Daily brief: 3 held in NYC bomb plot

Rounding up suspects

Three Pakistani men were arrested yesterday in Massachusetts and Maine on suspicion of providing money to failed Times Square car bomber Faisal Shahzad (Wash Post, NYT, BBC, AFP, Times). All three were detained on immigration violations and have not yet been charged, and the FBI also carried out raids in New York and New Jersey in connection with the case.

Greg Miller reports that Pakistani authorities have arrested a suspect with alleged connections to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan who claims he acted as an accomplice to Shahzad, and while U.S. investigators say the broad outlines of the two accounts of Shahzad’s training in Waziristan and travel match up, there are some "conflicts, disconnects" with the chronology (Wash Post). Both men claim to have met TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud, though officials and analysts think the militant leader would be unlikely to risk meeting face-to-face with an unproven American recruit, and believe the men have exaggerated.

A Pakistani man arrested at the U.S. Embassy in Chile on Monday after traces of explosives were found on his clothes is not believed to be connected to the Times Square plot, and was on a watch list before the May 1 event (NYT). Mohammad Saif ur Rehman’s father believes his son’s detention was a "setup" resulting from racial profiling (Dawn). Dawn reports that U.S. authorities said Rehman is linked to an extremist organization, and that the Pakistani Embassy claims Rehman is suspected of involvement with the ‘Khilafat movement’ (Dawn).

A flood of refugees

Some 25,000 Pakistanis have fled dozens of villages in the Hunza Valley in northern Pakistan, close to the border with China, after the Ataabad lake swelled to submerge homes and roads in the area following a landslide in early January (NYT, AJE, Geo, AP, Dawn). The water is rising at a rate of three feet per day, and Pakistani Army engineers have built a spillway to drain the lake, which they expect to do by the end of the month.

A leader of the Awami National Party, a secular Pashtun nationalist group, was shot and killed in Karachi yesterday, and clashes between the Pakistani military and militant fighters continues in the Tirah Valley in Pakistan’s Khyber agency (Daily Times, Daily Times). Al Jazeera reports that a conflict between coalition forces and Taliban militants on the Afghan border near North Waziristan spilled over into Pakistani territory, though Pakistani military officials deny it (AJE).

Cooperation for Kandahar

At the end of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s visit to Washington, the Afghan leader and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emphasized that upcoming coalition operations in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar are part of a "process," while Karzai said he had raised the issue of his powerful half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai’s role in Kandahar with U.S. President Barack Obama and now considers it "resolved" (NYT, Reuters). And Clinton said Taliban militants who reconcile with the Afghan government must respect women’s rights (AP, AFP). Today, Karzai is visiting U.S. troops who are being deployed to Afghanistan (AFP).

As Clinton stated the U.S. will not destroy Kandahar in order to save it from the Taliban, top commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal went so far as to say, "We’re not using the term operation or major operations, because that often brings to mind in people’s psyche the idea of a D-Day and an H-hour and an attack" (BBC, AJE, DoD). Karzai said the U.S. needs to do a better job of "selling" the Kandahar operations, which McClatchy assesses are "already faltering" (WSJ, Independent, McClatchy, BBC, NYT, McClatchy).

The Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday approved an additional $33.5 billion in funding for the Pentagon and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and just under $4 billion for the State Department, in addition to the $130 billion Congress already approved for the two conflicts through September 30, 2010 (Reuters).

Night raids

Eleven civilians were reportedly killed in a joint NATO-Afghan night raid in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, sparking hundreds of protesters to take to the streets in  gathering that turned deadly when Afghan police fired on the crowd, which was chanting, "Death to Americans, long live the Taliban," killing one (Reuters, BBC, AJE, NYT, ISAF, AP, Pajhwok). A U.S. military spokesman said all those killed in the night raid were insurgents.

Tom Coghlan reports on the mysterious "White Taliban" in Zabul province, where there are consistent reports of Arab, Uzbek, and Chechen fighters and a crude campaign of intimidation is underway; local residents have been forbidden to leave the area (Times).

"American al-Qaeda"

Paul Cruickshank, Nic Robertson, and Ken Shiffman report on the radicalization of Bryant Neal Vinas in the first of a two-part series resulting from a ten-month investigation of the onetime Long Island resident’s involvement with an al-Qaeda plot to attack the Long Island Rail Road (CNN). The documentary "American al-Qaeda" is airing on CNN on Saturday, May 15, at 8:00 p.m.

Burqa wars

Foreign Policy is featuring a fascinating photo essay on burqas, the garment worn by many Afghan women to cover up (FP). They come in a variety of colors and are often shades of blue.

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