Leader of Pakistan Taliban killed in US drone strike, US, Pakistani officials say

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EPA, file

Hakimullah Mehsud, center, leader of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (Movement of Pakistani Taliban), talks with journalists in Pakistan's Orakzai tribal agency near the Afghanistan border on Nov. 26, 2008.

By Waj Khan, Mushtaq Yousafzai and Mike Brunker

The leader of the Pakistan Taliban was killed Friday in a U.S. drone strike in Northwest Pakistan, U.S. and Pakistani officials tell NBC News.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed  the death of Hakimullah Mehsud, head of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in a CIA drone strike.
A Pakistani security official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, told NBC News earlier that Mehsud was killed earlier in the day in Danday Darpakhel village of North Waziristan.
A senior member of the Pakistani Taliban, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the death.
"It is very painful to announce that our dearest, brave and sincere leader Hakimullah Mehsud died in drone attack," he said.
The U.S. official said he could not confirm other deaths in the attack, but reports in Pakistani news media said a total of four people were killed and five others injured in the strikes, which targeted a compound. The dead reportedly included two other senior TTP officials, Abdullah Bahar Mehsud, Hakimullah Mehsud's new deputy, and commander Tariq Afridi, the TTP commander in Pakistan's Dara Adamkhel region.
A senior Pakistani security official told NBC News that the country was placed on an increased state of alert to pre-empt retaliatory attacks by the Taliban.
The senior Pakistani Taliban member said the TTP held an emergency meeting in the tribal areas soon after learning of Mehsud's death and selected two commanders -- Maulvi Omar Khalid Khurasani, commander in the Mahmand tribal region, and Maulana Fazlullah, head of the Swat Taliban -- as possible replacements for Mehsud, who had a $5 million reward on his head posted by the U.S.
"Among these two men, one will replace our slain emir,” he said.
The TTP has waged a decade-long insurgency against the Pakistani government from sanctuaries along the Afghan border. It has mainly targeted the Pakistani government, in suicide bombings and other attacks, but has on occasion helped the Afghan Taliban in their war against U.S.-led NATO troops in Afghanistan.
The TTP also has claimed claims responsibility for a failed bombing plot in New York City's Times Square in 2010 as well as an attack on Camp Chapman in Afghanistan's Khost province in 2009 that killed seven CIA officials.
Pakistan's new prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, announced after his election in May that he would open unconditional talks with the Taliban and Mehsud's death came as the Pakistani government was preparing to send a peace delegation to talk with the TTP.
Hakimullah Mehsud took over the Pakistani Taliban's leadership in 2009 when his predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a U.S. drone strike.
He came to prominence as a young, brash field commander of the Pakistani Taliban in the mid-2000s, often appearing in propaganda videos.
U.S. officials told NBC News early last month that Mehsud’s second-in-command, Latif Mehsud, had been captured in Afghanistan by U.S. troops.
The Washington Post reported at the time that Latif Mehsud was captured as he traveled with an Afghan government convoy, and that his arrest had infuriated Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The day after Latif Mehsud’s capture was reported on Oct. 8, Hakimullah Mehsud said in an interview with the BBC that he was open to “serious talks” with the Pakistani government aimed at reaching a peace agreement.
The drone strike was the second since Sharif visited Washington last month and pressed the Obama admistration to halt the attacks, which are seen by most Pakistanis as a violation of the country’s sovereignty.
NBC News’ Fazal Ahad, Courtney Kube, Fazul Rahim, Fakhar Remhan and Robert Windrem and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Small Island Emerges After Huge Pakistan Earthquake

Business Insider

Michael Kelley

A small island has emerged off the southern coast of Pakistan after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck the country.

Reuters reports that "a crowd of bewildered people [gathered] on the shore to witness the rare phenomenon."

The quake killed at least 45 people, and many of the buildings in the impoverished area of the Baluchistan province have caved in.

Pakistani TV Geo News, citing Pakistan's deputy inspector general, reported that the 100-feet-wide island arose out of the Arabian Sea about 350 feet off the coast of Gwadar.

The epicenter of the quake was about 320 miles to the northeast.

