OSAMA, ZAWAHRI AND I HAD SAME TEACHER: SAYS HAFIZ SAEED CHIEF OF JAMAAT UD DAWA

ISLAMABAD: Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the chief of Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD) a charity organisation accused by West and India for exporting terror from Pakistan, has confessed for the first time about his meeting with al Qaida founding father Osama Bin Laden and said that he studied from the same scholar who taught bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

“Yes once I had met Osama Bin Laden but that is an old story I met him probably in 1982 in Saudi Arabia and in that meeting we just waived at each other,” said Saeed in an interview with news. Saeed’s organisation was banned by the United Nations Security Council days after the Mumbai attacks in November 2008 for its alleged involvement in the attacks and extremists activities. However local courts have allowed the organisation to work in Pakistan.

Saeed, the most wanted man by India, is a holder of double master’s degree in Islamic Studies and also is a former teacher at Engineering University, Punjab. He said he was a proud student of Sheikh Bin Baz. Bin Baz was the grand mufti (scholar) of Saudi Arabia from 1993 to until his death in May 1999.

AfPak head and a retired CIA officer, Bruce Riedel in his book titled “The Search for Al Qaeda” has described Bin Baz as one who “preached a very reactionary brand of Islam, proclaiming earth is flat, banning high heels for women as too sexually provocative, barring men from wearing Western suits and imposing other restrictions on behavior.” When asked is it not a coincidence that he studied under the same cleric who taught Osama Bin Laden and Aiman al al-Zawahiri? Saeed said it was the honour for both the students and the teacher.

When asked about the reports regarding the financial help by Osama Bin Laden for establishing Lashkar-i-Taiba back in 1989-90, Saeed denied by calling it “baseless allegation.” Asked how it was possible that he could not have met Bin Laden in neighboring Afghanistan while he was waging Jihad next door in Indian administered Kashmir, Saeed brushed aside the question saying, “put this matter aside.”

Saeed declared the killing of Osama Bin Laden as extra judicial act and in the same breath he said that it was yet to be verified if the al Qaeda chief was in the Abbotabad compound or not. He said that US was the biggest terrorist who did not prove anything against bin Laden in any court of law. When asked if his men or he himself were helping the jihad in Afghanistan, Saeed said that the Afghanis were doing well themselves and they did not need anybody’s help. “We are doing what we can do for them,” he added.

Saeed who used to hide from cameras has started appearing on television screen these days, when asked about the reason behind this change of mind he said that he has taken this decision to counter the propaganda against himself and his organization.

RELATIONSHIP MORE HONEST NOW, SAYS OBAMA

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has said the relationship between the United States and Pakistan has become more honest over time.

In his first interview since Wednesday evening when he announced his new strategy for the Pak-Afghan region, President Obama also acknowledged that the US focus had shifted from Afghanistan to Pakistan. “I think the focus shifted to Pakistan, in my view, two years ago. So we’ve sought to strengthen cooperation with Pakistan,” he told Voice of America, the US government’s international broadcasting service. “Obviously, that has created tensions as well, but overall Pakistan has cooperated with us in our intelligence-collection efforts, in striking at high-value targets within Pakistan.”

Mr.Obama said he believed that no country had suffered more from terrorist attacks than Pakistan, “so this is entirely in their self-interest” to combat terrorism. Explaining his focus-shift, Mr Obama said events forced him to look at Afghanistan and Pakistan as part of a similar problem.

Pakistan’s tribal areas, he said, provided Al Qaeda and other extremists groups with safe havens from where they launched attacks into Afghanistan, Pakistan and around the world. Like his secretary of state, Mr.Obama also said that he believed Pakistan had a legitimate role to play as part of the process of reconciliation with the insurgents.

He also noted that Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently travelled to Islamabad where he agreed to form a core group, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States. This group would “discuss how we can proceed in this process”, Mr.Obama said, noting that Pakistan not only had a responsibility but also “a deep interest in dealing with the terrorist elements that are still in their territory”.

Asked if the US-Pakistan relationship had soured, Mr.Obama said: “I think what happened is that the relationship has become more honest over time.” This openness, he said, had raised “some differences that are real” and the operation to take out Osama bin Laden created additional tensions.

“But I had always been very clear to Pakistan that if we ever found him and had a shot, that we would take it,” he added. “We think that if Pakistan recognises the threat to its sovereignty that comes out of the extremists in its midst, that there’s no reason why we can’t work cooperatively to make sure that both US security interests, Pakistani security interests, and Afghan security interests converge.” Asked if Pakistan has to play a greater role against terrorism, Mr.Obama said: “I think that Pakistan has always seen terrorism as either a problem for somebody else, or has seen elements of the Taliban as a hedge in terms of their influence within Afghanistan.” The US, he said, had suggested to Pakistan that not only terrorism threatened Pakistan more than just about any other country, but it also strained its relations with its neighbours and with friends like the United States.

