'Abbottabad hideout was 'active' command centre for Osama'

Washington: Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad hideout was an "active command and control centre" of al-Qaeda, the US has said, releasing five videos of the slain terror kingpin seized during the daring raid on his compound in Pakistan that showed how he "jealously guarded" his image.

Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound was "an active command and control centre" for al-Qaeda's top leader. It is clear that he was not just a strategic thinker of the group. He was active in operational planning and driving tactical decisions inside al-Qaeda," a senior intelligence official said, giving an insight into the lifestyle and personality of the al-Qaeda chief. 

Al-Qaeda confirms Bin Laden is dead, vows revenge

ISLAMABAD (Update): Al Qaeda has acknowledged that Osama Bin Laden is dead, dispelling the doubts of some Muslims over whether the militant group’s leader had really been killed by US forces, and vowed to mount more attacks on the West.

The announcement on Friday by the Islamist militant organization, which promised to publish a taped message from Bin Laden soon, appeared intended to show its followers around the globe that the group had survived as a functioning network.

In a statement online, it said the blood of Bin Laden, shot dead by a US commando team in a raid on Monday on his hide-out in a Pakistani town, “is more precious to us and to every Muslim than to be wasted in vain.”

“It will remain, with permission from Allah the Almighty, a curse that hunts the Americans and their collaborators and chases them inside and outside their country.”

Al Qaeda urged Pakistanis to rise up against their government to “cleanse” the country of what it called the shame brought on it by Bin Laden’s shooting and of the “filth of the Americans who spread corruption in it.”

The statement also warned Americans not to harm Bin Laden’s corpse and to hand it and those of others killed to their families, though US officials say Bin Laden’s body has been buried at sea and no others were taken from the compound.

Some Muslims have been skeptical of Bin Laden’s death, especially as the United States has said it will not release what it called gruesome images of his corpse for fear of inciting more violence.

One survey conducted in Pakistan this week by the British-based YouGov polling organization found that 66 percent of over 1,000 respondents did not think the person killed by US Navy SEALs was Bin Laden.

The raid, of which the US administration has declined to give details, has also raised questions about the legality of Bin Laden’s killing.

He was unarmed when he was shot dead, but US President Barack Obama has continued to bask in public approval for the killing, and flew to a military base at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to thank special forces involved in the raid.

“This has been an extraordinary week for our nation,” Obama told a jubilant audience of troops. “The terrorist leader who struck our nation on September 11 will never threaten our nation again.” But he warned “this continues to be a very tough fight.”

US-Pakistan tensions

Anger and suspicion between Washington and Islamabad over the raid in Abbottabad, 30 miles (50 km) from the Pakistani capital, showed no sign of abating.

The New York Times on Saturday quoted Pakistani officials as saying the Obama administration had demanded Pakistan disclose the identities of some of its top intelligence operatives as Washington seeks to find out whether they had contact with Bin Laden or his agents before the raid on his compound.

The officials were providing details of what the Times called a tense discussion between Pakistani officials and a US envoy in Pakistan on Monday.

Many in Washington suspect Pakistani authorities had been either grossly incompetent or playing a double game in the hunt for Bin Laden and the two countries’ supposed partnership against violent Islamists.

One of Bin Laden’s wives, Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, told Pakistani interrogators the Al-Qaeda leader had been living for five years in the compound where he was killed, a revelation sure to deepen doubts about Pakistan’s military and spy agency, the most organized establishments in a chaotic country.

Pakistani security forces took 15 or 16 people into custody from the Abbottabad compound after US forces removed Bin Laden’s body, a Pakistani security official said. They included Bin Laden’s three wives and several children.

In Washington, a US official said US intelligence had established on-the-ground surveillance in Abbottabad before the raid. A phone call last year to a man known as the main courier to Osama Bin Laden helped lead the CIA to Bin Laden’s compound, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.

US officials also said among materials found at Bin Laden’s hide-out was evidence indicating Al-Qaeda at one point considered attacking the US rail system on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks later this year.

Officials said evidence analyzed so far indicated Bin Laden was still involved in directing Al-Qaeda’s activities, even though he had largely avoided the public spotlight for years.

The fact that Bin Laden was found in a garrison town — his compound was not far from a military academy — has embarrassed Pakistan and the covert raid has angered its military.

The Pakistani army threatened to halt counterterrorism cooperation with the United States if it conducted any more unilateral raids.

But on Friday, a US drone killed 17 suspected militants in northwest Pakistan, and pressure is building in the US Congress to suspend or at least review US aid to Pakistan.

Video footage

Pakistani security officials have alleged that US troops, after landing by helicopter, shot the unarmed Al-Qaeda leader in cold blood rather than in a firefight, as US officials first suggested.

Amid differing accounts of how much hostile fire the SEALs encountered in the compound, one Pakistani security official said on Friday that US forces should release video footage he said they “must have” of the operation.

UN human rights investigators called on the United States to disclose the full facts “to allow an assessment in terms of international human rights law standards.”

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the relationship with Pakistan was “complex” but pointed to Islamabad’s effort against the Taleban and Al-Qaeda in its own tribal areas and the use of its territory as a US supply route.