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Here's where Gwadar is located:

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An island has emerged about 350 feet off the coast of Gwadar (A) in the Arabian Sea.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/small-island-emerges-after-huge-pakistan-earthquake-2013-9#ixzz2fqL1Hrfe

Report: Obama Admin's Loose Talk Exposed Dr. Afridi

breitbart

By Joel B. Pollak 

Loose talk by senior members of the Obama administration may have condemned Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani doctor who assisted America's hunt for Osama bin Laden, to 33-year term in prison on trumped-up charges.

tribune.com.pk

According to Fox News, an official 357-page report by the Pakistani government that examined the security failures that allowed the U.S. to evade that country's defenses in the raid on May 2, 2011 concluded that Dr. Afridi was implicated by a "statement by the U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who was the CIA Director when May 2 happened, confirming the role of Dr. Afridi in making the U.S. assassination mission a success."

Panetta had been speaking to CBS News' 60 Minutes in January 2012. He said: "This was an individual who, in fact, helped provide intelligence that was very helpful with regards to this operation, and he was not in any way treasonous towards Pakistan." The Pakistani report has not yet been officially released to the public.

The Obama administration was criticized in 2011 after leaking key operational details of the bin Laden raid, particularly the identity of U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6, which carried out the operation. Several weeks later, several members of that team were targeted and killed by the Taliban. Family members have been harshly critical of the Obama administration, arguing that its "criminal" leaks put SEAL Team 6 at greater risk. 

In contrast to the Obama administration's pursuit of other national security leaks, and the media outlets to which the leaks were made, there has not been any apparent attempt to hold its own leakers accountable.

Meanwhil, Dr. Afridi remains in prison, awaiting the resumption of his appeals process in June, after an initial trial through a tribal court system put in place by the British colonial authorities a century ago, in which Dr. Afridi was denied access to a lawyer and could not see the evidence against him or testify in his own defense.

The Pakistani report recommends that Dr. Afridi be granted a retrial--something that his advocates in the U.S., notably Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), have been urging with a view to winning his eventual release.

Pakistan’s new leader makes landmark offer of talks to Taliban

worldnews

Arif Ali/ AFP – Getty Images

Pakistan's incoming Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif addresses his party's newly elected members of parliament in Lahore on May 20, 2013.

By Wajahat S. Khan, Producer, NBC News

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan's prime minister designate Nawaz Sharif told a packed hall of his party stalwarts that talks with the Taliban -- who have been fighting the state for almost a decade -- are not off the table.
"All options should be tried, and guns and bullets are not a solution to all problems … Why shouldn't we sit and talk and engage in dialogue?" said Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) party, a center-right group that traces its roots back to the origin of Pakistan in 1947.
The party, once nurtured by military regimes, has now morphed into a modern, conservative, pro-business faction that secured a majority of the seats in the country’s parliament earlier this month.
Sharif's announcement in Lahore on Monday has created a schism among Pakistan's divided political classes.
For many, this is a war which must be committed to and won.
Days before the May 11 election -- the first, largely peaceful and constitutional transfer of power from one civilian administration to the next -- the country's powerful army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, reminded audiences in a rare public speech that "there can be no doubt that this is our war.”
“The soldier of the Pakistani army cannot fight under conditions of doubt …The army cannot fight this war alone. The Pakistani people must also fight alongside us,” he added.
The military says more than 5,000 people have been killed with over 20,000 wounded in the fight against the Taliban.
Maj. Gen. Asim Saleem Bajwa, director general of Inter-Service Public Relations, said there was “no ambiguity about the military's position.”
“Pakistan will do what it can to protect itself from domestic as well as foreign threats. This is a national effort,” he said.
The Pakistani Taliban would be willing to partake in peace talks, according to their spokesman, Ihsanullah Ihsan. He said they had already been willing to participate in peace talks with the previous government – and that they had wanted to work with Sharif as a guarantor to implement accords, if they were agreed to.
"Before he was not part of the government and that's why we wanted him to become guarantor,” the Taliban spokesman told NBC News. “Now he will have his own government, so let us see what type of polices he formulates about us.”
Senator Pervez Rashid, spokesperson of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) party, did not respond to an interview request.
For his part, Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, whose assassination was claimed by Pakistani Taliban, insists that the war-ravaged country has lost almost a $100 billion in the battle against the Taliban.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says that more than 40,000 civilians have died in Pakistan's version of the War on Terror. Sharif's rival during the recent election, the charismatic former cricket star Imran Khan and leader of a neo-nationalist political party called the Movement for Justice, calls it the state's "War of Terror on Pakistan."
Khan has been pushing for talks with the Taliban and has also called for Pakistan to shoot down U.S. drones that operate over the country’s unruly tribal areas.
The recent election secured a federal government for Sharif and a provincial government for Khan in the volatile Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.
This means that two of Pakistan's major political opponents are now broadly in agreement about talks with the Taliban.
But there are still others who disagree.
"If our elected office holders think that the Taliban are not at war with the state, then with due respect, I don't think the Taliban got that memo," said Asad Khwaja, a host on a liberal radio network, soon after Sharif's announcement became national news.
"We have lost thousands - soldiers, men, women, children - to this menace. I really hope that our leaders understand what they're asserting, for the sake of Pakistan."

