Bin Laden's actions had to be 'brought to justice': Dalai Lama - Hindustan Times

Bin Laden's actions had to be 'brought to justice': Dalai Lama - Hindustan Times

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has said that Osama bin Laden's actions had to be "brought to justice" and forgiveness for the slain al Qaeda chief does not mean one should "forget what happened." Speaking to students at the University of Southern California, the Dalai Lama said bin Laden may have deserved compassion and even forgiveness as a human being.

But "forgiveness doesn't mean forget what happened. If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures," a report in the Los Angeles Times quoted the Tibetan leader as saying in response to a question about the death of bin Laden.

A separate statement on the Dalai Lama's website explained further what the Tibetan leader had said at USC on Tuesday when asked whether in some situation ensuring justice is more important than being compassionate to the perpetrator of a crime.

In his response, the Dalai Lama "emphasized the need to find a distinction between the action and the actor."

He said in the case of bin Laden, "his action was of course destructive and the September 11 events killed thousands of people. So his action must be brought to justice."

The Tibetan leader added that with the actor one must have compassion and a sense of concern.

"Therefore the counter measure, no matter what form it takes, has to be compassionate action."

Referring to the basis of the practice of forgiveness, the Dalai Lama said that it, however, did not mean that one should forget what has been done.

His speech at USC was titled 'Secular Ethics, Human Values and Society'.

Internal rift led to Osama bin Laden killing: Saudi paper - Hindustan Times

Internal rift led to Osama bin Laden killing: Saudi paper - Hindustan Times

S troops were led to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by his own deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, because of a simmering internal power struggle, a Saudi newspaper reported on Thursday. Al-Watan newspaper, quoting an unnamed "regional source," said the top two al Qaeda men had differences and that a courier who led US forces to bin Laden was working for Zawahiri.

The courier was a Pakistan national and not a Kuwaiti as the US suspected, Al-Watan said. The man knew he was being followed by the US military but disguised the fact.

"The Egyptian faction of al Qaeda is defacto running the organisation now and since he was taken ill in 2004 they have been trying to take full control," according to the paper.

It said Zawahiri's faction had persuaded bin Laden to leave tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border and take shelter instead in Abbottabad near Islamabad where he was finally killed by US commandos on Monday.

With the return of an Egyptian figure in al Qaeda, Saif al-Adel, last autumn from Iran, the Egyptian faction had hatched a plan to dispose of Saudi-born bin Laden, according to Al-Watan.

Could Osama have reached Pak nukes? - Hindustan Times

Could Osama have reached Pak nukes? - Hindustan Times

Revelations that al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden spent years in Pakistan there must be rattling anyone who believes al Qaeda and its allies can get their hands on the unstable country’s nuclear arsenal. During his time at a fortified compound, did he manage to sneak supporters into Pakistan’s nuclear sites to gain the ultimate weapon for global holy war?

That’s a question that could haunt some policy makers in Western capitals for many years.

The answer among experts is a resounding no, but Bin Laden’s stay here is fueling concern about Pakistan’s overall stability, vital for securing its nuclear weapons.

Anthony Cordesman, a national security analyst at a think tank in Washington, said the fact that Bin Laden had managed to evade capture for so long in Pakistan should not raise additional red flags about the security of the country’s nuclear arsenal.

Measures used to monitor people are completely different in intensity than that used to keep track of nuclear weapons.

Experts say weapons are not mated with delivery systems and mastering the nuclear command system could take years — even if al Qaeda, which is known to be actively seeking nuclear material, was able to plant its own nuclear scientists.

So al Qaeda or its allies launching a Pakistani nuclear warhead seems inconceivable.

