LAHORE: United States vice-president-elect Joseph Biden will arrive Pakistan on a two-day visit today to defuse the tension between Pakistan and India after the Mumbai terror attacks, a Geo T.V. channel reported.The channel quoted diplomatic sources as saying that a high-level congressional delegation would also accompany Biden. The delegation would meet President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to discuss the war on terror in Pakistan, Pak-India relations and a $15 billion aid package for Islamabad.
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The head of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and his lieutenant were killed in the past days, a US counterterrorism official told AFP late Thursday, reportedly struck by a missile fired from an unmanned drone.
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WASHINGTON: The head of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and his lieutenant have been killed, a US counterterrorism official speaking on condition of anonymity told media on Thursday.”There is every reason to believe that these two top terrorist figures are dead,” the source said, adding the pair were killed “within the last week.”The pair are believed to be Kenyan national Usama al-Kini, described as Al-Qaeda’’s chief of operations in Pakistan — who officials say was behind the September 2008 suicide attack on Islamabad’’s Marriott Hotel — and his lieutenant Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan.The two are also on the FBI’’s most wanted list for links with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa. Officials also believe al-Kini is tied to a failed assassination attempt on late Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
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NEW YORK: Oil prices fell Thursday amid concerns over a US stockpile buildup and worries that the global economic slump will further dampen demand. The benchmark contract, light sweet crude for February delivery, fell 93 cents to close at 41.70 dollars on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in February dropped 1.19 dollars to 44.67 dollars a barrel on the InterContinental Exchange. The market remain gripped over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and potential effects on Middle East oil supplies, causing oil prices to be up briefly in European and Asian trading hours Thursday. Western and Arab nations agreed on a compromise draft resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and decided to put it to a UN Security Council vote. But prices retreated again as concerns mounted over the US economic slump and oil stockpile buildup.
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Pakistan News
One of the dead was suspected of overseeing last September’s deadly suicide bombing at a Marriott Hotel in Pakistan’s capital.
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Some 38 people are dead after a fire swept through a group of makeshift dwellings in southern Pakistan.
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ISLAMABAD: The dismissal of a top Pakistani security official reveals growing divisions within the government here over how to handle investigations into November’’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai.Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Wednesday sacked the country’’s national security adviser, Mahmood Durrani, for confirming that the sole surviving Mumbai attacker, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, is a Pakistani citizen.The unexpected move exposed deep strains in the shaky civilian administration. President Asif Ali Zardari, who appointed Durrani to his post, wasn”t consulted on the decision to fire him and learned of it only after it had been made public, according to presidential aides.Durrani, a retired army general, was fired shortly after an interview with an Indian television network Wednesday in which he confirmed Mr. Kasab is a Pakistani. A statement issued by Gilani’’s office that evening accused Durrani of “irresponsible behavior” and of making an unauthorized announcement.
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Al Qaeda’s operations chief in Pakistan and a top aide are believed to be dead, a U.S. counterterrorism official said on Thursday, in what appeared to be the latest results of a campaign targeting the militant group’s leadership.
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Al-Qaeda’s operations chief in Pakistan and another top aide are believed to have been killed, US intelligence sources say.
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A New Year’s CIA strike in northern Pakistan killed two top al-Qaeda terrorists long sought by the United States, including the man believed to be behind September’s deadly suicide bombing at a Marriott hotel in the Pakistani capital, U.S. counterterrorism officials told The Washingon Post today.
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