Negative Blogs

The Pakistani army said Sunday that it was investigating reports that Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud died from injuries sustained in a U.S. drone missile strike in mid-January.

The militant leader’s death would be an important success for both Pakistan, which has been battling the Pakistani Taliban, and the U.S., which blames Mehsud for a recent deadly bombing against the CIA in Afghanistan.

The army’s disclosure came shortly after Pakistani state television, citing unnamed “official sources,” reported that Mehsud died in Orakzai, an area in Pakistan’s northwest tribal region where he was reportedly being treated for his injuries.

“We have these reports coming to us,” army spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas told The Associated Press. “We are investigating whether it is true or wrong.”

A tribal elder told the AP that he attended Mehsud’s funeral in the Mamuzai area of Orakzai on Thursday. He said Mehsud was buried in Mamuzai graveyard after he died at his in-laws’ home. The elder spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the Taliban.

Pakistani intelligence officials have said that Mehsud was targeted in a U.S. drone strike in South Waziristan on Jan. 14, triggering rumors that he had been injured or killed. The strike targeted a meeting of militant commanders in the Shaktoi area of South Waziristan.

Mehsud issued two audio tapes after the strike denying the rumors. But Pakistani intelligence officials told the AP on Sunday that they have confirmation that the Taliban chief’s legs and abdomen were wounded in the strike.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Pakistani Taliban officials were not immediately available for comment, but low-level fighters have dismissed rumors of Mehsud’s death in recent days as propaganda.

The drone strike that targeted Mehsud came about two weeks after a deadly suicide bombing he helped orchestrate killed seven CIA employees at a remote base across the border in Afghanistan. Mehsud appeared in a video issued after the bombing sitting beside the Jordanian man who carried out the attack.

The bomber, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, said he carried out the attack in retribution for the death of former Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud — Hakimullah Mehsud’s predecessor — in a U.S. drone strike last August.

The U.S. refuses to talk about the covert CIA-run drone program in Pakistan but officials have said privately that the strikes have killed several senior Taliban and al-Qaida leaders.

Pakistani officials publicly protest the strikes as violations of the country’s sovereignty, but U.S. officials say privately they support the program, especially when it targets militants like Mehsud who the government believes is a threat to the state.

Mehsud, who has the reputation as a particularly ruthless militant, took over leadership of the Pakistani Taliban soon after Baitullah Mehsud’s death.

The 28 year-old militant leader has focused most of his attacks against targets inside Pakistan, but his men have also been blamed for attacking U.S. and NATO supply convoys traveling through the country en route to Afghanistan.

Hakimullah Mehsud first appeared in public to journalists in November 2008, when he offered to take reporters in Orakzai on a ride in a U.S. Humvee taken from a supply truck headed to Afghanistan. He was the Pakistani Taliban’s regional commander in the Orakzai, Khyber and Mohmand tribal areas before taking over the organization.

He has taken responsibility for a wave of brazen strikes inside Pakistan, including the bombing of the Pearl Continental hotel in the northwestern city of Peshawar last June and the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore earlier that year. There is a 50 million rupee ($590,000) bounty on his head.

The Pakistani Taliban stepped up its attacks after the army invaded its stronghold of South Waziristan in mid-October. More than 600 people have been killed in attacks throughout the country since the ground offensive was launched.

Pakistani officials have said some of the militants have fled to neighboring North Waziristan, an area dominated by groups launching cross-border attacks against U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

The army struck deals with the leaders of two of those groups, Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir, before it invaded South Waziristan, promising not to target the militants if they stayed on the sidelines.

An umbrella group that includes the two militants and the Pakistani Taliban issued a pamphlet in North Waziristan on Sunday accusing the government of violating the agreement and warning it would trigger a major war if it launched any kind of military operation in the area.

The pamphlet issued by the Shura-e-Ittehad-ul-Mujahedeen, or Council of United Holy Warriors, said the government violated the agreement in various ways, including by creating a network of spies in North Waziristan who helped the U.S. kill militants in drone attacks.

