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Islamabad, Jan. 1 (ANI): At least four suspected extremists were killed in a US Drone in North Waziristan, security officials said.

“A US drone fired two missiles, which hit a compound of a local tribesman, Karim Khan, killing four people and injuring two others,” The Daily Times quoted Karim Khan, a senior security official, as saying.

The identity of people killed in the attack could not be ascertained.

Khan said it was not clear whether any high-value target was present in the area at the time of the missile hit or not.

The attack comes days after at least 17 suspected militants, including a key Al-Qaeda commander were killed in two separate drone attacks in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan.

The Obama administration has made it clear that it would not hesitate to carry out strikes further inside Pakistan’s territory if it gets credible actionable intelligence.

Washington has also been pressing Islamabad to initiate more action against one of the top Afghan Al-Qaeda commanders, Sirajuddin Haqqani.

The frequency of the drone strikes has increased considerably this year (over 40 attacks), which the US believes has proved very effective in breaking the back of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

However, Pakistan has been continuously condemning the Predator hits, saying they have proven detrimental to the ‘war on terror’, and have subsequently added fuel to the massive anti-American sentiment in the region. (ANI)

Washington, Jan 1 (DPA) The US government is sending high level officials on a worldwide mission to make personal contact with airport officials about their security methods.

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, in the political crosshairs over lapses that led to the near-bombing of a US-bound airliner on Christmas Day, said Thursday she was sending the officials to Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America.

They were to review security procedures and technology that screens US-bound passenger flights.

The suspect in the Christmas Day attempt is Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, a Nigerian who claims the Al Qaeda branch in Yemen set him up with the mission. The Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has since claimed credit for the attack.

Abdulmutallab had boarded the Detroit-bound Flight 253 in Amsterdam after flying to Europe from Lagos, Nigeria.

The officials being sent by Napolitano include Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute and Assistant Secretary for Policy David Heyman.

The attempt, foiled by quick-thinking passengers as the plane was set on fire, shook the US security establishment to its roots and has provoked rounds of blame-laying.

The myriad of US security agencies failed to connect the dots which may have kept Abdulmutallab out of the country – omissions which were to have been plugged after the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the US.

Napolitano has admitted that the system failed and US President Barack Obama is pushing for answers about the lapses.

“We are looking not only at our own processes, but also beyond our borders to ensure effective aviation security measures are in place for US-bound flights that originate at international airports,” Napolitano said in a statement.

She said she was committed to making changes based on cooperation with international partners in order to “collectively bolster our tactics for defeating terrorists wherever they may seek to launch an attack”.

She said she would follow up with ministerial-level meetings “within the next few weeks”.

Security measures for US-bound flights were immediately tightened after Friday’s attack, with more canine teams, body pat-downs and luggage searches.

Washington, Jan 1 (DPA) US President Barack Obama offered his condolences Thursday after seven employees of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were killed and six injured in a suicide attack Wednesday on a military base in eastern Afghanistan.

In a letter to CIA employees, Obama called those killed “brave Americans (who) were part of a long line of patriots who have made great sacrifices for their fellow citizens, and for our way of life”.

The Wednesday evening bombing, killing at least eight people, marks the worst one-day loss of life for the CIA since the bombing of the US embassy in Beirut in 1983, according to US media.

Obama paid tribute to the CIA: “You have helped us understand the world as it is, and taken great risks to protect our country.”

Afghanistan’s former ruling Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province near the Pakistan border. A Taliban spokesman said it was carried out by an Afghan soldier.

CIA Director Leon Panetta, in a memo to employees, said “those who fell were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism”.

Islamabad, Dec 31 (DPA) Pakistan said Thursday that the US-led international forces should not leave war-torn Afghanistan until the country was strong enough to take care of itself.

“As a matter of fact what we say is that a hasty withdrawal would not be desirable,” the country’s foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit told a press briefing in Islamabad.

“Afghanistan should be able to look after itself effectively before the coalition forces leave,” he said.

US President Barack Obama announcing the new Afghan policy Dec 1 set an 18-month time frame to start withdrawing its almost 100,000 troops from Afghanistan.

Islamabad is concerned that a timetable to exit from Afghanistan would not help stabilize the region as the militants might just wait for the withdrawal of international troops and easily topple the Kabul government afterwards.

The spokesman also expressed fears about more incursions into its tribal badlands from Afghanistan after the planned deployment of additional 30,000 US troops.

“Regarding the surge there are some concerns and we are in discussion with the US on that,” Basit said.

