KARACHI:jafarianews: Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Tuesday the government would approach Interpol to arrest former president Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf in the murder case of former premier Benazir Bhutto.

Briefing the Sindh Assembly about the probe into Benazir’s assassination, Malik said the government was seeking Musharraf’s arrest because he allegedly failed to provide adequate security for Benazir, who was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack in 2007.

The minister said the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was behind both October 18, 2007, and December 27, 2007, attacks on the former prime minister. He said Baitullah Mahsud, Ilyas Kashmiri, and al Qaeda leader Abu Ubaidullah Misri were involved in the assassination plan.

No less than 27 terrorists groups had come together under the umbrella of TTP to assassinate Benazir, he added.

Malik along with his team members briefed assembly members about the investigation through charts, graphs and audio and video presentation. The briefing was arranged following the provincial assembly’s resolution, which had demanded that the government make public the probe.

The minister said a joint investigation team (JIT) had foolproof evidence and undeniable proofs against Benazir’s killers, adding that forensic details had also been collected.

“Both Pervez Musharraf and militants based in FATA considered Benazir Bhutto a threat for themselves as she was a strong proponent of democracy and democratic values,” he said.

Reiterating active involvement of TTP and al Qaeda in the killing of former premier, Malik said the assassination plan had been prepared by Abu Ubaida al-Masri and executed by Baitullah Mehsud through the Haqqani network of Taliban. “Baitullah Mehsud had given Rs 400,000 to the Taliban associated with Haqqani network for the Liaquat Bagh attack on Benazir.”

Malik said the doctors concerned had told the investigators that a senior police official had stopped them from carrying out Benazir’s postmortem.

He said PPP leader Raja Pervez Ashrraf had opposed Benazir’s December 27 public meeting in Rawalpindi, but “Nahid Khan, political secretary of the former prime minister, had favoured the procession despite security threats”.

Malik said that former Sindh chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim would also be questioned on his return to the country. JIT head Khalid Qureshi told assembly members that the plan for the attack on Benazir was prepared at a hostel of Madarssa Haqqania, Akora Khattak, by radical students. They included Nasrullah, Nadir alias Qari Ismail, Sher Zaman, Hasnain Gul, Rashid Ahmad alias Abdul Rahim Turabi, Abdullah alias Saddam, Ibadur Rehman and Faiz Muhammad, Qureshi added. “It was, however, suicide bomber Said who executed the plan.”

Malik also advised the Sindh government to re-investigate the October 18 twin blasts and Sindh Law Minister Ayaz Soomro told reporters after the assembly session that the provincial government would constitute a team of police officers to probe the October 18 bombing. staff report/app

jafaria news: Speakers at a Difa-e-Tashayyo Conference demanded of the government to hand over Karachi to them for three months, they will establish durable peace here.
The demand came at a conference that was held to commemorate the chehlum of martyr Askari Raza at Amroha Ground Karachi. Former Senator Allama Abid Hussain al Hussaini, Allama Nazir Abbas Taqvi, Allama Aftab Haider Jafri, Furqan Haider Abidi and other spoke at the conference.

These scholars were of the views that genocide of Shia Muslims continue under a plan and under government patronage.

They said that Shia Muslims were made victims of terrorism from Parachinar to Karachi. They said that banned terrorist outfits were set free despite the fact that they were involved in the bloodshed of Sunni and Shia Muslims. They warned that if they were not stopped then still more stiff and historic protest would be made.

The religious scholars further said that government has failed to maintain peace therefore Karachi be handed over to them and they would establish peace within three months.

They said that terrorist organizations who pose serious threat to Pakistani security and who have bombed mosques, shrines and imam bargahs are posed as they were responsible for Pakistan’s security. They said this impression is totally incorrect and unacceptable.

They warned that government must stop patronizing the anti-Pakistan and terrorist organization forthwith and arrest all the released terrorists immediately.

The martyr Askari Raza’s daughter said that they would continue the mission of the martyr at all cost. She said the martyrs are assets and their sacrifices must not go in vain.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Hezbollah said, “The action of the foreign troops is a new crime that reveals US-Zionist desecration of Islamic sanctities and ridicules the feelings of more than one billion Muslims. This blatant act that US-led forces committed against the Muslim holy book comes in light of the increased Zionist violations of Islamic and Christian sanctities in Occupied Palestine. This reveals a systematic campaign to desecrate all sanctities in our region.”