“We have tolerated all sorts of mistreatment, but now we are not going to accept any kind of military operation in even our smallest area,” said the pamphlet, a copy of which was obtained by the AP.

The Pakistani army has said it cannot launch another major operation for at least six months, but it has carried out two strikes in North Waziristan in the past two weeks.

“Westerners have some regard for civilians and they do distinguish between Taliban fighters and civilians, but the Pakistani army doesn’t,” said the pamphlet in a rare admission for a militant group. “Instead of the Taliban, it is bombing ordinary people’s homes and their bazaars and killing innocent people.” Hard money training.

China moved swiftly on Saturday to suspend military exchanges with the United States after Washington’s announcement of arms sales to Taiwan, widening rifts in their far-reaching relationship.

The Defense Ministry, in a strongly-worded statement carried by the official Xinhua news agency, condemned the proposed U.S. sale of weapons to self-ruled and democratic Taiwan, which China considers an illegitimate breakaway province.

“Considering the severe harm and odious effect of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, the Chinese side has decided to suspend planned mutual military visits,” Xinhua quoted the ministry as saying.

Qian Lihua, director of China’s Defense Ministry Foreign Affairs Office, also summoned the U.S. defense attache to lodge a “solemn protest” about the sales, Xinhua added.

The Obama administration told the U.S. Congress on Friday of the proposed sales to Taiwan, a potential $6.4 billion package including Black Hawk helicopters, Patriot “Advanced Capability-3″ anti-missile missiles, and two refurbished Osprey-class mine-hunting ships.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei told the U.S. ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, that the arms deal could jeopardize bonds with Washington, which has looked to China for help in surmounting the financial crisis, dealing with Iran and North Korea, and fighting climate change.

The U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have joined trade imbalances, currency disputes, human rights, the Internet, and Tibet among rifts dividing the world’s biggest and third-biggest economies.

Washington and Beijing have also recently traded angry words about Internet policy after the search engine giant Google Inc earlier this month threatened to shut its Chinese google.cn portal and pull out of China, citing censorship problems and hacking attacks.

In coming months Obama may meet the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader China calls a dangerous separatist, adding to Beijing’s ire with Washington.

Vice Minister He hinted the anger would be felt in a number of areas.

“The United States’ announcement of the planned weapons sales to Taiwan will have a seriously negative impact on many important areas of exchanges and cooperation between the two countries,” said He in the remarks, published on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Web site.

He said the arms sales were “crude interference in China’s domestic affairs and seriously harm China’s national security”, words notably tougher than Beijing’s recent statements on the issue.

“This will lead to repercussions that neither side wishes to see,” said He. He urged the U.S. to halt the planned sales. Hard money training.

Pakistan security forces battled militants close to the Afghan border Friday in fighting that has killed 44 suspected insurgents over the last three days, a government official said.

There was no independent confirmation of the fighting or the identities of the dead in Bajur, a tribal region where al-Qaida and Taliban have long had a presence. The Pakistan army launched a major operation in Bajur against the militants in 2008 that it claimed had cleared the area of militants, but clashes have continued since then.

Abdul Kabir, the top-ranking official in Bajur, said several troops had been injured in the fighting in the Slarzai area. He said the clashes began Wednesday when troops began helping a council of tribal elders in evicting Taliban from the area.

He said 21 militants were killed Friday, following 23 killed in the two preceding days.

Pakistan has launched a series of offensives against militants in the tribal areas, pushing them back in some areas. But Western countries want the army to continue pressing the fight because Taliban fighters in Afghanistan use the region as base from which to attack NATO and U.S. forces.

Also Friday in the northwest, a bomb destroyed a truck carrying oil to NATO troops in Afghanistan.

No one was wounded in the attack on the supply truck in the fabled Khyber Pass, government official Javed Khan said.

A large portion of non-lethal supplies for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan are trucked through Pakistan. Militants occasionally attack the trucks, but the strikes have had little impact on operations in Afghanistan.

In the southwest, gunmen killed three Shiite Muslims on their way to visit holy sites in Iraq in an apparent sectarian attack.

