Al-Qaida manipulates videos, images, says Black Hat speaker

A photo by al-Qaeda's media wing as-Shahab provided 06 May by the Site Institute, which tracks radical Islamist websites, shows al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri giving an interview at an unspecified location. US intelligence chiefs urged Pakistan to wage a more vigorous pursuit of terrorism, warning that its lawless region bordering Afghanistan has become a sanctuary for Al-Qaeda and Taliban diehards.(AFP/Site Institute/HO)


Al-Qaida manipulates videos, images, says Black Hat speaker
Posted by Robert Vamosi
news.com

LAS VEGAS--In a presentation at the Black Hat conference here Tuesday, Neal Krawetz of Hacker Factor showed how basic manipulations to images can be revealed through digital analysis.

After presenting on the specific techniques he used, Krawetz launched into what he called the case of "Dr. Z," who happens to be Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 man in al-Qaida.

Using a photo that originally appeared on December 20, 2006, in USA Today, al-Zawahiri appears to be seated before a large banner with a desk underneath. On the desk, in the photo, is a tiny cannon. Yet in the text, al-Zawahiri is described as sitting with "a rifle behind his shoulder that was leaning against a plain brown backdrop."
Using the techniques demonstrated earlier in the talk, Krawetz deconstructed the image to show a halo around al-Zawahiri that suggests that he was likely sitting in front of a monochromatic screen. Even the letters on the banner had been altered. Further, the overall image had been cropped from the original.

Krawetz showed another image of al-Zawahiri from July 27, 2006, showing him seated in what appears to be a television studio. Krawetz said many people who saw this video were outraged that he could sitting in a television studio somewhere, yet the U.S. government couldn't find him.

Image analysis suggests that the studio and the various pictures positioned in the studio around him were added later. Again, a halo around al-Zawahiri suggests that he was shot in front of a monochromatic screen and pasted into a new background.

The studio background behind al-Zawahiri includes five different elements placed within the shot: The picture of Mohammad Alef is taken from a video of a wedding ceremony. The picture of the Twin Towers and the picture of Mohammad Atta are both taken from the 911 Commission report. Meanwhile, the studio itself appears created; the lighting suggests that the wall is an unlikely 1 foot behind al-Zawahiri, for example.

Krawetz found an image from the SITE Institute, an organization that tracks terrorism worldwide. (SITE stands for Search for International Terrorist Entities.) The image was intercepted before it was released by al-Qaida.

In the SITE video, al-Zawahiri appears before a blackened backdrop. In the upper-right corner, there appears to be the edge of a wall or screen. By adjusting the contrast, Krawetz could see that the wall behind al-Zawahiri is a draped backdrop. Krawetz didn't show the final al-Qaida image, but it likely included a composite of images designed to disguise his true location and press a specific message. As was the case in the final image Krawetz showed.

An image of Azzam al-Almriki, another member of al-Qaida, showed the young man seated in an office with a computer and a stack of books. Image analysis shows that the books were added. What an odd detail, yet it must be there to convey added meaning.

Throughout his demonstration, Krawetz did not speculate on the reasons behind al-Qaida's image manipulation. His interest is only that the images were manipulated and that the specific changes could be revealed.

Fresh violence claims 19 lives in Pakistan

A Pakistani army soldier stands alert on a street in Parachinar, April 2007. Fresh violence has left 19 people, including four soldiers, dead in an escalation of the bloody unrest that has rocked Pakistan over the past month.
(AFP/Str/File)


Fresh violence claims 19 lives in Pakistan
08-04-2007, 08h28
ISLAMABAD (AFP)