“Hezbollah condemns these criminal acts that offend all principles, ethics, and religions and calls on the people of the nation to raise their voices, condemn these provocative actions, and denounce all efforts… to desecrate sanctities, whether Islamic or Christian,” the statement added.

On Monday night, US troops at Bagram Air Field outside Kabul burned a Holy Qur’an and other religious materials with trash, according to NATO and Afghan officials.

Angry Afghan protesters staged anti-US demonstrations in Kabul and several other Afghan cities on Tuesday. They also called for the desecrators to be tried in a court of law.

NYPD trawled Muslim student websites every day and even sent an undercover agent to a school, where he noted in police intelligence files how many times Muslim students prayed.

Undercover agents recorded students’ and professors names in reports prepared for New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, though none were charged with any crime.

The newly acquired documents by the Associated Press shows how NYPD has monitored Muslim student groups. The revelation has outraged faculty and student groups.

The universities monitored by The NYPD included, the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, Clarkson University, the Newark and New Brunswick campuses of Rutgers, and the State University of New York campuses in Buffalo, Albany, Stony Brook and Potsdam, Queens College, Baruch College, Brooklyn College and La Guardia Community College.

“We believe we are doing what we have to do, pursuing to the law to protect the city, the city that’s been attacked successfully twice and had 14 plots against it,” NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

In recent months, the AP has revealed secret programs the NYPD, built with help from the CIA, to monitor entire Muslim neighborhoods, collecting information on the daily activities of Muslims such as eating and praying which are all behavior protected by the First Amendment of the US constitution.

It should be noted that the NYPD is not the only institution discriminating against Muslims, the FBI has its own ethnic mapping program that spies on Muslim communities, especially prayers and other community leaders.

The average price of gasoline in February is up nearly 25 cents from the beginning of the year, according to the Automobile Association of America’s (AAA) Daily Fuel Gauge Report.

On Monday, the average price of regular gasoline in the US climbed to $3.565, marking a whopping 12.5-percent rise from the average price of $3.168 a year ago.

The price surge has triggered anger among consumers in the US and raised concerns over the country’s fragile economic recovery.

On Monday, US crude for April delivery gained nearly two percent, reaching USD 105.08 per barrel. Brent crude, Europe’s benchmark, rose about 0.5 percent to USD 120.18 per barrel.

Iran’s Oil Ministry announced on Sunday that it had cut oil exports to British and French firms in line with the decision to end crude exports to six European states.

The decision by Iran came after European Union foreign ministers agreed to ban oil imports from Iran and freeze the assets of the Iran’s Central Bank across the EU in line with a US-led effort to impose further pressure on the Iranian economy over its civilian nuclear program.

The anti-Iran sanctions, however, are to take effect on July 1, 2012, offering EU member states enough time to adjust to new conditions and gain access to alternative crude oil supplies.

Despite widely publicized claims by the US, Israel and some of their European allies that Iran’s nuclear program may include a military aspect, Iran insists on its civilian nature, arguing that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful objectives.

Moreover, Iran’s nuclear work has been closely monitored by the IAEA. The agency has conducted numerous inspections of the country’s nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence indicating a military diversion in Tehran’s nuclear program.

This is while the Israeli regime is widely known to possess between 200 and 400 nuclear warheads. Furthermore, Tel Aviv refuses to allow its nuclear facilities to come under international regulatory inspections and rejects any international nuclear regulatory agreements.

CANBERRA

( jafaria newS ) : Afghan President Hamid Karzai said his government talks to Taliban everyday through intermediaries,
“We talk to Taliban every day. We were talking to them just a few days ago somewhere around this region,” Karzai said in an interview taped a week ago in Kabul with SBS, adding his contact with the group’s one-eyed leader Mullah Omar was through indirect means.

“(But) not personally,” Karzai said when asked if he had spoken with Omar. “I mean not directly, person to person. But through intermediaries, yes.”

Afghan and US officials are seeking negotiations with Taliban as a way of ensuring peace after foreign combat troops leave in 2014, though the talks lay in a very fragile state and the Islamist group recently rejected they existed at all.

Karzai also stressed that peace talks with Taliban, who were originally backed by Islamabad, are key to regional stability and bringing peace as well to Pakistan, a player seen as crucial to efforts to end the war in Afghanistan.