Local police official Mohammad Ayaz said the group of travelers had come to Quetta city from the southern city of Karachi, and had hoped to travel across Iran to Iraq. The group was waiting in a bus Friday afternoon when the gunmen appeared on motorbikes and opened fire.

Two men and one woman were killed, while three other people were wounded, Ayaz said.

Police did not accuse any particular militant group Friday, but Quetta has in the past witnessed violence against Shiite Muslims. The attacks are often blamed on Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni Muslim extremist group with ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Pakistan is a Sunni-majority country, and most of its Shiite and Sunni residents live in harmony. However, extremists from both sects occasionally target one another’s leaders. Hard money training.

A mudslide on the famed Inca trail to Machu Picchu killed an Argentine tourist and a Peruvian guide Tuesday, as authorities evacuated hundreds of tourists by helicopter from a flood zone where more than 1,500 others were still stranded.

Cuzco government spokesman Hernet Moscoso said the Argentine, identified as Lucia Ramallo, 23, and the guide, Washington Huaraya, were in their tents when a slope gave way and their tents were crushed. Three other tourists were injured.

Authorities closed the Inca trail, a popular tourist trek that follows a stone path built by the ancient civilization from their capital, Cuzco, to the Machu Picchu citadel.

The deaths raised to five the number of people killed by heavy rains that have caused floods and landslides and collapsed homes, Moscoso said.

Of the 2,000 stranded tourists in the villages of Machu Picchu Pueblo and Aguas Calientes near the citadel, government and private helicopters managed to fly 475 to safety Tuesday, Tourism Minister Martin Perez said.

“Tomorrow, if God helps us and the weather permits us, we should be able to get out 700 or 800 tourists in eight hours,” Perez said.

Hundreds of tourists were caught in the villages Sunday because mudslides blocked the railway to Cuzco, which is the only way in or out of the Machu Picchu area.

Peruvian and U.S. authorities sent four Peruvian military helicopters and four U.S. counternarcotics helicopters to bolster rescue efforts Tuesday. The U.S. helicopters are based in Peru and normally used for drug interdiction and police training.

Rail operator Perurail also rented two helicopters to ferry in supplies and evacuate tourists, the company said in a statement.

There was no immediate word on how many people were taken out.

In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said about 400 American citizens were believed to be stranded.

“These are difficult conditions,” he told reporters. “We’ve moved some embassy personnel from Lima to the area as well to try to provide assistance to the Peruvian police and military authorities.”

Some 700 Argentines, 309 Chileans and 30 Uruguayans were also stranded in Machu Picchu Pueblo, according to those countries’ embassies in Lima.

Five days of torrential rains in the Cuzco region have destroyed bridges, 250 houses and hundreds of acres (hectares) of crops, while blocking highways and the railway to Machu Picchu.

Perurail suspended train service Sunday due to mudslides and the flooding of the Urubamba River.

Tourists slept in Machu Picchu village’s train station and the central plaza after hostels ran out of space, while restaurants raised prices as food became scarce.

Travelers “are angry and worried, and some are getting desperate,” said Ruben Baldeon, the town spokesman.

Local media reported some tourists were trying to walk back along the tracks to a highway outside Cuzco.

Alberto Bisbal, disaster prevention director at Peru’s Civil Defense Institute, told The Associated Press that Perurail and the government were working to clear rock and mud from the tracks, and service might be able to resume Wednesday.

The downpours stopped Tuesday morning, but meteorologists predicted light precipitation for the rest of the week.

The rainy season in Peru’s southern highlands is expected to last through March. Hard money training.

North Korea fired artillery rounds toward its disputed sea border with South Korea on Wednesday, prompting a barrage of warning shots from the South’s military and raising tensions on the divided peninsula.

No casualties or damage were reported, and analysts said the volley — which the North announced was part of a military drill — was likely a move by Pyongyang to highlight the need for a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War.

North Korea fired about 30 artillery rounds into the sea from its western coast and the South immediately responded with 100 shots from a marine base on an island near the sea border, an officer at the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said. The North said it would continue to fire rounds.

He said the North’s artillery fire landed in its own waters while the South fired into the air. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy.

