Pakistan: Mit Burka verkleideter Deutscher festgenommen
WELT ONLINE: Er war bewaffnet und trug eine Burka: Im Nordwesten Pakistans hat die Polizei einen verdächtigen Deutschen festgenommen.

Im Nordwesten Pakistans hat die Polizei nach Angaben aus Sicherheitskreisen einen bewaffneten und mit einer Burka verkleideten Deutschen festgenommen. Wie am Montag weiter verlautete, wurde der Mann in Gewahrsam genommen, als er das Stammesgebiet Nord-Waziristan verlassen wollte.

Die Stammesgebiete an der Grenze zu Afghanistan gelten als Hochburg von Taliban- und Al-Qaida- Extremisten. In Nord-Waziristan soll es eine kleine Gruppe von Deutschen geben, die Kontakt zu Al-Qaida haben sollen. Das Auswärtige Amt in Berlin erklärte, es prüfe den Fall. >>> dpa/fp | Montag, 21. Juni 2010

Pakistani Taliban Behind Times Sq. Plot, Holder Says
THE NEW YORK TIMES: More firmly and publicly than before, senior officials of the Obama administration on Sunday blamed the failed attempt to blow up a bomb in Times Square on the Pakistani Taliban, an accusation that should increase pressure on the Pakistan military to attack the organization in its bastions in the lawless tribal region of North Waziristan.

“We’ve now developed evidence that shows the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in an interview on ABC television’s news program “This Week.”

Later, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he said the Taliban in Pakistan “directed this plot” and may have also financed it. The Pakistani Taliban, he said, was “intimately involved” in the attempt on May 1 by Faisal Shahzad, an American citizen of Pakistani descent, to blow up gasoline and propane tanks secreted inside a Nissan Pathfinder parked on West 45th Street just yards from the heart of Times Square.

John Brennan, President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, echoed Mr. Holder’s statements Sunday morning, saying that it appeared that Mr. Shahzad, a resident of Bridgeport, Conn., who spent five months in Pakistan until February, was working for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. The TTP is believed by some military intelligence officials to have joined forces with Al Qaeda and may be hiding some of its senior leaders, including Osama bin Laden, who was the motivating force behind the 9/11 attack.

Until now, American officials have speculated that the Pakistan Taliban may have trained Mr. Shahzad during his visit to Pakistan, but Sunday’s statements were their most definitive about the Taliban’s role.

The conclusion that the Pakistani Taliban is behind the attempted bombing “underscores the serious threat that we face from a very determined enemy,” Mr. Brennan said on CNN’s ”State of the Union.” >>> Joseph Berger | Sunday, May 09, 2010

THE SUNDAY TIMES: US warns Pakistan over Times Square bomb attempt: The United States has delivered a tough new warning to Pakistan to crack down on Islamic militants or face severe consequences after the failed Times Square bombing. >>> Anne Barrowclough | Sunday, May 09, 2010

British Terror Mastermind Rashid Rauf 'Killed in US Missile Strike'
THE TELEGRAPH: A fugitive British terrorist has been killed in a US missile strike in Pakistan.

Rashid Rauf, 27, who grew up in Birmingham, was killed along with at least three other militants in the attack on the house of a local tribesman in the North Waziristan area,

A US drone targeted the home in the village of Alikhel, part of a district known as a stronghold for al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

"The transatlantic bombing plot alleged mastermind Rashid Rauf was killed along with an Egyptian al-Qaeda operative in the US missile strike in North Waziristan," a senior Pakistani security official said.

Rauf, who has been on the run after escaping from a Pakistani jail nearly a year ago, was said to have played a key role in a liquid bomb plot allegedly targeting transatlantic airliners in 2006.

Rauf, a British national who used to live in Birmingham, escaped from Pakistani authorities after appearing before a judge in an Islamabad court in December last year. At the time, he could have faced extradition to Britain within weeks.

After the escape, Khalid Pervez, a city police official, said that Rauf managed to open his handcuffs and evade police guards taking him back to Adiala prison in the nearby city of Rawalpindi. >>> By Andrew Alderson, Chief Reporter | November 22, 2008

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