Friday, December 09, 2005 International Kidnapped Pak journalist photographed Rabia missile US strike: Scribe feared intelligence agencies may be after him Zulfiqar Ali & Paul Watson PESHAWAR, December 8 A Pakistani journalist has been kidnapped after photographing the metal remnants of what appeared to be a US missile that killed a senior al-Qaida leader last week, his family said on Wednesday. Only a day before his disappearance on Monday, Hayatullah Khan expressed fears that intelligence agencies might take action against him for sending his pictures to Pakistani and international media organisations, said the journalist's elder brother, Ihsanullah Khan. Five masked men armed with AK-47 assault rifles abducted Hayatullah Khan in the town of Mir Ali, about 18 miles north of Miranshah, administrative capital of the North Waziristan tribal area on the border with Afghanistan, witnesses said. The al-Qaeda operative, whom Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf identified as Abu Hamza Rabia, was killed on December 1 when an explosion destroyed a house in Haisori village, east of Miranshah. Rabia was believed to be al-Qaeda's international operations commander. Musharraf said the blast occurred when Rabia was making bombs from explosives stored in the house. Pakistani authorities insisted the compound had not been attacked. But residents of Asoray claimed that the explosion was caused by a missile fired from a US unmanned aerial vehicle. They said that metal pieces of the missile, photos of which Khan filed to the European Pressphoto Agency, were inscribed with the English words "guided missile". In Khan's pictures, the fragments are also marked "AGM-114", the US military's designator for the laser-guided Hellfire missile, which is carried on the remote-controlled Predator aircraft. The initials "US" also appeared on the shrapnel in photos filed by Khan, who also works for Pakistan's Urdu-language daily newspaper Ausaf and the English-language daily The Nation. US counterterrorism operations in Pakistan are a sensitive political issue for Musharraf, who is under pressure from Islamic groups and nationalists who feel he has gone too far in supporting the US. The Pakistani military's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency is frequently accused of harassing journalists and detaining Pakistanis without charge. But senior government officials in Peshawar denied that intelligence agencies were involved. "We understand the situation in the tribal territory is not very favorable for journalists, but it doesn't mean that any secret agency is involved in his abduction," said Shah Zaman Khan, spokesman for the governor of North West Frontier Province. One of the journalist's friends said Hayatullah Khan had been arrested by US and allied Afghan National Army a year and a half ago near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and interrogated for two months. The man, who spoke on condition he not be named, said he negotiated a deal with Afghan authorities for Khan's release. -LAT-WP 12 killed in Waziristan bomb blast WANA: At least 12 people were killed and dozens wounded when a bomb exploded on Thursday in a market in Pakistan's troubled tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said. The blast hit a hotel and shops in a market in Jandola town in the South Waziristan region. Also on Thursday, the beheaded bodies of two members of a paramilitary force were found near, Wana, said a member of the force, the South Waziristan Scouts. The two men went missing on Tuesday when they and two colleagues went into Wana town in civilian clothes. The whereabouts of the other two men were not known, said the member of the force. REUTERS URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=83574 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 1.2 million kids a year are victims of human trafficking. Stop slavery. http://us.click.yahoo.com/U6CDDD/izNLAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