Fresh violence left 19 people, including four soldiers, dead Saturday in an escalation of the bloody unrest that has rocked Pakistan over the past month.
The military said militants fired a barrage of rockets at security checkposts and then attacked one of them with automatic weapons in a restive tribal district near the Afghan border overnight.
"The miscreants fired 50 to 60 rockets at five posts before attacking one of the posts with automatic weapons in Dosali, in the North Waziristan tribal district," military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told AFP.
Fierce fighting ensued and the troops repelled the attackers, killing 10 rebels, Arshad said, adding that four soldiers also died in the battle.
About 50 kilometres (32 miles) to the north, in Parachinar town, a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into a taxi stand Saturday, killing at least five civilians.
Several cars and shops were also damaged in the attack, which officials linked to the wave of unrest gripping the country since the July 9-10 army raid on the pro-Taliban Red Mosque in the capital Islamabad.
"It was a suicide attack in Parachinar. Five civilians were killed and over 20 injured," said area security chief Arbab Mohammad Arif.
Local administration official Mujtaba Asghar said the attack happened at a taxi stand in front of a car showroom in the town, some 240 kilomtres (150 miles) west of Islamabad.
"Some public transport vehicles were parked on the road in front of the showroom when the bomber rammed his car and exploded," said Asghar.
The devastating blast damaged several vehicles and five shops.
"Human limbs and pieces of flesh were scattered around the site," witness Mohammad Sajjad said.
Officials said the violence trigged by the July 10 killing of Red Mosque senior cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi in the army raid has claimed more than 230 lives.
More than 100 people, mostly militants hiding in the mosque, were killed in the operation to clear it.
Interior ministry officials said there had been at least 13 suicide attacks since the mosque operation, including two in Islamabad --- one targeting a rally by the country's chief justice and the other a police contingent.
Pakistan has come under mounting pressure from the United States and European allies to act decisively against Taliban militants allegedly using its tribal region for attacks across the border.
Pakistan has also strengthened its military presence in the region following US intelligence warning that Al-Qaeda was regrouping in the tribal regions on its side of the border and planning attacks on the United States.
Islamabad has denied charges by Washington that the border regions have become a safe haven for an Al-Qaeda resurgence.

AFP

Suicide Car Blast Kills 9 in Pakistan

Pakistani army troops keep positions near the site of a suicide bombing in Parachinar, about 250 kilometers (150 miles) south of Peshawar, Pakistan on Saturday, August 4, 2007. A suicide attacker slammed an explosive-laden car into traffic at a busy bus station in northwestern Pakistan, unleashing a blast that killed nine people and wounded 35 others, officials said. (AP Photo/Dilawar Hussain)


Suicide Car Blast Kills 9 in Pakistan
By RIAZ KHAN 08.04.07, 6:24 AM ET

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -

A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb at a busy bus station in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least nine people and wounding 35 others, officials said.
Elsewhere in the region, four soldiers and 10 militants were killed in a checkpoint shootout.
The attacker rammed an explosive-laden car into another vehicle near a bus packed with passengers in Parachinar, a town in the North West Frontier Province, said Mohammed Kamal, a local police official.
"According to our information, it was a suicide attack, and the body parts of the attacker are being collected," Kamal said.
Sahabzada Mohammed Anis, the top government official in the town, said the dead and injured were rushed to hospitals in Parachinar, about 150 miles south of the provincial capital of Peshawar.
Mohammed Sultan, a doctor at the Parachinar Hospital, said they received five bodies after the blast, and that four of the injured died later. At least two other victims were still in critical condition, he said.
In the other attack Saturday, pro-Taliban militants assaulted a security checkpoint in Oblanki, a remote area of the North Waziristan tribal region, triggering a shootout that killed four soldiers and 10 militants, officials said. Five other soldiers were wounded, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad.
The security situation in Pakistan, especially in the tribal zone bordering Afghanistan, has been deteriorating for weeks, and almost daily attacks have killed more than 300 people.
Pakistan is a key ally of the United States in its war on terror, and it has deployed about 90,000 soldiers in its tribal regions since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to flush out remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaida, who are believed to be hiding there.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf is under increasing pressure from Washington to crack down in the tribal region.
The surge in violence has followed tribal leaders' withdrawal from a 2006 peace deal with the government, and amid widespread anger at an army raid of Islamabad's radical Red Mosque last month that left at least 102 people dead.
Arshad said Saturday's gunbattle raged for two hours and ended when the militants fled to nearby mountains with some of the bodies of slain associates.
A local intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media, said the assailants shouted "God is great" and used rockets, assault rifles and other munitions to target the checkpoint.
Two helicopter gunships were used to pursue the fleeing fighters, he said
Separately, militants fired eight rockets at a security checkpoint near Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, but caused no damage or casualties, the official said.
Pakistan used to be a main supporter of Afghanistan's former Taliban regime, but Musharraf switched sides after the attacks in the U.S. He has since said that his fight against terrorism would continue until it is reasonably assured that militancy, extremism and terrorism have been defeated.
Associated Press writers Bashirullah Khan in Miran Shah and Munir Ahmad in Islamabad contributed to this report.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

