CIA planned Al Qaeda assassinations: Report

October 13th, 2009 WASHINGTON - U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has told Bloomberg Television that Al Qaeda-type terrorists are present in the country and are being tracked.

October 10th, 2009 SANAA - Al Quada is exploiting the poverty, conflict and corruption in Yemen to set up safe havens in the country. "The threat level from al-Qaeda is now critical," one diplomat said.

October 7th, 2009 WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama has vowed to continue targeting the Al Qaeda that is threatening the US from Pakistan and beyond, even as the terror network is said to have "lost operational capacity" after a series of recent missile strikes. "We know that Al Qaeda and its extremist allies threaten us from different corners of the globe-from Pakistan but also from East Africa and Southeast Asia; from Europe and the Gulf," Obama said in a visit Tuesday to the National Counterterrorism Centre just outside Washington in McLean, Virginia.

September 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Pakistan's 'double game' and its undercover relationship with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda helped Osama-bin-Laden escape the allied forces and prevented him from being nabbed, The Times online reports. Pakistan's connection with al-Qaeda dates back to 1980's when the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) helped the CIA to supply arms, ammunition and financial help to bin- Laden and other members of the Mujahideen resistance against Soviet forces.

August 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, has said that even though the allied forces have challenged Al-Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan for eight years, the Taliban- Al-Qaeda alliance has now become stronger than ever before. In an interview to The Boston Globe, Admiral Mullen said the Taliban's alliance with Osama bin Laden and other top leaders of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network has become stronger than ever, highlighting that public support to the 'war on terror' in Afghanistan was 'waning'.

August 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - : Expressing concern over Al-Qaeda's expanding activities in the region, US President Barack Obama has said the outlawed outfit and its allies have moved their bases to Pakistan's remote tribal areas. Obama said Washington's decision to revamp its AFPAK strategy was based on credible information that the Al-Qaeda has shifted its base to Pakistan's lawless tribal region.

August 17th, 2009 LONDON - In an astounding revelation, Al-Qaeda extremists have claimed that home-grown terrorists are plotting to attack targets in Britain. According to reports, in an internet magazine read by thousands of Islamic extremists Al-Qaeda has labeled Britain and Europe as a bigger enemy than the United States.

July 23rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - The son of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been killed by a US missile attack in Pakistan, US National Public Radio has reported. Saad bin Laden was believed killed in a missile strike from a US drone earlier this year, intelligence officials told the broadcaster Wednesday.

July 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The United States has ruled out any negotiations with the Taliban until it lays down arms and severe all its ties with Al-Qaeda. When enquired about the statement of the Pakistan Army's spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, that the Pakistan military can bring the Taliban to the discussion table with the United States, the US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, said such a possibility can only occur when the Taliban 'repudiates al-Qaeda publicly'.

July 10th, 2009 LONDON - What may be seen as a severe blow to Al-Qaeda, one of its ally, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) has decided to severe its ties with Osama bin Laden saying that the "indiscriminate bombings" and the "targeting of civilians" was not in accordance to its objectives. This is the first such instance when an ally of Al-Qaeda has parted ways with it due to its policy of 'indiscriminate violence.' The LIFG, which once aimed to topple Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, criticised Al-Qaeda for carrying out attacks on innocent civilians and said that such violent activities did not achieve the "aims of the group in removing oppression." Officials believe that the LIFG's back out is a great blow to Al-Qaeda which is facing a massive surge by the US led allied forces in Afghanistan at the moment.

June 14th, 2009 SANAA - Yemeni police have detained a Saudi man suspected to be the main financier of Al Qaeda operations in Yemen and neighbouring Saudi Arabia, the defence ministry said Sunday. It said in a statement posted on its website that the suspect, identified as Hassan Hussein bin Alwan, was "the financier of the operations carried out by members of Al Qaeda in Yemen and Saudi Arabia".

June 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Leon Panetta said Thursday that Osama bin Laden, head of Al Qaeda terrorist network, is still in Pakistan and his capture remains the CIA's priority. "I guess one of our hopes is that as Pakistani military moves in, combined with our operations, we may have a better chance to get at him," said Panetta at the Capitol Hill.

June 4th, 2009 LONDON - Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's latest audio tape, in which he has threatened the United States for supporting the Pakistan military's Swat offensive against the Taliban, suggests that both Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are closely associated. The tape, which went on-air almost simultaneously with Barack Obama's arrival in Saudi Arabia, accused the United States of sowing 'new seeds of hatred against America' for supporting Pakistan's fight against the Taliban.

May 21st, 2009 LAHORE - Seven highly trained Iraqi Al-Qaeda masterminds have entered Pakistan, the country's intelligence agencies have revealed here. According to sources, the government has directed law-enforcement agencies to take immediate action against the militants to nab them.

April 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), US vice president Joe Biden said, adding that the 'most radicalised part of Taliban' is there. 'In the FATA, the western part of Pakistan in the mountains on the Afghan border...