“At the same time, there’s no question they hedge their bets,” said Gates, fielding questions from service members at an Air Force base in North Carolina. “Their view is that we have abandoned them four times in the last 45 years. And they’re not sure we’re going to stay in the region.”

“So we just have to keep working at it, on both sides,” he added.

The United States sees Pakistan’s influence over the Taleban as key to ending the war in neighboring Afghanistan, and Gates said on Friday the killing of Bin Laden “could be a game-changer” in that conflict.

Sixth phase of Panchayat polls on Wednesday

Srinagar: Amid elaborate security arrangements, nine blocks of Jammu and Kashmir will go to polls under sixth round of multi-phased Panchayat elections on Wednesday.

Official sources said that 2563 candidates are in fray for four blocks in Kashmir division including Langate (Kupawara), Tangmarg (Baramulla), Khag (Budgam) and Breng (Anantnag).

They said that there will be no polling in thirteen constituencies—two Sarpach and 11 Panch—as no candidate filed nomination papers for theses posts.

In Langate block of north Kashmir’s frontier district, 672 candidates are in the fray for 52 Sarpach and 419 Panch constituencies.

“While 199, all males, are in fray for Sarpanchs, 620 candidates including 459 males and 161 females are contesting for Panchs,” election officer, Tariq Ahmad Zargar told Press Bureau of India.

104 panch candidates have been declared unopposed in the polls while there are two vacancies for Sarpch constituencies in the block, he added.

For Breng block in southern Anantnag district, a total of 1060 candidates will battle it out for Sarpanch and Panchs constituencies.  “While 215 candidates including 213 male and two women candidate are in contest for 58 Sarpach constituencies, 845 candidates including 269 females are in fray for 416 Panch constituencies,” election officer Nissar Hussein said.  

He said that two Sarpanchs and 57 Panchs have been declared unopposed in the block.

Similarly, for Khag block in central Kashmir’s Budgam district, 496 candidates are in the fray for Sarpachs and Panchs in the block. “93 candidates, all males, are in fray for Sarpanchs while 403 candidates will vie for Panchs constituencies,” election officer, Mohammad Ashraf Dijoo, told .

He said that eleven Panch constituencies were vacant in the block as no candidate offered candidature while 38 entrants were declared winners unopposed.   

For Tangmarg block, a total of 335 candidates are in fray for Sarpanch and Panch constituencies while 83 candidates have been declared winners unopposed. 

Five constituencies going to polls in Jammu include Reasi (Reasi district), Majalta (Udhampur), Billawar (Kathua), Doongi and Thanamandi (Rajouri).

So far five phases of the polls have been completed after beginning on April 13 last. The seven phase will be held on May 8 while eighth on May 12, ninth on May 16 and the 10th to 16th phases will be held on May 21, May 25, May 29, June 2, June 6, June 11 and June 18 respectively.

Panchayat polls are being held through ballot boxes as the State Panchayat Raj Act does not allow the use of Electronic Voting Machine (EVMs) in the polls. The polls are being conducted after ten years gap in the state. 

Geelani flays Laden’s ‘barbarous’ burial at sea

Srinagar: Flaying Osama Bin Laden’s burial at sea as a “barbarous and evil act,” Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Tuesday once again paid tributes to the slain Al-Qaeda founder for standing up to “oppression and injustice.”

“This cowardly act has no moral or legal justification. Burying the enemy according to his/her religion, and with due respect, is an accepted custom in every civilized society, but it (Osama’s burial at sea) has revealed the extent of moral degradation to which a person or State can stoop under the intoxication of power,” Geelani said in a statement issued.

In an apparent reference to America, Geelani said the “self-proclaimed champions of human rights and democracy have brought shame to the entire humanity through this barbarous and evil act.”

 “This contemptuous treatment of dead bodies is a reminder of Stone Age and a so-called superpower has put question marks over its civilization and moral traditions,” Geelani said.

Geelani further described Osama as a “brave man who didn’t stand a mute spectator to oppression and injustice, even though one could disagree with his methods.”

“When he was young, Osama saw how Muslims across the globe were being subjected to oppression and how Muslims from Palestine to Kashmir had been enslaved. The path Osama chose for himself needs to be understood in this context. He didn’t give up a life of wealth and comfort for the sake of some hobby; he saw Muslim women, children and men drenched in blood from Kashmir to Iraq and reacted to state-sponsored terrorism,” he said.

Geelani said that resistance against foreign occupation was a natural reaction and if any powerful nation like America, Israel, Britain   or India occupied other nations and killed innocent civilians, the reaction would be no different.

“As long as the foreign occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Kashmir continues, resistance would surface in different forms and manifestations, and until the foreign powers recall their forces back from these regions and adopt the policy of live and let live, we cannot realize the dream of making the world a peaceful place,” he said. 

HC pulls up AI management, pilots over stalemate

New Delhi: With the strike by Air India pilots entering the seventh day, the Delhi High Court today rapped the airline management and the pilots' association for their rigid attitude and appointed a counsel to assist it in resolving the stand off.

"It seems that you are also not interested in getting the strike called off," a division bench headed by Justice B D Ahmed told Lalit Bhasin, the counsel for the Air India Limited.

"This court does not want to be assisted by a partisan person like you. We will appoint an amicus curaie to assist us on the legal issue," the bench told Bhasin, disapproving of his arguments on behalf of the airline management.