Tripartite agreement on voluntary return of Afghan refugees in Pakistan extended

Tripartite agreement on voluntary return of Afghan refugees in Pakistan extended

The Pakistani and Afghan governments and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Thursday extended the tripartite agreement governing the voluntary repatriation of registered Afghans from Pakistan for another three years.
The tripartite agreement, signed here Thursday by officials from the three parties, provides the legal and operational framework for the voluntary repatriation of Afghans from Pakistan, officials said.
To date, over 3 million Afghans have returned from Pakistan under the voluntary repatriation program since 2002, and there are about 2.05 million registered Afghans remaining in Pakistan.
A tripartite commission formed under the agreement meets three times a year to discuss and review issues related to the stay of Afghans in Pakistan and their voluntary repatriation to Afghanistan.
Under a tripartite agreement, first signed in 2003 between the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan and UNHCR, UNHCR was responsible to assist the repatriation of Refugees who want to return until 2005.
Later, the agreement had been extended several times but the ultimate goal was to find a final, durable solution to this human tragedy that began a quarter century ago, according to officials.
Source: Xinhua


Editorial: Afghan refugee mess
Daily Times, Pakistan
The people General Zia-ul-Haq welcomed from Afghanistan as “our own people” in 1978 are no longer wanted in 2007. Pakistan has reluctantly renewed its pledge with Afghanistan and the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) on Thursday that it would repatriate “voluntary” registered Afghan refugees in the next three years. It actually wants all of them back in Afghanistan, voluntary or not, but can’t do it in the face of global humanitarian concerns.
Since 2002, more than 3 million Afghans have returned under the voluntary repatriation programme of the UNHCR. If you have so far believed the figure of 3 million plus, prepare to make some revisions. The “registered” ones who remain in Pakistan are 2.5 million, which makes the total figure go up to nearly 6 million. Don’t even talk about the “unregistered” ones. And even less about Pakistan’s ability to hunt down the stragglers who have been born and grown up here and are now in their mid- and late-20s and able to bear arms.
General Zia spoke tongue-in-cheek when he said Pakistan should absorb the fleeing Afghans in Pakistan. Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, the man who headed the Afghan desk of Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI during the 1980s, in his book The Bear Trap, spoke the truth: “The refugee camps were places to which the Mujahideen (guerrillas) could return for rest and to see their families”. He also described the refugee camps as “a huge reservoir of potential recruits for jihad”. The policy has boomeranged and the refugees today are, in the eyes of its hosts, a “security risk” that Islamabad wants to remove in short order.
But the argument advanced by Pakistan for the repatriation of Afghan refugees is hardly credible. It says since the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan has ended, the refugees should return home. The truth is that after the “defeat” of the Soviet Union the Afghan mujahideen fought among themselves for several years and caused more refugees to flee instead of getting back the ones displaced by the Soviets. Mention too should be made of the Pakistan-supported Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001 when more refugees had to flee all kinds of Islamic punishments in Afghanistan. One can, however, accept Islamabad’s plaint that the latest batch came after 2000 because of the drought in Afghanistan.
In Pakistan, fleeing Afghan families were mostly absorbed in the NWFP and Balochistan. When the new population arrived in Peshawar the local population complained of being pushed out of their jobs. In the countryside, the cattle brought by the refugees denuded the grazing areas used by the local pastoral society. Islamabad, flush with money that it got for caring for the refugees, turned a deaf ear to these reports. Some of the international food assistance was consumed by the bureaucracy — for instance, cheese, which the Afghans didn’t want to eat — and the meat from slaughtered animals on Eid that came from Saudi Arabia, after it was “waylaid” on the way from Karachi to Peshawar.
By 1985, there were more than 300 refugee villages along the Durand Line. With the exception of a single camp in Mianwali district of Punjab, all were either in the NWFP or Balochistan. But the Afghans who were Pushtun by ethnicity spread out to all corners of the country, including Karachi, and the state soon lost control over their movement, especially as a Pakistan ID card was the easiest thing to obtain. A report says: “Refugees have acquired property, businesses and jobs, putting an economic squeeze on the permanent residents. The crime rate and violence have soared, including social evils like prostitution and drug addiction. In short, the Afghan war has corrupted Pakistani elites, administration and society and its social effect on Pakistan has given birth to many complex problems which are less obvious but quite disturbing”.
General Zia, himself a refugee from India, could hardly imagine the denouement of the grand shift of populations at Partition which permanently destroyed the peace of Sindh. (Most ethnic conflicts in the world start with migrations.) He presided over the beginning of another almost equally big migration from Afghanistan. No country in history has this kind of record: receiving two populations within fifty years after its creation. Yet most Pakistanis innocently wonder why the state seems so unprepared for survival!
Those who formulate Pakistan’s security strategies are actually clueless about Pakistan. Having coped badly with two massive migrations, they went into Afghanistan seeking “strategic depth” and are now stuck with a state that is reeling under occupation where terrorists going in from Pakistan’s “ungoverned spaces” prevent the infrastructural development that could enable the refugees to return voluntarily. The good money for looking after the refugees Pakistan used to get in the 1980s stopped after the Soviets left Afghanistan. Now there is a Pushtun Talibanisation in Pakistan and Islamabad is tragically looking at the refugees with suspicion. *

