Clinton’s ‘berating’ of Pak over Qaeda ignored by State Department report

October 29th, 2009 LAHORE - Visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said it was hard to believe no one in Pakistan's government knew the whereabouts of Al Qaeda leaders who have been using its territory since 2002, the Online news agency reported. Nobody in the Pakistani government knows where the leaders of the Al Qaeda terrorists network are hiding.

October 29th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - The Taliban and the Al Qaeda have distanced themselves from the deadly market blast in Peshawar that claimed 105 lives, saying they don't explode bombs in such areas, reported a Pakistani paper Thursday. The News quoted an Al Qaeda statement as saying the group was not involved in the killing of innocent people.

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.

September 14th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - A Saudi Arabian charity has funded 15 million dollars to a pro al-Qaeda militant organization to carry out terror attacks in Pakistan, Pakistani police has claimed. "The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan is likely to strike major cities of the Punjab.

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'.

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 24th, 2009 WASHIGNTON - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in talks with one of her familys "staunchest loyalists", former White House aide Sidney Blumenthal, to serve as a consultant to the State Department, the New York Times reported said Wednesday. Blumenthal, who worked as an aide to president Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001, would work with Hillary Clintons speechwriting team, an administration official told the Times on condition of anonymity because the appointment was not yet public and could still fall through.

May 19th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A Washington-area Democratic donor and onetime adviser to Sarah Palin, urged the conservative Alaska governor to use her political action committee to help retire the presidential campaign debt of Hillary Clinton, who is now the US Secretary of State. According to the web site Politico, John Coale , a wealthy trial attorney, reportedly made an attempt to forge an alliance between two of the most prominent families in American politics - the Palins and the Clintons.

May 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - While Al Qaeda remains the greatest terrorist threat to the United States, the group has regained some of its pre-9/11 operational capabilities through the exploitation of Pakistan's tribal areas, a new State Department report says. Other factors in resurgence of Al Qaeda are 'the replacement of captured or killed operational lieutenants, and the restoration of some central control by its top leadership, in particular Ayman al-Zawahiri,' said the State Department's annual report on global terrorism released Thursday.

May 1st, 2009 ISLAMABAD - The Taliban and al-Qaeda have shifted their base from Afghanistan to the mountainous tribal region of Pakistan and have successfully turned the region into their safe havens post 9/11, a top US official has said. Talking to reporters at the State Department, the acting US Coordinator of Counter-terrorism, Ronald Schlicher, said the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan are proving a perfect base for Al-Qaeda.

May 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - The US State Department has said that al Qaeda's No.2 Ayman al-Zawahiri has emerged as the terrorist outfits operational leader, having a similar 25 million dollars prize money on his head as Osama bin Laden. Despite years of the Bush administration claims that Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor turned Osama bin Laden deputy, was on the lam with his boss and unable to exert control, this was not true according to the State Department report.

February 27th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A US-born Al Qaeda member was sentenced to 20 years in prison Thursday in Ohio for a terror plot for bombing attacks in the US and Europe. Christopher Paul, 44, who also named himself Abdul Malek and Paul Kenyatta Laws, was sentenced in a federal court in Columbus, Ohio, the justice department said in a news release.