The western sea border — drawn by the American-led U.N. Command at the close of the 1950-53 Korean War — is a constant source of tension between the two Koreas, with the North insisting the line be moved farther south.

Navy ships of the two Koreas fought a brief gunbattle in November that left one North Korean sailor dead and three others wounded. They engaged in similar bloody skirmishes in 1999 and 2002.

North Korea issued a statement later Wednesday saying it had fired artillery off its coast as part of an annual military drill and would continue doing so.

Such drills “will go on in the same waters in the future,” the General Staff of the (North) Korean People’s Army said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The North fired more shots later Wednesday, but South Korea didn’t respond, a Defense Ministry official said, also requesting anonymity due to department policy.

The exchange of fire came two days after the North designated two no-sail zones in the area, including some South Korean-held waters, through March 29.

The North has sent a series of mixed signals to the South recently, combining offers of dialogue on economic cooperation with military threats, including one this month to destroy South Korea’s presidential palace. South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young, meanwhile, angered Pyongyang by saying Seoul’s military should launch a pre-emptive strike if there was a clear indication the North was preparing a nuclear attack.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry sent the North’s military a message Wednesday expressing serious concern about the firing and saying it fostered “unnecessary tension” between the two sides.

It also urged the North to retract the no-sail zones, calling them a “grave provocation” and a violation of the Korean War armistice. The war ended with a truce, but not a formal peace treaty.

Separately, South Korea’s point man on North Korea criticized Pyongyang for raising tension near the sea border.

“This kind of North Korean attitude is quite disappointing,” Unification Minister Hyun In-taek told a security forum in Seoul.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said it was the first time that North Korea has fired artillery toward the sea border. The Joint Chiefs of Staff officer said the North Korean artillery shells were believed to have fallen into the no-sail zones about 1.75 miles (3 kilometers) north of the maritime border.

Top South Korean presidential secretary Chung Chung-kil convened an emergency meeting of security-related officials on behalf of President Lee Myung-bak, who was making a state visit to India, according to the presidential Blue House. It said Lee was informed of the incident.

Yoo Ho-yeol, a professor of North Korean studies at Korea University in South Korea, said the North’s action was aimed at highlighting the need for a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War by showing that the peninsula is still a war zone.

“It’s applying pressure on the U.S. and South Korea,” Yoo said. He said North Korea also was expressing anger over South Korea’s lukewarm response to a series of recent gestures seeking dialogue.

Earlier this month, North Korea called for the signing of a peace treaty and the lifting of sanctions as conditions for its return to stalled nuclear disarmament talks it quit last year.

The U.S. and South Korea, however, brushed aside the North’s demands, saying they can happen only after it returns to the disarmament negotiations and reports progress in denuclearization.

Despite the exchange of fire, the capitals of the two Koreas were calm.

North Koreans in Pyongyang wearing thick winter coats walked briskly through the streets while a female police officer directed traffic and a crowded tram passed by, according to footage shot by broadcaster APTN.

The military tensions had little effect on South Korean financial markets. Seoul’s benchmark stock index fell less than 1 percent, while South Korea’s currency, the won, rose against the U.S. dollar. Hard money training.

A suicide car bomber killed at least 18 and injured dozens more Tuesday in a strike against a police crime lab in central Baghdad, a day after several hotels were also hit by suicide attacks, officials said.

The latest blast came as family members of the Saddam Hussein stalwart known as “Chemical Ali” arrived in Baghdad to collect his body for an afternoon burial. Ali Hassan al-Majid was hanged Monday after a series of convictions for atrocities that included mass killings and crimes against humanity.

This week’s bombings — all against prominent and heavily fortified targets — dealt yet another blow to the image of an Iraqi government struggling to answer for security lapses that have allowed bombers to carry out a number of massive attacks in the heart of the capital since August.

The timing of this week’s deadly bombings have prompted speculation among some Iraqis that the attacks were retaliation for the death sentence. But the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. Raymond Odierno, dismissed those claims, saying there was “absolutely no connection” between the attacks and the execution.

