'Rabbani killer duped us with peace CD' - Hamid Karzai

Officials at the very highest levels were deceived by the suicide bomber who killed Afghanistan's peace talks chief, President Hamid Karzai says.

Burhanuddin Rabbani was killed in his own home on Tuesday while meeting two men claiming to be from the Taliban.

The attacker purported to have a "message of peace" from the Taliban and had sent a CD which even the president heard, to get access to Mr Rabbani.

Officials say they believed the message would signal a major breakthrough.

"It was not a peace message. It was a trick," President Karzai told reporters after he cut short his visit to the US following the killing.
"The messenger was the killer," he is quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying.
The death of Mr Rabbani, who was chair of the country's High Peace Council and a former president, is a severe blow for the Afghan president and analysts say it could be the biggest setback for peace in Afghanistan for years.
No group has said it carried out the attack but Afghan intelligence officials say they believe it must have taken months to plan.
On Wednesday, the Taliban issued their first public statement on the killing, saying they did not want to comment.
Turban bomber
President Karzai said that before he left for the US last weekend one of his advisers, Masoom Stanakzai, who was also injured in the blast told him that the Taliban had an significant message for the High Peace Council.

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Burhanuddin Rabbani

• Senior figure in the mujahideen who fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s
• President of Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996 and then again in 2001
• Senior member of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance from 1996 to 2001
• Made leader of Peace Council constituted by Afghan President Hamid Karzai tasked with negotiating with the Taliban

• Obituary: Burhanuddin Rabbani
• Rabbani death endangers Taliban talks

They had sent an audio recording to the peace council: "There were a couple of questions and suggestions mentioned regarding peace," Mr Karzai is quoted by the AP news agency as saying.

Officials have said Mr Stanakzai was very optimistic about the contents of the CD. A document found by investigators in the pocket of the suicide bomber, and shown to the BBC, is a transcript of the CD.
The peace council had been in touch with a man purporting to represent the Taliban high command based in the Pakistani city of Quetta, and who said he would send a messenger to Kabul.
''Mr. Masoom Stanakzai believed that the High Peace Council was on the verge of a major breakthrough. That it was achieving something big. The visitors had stayed at a High Peace Council Guest House for several days," an intelligence official told the BBC's Bilal Sarwary.
Mr Rabbani cut short a visit to Dubai on hearing that the visitors were waiting for him and within an hour of arriving in Kabul, Mr Rabbani went to his house to meet them.
The two men went to embrace Mr Rabbani, and one of them then detonated a bomb concealed in his turban.
Series of assassinations
When the High Peace Council was set up in October 2010, Mr Karzai described it as the greatest hope for the Afghan people and called on the Taliban to seize the opportunity and help bring peace.

But many members of the council are former warlords who spent years fighting the Taliban and their inclusion led to doubts as to whether it could succeed in its mission.

Our correspondent says Mr Rabbani's appointment as head was a surprise. Some had even called for him to be indicted for war crimes in his previous role with the mujahideen.

In the 1970s it was Mr Rabbani who founded the parties that ended up becoming the Afghan mujahideen who took on the Soviets, and many blame him and his friends for the death and destruction of the civil war days.

Mr Rabbani was ousted as president by the Taliban in 1996. After that he became the nominal head of the Northern Alliance.

When they swept back into Kabul, backed by US forces, and toppled the Taliban in 2001, he was still recognised by the UN as the official president of Afghanistan.

The killing is the latest in a series of assassinations of senior figures.

In July, President Karzai's half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai was killed at his home in Kandahar. Two months earlier, Gen Daud Daud, the top police commander in northern Afghanistan was killed in a suicide bomb attack

PM leaves for Kabul to condole Rabbani’s assassination

Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani on Thursday left here for Kabul to condole with Afghanistan’s leadership over the death of Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, Chairman of High Peace Council. Talking to reporters prior his departure, Gilani described Prof Rabbani “a personal friend and a great leader of Afghan people” and said it would be hard to fill the vacuum caused by his death. He recalled two of his very successful meetings to discuss the peace process with Prof. Rabbani and said his leadership was acceptable both to Pakistan and Afghanistan. He said the late Afghan leader had convinced the Afghan government that Pakistan was a friend of Afghanistan.

Pakistan brushes aside US allegations of waging proxy war

Pakistan has said that it was not waging proxy war against any country. Foreign office spokesperson Tehmina Janjua in a weekly briefing on Thursday told media the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was not waging proxy war and the Haqqani network was not being used as proxy. Brushing aside US allegations of regarding Haqqani’s presence in Pakistan she said the issues had been raised with the United States on military and State Department levels. “If they have any evidence in this regard they should share with us,” she said. The spokesperson said that Pakistan condemned act of terrorism that take place in Pakistan, Afghanistan or any other country and was determined to fight against terrorism.