The US had also informed the Pakistanis that if they had “direct” and “constructive” relationship with the Afghan government, “there’s no reason for them to see the Taliban as a hedge against Afghanistan. Instead, they should see the Afghan government as a partner they can work with”.

PAKISTANI LEADERS WEREN’T AWARE OF OSAMA PRESENCE

WASHINGTON: The Obama administration has sent a letter to Congress, assuring the lawmakers that senior military and civilian leaders in Pakistan were not aware of Osama bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad.

The letter, signed by US special envoy Mark Grossman, aims at curbing rapidly growing anti-Pakistan feelings in Congress where lawmakers from both Republican and Democratic parties are demanding new restrictions on aid to Islamabad.

Ten US senators had sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking her to explain why the United States should continue to provide civil and military aid to Pakistan after the May 2 raid on Bin Laden’s compound.

In the letter to the lawmakers sent on Thursday, Ambassador Grossman says: “We see no evidence to indicate that anyone at the highest levels of the government of Pakistan knew that Bin Laden was living in Pakistan.”

“Now, that may be true, but I don’t think there’s an American who believes that,” said Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, while commenting on Mr Grossman’s response. And he was assured by a person no less than the secretary of state that her envoy was right. At a congressional hearing on Thursday evening, she told Senator Menendez: “We have looked very hard and scrubbed all of the intelligence that we have. And … the conclusion Ambassador Grossman gave you in the letter is the one we have reached.”

But then she also raised the doubts that are often expressed across America: “We do not in any way rule out or absolve those who are at lower levels, who may very well have been enablers and protectors. Now, the fair question is, were they protecting their higher-ups? Could be. Was it one of these kinds of a wink and a nod? Maybe so.”

Realising that her statement could have raised more doubts than it answered, Secretary Clinton hastened to add: “But in looking at every scrap of information we have, we think that the highest levels of the government were genuinely surprised.”

If senior Pakistani leaders had reasons to believe that Bin Laden was hiding in their country, they thought he was in the tribal areas, protected by the Taliban or by the Haqqani network, she said. “But they did not know and we have no reason to believe that they are running some massive deception on us to that point.” Secretary Clinton then explained why the US wanted to continue to engage Pakistan despite the problems it was having in maintaining this relationship. “It is our conclusion that we have to continue to try to pull and push to get it more right than wrong,” she said.

“So, for example, when it comes to our military aid… we are not prepared to continue providing that at the pace we were providing it unless and until we see certain steps taken,” she added.

“We’re trying to play this orchestra the best we can, where we look in one direction and say to those who we think are largely responsible for the difficulties we know that exist within Pakistan, you can’t continue doing that. “But, on the other hand, we have a democratically elected government which has made some courageous decisions despite the challenges.”

Secretary Clinton said that during her last visit to Islamabad, she had a “very emotional meeting” with President Asif Ali Zardari who said to her: “Look — Al Qaeda was in league with the people who killed my wife! I would never have turned a blind eye if I had known anything.”

PML-N LEADER NAWAZ SHARIF REJECTS ABBOTTABAD COMMISSION

MUZAFFARABAD: PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif said on Thursday that the US raid on Abbottabad was a severe violation of country`s sovereignty and “we do not accept the commission set up by the government to probe the incident because it has been constituted without our consultation”.

Regarding the commission on the murder of journalist Saleem Shehzad, he said let`s wait to see what came out of it. Addressing an election rally in Rawalakot, Mr Sharif said he had launched his party in Azad Kashmir primarily to put an end to the practice of “coronation of courtiers” in disregard of the mandate given by people in the region`s elections.

“We know where the decisions about party tickets of candidates are taken, who makes and breaks governments and where prime ministers are made. People of AJK should also realise it,” he said. “But we will not let this game to continue and will uncover all rigging plans,” he added.

The PML-N leader, who has launched an offensive on the PPP-led federal government and those “who breach the Constitution” in Pakistan, said fake democracies had also harmed the Kashmir cause. He alleged that corruption was rife in Islamabad and corrupt persons were picked to hold key posts in government and semi-government institutions.

Mr Sharif said the looted money stashed in Swiss banks belonged to the people of Pakistan and it should be brought back to the country. He asked the people of Azad Kashmir not to be deceived by “false promises and hollow claims” of the PPP and see for themselves what its government had done to the people of Pakistan. Warning against use of negative tactics to influence the polls, he declared that the PML-N would ensure that there was no rigging in the election.