Autopsy confirms German hostage "shot dead" in Afghanistan

The kidnappers of the German hostages in Afghanistan (in a video from Tuesday): Two shots killed hostage Rüdiger Diedrich. al-Dschasira

MURDER IN AFGHANISTAN
Autopsy Shows Kidnappers Shot German Hostage

A German hostage victim whose body was found in Afghanistan in late July was shot by his kidnappers, an autopsy has found.
The kidnappers of the German hostages in Afghanistan (in a video from Tuesday): Two shots killed hostage Rüdiger Diedrich.
Autopsy results released on Thursday afternoon show that a German hostage found dead in Afghanistan just over a week ago died of injuries sustained from gunshot wounds. A spokesman for Germany's Foreign Ministry said Rüdiger Diedrich was shot and killed by his captors after a circulatory collapse.
Initially, German officials thought the hostage might have died of exhaustion after being taken on forced marches by his suspected Taliban kidnappers in mountainous Afghan terrain. An autopsy performed after his body was returned to Germany, however, determined that he had in fact suffered from a circulatory collapse, but that it didn't kill him. Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jäger said Thursday that his kidnappers shot him after his collapse. "After his collapse, the victim, who was still alive at the time, was shot twice," he said.
The autopsy report states that victim suffered a circulatory collapse because of "extreme duress caused during the kidnapping." The collapse, however, "did not cause the hostage's death." It adds that two initial bullets killed the hostage and that four further shots were fired at his body after his death.
Diedrich's corpse has been kept since being returned by jet to Germany at Cologne's Institute for Forensic Medicine. A second German hostage, identified only as Rudolf B., is still in the hands of the kidnappers. Intense negotiations are underway in an effort to secure his release.
An engineer from the German city of Teterow in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Diedrich was kidnapped together with colleague Rudolf B. on July 18. His body was found on July 22.
dsl/dpa/AP/Reuters




07:34, August 03, 2007
Autopsy confirms German hostage "shot dead" in Afghanistan

