoe.

“All parties should create an environment conducive to these talks,” she stressed.
The United States had earlier also criticised the report for being “unbalanced.””We are concerned by the report’s unbalanced language, tone and conclusions,” Donahoe told the Human Rights Council on Monday.

“We urge that this report not be used for actions that could disrupt the direct Israeli-Palestinian talks now under way or actions that could make it harder,” she said then.

ISLAMABAD: CIA chief Leon Panetta is due to hold talks with Pakistani leaders following a report that Western intelligence uncovered a major European terror plot hatched in Pakistan, an official said Wednesday.

“Panetta will call on President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, army chief General Ashfaq Kayani and ISI chief Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha,” a senior Pakistani official told AFP, requesting anonymity.

Talks will focus on “bilateral counter-terrorism cooperation, the Afghan situation and other regional issues,” the official said. There was no comment from the US embassy.

The spy chief’s visit comes as a covert American drone war steps up missile strikes on Al-Qaeda-linked commanders in North Waziristan, Pakistan’s most notorious stronghold of Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked militants.

Pakistani officials have reported at least 21 drone strikes in the country’s tribal belt along the Afghan border so far in September — the highest ever such number in a single month.

Local security officials say a US drone strike on Saturday killed Al-Qaeda’s operational chief for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Panetta’s visit to Islamabad also coincides with Western intelligence reports carried by British and US media that Pakistani extremists were planning an Al-Qaeda attack in London and major cities in France and Germany.

Pakistan, which is under US pressure to do more to crackdown on Al-Qaeda-linked extremists holed up in its semi-autonomous tribal belt, dismissed the reports.

“We don’t have any credible information from sources that any such planning is taking place or terrorists are planning anything in North Waziristan,”military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP.

Local officials believe the alleged leaked terror plot could increase pressure on Pakistan to fight in North Waziristan, a vortex of Afghan, Pakistani and Arab militants, and a possible hiding place of Osama bin Laden.

Despite US pressures, Pakistani forces have been reluctant to launch an operation in North Waziristan, fearing a backlash of increased attacks on civilians by Islamist militants. -AFP

ISLAMABAD: Senate special committee on NAB on Wednesday asked for the submission of details on all cases filed according to the Accountability Act. The committee ordered NAB to present the details until October 28.

NAB officials told the committee that 178 references have been filed against political leaders since 2002.

Senator Nayyar Bukhari headed the meeting of the special committee on NAB.

The committee asked NAB to provide information on all cases along with details of received amounts, rewards and bonuses received by NAB officials.

The committee also questioned NAB about the cases formed on revenge basis. — DawnNews

MUZAFFARABAD: Thousands of people rallied in Pakistan-administered Kashmir on Wednesday at the behest of a new movement campaigning for independence for the mountain region and condemning Indian “brutalities”.

It was the first rally organised by Tehreek-e-Azadi-e-Kashmir (TAK), which means movement for independence of Kashmir, and was attended by activists from groups including Hizb-ul-Mujahidin and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD).

The new coalition has been organising two days of rallies in the part of Kashmir administered by Pakistan and plans to hold a rally in Pakistani capital Islamabad later Wednesday.

A crowd of around 2,500 people shouted “Al-Jihad”, “Allahu Akbar” (God is greater) and “We want Freedom” as they arrived in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir on Wednesday, said an AFP reporter.

Indian-administered Kashmir has been hit by a surge in protests since June 11, when a 17-year old student was killed by a police teargas shell.

Since then Indian security forces have been accused of killing a total of 107 people, mostly teenagers and students.

“The ongoing freedom movement will transcend beyond the boundaries of Kashmir if the international community fails to take notice of Indian brutalities against this peaceful struggle,” JuD leader Abdur Rehman Makki said.

He criticised both Islamabad and New Delhi over stalled efforts to resolve the fate of Kashmir.

“There should be only one-point agenda of any talks between the two countries… The Kashmir issue.”

TAK spokesman Shafqat Hussain told AFP that the new movement wanted to provide a platform to all political and religious parties campaigning for freedom in Kashmir, but stressed it would remain an unarmed organisation.

JuD is blacklisted as a terror group by the United Nations and considered a front for the armed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group that Washington and New Delhi blamed for the 2008 attacks on Mumbai. – AFP

ISLAMABAD: A top Pakistan Taliban commander has reaffirmed his group’s ties to al Qaeda, vowing to fight for imposition of Islamic law across the world, according to a video interview made available to Reuters.

The purported remarks by Wali-ur-Rehman, the commander of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in South Waziristan, underlined the persistent efforts of the group to raise its profile beyond Pakistan where it has carried out a deadly wave of attacks.

“Al Qaeda is a global organisation with branches spread all over the world, whether it is Arab countries, Europe, America or the subcontinent,” Rehman said, sitting on the floor flanked by two bodyguards. A Kalashnikov lay at his feet.

“Many organisations are attached to it. We totally agree with their ideology and their agenda,” he said.

“We will expand this war during the next 10 years,” he added.

The interview was conducted by a Pakistani reporter in North Waziristan working for a foreign journalist, who gave the video exclusively to Reuters.

An expert on militant videos said that Rehman’s comments show the TTP’s growing global ambitions and that it should be taken seriously.

“Wali-ur-Rehman’s repeated point that the TTP is interested in establishing shariah globally and not just in Pakistan underscores the threat posed by the TTP in the US and Europe,” said Ben Venzke, CEO of IntelCenter in Washington, who confirmed the man speaking was Rehman.

“TTP can no longer be considered a localised threat actor.”

On Sept 1, US prosecutors charged TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud in a plot that killed seven CIA employees at an American base in Afghanistan last December.

Mehsud, believed to be hiding in the tribal areas of Pakistan, was also charged with conspiracy to kill Americans overseas and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.

The TTP was named a foreign terrorist organisation and $5 million bounties placed on Mehsud and Rehman.

Rehman, a close associate of Mehsud, told the interviewer that Osama bin Laden was alive, and continuing to direct operations.

“I can say with confidence and authenticity that he is alive and very active and keeps contacts with his close aides and gives them instructions,” he says in the video.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the US believes bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders to be hiding in northwest Pakistan.

RECENT VIDEO

The TTP has made several threats against American and European targets, but the group has so far failed to carry out any overseas attacks. The attempt by Pakistan-American Faisal Shahzad to bomb Times Square who was linked to the TTP was the closest the group came to succes.

In the 65-minute interview, Rehman mentions Pakistan’s recent massive floods, and sends holiday greetings and sympathy to the people of Pakistan, suggesting the video was shot in August or early September. The journalist said Rehman covers his head with a blanket when outside to evade the high-resolution cameras on the constantly circling unmanned US aerial drones, which have killed almost 100 militants in September alone. There was no way to confirm Rehman’s security precautions.

During the interview, the journalist said, two drones orbited overhead, but did not attack.

The drones are a boon to his group, Rehman said, because the anger they fueled helped bring more recruits to their cause.

“Because of these drone attacks, many people from around the world come to join us,” he said. “On the one hand, we lost a lot because of these drone attacks. On the other hand we keep on receiving our sympathisers form different nations.”

There has been media speculation in Britain that the recent upsurge in drone attacks in Pakistan was aimed at disrupting specific plots against European cities.

Rehman said there were “at least” 2,500 fighters in South Waziristan tying down the Pakistani Army, and about 18,000 TTP fighters across the whole country.

“We are sure, God willing, we would defeat the Pakistani army one day. … They have imposed an American war on us. Instead of conquering Kashmir, they are trying to conquer us.” – Reuters