Osama's wife lived in Pak safe house for 6 years: Pak official - Hindustan Times

Osama's wife lived in Pak safe house for 6 years: Pak official - Hindustan Times

One of three wives living with Osama bin Laden has told Pakistani interrogators she had been staying in the al Qaeda chief's hideout for six years without leaving its upper floors, a Pakistani intelligence official said on Friday. The woman, identified as Yemini-born Amal Ahmed Abdullfattah, and the other two wives of bin Laden are being interrogated in Pakistan after they were taken into custody following the American raid on bin Laden's compound in the town of Abbottabad.Pakistani authorities are also holding eight or nine children who were found there after the US commandos left.

The corpses of at least three slain men were also left behind.The wives' accounts will help show how bin Laden spent his time and how he managed to avoid capture, living in a large house close to military academy in a garrison town, a two-and-a-half hours' drive from the capital Islamabad. Given shifting and incomplete accounts from US officials about what happened during the raid, the women's testimonies may also be significant in unveiling details about the operation.

A Pakistani official said CIA officers had not been given access to the women in custody. Military and intelligence relations between the United States and Pakistan have been strained even before Monday's helicopter-borne raid, and have become more so in the aftermath.The Pakistani intelligence official did not say on Friday whether the Yemeni wife has said that bin Laden was also living there since 2006.

A security official said she was shot in the leg during the operation, and did not witness her husband being killed."We are still getting information from them," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give his name to the media.

Meanwhile, a senior Pakistani intelligence official said that Osama bin Laden was "cash strapped" in his final days and that al Qaeda had split into two factions, with the larger one controlled by the group's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri.The official spoke to a small group of Pakistani reporters late Thursday.

Two journalists at the meeting told The Associated Press what the official said, asking their names not be used because of the sensitivity of the meeting.The official didn't provide details or elaborate how his agency made the conclusions about bin Laden. The al Qaeda chief had apparently lived without any guards at the Abbottabad compound or loyalists nearby to take up arms in his defense.

The image of Pakistan's intelligence agency has been battered in the wake of Monday's US commando raid that killed bin Laden. Portraying him as isolated and weak may be aimed at trying to deflect attention from that.Late Thursday, two Pakistani officials cited the women and children as saying bin Laden and his associates had not offered any "significant resistance" when the American commandos entered the compound, in part because the assailants had thrown "stun bombs" that disorientated them.

One official said Pakistani authorities found an AK-47 and a pistol in the house belonging to those in the house, with evidence that one bullet had been fired from the rifle."That was the level of resistance" they put up, said the official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.His account is roughly consistent with the most recent one given by US officials, who now say one of the five people, killed in the raid was armed and fired any shots, a striking departure from the intense and prolonged firefight described earlier by the White House and others in the administration.

US officials say four men were killed alongside bin Laden, including one of his sons.The raid has exacerbated tensions between America and Pakistan. The army here is angry that it was not told about the unilateral raid on a target within its territory, while there are suspicions in Washington that bin Laden may have been protected by Pakistani security forces while on the run.

3 killed in blast at gambling den in Karachi - Hindustan Times

3 killed in blast at gambling den in Karachi - Hindustan Times

Unidentified attackers lobbed a grenade at a gambling den in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi on Friday, killing at least three persons and injuring 27 others. The attack occurred at the crowded Jhatpat Market in Lyari area of Karachi. Scores of people were present at the gambling den. The injured and the bodies were taken to two nearby hospitals.

At least three persons were killed and 27 others injured in the attack, TV news channels reported. There was no official word on the casualties.

Rescue operations were hampered by a power outage and a large crowd that gathered in the area. Additional police forces and a bomb disposal squad were sent to the spot, officials said.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, the second of its kind in less than a month. A bomb attack at another gambling den in Lyari on April 21 had killed 18 people and injured over 30 others.

Officials said the attacks could be linked to efforts by rival criminal gangs to gain control on the gambling dens.

The secret life of Osama bin Laden - Hindustan Times

The secret life of Osama bin Laden - Hindustan Times

While the US-led forces were hunting for Osama bin Laden in Pakistan’s unruly tribal areas for years, the al Qaeda chief had been living a secluded life in a million-dollar mansion in the Pakistani garrison city of Abbottabad for five years, according to one of his wives. Bin Laden usually confined himself to two or three rooms and never went outside, she told the Pakistani military officials.