Sattar terms Wikileaks May 12 allegations baseless

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader Farooq Sattar has termed the Wikileaks allegations regarding May 12, 2007 carnage as baseless. Speaking at a news conference here on Thursday the MQM leader said that his party was not involved in the May 12 incident instead it was itself a victim. “ May 12 was a conspiracy against the MQM”, he said, adding that 14 party workers were killed and 50 wounded in the carnage. The allegations that have been attributed to me are baseless and I reject them.

U.S. says ISI supported Kabul embassy attack

The Haqqani militant network is a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's powerful ISI intelligence service, which supported the group as it launched a startling attack last week on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, the top U.S. military officer said on Thursday. "The Haqqani network ... acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency," Admiral Mike Mullen, who steps down this month as chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in prepared remarks to a U.S. Senate panel. The Haqqani network is one of three -- and perhaps the most feared -- allied insurgent factions fighting U.S.-led NATO and Afghan troops under the Taliban banner in Afghanistan. "With ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted (a September 11) truck bomb attack, as well as the assault on our embassy," Mullen said. "We also have credible intelligence that they were behind the June 28 attack against the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul and a host of other smaller but effective operations."

We will veto Palestinian statehood bid : Obama

Latest News / Washington: President Barack Obama told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday that U.N. action would not achieve a Palestinian state and the United States would veto any Security Council move to recognize Palestinian statehood, the White House said.”We would have to oppose any action at the U.N.

Security Council including, if necessary, vetoing,’Ben Rhodes, the White House national security council spokesman, told reporters after Obama met Abbas in New York.

Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Abbas and former chief of negotiations, said before the meeting with Obama that Abbas had no plans to agree to a delayed vote on U.N. membership.

Obama echoed comments earlier by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said direct negotiation was the only way to achieve a stable Middle East peace and the Palestinian effort to secure U.N. recognition of statehood “will not succeed.”

Netanyahu made the remarks at a meeting with Obama, who reiterated the unwavering U.S. commitment to Israel and told world leaders gathered at the U.N.

General Assembly that efforts to impose peace on Israel and the Palestinians would not work

US not serious about statehood for Palestine: Faisal

Obama and Netanyahu spoke at the start of a meeting the two leaders had on the sidelines of the U.N. session.

Obama sought to head off a showdown over Palestinian statehood and pull his Middle East policy back from the brink of diplomatic disaster, Obama told the U.N.

General Assembly, “There is no shortcut to the end of a conflict that has endured for decades, meanwhile “Observer Islamic Countries” spokesman condemn U.S.stand against the effort of Palestinian state and said US not serious about statehood for Palestine talking with US news agency Faisal Muhammed said Obamas statement shows that still he is not ready for meaningful help to resolve Palestine issue. – EPakistanNews / UNN

US Senate ties Pakistan aid to Haqqani crackdown

WASHINGTON:- A US Senate committee voted on Wednesday to make economic and security aid to Pakistan conditional on its cooperation in fighting militants such as the Haqqani network, which Washington blames for last week’s attack on the US embassy in Kabul.
The Senate Appropriations Committee decision reflected lawmakers’ anger at Islamabad over militants who operate out of Pakistan and battle US troops in Afghanistan.
Washington has pressed Pakistan to go after the Haqqani network, which it believes enjoys sanctuaries in Pakistan’s unruly ethnic Pashtun tribal region on the Afghan border.
The Senate committee did not specify any amount for economic aid to Pakistan for fiscal 2012, leaving it up to the Obama administration to set the level and notify Congress – or provide nothing at all.
“If the administration wants to provide zero, that’d be OK with us,” said Republican Senator Mark Kirk, one of the more vocal critics of Pakistan on the panel.
The committee did approve $1 billion for the Pakistan Counter-insurgency Capability Fund, which was created in 2009 to help Pakistan’s military develop counter-insurgency capabilities to fight Islamist militants within its borders.
But the committee voted to make this aid, as well as any economic aid that is provided, conditional on Pakistan’s cooperating with Washington against several militant groups.
In addition to the Haqqani network, these groups include al Qaeda and the Quetta Shura – the remains of the Afghan Taliban government overthrown and driven into Pakistan by the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
They also include Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Punjab-based group blamed for attacks on Mumbai, India, in November 2008.
The restrictions were part of a foreign aid bill that the committee approved and sent to the Senate floor. It will have to be reconciled with the House of Representatives, where lawmakers in one subcommittee have voted similar restrictions.
Pakistan also gets US military aid via the Pentagon budget. But Washington is already withholding $800 million of that aid this year as ties have come under mounting strain.
Many lawmakers have been calling for aid to Pakistan to be reduced since US special forces found and killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin laden in a Pakistan military town on May 2.
Washington has allocated about $20 billion for Pakistan over the last decade. In fiscal 2010, Congress approved $1.7 billion for economic aid for Pakistan, and $2.7 billion in security aid, the Congressional Research Service says