Vengeful new terrorist group emerges in Pakistan

Authorities now believe a dangerous new militant group, out to avenge a deadly army assault on the Lal Masjid in Islamabad three years ago, has carried out several major bombings in the capital previously blamed on the Taliban. The emergence of the Ghazi Force was part of the outrage among many Pakistani Muslims over the July 2007 attack. The fierce attack inspired a new generation of militants who have turned against a government they felt has betrayed them and, to their dismay, backed the US role in Afghanistan.

The brief but bloody history of the Ghazi Force illustrates the unintended results of Pakistan’s policy of promoting extremists to fight India in Indian-held Kashmir. The new group is made up of relatives of students who died in the Lal Masjid assault. It is named after their leader, Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who was also killed. The mosque’s adjacent madrassa had been a sanctuary for militants opposed to Pakistan’s support of the war in Afghanistan.

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Al Qaeda's Pakistan Lair Captured

In what is being hailed as a major victory against al Qaeda and its allies, Pakistani forces announced the capture of caves described as the nerve centre of militant activity on the Afghan-Pakistan border. An elaborate network of over 150 caves, believed to have once housed Al Qaeda's number two Ayman al Zawahiri, was revealed to journalists by the Pakitani military

"The location of Bajaur, especially Damadola, is very significant. The militants controlled their operations from this place," Maj. Gen. Attar Abbas, Pakistani army spokesman, said. The caves are impossible to spot from the air, but inside the tunnels carved into the moutains was a warehouse of military supplies including stockpiles of guns and ammunition, bazookas, artillery shells, rocket propelled grenades, mines and stolen U.S. army uniforms. Some of the material was from Iraq, others from Iran.

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India says investigating blast, Pakistan talks on

Security officials were investigating the possible involvement of Pakistan - based militants in a bomb blast in western India that killed nine people, but New Delhi said talks with Islamabad later this month would go ahead. The bomb, left in a backpack at the popular German Bakery in the city of Pune on Saturday, wounded 60 and appeared to target Indian and foreign tourists. Senior internal security sources, who declined to be named, said the focus had fallen on Pakistan-based separatist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which has been blamed for the Mumbai attacks, and a local militant group called Indian Mujahideen (IM) because both had been behind bombings in India in the past. "As of now our line of investigation is toward the possible involvement of LeT, a sleeper module of the Indian Mujahideen could also be involved," a senior interior security official overseeing the investigation told Reuters. Both groups are fighting against Indian rule in Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan region. "Nothing is ruled out, nothing is ruled in. The investigation is in progress," Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said.

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