The report said that women and children found in the compound included three wives of bin Laden.

The military officials also said that bin Laden’s daughter, found in the compound, had told them that she had seen her father being killed on the upper floor of a building and then dragged down a flight of stairs.

A knottier problem may be the fate of Bin Laden’s children. They may now be stateless because of the Saudi-born terrorist’s revoked citizenship status.

The children — aged 4 to 12 — and are being kept in a safe house in Rawalpindi.

While Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry has said it wants to repatriate the children to their country of origin, this may prove difficult since Saudi Arabia had revoked the citizenship of bin Laden back in 1994.

Osama was sidelined by Zawahiri in al Qaeda: Pak officials - Hindustan Times

Osama was sidelined by Zawahiri in al Qaeda: Pak officials - Hindustan Times

Slain al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden had been sidelined by his deputy Aiman al-Zawahiri in the terror outfit which was also divided over financial matters, Pakistani military officials have claimed. The unnamed military officials made the claim during a background briefing for Pakistani reporters on

Thursday, BBC Urdu said.

The officials did not give details of the purported split between the two top al Qaeda leaders.

The military officials also briefed the media on revelations made by bin Laden's family, including his three wives and 13 children who are in the custody of Pakistani authorities.

The al Qaeda chief was killed along with four others when US special forces carried out a daring pre-dawn raid on a compound near the Pakistan Military Academy in the garrison city of Abbottabad on Monday.

Bin Laden's Yemeni wife, identified in some media reports as Amal Ahmed Abdul Fattah, has told investigators that she had not gone out of her room for five years and that her husband too stayed in the compound during the same period.

The Yemeni wife, who was hit by a bullet in her leg, said bin Laden was alive till she lost consciousness.

A daughter of bin Laden confirmed that her father was shot dead in front of her.

The military officials told the media that the US should have informed Pakistan about the raid on bin Laden's compound and there should have been bilateral cooperation.

"The US should have done what we had done when (Afghan Taliban leader) Mullah Baradar was arrested," one official was quoted as saying.

Mullah Baradar, the number two in the Afghan Taliban hierarchy, was arrested near Karachi in a joint Pakistan-US operation in February last year.

The officials said Indonesian al Qaeda leader Umar Patek, a suspect in the Bali bombings who was recently arrested in Abbottabad, had provided useful information but had no links with bin Laden.

The officials said the Pakistani military was not aware of the covert US operation against bin Laden and that the entry of American helicopters into Pakistani airspace was not detected because the US knew the location of radars and had terrain maps, The Express Tribune newspaper reported.

The helicopters avoided radars by flying low and using the mountains, the report said.

If the US had jammed Pakistani radars, the military "would have noticed," it added.

The officials said they had told the CIA in April that suspicious phone calls had been intercepted, which could be traced to the compound in Abbottabad. However, at no point did they realise that bin Laden was present there, they claimed.

"If we had known, we would have gone after him ourselves," an intelligence official was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune.

A military official said while the trust deficit between the CIA and ISI may have contributed to Pakistan being kept out of the loop in the raid, he believed the CIA wanted to take all the credit and not share it with the ISI.

Several media reports quoted the officials as saying that an inquiry had been ordered within the ISI to ascertain how bin Laden had managed to hide in Abbottabad.

The officials said Pakistani intelligence officials are badly outnumbered by foreign intelligence officials.

One official pointed out that President Asif Ali Zardari had authorised the Pakistani embassy in Washington to issue visas.

"Over 7,000 visas were issued without the ISI's clearance. Many of them were issued to personnel of the Regional Affairs Office (RAO), which is responsible for disbursement of Kerry-Lugar (aid) funds," he said, implying that the RAO could be a cover for American intelligence.