“We didn’t turn Chemical Ali over until yesterday afternoon. … There was no way anybody could have known about that,” Odierno told reporters Tuesday during a question-and-answer session with reporters in his office at Camp Victory, the sprawling U.S. military headquarters on the outskirts of Baghdad.

In Halabja, the scene of a 1988 poison gas attack that cemented Chemical Ali’s infamy, more than 400 Kurdish government officials and families who lost loved ones in the gassing defied the January chill to gather in a cemetery and at a monument to the victims of the attack.

“I am wondering which of my family’s graves I would visit first to tell them about the death of Chemical Ali so they can sleep in peace,” said Parvin Kamal Jalal, a 53-year-old woman who said she lost her parents and 12 other family members in the attack.

Rescue crews are still combing through the rubble looking for casualties of Tuesday’s bombing. Officials say the majority of those killed were likely police officers who worked in the forensic investigation office at Tahariyat Square in the central neighborhood of Karradah. At least 82 people were reported injured.

Police and hospital officials said the bomber in Tuesday’s attack tried to drive a pickup truck through a checkpoint and blast walls protecting the forensic evidence office.

Among those confirmed killed were 12 police officers and six civilians who were visiting the office. Officials said more than half the wounded were police.

Rescue teams in blue jumpsuits combed through the debris of the partially damaged three-story building shortly after the blast as a crane removed some of the 10-foot, 7-ton concert blast walls toppled by the explosion.

The office targeted in the attack mainly deals with data collected during criminal investigations, including fingerprints and other pieces of evidence. The office is located next to the Interior Ministry’s major crimes office, which deals with terrorism cases.

Government offices have been frequent targets of major attacks in the capital since blasts struck the foreign and finance ministries in August, raising questions about the ability of Iraqi security forces to keep the country safe. While the criminal evidence offices have not been targeted by a major suicide bombing before, attackers have struck nearby.

The attack destroyed rooms on the ground floor of the building and damaged parts of the second floor. The office is surrounded by low-rise buildings that contain shops, takeaway restaurants and offices that were also damaged.

Tuesday’s attack came one day after a series of bombings targeting hotels favored by foreigners. The toll from those blasts continued to rise, with 41 people confirmed killed and up to 106 reported injured, police and health officials said Tuesday.

The bombings Monday targeted the Sheraton Ishtar Hotel, Babylon Hotel and Hamra Hotel, which are popular with Western journalists and foreign security contractors.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release details.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher R. Hill issued a statement Tuesday strongly condemning the attacks against the hotels.

“The terrorists who committed these senseless crimes aim to sow fear among the Iraqi people,” he said. “We call upon all Iraqis to unite in combating all forms of violence and attempts at intimidation.”

While there has been no formal claim of responsibility for the attacks at the hotels and against the Ministry of Interior offices, Odierno said it appeared to be the work of al-Qaida.

Multiple bombings are a hallmark of the terror network.

Odierno said al-Qaida in Iraq had morphed into a covert operation made up predominantly of Iraqis rather than foreign fighters who once operated in the open.

The typical al-Qaida operative in Iraq, Odierno said, is “university trained,” with degrees in business administration, engineering and law. Others, he said, were associated with the “old Iraqi security architecture” under Saddam Hussein. Hard money training.

An Ethiopian Airlines plane carrying 90 people caught fire and crashed into the sea minutes after taking off from Beirut early Monday, setting off a frantic search as rain lashed the coast and debris washed ashore. At least 23 bodies were recovered.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known. Lebanon has seen stormy weather since Sunday night, with crackling thunder, lightning and pouring rain.

Lebanese President Michel Suleiman said terrorism was not suspected in the crash of Flight 409, which was headed for the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

“Sabotage is ruled out as of now,” he said.

Weeping relatives streamed into Beirut’s airport to wait for news on their loved ones. One woman dropped to her knees in tears; another cried out, “Where is my son?”

Andree Qusayfi said his 35-year-old brother, Ziadh, was traveling to Ethiopia for his job at a computer company, but was planning to return to Lebanon for good soon.