A German hostage kidnapped in Afghanistan last month died of gunshot wounds instead of heart attack as previously believed, German Foreign Ministry spokesman said Thursday after an autopsy of the body.
The 44-year-old engineer was abducted together with another German engineer, who is still alive, by a Taliban group two weeks ago.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said the autopsy showed that the engineer had collapsed but was still alive before the shots were fired.
A total of six bullet wounds were found in the body, he said.
The bullet-riddled body was flown back to Germany last week and the body has been under examination in the western city of Cologne.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is visiting Ghana as part of his African tour, said Thursday that " this crime must not be allowed to go unpunished."
"His abductors...finally put an end to his life is a criminal manner," he said.
The government is trying everything it could to free the second hostage who is reportedly suffering from high blood pressure and need regular medication, said the minister.
Al Jazeera television on Tuesday broadcast a video showing the German begging for help from the German government in a hilly area.
The video was a deliberate attempt to intimidate German government, said German Foreign Ministry.
The purported Taliban group has demanded the departure of all German soldiers from Afghanistan and the release of captured Taliban militants.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel had reaffirmed Friday that Germany will not give in to blackmails and will not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
Germany now has about 3,000 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan under the command of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), most of them in the relatively stable northern region.
The two German nationals and five of their Afghan colleagues, who are civil engineers working on a dam project in Afghanistan, were reportedly abducted Wednesday in Wardak province, about 100 km southwest of Kabul.
Source: Xinhua




Rudolf B. appears in good health and negotiators believe he is stable. al-Jazeera


SPIEGEL ONLINE - August 1, 2007, 02:00 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,497610,00.html
PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE
Taliban Ramp Up Pressure on Germany with Hostage Video

Negotiators continue to work for the release of German hostage Rudolf B. following the broadcast of a video showing the engineer. However sources say that the video was likely made days ago.
Rudolf B. appears in good health and negotiators believe he is stable.
German officials appeared nonplussed Wednesday following the broadcast of a video showing German hostage Rudolf B., who was kidnapped on July 18 in Afghanistan, surrounded by armed fighters in the mountains of southwest Afghanistan.
In a statement Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jäger called the video, which was broadcast Tuesday night on the Arabic channel Al-Jazeera, "a targeted ... document designed to intimidate." Terrorism expert Rolf Tophoven agreed, telling the news agency Associated Press that it was clear hostage-takers wanted to use the one-minute video to "up the pressure massively."
Representatives of the Afghanistan government and local leaders have made regular trips into the mountain region near Wardak in southern Afghanistan, where Rudolf B. and four Afghanis have been held for almost two weeks, to talk with the hostage-takers.
Speaking on German broadcaster ZDF, Social Democrat floor leader and former defense minister Peter Struck said he believed the 62-year-old engineer had a chance of survival because it's unclear "whether we're dealing with a political group or a simple criminal organization."
'Local Criminals' Responsible
German government officials told SPIEGEL ONLINE they believe the latter. Though such a video is normally used by hostage-takers to push their political demands, officials continue to believe Rudolf B., along with the four Afghanis he was travelling with, find themselves in the hands of a band of local criminals lead by Mullah Nissam. Though he has ties to the Taliban, Nissam is not believed to be a Taliban leader.
The sources also said they believed the video to be days old. The USB memory stick on which it was sent to the broadcaster showed that the video was last altered on July 28. However the video cannot be older than a few days, as the fleece jacket Rudolf B. is wearing was sent to him through the negotiators by the German embassy in Kabul at the end of last week.
Rudolf B. was kidnapped along with colleague Rüdiger Diedrich and five Afghanis on July 18. Diedrich died shortly after his kidnapping of unknown causes. German doctors are conducting an autopsy in Cologne this week to determine his cause of death.
Based on daily conversations via satellite telephone with Rudolf B., officials at the German Embassy in Kabul have gotten the impression that he is stable and in good health, something now confirmed in part by the video.
In it, Rudolf B. speaks in barely audible English. According to Al-Jazeera, the hostage victim read a list of demands, which included the pull-out of German troops in Afghanistan. The broadcaster denied reports that the release of 12 Taliban prisoners was also among the demands.
Tophoven said he believes the video was intentionally released a few days after it was made, for maximum effect. "The timing on such a video is important," Tophoven told AP. "It's a type of psychological warfare, a game of nerves."
Military Operation to Free Korean Hostages?
In the interview, Struck added his voice to a chorus of German government officials who said they would not be blackmailed.
"We can't respond to such demands," Struck told German television broadcaster ZDF. Were Germany to do that, he said, "there would immediately be copycat crimes."
As the German government works for Rudolf B.'s release, the South Korean government is trying to take up direct contact with Taliban fighters holding 21 Koreans hostage since July 19. On Monday, Taliban killed their second Korean hostage in a week after their demands that at least eight Taliban prisoners be released went unmet.
Until now, the Korean and Afghan governments have been negotiating through middlemen in the Ghazni province in central Afghanistan. The Korean government now wants to deal directly with the group of fighters and consult more with the US government, according to the Korean news agency Yonhap.
Meanwhile, evidence began to mount that a military option might soon be underway. Afghan army helicopters on Wednesday dropped leaflets in Ghazni province -- where the Koreans were kidnapped and are being held -- warning people of a military operation in the area.