Hundreds of Al Qaeda and Taliban militants crossed into Pakistan after the US attack on Afghanistan in 2001, where later on they re-grouped and began crossborder attacks on the coalition forces.

The Pakistan Army launched a massive military operation in mid-October against militants in South Waziristan, one of the seven tribal districts and a known hotbed of the Taliban. US appreciated the offensive but urged more actions against militants moving into Afghanistan to fight its troops.

Washington, Dec. 31 (ANI): American officials have warned air travellers entering the US that they could be forced to undergo ‘virtual strip searches’ in the wake of an attempted move by a Nigerian to bomb a Northwest Airliner.

Walk-through imaging machines that let security officials see through a passenger’s clothes could become widespread across the country after the ‘crotch bomber’s’ failed attempted to blow up a passenger plane as it prepared to land, reports the Courier Mail.

Six millimetre wave technology machines are already being used for primary screenings at airports in cities including Las Vegas, Miami and San Francisco.

Another 13 airports across the country use the machines to screen passengers who have already set off a metal detector.

Passengers can opt for a pat-down search instead.

A security administration official said the Transport Security Administration has ordered another 150 machines at a cost of 170,000 dollars each.

They are slated for deployment by 2014.

In Australia, body-scan technology has been on trial at Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide airports but no decision has been made on whether it will be adopted.

The Politico website yesterday reported Obama Administration officials would consider speeding up the rollout of the machines as part of the review. (ANI)

Washington, Dec 31 (IANS) The White House fired a salvo at former vice president Dick Cheney in reply to his sharply critical comments on President Barack Obama’s response to the botched terror attack on a US airliner on Christmas Day.

“It is telling that Vice President Cheney and others seem to be more focused on criticising the Administration than condemning the attackers,” White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer wrote on the White House’s official blog Wednesday.

“Unfortunately too many are engaged in the typical Washington game of pointing fingers and making political hay, instead of working together to find solutions to make our country safer.”

The response came hours after Cheney delivered a blistering statement saying the administration’s response is proof that the president “is trying to pretend we are not at war.”

In his first statement since the Christmas Day terror attempt, Cheney hit out at Obama for what he described as the president’s “low key” response to the events last week and criticised the administration’s broader approach to national security.

“He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war,” Cheney said in the statement.

“He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of 9/11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war.”

Obama outwardly “pretends we aren’t [at war],” he said repeating his months-long criticism that the new president has made America “less safe.”

“Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war?” Cheney asked. “It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’ t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency – social transformation – the restructuring of American society.”

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)

New York, Dec. 31 (ANI): The success of the planned troop surge in Afghanistan is directly related to whether the Obama administration can persuade Pakistan to carry out a determining operation against Afghan insurgents present on its soil, the Wall Street Journal has said, citing senior US officials.

US officials have also been pressing Islamabad to crack down against the ‘Quetta Shura’ of the Taliban, which Pakistan has so far refused to admit that they exist inside its boundaries.

“Pakistan’s military leadership needs to act against the Quetta Shura and the Haqqani network,” the newspaper quoted one US official, as saying, on conditions of anonymity.

“We’re trying to make them realise you can’t eliminate one and leave the other in place,” he added.

The Pakistan Army has been involved in an intense battle with the Taliban in South Waziristan and North West Frontier Province (NWFP), but it has hardly taken any action against the Afghan Taliban havens in the country’s northwestern tribal areas and southwestern province of Balochistan.

“To change that, there will be a concerted diplomatic effort to address the sanctuary problem,” said another senior US official, who is currently based in Afghanistan.

US CENTCOM chief General David Petraeus had also underlined that if Pakistan steps up pressure on the Afghan Taliban leadership hiding on the other side of the border, then it would greatly help the international forces fighting it out in Afghanistan

“It would be very helpful if additional pressure could be put (by Pakistan) on the leadership elements that are causing problems in Afghanistan,” General Petraeus had said in Bahrain earlier this week. (ANI)

Washington, Dec. 31 (ANI): The plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight over American soil on Christmas Day demonstrates a new and lethal ability by a branch of Al Qaeda to attack the United States directly, the New York Times quotes both government and independent counter-terrorism specialists, as saying.

According to the daily, American officials till now had concerns about the capability of Qaeda affiliates to strike in North Africa, Yemen and Iraq, and remained confident that these groups — unlike Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda in Pakistan — could not threaten the United States itself.

That assessment has now changed, as American intelligence officials say Qaeda operatives in Yemen trained and equipped a 23-year-old Nigerian man to evade airport security measures and ignite a powerful explosive on a commercial airliner.

“Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has grown in confidence and seems to be developing a capability beyond the other Al Qaeda nodes,” claimed Richard Barrett, a British former intelligence officer now monitoring Al Qaeda and the Taliban for the United Nations, who visited Yemen two weeks ago.

The thwarted attack on an Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight underscores how the Obama administration must now defend the United States from attacks conceived in multiple havens abroad.

“This is the canary in the coal mine. Al Qaeda’s regional satellites are seen as platforms for Al Qaeda’s global agenda,” said Juan Carlos Zarate, a top counter-terrorism official under President George W. Bush.

Last month, federal officials unsealed terrorism-related charges against men they say were important actors in a recruitment effort that led roughly 20 young Americans to join the Shabab, a violent insurgent group in Somalia with ties to Al Qaeda.

Law enforcement officials fear that the recruits, who hold American passports, could be tapped to return to the United States to carry out attacks here, though so far there is no evidence of such plots.

“We think of core Al Qaeda in Pakistan as a very potent group, but not huge. But if you add the affiliates that are actively targeting us, it becomes a much bigger number,” said Daniel L. Byman, a former intelligence analyst.

American officials are of the view that terrorist groups in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen are now communicating more frequently and trying to coordinate their actions.

American and European counter-terrorism experts, however, say the ability and expertise of the Qaeda satellites are still limited.

A report by Dutch counterterrorism specialists issued Wednesday, for example, concluded that the planning and preparation for the failed attack against the Northwest Airlines flight was “fairly professional, but its execution was amateurish.”

And the groups’ effectiveness often hinges greatly on the personalities of their leaders.

By design as well as necessity, the plots hatched by Al Qaeda’s regional affiliates are typically smaller and less spectacular than, say, Al Qaeda’s failed plans to blow up several airliners over the Atlantic in 2006.

But in setting their sights lower and relying on lone suicide bombers, rather than complicated plots with several confederates, these Qaeda affiliates may also pose a threat that is harder to thwart, as the Christmas Day incident demonstrated. (ANI)

Washington, Dec 31 (IANS) President Barack Obama may be America’s most admired man this year according to a new poll, but two women edge him out as the most popular person according to another.

A Gallup poll released Wednesday rated Obama as clearly America’s most admired man with 30 percent of those surveyed voting for him. Former President George W. Bush came in a distant second with 4 percent while former South Africa President Nelson Mandela scored 3 percent in the poll.

But a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey indicated that the president’s poll numbers pale in comparison to the favourable ratings of two women: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and first lady Michelle Obama.

Fifty-eight percent of people questioned in the survey have a favourable view of Obama, with four in 10 holding an unfavourable view. But the president’s favourable rating is 10 points below that of his wife and 6 points behind the secretary of state.

According to the poll, 68 percent of the public has a positive opinion of the first lady, with 19 percent holding an unfavourable opinion. Sixty-four percent have a positive view of Clinton, with three in 10 holding an unfavourable view.

The survey indicated that nearly nine out of 10 Democrats have a positive view of the president, with Independents split and more than 3 out of 4 Republicans seeing Obama in an unfavourable way. Obama’s favourable rating is down 6 points from August and 11 points from April.

In the Gallup poll, Hillary Clinton narrowly edged out former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as Americans’ most admired woman with 16 percent of Americans rooting for her, while Sarah Palin won the admiration of 15 percent. Talk-show host Oprah Winfrey and first lady Michelle Obama came in at No. 3 and No. 4 with 8 percent and 7 percent respectively.

“Hillary Clinton has now been named Most Admired Woman 14 times since 1993, spanning her career as first lady, New York senator, and now secretary of state,” Gallup stated. “The three times she has not finished first during this time, she earned second place(to Laura Bush in 2001 and to Mother Teresa in 1995 and 1996).”

Washington, Dec 31 (DPA) The US government will loan another $3.8 billion to car financier GMAC, a former subsidiary of General Motors, and will take a controlling stake of 56 percent, the Treasury Department said Wednesday.

The Treasury had already loaned GMAC $12.5 billion and taken a 35-percent-stake in December 2008 to help save the ailing company from bankruptcy. GMAC has been one of the firms worst hit by the financial crisis and slump in car sales.

GMAC has struggled to raise money from private investors and revive lending to consumers, but the new loan is less than the $5.6 billion the Treasury predicted GMAC would still need in May.

The Treasury said the bankruptcies earlier this year of carmakers GM and Chrysler, which are also largely owned by the government, had hurt GMAC less than expected.

The new stake allows President Barack Obama’s administration to appoint two new directors to GMAC’s board, the Treasury said. That would make four of the firm’s nine directors government appointees.