“We begged him to postpone his flight because of the storm,” Qusayfi said, his eyes red from crying. “But he insisted on going because he had work appointments.”

Zeinab Seklawi said her 24-year-old son Yasser called her as he was boarding.

“I told him, ‘God be with you,’ and I went to sleep,” Seklawi said. “Please find my son. I know he’s alive and wouldn’t leave me.”

The dead include several children, according to a Lebanese defense official who asked that his name not be used because he is not authorized to speak to publicly.

The Boeing 737-800 took off around 2:30 a.m. (7:30 p.m. EST) and went down 2 miles (3.5 kilometers) off the coast, said Ghazi Aridi, the public works and transportation minister. The Lebanese army said in a statement the plane was “on fire shortly after takeoff.”

“The weather undoubtedly was very bad,” Aridi told reporters at the airport.

Pieces of the plane and debris were washing ashore in the hours after the crash, including passenger seats, a baby sandal, a fire extinguisher and bottles of medicine.

The wife of Denis Pietton, the French ambassador to Lebanon, was on the plane, according to the French embassy.

Helicopters and naval ships were scrambled for a rescue effort as huge waves slammed into the shore. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced a day of mourning and closed schools and government offices.

Ethiopian Airlines’ CEO Girma Wake told journalists in Addis Ababa that he had no information on the fate of those on board or about the cause of the crash. He said the aircraft had been serviced on Dec. 25 and passed inspection.

He also said the plane had been leased in September from CIT Aerospace. Calls to CIT Aerospace were not immediately returned Monday.

The plane was carrying 90 people, including 83 passengers and 7 crew, Lebanese officials said. Aridi, the transportation minister, identified the passengers as 54 Lebanese, 22 Ethiopians, one Iraqi, one Syrian, one Canadian of Lebanese origin, one Russian of Lebanese origin, a French woman and two Britons of Lebanese origin.

Ethiopian Airlines reported that there were 82 passengers and eight crew; the discrepancy could not immediately be explained.

The Boeing 737 is considered one of the safest planes in airline service. The jet was first introduced in the 1960s, and today is the workhorse on many short- and medium-range routes.

Still, over the past 15 years it was involved in a series of incidents and crashes linked to a valve in the rudder assembly. This reportedly would malfunction and cause the rudder to turn independently of the pilot’s commands.

The problem was considered resolved after operators of older Boeing 737s were ordered to carry out inspections and upgrades of the critical rudder control systems.

In February 2009, a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane crashed short of the runway at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, killing nine passengers and crew. Dutch investigators say the plane crashed because a false reading from a faulty altimeter.

The state-owned Ethiopian Airlines announced last week that it signed an agreement with Boeing to buy 10 more of the 737-800s at an estimated $767 million. The order will expland the airline’s fleet from the 36 aircraft it has now — not including the 737-800 that crashed Monday.

Aviation safety analyst Chris Yates said it was far too early to say what caused the crash, but he noted that modern aircraft are built to withstand all but the foulest weather conditions.

“One wouldn’t have thought that a nasty squall in and of itself would be the prime cause of an accident like this,” said Yates, an analyst based in Manchester, England. He note that reports of fire could suggest “some cataclysmic failure of one of the engines” or that something had been sucked into the engine, such as a bird or debris.

Ethiopian Airlines has long had a reputation for high-quality service compared to other African airlines, with two notable crashes in more than 20 years.

A hijacked Ethiopian Airlines jet crash-landed off the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean when it ran out of fuel in November 1996, killing 126 of the 175 people aboard. In September 1988, an Ethiopian Airlines jet crashed shortly after taking off when it ran into a flock of birds, killing 31 of the 104 people on board.

Boeing said it is coordinating with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board to assist Lebanese authorities in the investigation. Hard money training.

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day airline bombing attempt in Detroit, in a audio message released Sunday, and vowed further attacks on the U.S.

The message suggests that bin Laden wants to show he remains in direct command of al-Qaida’s many branches around the world.

In the short recording carried by the Al-Jazeera Arabic news channel, bin Laden addressed President Barack Obama saying the attack was a message similar to that of Sept. 11 and more attacks against the U.S. would be forthcoming.

