Pakistan's government said a senior al-Qaeda leader based in Afghanistan masterminded the recently foiled London terror plot to blow up several trans-Atlantic jetliners.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam refused to give the nationality or identity of the alleged mastermind, and said on Saturday the disclosure was not meant to shift responsibility onto Afghanistan.
"Afghanistan is also suffering because of al-Qaeda terrorism," Aslam told reporters.
"But what we have stated, we stand by it: We have evidence that suggests that the plot was hatched by Afghanistan-based al-Qaeda," she said.
Afghanistan has accused Pakistan of making the claim as a "diversionary" tactic. It blames Pakistan, where at least seven suspects in the aircraft plot have been arrested, of not doing enough to crack down on terrorists operating on its soil.
Aslam's comments follow accounts from Pakistani intelligence officials that an al-Qaeda leader based in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar Province masterminded the plans to blow up US-bound jetliners.
The officials allege the mastermind was in touch with Rashid Rauf, a Briton arrested in Pakistan and identified by the government as a "key person" in the plot.
Rauf recruited the would-be bombers to take part in a large-scale attack to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes in the US, the officials claim.
"Somebody pretty high up in the al-Qaeda organization was behind" the plot, Aslam said, without elaborating.
She said Islamabad was sharing its investigations with Britain and the US.
Aslam said both Afghanistan and Pakistan were suffering from the legacy of the anti-Soviet jihad fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s with US support. She said foreign Islamic militants had failed to return to their home countries afterward.
Pakistan, a former backer of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, became a key US ally in its war on terror after the Sept. 11 attacks. But its relations with the US-backed, post-Taliban government in Afghanistan remain awkward.
Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of harboring Taliban militants who stage attacks inside Afghanistan. Pakistan denies the charge.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
Cook Islands officials yesterday said they had discussed seabed minerals research with China as the small Pacific island mulls deep-sea mining of its waters. The self-governing country of 17,000 people — a former colony of close partner New Zealand — has licensed three companies to explore the seabed for nodules rich in metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Despite issuing the five-year exploration licenses in 2022, the Cook Islands government said it would not decide whether to harvest the potato-sized nodules until it has assessed environmental and other impacts. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
FIREWALLS: ‘Democracy doesn’t mean that the loud minority is automatically right,’ the German defense minister said following the US vice president’s remarks US Vice President JD Vance met the leader of a German far-right party during a visit to Munich, Germany, on Friday, nine days before a German election. During his visit he lectured European leaders about the state of democracy and said there is no place for “firewalls.” Vance met with Alice Weidel, the coleader and candidate for chancellor of the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, his office said. Mainstream German parties say they would not work with the party. That stance is often referred to as a “firewall.” Polls put AfD in second place going into the
RSS