Taliban claims to have kidnapped Indian engineer

This picture taken 10 October 2004, shows Pakistani tribal leader Abdullah Mahsud offering prayers in an open space in the Chagmaly area of South Waziristan district bordering Afghanistan. One of Pakistan's top Taliban militants, wanted for the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers in 2004, blew himself up during a clash with security forces. Abdullah Mehsud killed himself with a hand grenade after troops raided a hideout in the Zhob district of southwestern Baluchistan province late Monday(AFP/File)

15:11, August 03, 2007

Taliban claims to have kidnapped Indian engineer

The Taliban on Friday claimed that it had kidnapped an Indian engineer in Baghlan province of northern Afghanistan.
A local Taliban commander Bahlol said Taliban fighters abducted the Indian engineer, who was working at a local power project, on Thursday in Puli Khumri, the provincial capital.
The engineer has been brought to the central Ghazni province, where 23 South Koreans were abducted on July 19, he added.
However, police chief in Baghlan and officials in Ghazni said they did not hear the alleged abduction.
Taliban militants have carried out kidnappings in this country over the past two years frequently, and some hostages were killed by the Taliban.
Source: Xinhua

Security forces face attacks

A Pakistani policemen mans a bunker in the Swat district of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), 15 July. The administration of President George W. Bush plans to pour 750 million dollars worth of aid into Pakistan’s tribal areas in a bid to wrest it away from Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, The New York Times reported on its website late Sunday(AFP/Tariq Mahmood)



3 security men killed in Pakistan's tribal area

Three security men were killed Monday in Pakistan's tribal area near the Afghan border, military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said.
Earlier, local press reports said that militants fired rockets at the airfield of a Pakistan army base in the tribal region.
They quoted local officials as saying that security forces responded with artillery fire after two rockets hit their camp just after midnight in Miranshah, the main town in the troubled North Waziristan tribal district.
Arshad said that security forces have set up four new checkposts in Miranshah's main bazaar to prevent attacks and stop thefts and looting.
Reports said that the army's creation of new checkpoints was a major factor in the breakdown of the peace accord between the local militants and the government.
Source: Xinhua




Security forces' vehicle attacked in Pakistan's tribal area

A vehicle of security forces was attacked Tuesday in Pakistan's tribal region of South Waziristan bordering Afghanistan, causing some casualties, according to local TV reports.
Meanwhile, the military has launched attacks in the neighboring tribal region of North Waziristan, targeting militants' hideouts, the reports said.
Source: Xinhua


Five injured in bomb blast in NW Pakistan

At least five people, including a policeman and an employee of a secret agency, were injured in a bomb blast in northwestern Pakistan Friday, the police said.
The bomb was planted outside a cycle shop near a police station in the town of Srai Nurang in the North West Frontier Province ( NWFP), the police said.
The bomb exploded with huge bang, creating panic in the town, witnesses said.
Police stations have been targeted in recent series of bomb blasts and suicide attacks in the NWFP.
No group has claimed responsibility of the blast.
Source: Xinhua


Pakistani PM condemns terrorist attack on spokesman

Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Friday strongly condemned a terrorist attack in southwestern Pakistan in which the spokesman of Baluchistan government was killed.
Aziz said that such acts of terrorism only serve the cause of anti-state elements who want to destabilize the country and create chaos.
He reiterated that these agents of terror would not be able to succeed in their evil designs as the government and the people of Pakistan are determined to eliminate such elements from the society.
Aziz expressed his heart-felt condolences over the death of Razik Bugti, the spokesman of Baluchistan government.
Two gunmen riding a motorcycle fired at Razik Bugti and killed him on Friday.
Source: Xinhua