“It’s no longer Afghanistan that is the subject of conversation, or the issue. It is Pakistan as well. It is peace in Pakistan as well. It is stability in Pakistan as well,” he said. The interview was recorded before Karzai’s visit to Islamabad last week, where he upset Pakistan by asking for access to Afghan Taliban leaders belonging to the so-called Quetta Shura, or leadership council.

Pakistan has consistently denied the existence of the Quetta Shura.

During the bitter civil war that engulfed Afghanistan following the end of the Soviet war, Taliban ruled the country from 1996-2001 under strict Islamic laws and provided shelter to al Qaeda until their ousting by US-backed Afghan troops just over a decade ago.

“We as the Afghan people and government are willing to help Pakistan work for peace in Afghanistan and work for peace in Pakistan, together,” Karzai said in fluent English.

Karzai added that Afghanistan was making progress on security in the eleventh year of a costly war, local and foreign support for which is souring. The Afghan leader also said Taliban would not return to power in a total capacity.

“I don’t think Taliban will ever come back to take Afghanistan, no,” he said. “Two years ago I would have been uncertain and unwilling to give you an answer as firm as I do today. The Afghan people will not go back to the nothing of 10 years ago.” reuters

Protesters held demonstrations on Tuesday in Multan, Rawalpindi, Muzaffarabad and other major cities, condemning US schemes against the Muslim world, especially Pakistan.

Traders and human right activists staged a protest at Iqbal Nagar square in eastern Multan city and chanted anti-US slogans. Separately, a group of protesters also set fire to the US flag.

Different religious and political parties also took out rallies in Muzaffarabad in the Pakistani administered Kashmir, staging a sit-in outside the United Nations Mission Office in the city.

Similar protests were also held in Islamabad on Monday, when thousands of people poured into the streets in the capital against the US intervention.

On Friday, Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Oversight and Investigations of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, Dana Rohrabacher, introduced a House Concurrent Resolution, in support of the “right of self-determination of the Balochi people.”

Rohrabacher claimed the people in the southwestern province have suffered “human rights violations and oppression despite being the largest province.”

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry summoned US charge d`affaires on Monday for the second time to lodge a strong protest against the controversial move.

Richard Hoagland “was told in clear terms that the move in the US Congress was contrary to the spirit of friendly relations and violation of the principles of the United Nations Charter, international law and recognized norms of inter-state conduct,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The diplomat was asked to convey Islamabad’s serious concern to the US administration, the statement added.

The move elicited angry reactions from Pakistan’s top leaders including Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani who described it as an attack on the country’s sovereignty.

Pakistan’s foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, also said though the resolution was an isolated move by a few individuals, it “is contrary to the principles of the UN Charter and international law.”

“The outburst in America for Balochistan…is part of the move [by the US] to set up intelligence bases close to the Iranian border,” an unnamed Pakistani official was quoted by the paper as saying.

The official indicated that the Congressional hearing and resolution were nothing but “pressure tactics.”

“They [Americans] want to use our soil against Iran, which we can never allow,” he added.

Meanwhile, two officials from Pakistan’s security agencies and one from diplomatic circles confirmed to the daily that the American diplomats and military leaders had requested permission for their agents to operate near the Iranian border in Balochistan.

The revelation came a few days after the US House of Representatives blamed Pakistani security agencies for the abductions and extra-judicial killings in Balochistan.

This is not the first time that the United States has made efforts to spy on Iran.

On May 30, 2011, the members of a CIA espionage and sabotage network were arrested by the Iranian Intelligence Ministry.

On November 24, Iran announced the arrest of a dozen other CIA spies, who were found to have been on a mission to sabotage the country’s nuclear facilities and other important compounds.

Another CIA espionage network with 12 members was busted in Iran and Lebanon in cooperation with the Lebanese resistance movement of Hezbollah.

On December 4, Iranian Army’s electronic warfare unit downed a US RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft when flying over the northeastern Iran city of Kashmar, some 225 kilometers (140 miles) away from the Afghan border.

Two US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the drone had been part of a CIA reconnaissance mission, involving the United State’s intelligence community stationed in Afghanistan.

PESHAWAR ( jafaria news ): Five militants and one volunteer of peace lashkar were killed in Khyber Agency,
According to government sources, clash between militants and peace Lashkar took place in Tirah valley in Khyber Agency as a result five militants were killed. One volunteer of peace lashkar was also killed in the clash.