Al-Qaeda's leaders are holed up in a secure hide-out in Pakistan, from which they are revitalizing their bruised but resilient network, US intelligence chief John Negroponte said on Thursday.
In an unusually direct statement on the whereabouts of the militant group's top echelon, Negroponte told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that Pakistan is the center of a web of al-Qaeda connections that stretches across the globe into Europe.
"Al-Qaeda is the terrorist organization that poses the greatest threat to US interests," the US director of national intelligence said in his annual assessment of worldwide threats against the US and its interests.
"They are cultivating stronger operational connections and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders' secure hide-out in Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe," he said.
It appeared to be the first time in congressional testimony that Negroponte has singled out Pakistan as the locale for the headquarters of the network.
Al-Qaeda is accused of perpetrating the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 3,000 people in 2001.
Up to now, US officials have said that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri are hiding somewhere along the rugged mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Negroponte did not cite bin Laden or Zawahiri by name and did not say where in Pakistan US intelligence believes al-Qaeda leaders are hiding.
Negroponte, who became US intelligence chief in April last year and will soon leave to become deputy secretary of state, told the same panel a year ago that al-Qaeda's leadership posed a threat to the US from bases in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area.
"We have captured or killed numerous senior al-Qaeda operatives, but al-Qaeda's core elements are resilient. They continue to plot attacks against our homeland and other targets with the objective of inflicting mass casualties," he said on Thursday.
US officials have long complained about Islamist militant activity in Pakistan, which has been blamed as a source of increasing Taliban and al-Qaeda attacks in neighboring Afghanistan.
Lieutenant General Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency also testified to the committee.
His statement said that while Pakistani aid has led to the arrest or killing of many terrorists, Pakistan's border with Afghanistan "remains a haven for al-Qaeda's leadership and other extremists."
RESPONSE: The transit sends a message that China’s alignment with other countries would not deter the West from defending freedom of navigation, an academic said Canadian frigate the Ville de Quebec and Australian guided-missile destroyer the Brisbane transited the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning, the first time the two nations have conducted a joint freedom of navigation operation. The Canadian and Australian militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of National Defense declined to confirm the passage, saying only that Taiwan’s armed forces had deployed surveillance and reconnaissance assets, along with warships and combat aircraft, to safeguard security across the Strait. The two vessels were observed transiting northward along the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, with Japan being their most likely destination,
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
GLOBAL ISSUE: If China annexes Taiwan, ‘it will not stop its expansion there, as it only becomes stronger and has more force to expand further,’ the president said China’s military and diplomatic expansion is not a sole issue for Taiwan, but one that risks world peace, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that Taiwan would stand with the alliance of democratic countries to preserve peace through deterrence. Lai made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). “China is strategically pushing forward to change the international order,” Lai said, adding that China established the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, launched the Belt and Road Initiative, and pushed for yuan internationalization, because it wants to replace the democratic rules-based international
WAR’S END ANNIVERSARY: ‘Taiwan does not believe in commemorating peace by holding guns,’ the president said on social media after attending a morning ceremony Countries should uphold peace, and promote freedom and democracy, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday as Taiwan marked 80 years since the end of World War II and the Second Sino-Japanese War. Lai, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and other top officials in the morning attended a ceremony at the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei’s Zhongshan District (中山) to honor those who sacrificed their lives in major battles. “Taiwanese are peace-loving. Taiwan does not believe in commemorating peace by holding guns,” Lai wrote on Facebook afterward, apparently to highlight the contrast with the military parade in Beijing marking the same anniversary. “We
RSS