Quote:New Delhi: The US government, in its second chargesheet in the Mumbai terror attack case, has named ISI officer Major Iqbal as a key conspirator for the 26/11 carnage.

In the chargesheet five people have been named as accused in the case of "conspiracy to bomb places of public use in India".

Even as US-Pakistan ties are under strain, a second chargesheet has been filed in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks case by the United States.

The five accused are Sajid Majeed, Abu Qahafa, Mazhar Iqbal, Major Iqbal and a Lashkar-e-Toiba member who has been identified as D.

ISI officer Major Iqbal, who is being seen as a key conspirator, has been charged for providing funds to Headley.

Major Iqbal is suspected to be a Pakistan ISI officer who was posted in Lahore during 2007 and 2008. He was handling David Coleman Headley on behalf of ISI for the Mumbai terror attacks and provided $25,000 and fake Indian currency notes to Headley for meeting his expenses during the surveillance operations in India....

Quote:New Delhi: In yet another firm pointer to Pakistan's link with Mumbai terror attack, the packing carton of the Global Positioning System (GPS) used by the terrorists has been found in a house in Karachi which was believed to have been used as a control room for orchestrating the 26/11 strike.



India will share with Pakistan all information related to the GPS device, used by the 26/11 attackers to navigate in Indian waters on fishing trawler 'Kuber', to help authorities in that country establish the role of Pakistani terrorists. The information will help Pakistan to match the details of the GPS with the packaging carton of the device which has been recovered by Pakistani investigating agencies in Karachi.



The packaging carton of the GPS device was found by the Pakistani investigators in a Karachi house, believed to be used as a control room during the four days of mayhem in Mumbai in November 2008 carried out by LeT terrorists.



The number, model of GPS and packaging date of the carton match with the device found in the fishing trawler 'Kuber', officials privy to investigations said. This will further strengthen India's claim the 26/11 attackers had come from Pakistan and help the prosecution there in pursuing the terror case against seven accused.



India will share this information with the Pakistani judicial commission when it visits India to take the statement of the magistrate who had recorded the confessional statement of Kasab

Quote:Thirty five US Navy Seal personnel fully equipped for a surprise shock assault, took off from Bagram Airfield north of Kabul in four Black Hawk Stealth helicopters. They flew in the lap of high hills ranging from six to eight thousand feet, before emerging near Tarbela. By flying between high hills and evading radar detection and using most advanced low level flight navigation technology, the four Blacks zeroed on Osama bin Laden’s compound undetected, and launched a powerful ambush and killed the most wanted enemy of America.



For the safety of the pre-emptive attack by the Black Hawk helicopters, United States Air Force had positioned an armada of EC 130E/H, MC 130, E-3 AWACS, and F-15 long range fighters with BVR- beyond visual range capability. According to the Washington reporter of Pakistan Observers “Operation Neptune Spear” conducted on May 02 night comprised four Black Hawk armed helicopters and twenty advanced aircraft including EC 130 H and E-2C AWAC’s to jam Pakistani radars, F18E Super Hornet fighters from a US Navy aircraft Carrier specially positioned for this mission to intercept PAF F-16‘s, and Type-68, MH-X and MV 22 helicopters. Several of these aircraft and helicopters were orbiting close to FATA inside Afghanistan, in readiness to assist the assaulting Black Hawks, in case things went wrong. It can be assumed that these aircraft flew drone like patterns, to confuse the Pakistani radars.

Quote:He was not immediately able to confirm whether the official was a diplomat.



The attack came days after unidentified attackers threw two hand grenades at the Saudi consulate in the city. No one as hurt in that attack.



Al Qaeda is violently opposed to the Saudi government and has vowed revenge for the killing of its leader, Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, by US special forces in Pakistan on May 2.

Quote:The US pushes Pakistani intelligence to the wall



DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis May 7, 2011, 1:14 PM (GMT+02:00)



The Obama administration is presenting the successful Osama bin Laden hit as an epic American solo operation, unparalleled in military and intelligence annals, while leaning hard on Islamabad to sack certain officers of the powerful military intelligence army ISI including its head Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, accusing them of keeping the dead al Qaeda leader hidden for eight years.



The ISI chief is a close confidant of Pakistan's chief of staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani with whom Washington works closely and so the demand for Pasha's head is seen as casting aspersions on him too.



American sources reported Saturday, May 7 that five days earlier, just hours after bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a high-ranking US official landed in Islamabad with a demand to bring the ISI officers involved in sheltering the al Qaeda leader to book.