“The message delivered to you through the plane of the heroic warrior Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a confirmation of the previous messages sent by the heroes of the Sept. 11,” he said.

“America will never dream of security unless we will have it in reality in Palestine,” he added. “God willing, our raids on you will continue as long as your support for the Israelis continues.”

On Christmas Day, Nigerian national Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up the Northwest Airlines flight he was sitting on as it approached Detroit Metro Airport. But the bomb he was hiding in his underwear failed to explode.

He told federal agents shortly afterward that he had been trained and instructed in the plot by al-Qaida operatives in Yemen.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula originally took credit for the attack, but by issuing this message, bin Laden seems to be indicating that he himself is ordering attacks, rather than just putting his seal of approval on events afterward.

Analysts had previously suggested that al-Qaida’s offshoots in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and elsewhere were operated independently from bin Laden, who is believed to be somewhere in Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.

There was no way to confirm the voice was actually that of Bin Laden, but it resembled previous recordings attributed to him.

In the past year, bin Laden’s messages have concentrated heavily on the plight of the Palestinians in attempt to rally support across the region.

Many analysts believe that bin Laden is worried about Obama’s popularity across the Middle East with his promises to withdraw from Iraq and personal background, so the al-Qaida leader is focusing on the close U.S.-Israeli relationship.

The suffering of the Palestinians, especially in the blockaded Gaza Strip where 1,400 died during an Israeli offensive there last year, angered many in the Arab world.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Andy David, dismissed the latest al-Qaida message and its attempt to link Israel with attacks on the U.S.

“This is nothing new, he has said this before. Terrorists always look for absurd excuses for their despicable deeds,” he said.

The last public message from bin Laden appears to have been on Sept. 26, when he demanded that European countries pull their troops out of Afghanistan. The order came in an audiotape that also warned of “retaliation” against nations that are allied with the United States in fighting the war. Hard money training.

Haiti’s government has declared the search and rescue phase for survivors of the earthquake over, the United Nations said Saturday, with little hope of finding more people alive 10 days after much of the capital was reduced to rubble.

The statement from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs comes the day after an Israeli team reported pulling a man out of the debris of a two-story home and relatives said an elderly woman had been rescued.

Spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said she was unable to comment on the rescue reports. But she said the government’s Friday afternoon decision didn’t mean rescue teams still searching for survivors would be stopped from carrying out whatever work they felt necessary.

“It doesn’t mean the government will order them to stop. In case there is the slightest sign of life, they will act,” she told The Associated Press.

She added, however, that “except for miracles, hope is unfortunately fading.”

Some 132 people were pulled alive from beneath collapsed buildings by international search and rescue teams since the Jan. 12 disaster, she said. Humanitarian relief efforts are still being scaled up in the capital Port-au-Prince, Jacmel, Leogane and other areas affected by the quake, Byrs said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said Saturday no decision had yet been taken to halt their search and rescue operations.

The Israeli delegation was initially intended to be in Haiti for two weeks. However the spokeswoman, who could not be named citing military regulations, said it was continuously assessing the situation to see whether they should continue or not.

The 7.0-magnitude quake killed an estimated 200,000 people, according to Haitian government figures cited by the European Commission. Countless dead remained buried in thousands of collapsed and toppled buildings in Port-au-Prince, while as many as 200,000 have fled the city of 2 million, the U.S. Agency for International Development reported.

About 609,000 people are homeless in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, and the United Nations estimates that up to 1 million people could leave Haiti’s destroyed cities for rural areas already struggling with extreme poverty.

On Saturday, some are expected to gather for the funeral of the archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Msgr. Joseph Serge Miot, near the ruins of his cathedral.

Far away, celebrities and artists made impassioned pleas Fridaycelebrities for charitable donations during an internationally broadcast telethon.

“The Haitian people need our help,” said George Clooney, who helped organize the two-hour telecast. “They need to know that they are not alone. They need to know that we still care.”

