Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

Zawahiri is in Pakistan: Clinton

Zawahiri is in Pakistan: Clinton

Share the Information with us: Khar

ISLAMABAD – Currently on a three-day visit to India, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a town-hall meeting in Kolkata said: "There are several significant leaders still on the run. Zawahiri, who inherited the leadership from bin Laden is somewhere, we believe, in Pakistan."
On the other hand, Pakistani Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, on Monday said that Pakistan had no information about the presence of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri on its soil.

Addressing a meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) in Islamabad, she said: "If anybody has any information in this regard, they should share it with us."
Khar's remarks come hard on the heels of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's statement that Zawahiri might be hiding in Pakistan, where Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed a year back.

Zawahiri, an Egyptian cleric, was second-in-command under Osama bin Laden and regarded by US intelligence agencies as chief ideologue for the militant group.
Clinton said the US would keep up pressure for the arrest of Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-i-Taiba's founder, who is wanted over the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Last month, the US offered a $10 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Hafiz Saeed, who lives in Pakistan and is considered a mastermind of the assault in India that killed 166 people.

Khar renewed Pakistan's position that CIA-operated drone strikes in the tribal badlands were counter-productive and a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty. "The US has been informed of Pakistan's concerns on drone strikes." (Pajhwok)