It now appears that the iconic jihadi leader first arrived in Pakistani in 2003 and stayed in the small village of Chak Shah Mohammad near Haripur 40 kilometers north of the Pakistani capital. According Pakistani sources, this information came from questioning the Bin Laden wife found and detained in the Abbottabad villa where he was killed. She said the family stayed in the village two and-a-half years before moving to Abbottabad in 2005.



debkafile's intelligence sources report that details are slipping out over bin Laden's secret Pakistani addresses over the years. The ISI used some of those compounds as safe houses for terrorists from other organizations. The Abbottabad villa compound is now revealed as having served as a byway station for terrorists from Pakistan-backed organizations heading for Kashmir, long a violent bone of contention with India.



In summer, however, it had a very different use: High-ranking diplomats and officials of the Pakistani foreign office used it as a holiday villa, attracted by the pleasant climate in this North West Frontier town. <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> Dual Use!!!



Far from being off the beaten track, the property was therefore in regular use by the authorities in Islamabad.



In the mounting duel between the Obama administration and Pakistan, two conflicting versions of the bin Laden episode are unfolding, with potentially detrimental effect on the Afghan War and global war on terror.



The Americans have embarked on a two-pronged strategy:



1. Friday, May 6, President Barack Obama was cheered by members of the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, when he said: "Now in recent days, the whole world has learned just how ready they were. These Americans deserve credit for one of the greatest intelligence military operations in our nation's history." Pakistan was not mentioned.



Obama had just shaken the hands of the Seals members who returned from Abbottabad.



2. Washington is not only cutting Pakistan out of any role in the feat but bent on weakening Pakistani military intelligence and, in particular, the officials tied to Osama bin Laden, on the assumption that they are also in touch with other high-profile al Qaeda leaders and may even be harboring them too. The US also presumes them to be in connection with the very Taliban leaders American soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan.



The Obama administration is vitally interested in weakening the Pakistani factions maintaining those ties and showing Taliban they can no longer be relied on as protection against America's long arm. The US will ultimately corner Taliban's leaders, whether by diplomatic engagement or the methods which ended Osama bin Laden's life.



Pakistan's take is not just different but increasingly resentful: Its military intelligence insists the bin Laden operation would not have succeeded without close cooperation between the CIA and ISI and the two armies – or some factions thereof – which was maintained at least up until President Obama's decision to authorize the Abbottabad raid. This view is supported by some Western counterterrorism agencies engaged in the war on al Qaeda.



Pakistani officials suspect the US administration heads is deliberately denying them a measure of credit for the successful mission because, with bin Laden gone, Obama feels confident enough to go straight to the Taliban to negotiate an end to the Afghanistan war and dispense with Pakistan's good services as intermediaries. With the al Qaeda leader out of the way, he wants to see the back of a Pakistan role in Afghanistan.



debkafile's counter-terror sources warn that the rising acrimony between Washington and Islamabad may well deter Pakistani intelligence from fingering more wanted al Qaeda figures and their hideouts - or even encourage the ISI to stand aside when Taliban goes for American targets in revenge for bin Laden's termination

Quote:"We take responsibility," a Taliban spokesman said

Quote:The status of two crucial but delayed "strategic programmes", the 5,000-km-range Agni-V missile and indigenous nuclear submarine INS Arihant, is said to have figured in the discussion apart from "overarching strategic issues".



While the three-stage Agni-V is to be tested later this year, INS Arihant is also slated to go for "harbour and sea trials" once its miniature 83 MW pressurized light-water reactor gains "full criticality". The defence establishment is eager to induct INS Arihant, armed with 12 nuclear-tipped missiles, by next year because it will constitute the most effective and difficult-to-detect leg of the nuclear triad.



The NCA meeting was attended by defence minister A K Antony, national security advisor Shiv Shankar Menon , DRDO chief V K Saraswat and the three Service chiefs, Air Chief Marshal P V Naik, Admiral Nirmal Verma and General V K Singh, among others.



It comes close after ISI chief Lt-General Shuja Pasha's threat that Pakistan would give a befitting response to any Indian attempt to launch any Abbottabad-like operation since targets inside India "had already been identified'' and "rehearsals'' carried out.



This sabre-rattling comes in the backdrop of Pakistan furiously building up its nuclear arsenal, which already stands at an estimated 70 to 90 warheads compared to India's 60 to 80.