Scores of aid organizations, big and small, have stepped up deliveries of food, water, medical supplies and other aid to the homeless and other needy in seaside city. But obstacles remained at every turn to getting help into people’s hands.

“I want to leave but I don’t have any money. I don’t know where to go,” said Demonere Mirlande, a 33-year-old mother who lost her home but survived along with her three young children.

‘I felt the house dancing around me’
On Friday, the Israeli team that rescued 21-year-old Emmannuel Buso said relatives approached asking for help. They pulled away the debris of a two-story home and called out. To everyone’s surprise, Buso responded.

The slender student and tailor with deep-set eyes emerged so ghostly white that his mother told rescuers she thought he was a corpse. In an interview with The Associated Press, he described coming out of the shower when the quake hit.

“I felt the house dancing around me,” Buso said from a bed in an Israeli field hospital. “I didn’t know if I was up or down.”

He told of passing out in the rubble, dreaming at times that he could hear his mother crying. The furniture in his room had collapsed around him in such a way that it created a small space for him amid the ruins of the house. He had no food. When he got desperately thirsty, he drank his urine.

“I am here today because God wants it,” Buso said. Hard money training.

A 6-year-old boy who was swept away by rising waters in northern Arizona was presumed dead Friday, while hundreds of evacuees in neighboring Southern California got the go-ahead to return to their homes.

David and Katrina Baudek loaded their two children, Jacob and Desiree, into a pickup truck late Thursday during a powerful storm, trying to get their sick son to a hospital, said Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Dwight D’Evelyn.

They left their home about 70 miles north of Phoenix and headed out on a dirt road that normally is passable.

Tributaries of the nearby Agua Fria River had already flooded local roads, and when the Baudeks tried to cross one of them, their truck got stuck in the water and was swept off the road. Katrina Baudek escaped to higher ground as her husband moved the two children into the truck’s bed for safety.

A witness nearby heard the commotion and threw the father a rope while someone called for help, D’Evelyn said. As rescue crews arrived, the floodwaters rose and swept David Baudek and his children from the truck bed.

The father managed to get to safety with his daughter, but the boy remained missing. D’Evelyn said he is presumed dead.

In western Arizona, a two-foot surge of runoff flooded streets and an unknown number of homes early Friday in Wenden, a community of 500 people located about 100 miles west of Phoenix. No one was reported missing or injured.

In Scottsdale, the owners of a car-auction lot were assessing damage Friday after an 800-foot-long auction tent blew onto a road, snarling traffic and leaving hundreds of valuable collector cars uncovered in a pounding rainstorm. A collector-car insurance executive estimated damage to the vehicles could exceed $1.5 million.

In Southern California, hundreds of evacuees were allowed Friday to return to their foothill homes as a week of lightning, vicious downpours and tornadoes dissipated into occasional thunderstorms.

The homes had faced possible debris flows from a 250-square-mile area of the San Gabriel Mountains, northeast of Los Angeles, burned bare last summer by wildfire.

However, mandatory evacuation orders were lifted for all but a handful of streets after public works experts determined that the ground was safe — for now.

Only about 200 of some 2,000 homes throughout Los Angeles County remained under evacuation orders.

The city of Los Angeles canceled evacuations for all but one home, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said at a news conference.

“I’m very glad to be home,” Hugh Smith said with a laugh as he carried a sleeping bag and suitcase to his house from his Jeep Cherokee.

Smith, his wife and their two children left the hilly, winding streets of Los Angeles’ Alpine Village neighborhood on Wednesday to stay with relatives. Hugh, an engineer, said he was afraid the family might be stranded if they had stayed.

“It was a huge inconvenience but I think it was probably warranted,” he said. “I don’t think we would have had any mud come down on our street but if it did come down, we probably couldn’t have gotten in and out.”

In neighboring Glendale, all evacuations were canceled after a helicopter swooped over mountain slopes, debris catch basins and storm runoff channels.

“We saw nothing to cause us any concern at this time,” city spokeswoman Vicki Gardner said. However, she said the risk of mudslides and flooding could remain for days or even weeks and urged residents to keep their eyes open. Home Security Systems.