Pakistan test fires nuclear missile capable of striking India

itnnews

Inside the most dangerous place on Earth: Pakistan’s ground zero for terrorists

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Read on worldnews >>

Could Oscar's attention free the man who helped find Usama Bin Laden?

foxnews

LOS ANGELES –  Hollywood-based activists are praising  Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar-nominated “Zero Dark Thirty” and calling on its cast and crew -- as well as the teams behind all of the Best Picture-nominated films -- to draw attention to the plight of Dr. Shakil Afridi, a pivotal player in bringing Usama bin Laden to justice.

Bob and Kira Lorsch and their RHL Group took out a full-page ad in Thursday’s Hollywood Reporter with the headline: “Oscar, Help Free Afridi. America’s Abandoned Hero.”

The ad, part of the group's “Free Dr. Afridi” campaign, reads in part: “Dr. Shakil Afridi is the man who verified Usama bin Laden’s location in Pakistan for the United States. Without Dr. Afridi’s sacrifice, we may not have pinpointed the location of the world’s most dangerous terrorist. His Reward… he was abandoned, captured and is still being tortured by Pakistan ever since Bin Laden was killed in May 2011. After all, who will stand up to help America next time if this is how we treat our friends?”

'I was horrified and personally offended that this doctor has been left behind and is rotting in a prison'

- Bob Lorsch

The advertisement also acknowledges a number of individuals and organizations it says have championed the issue, including Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), the cast and crew of "Zero Dark Thirty," and Fox News Correspondent Dominic DiNatale and Producer Sib Kaifee, whose exclusive reporting has helped shed light on the Afridi case.

It also gently asks those nominated for Best Picture to use the spotlight that the Academy Awards provides to inform the public about Afridi’s heroism and subsequent incarceration.

“As you celebrate the Oscars, please consider spending a few moments of your limelight to draw attention to Freeing Dr. Afridi. Since the real star of 'Zero Dark Thirty' is not here to accept his award for best True American Hero, perhaps you can accept yours partially on his behalf,” continues the ad, before encouraging those to seek more information by emailing FreeAfridi@rhlgroup.com.

“I’m really proud to be an American, I love this country," Bob Lorsch, the chairman of healthcare company MMR Global, who is heading the campaign, told FoxNews.com. "But I was horrified and personally offended that this doctor has been left behind and is rotting in a prison, sharing meals with the same militants who would kill our soldiers. So I had to do something."

But after fruitless attempts trying to contact agents, studios and talent to spread the word on Oscar night, Lorsch decided the most effective approach would be drawing attention via the popular entertainment industry trade publication.

“The phone has been ringing off the hook, people are just flabbergasted, they never really knew about this,” he told us in the hours after the magazine hit stands. “We know the power of the Academy Awards, and we hope celebrities will draw attention to this travesty. Without the help of this man, we wouldn’t have ever even had a film like ‘Zero Dark Thirty.’”

Rep. Rohrobacher also offered his support for Afridi and the RHL Group campaign.

“Mr. Rohrabacher is fully supportive of all efforts to bring attention to the injustice inflicted upon Dr. Afridi, perpetrated by both the U.S. government and Pakistan," Rorabacher's rep told FoxNews.com. "Dr. Afridi is a hero and without his courageous actions, Osama Bin Laden may still be alive and 'Zero Dark Thirty' wouldn’t exist. As those in Hollywood are celebrating on Oscar night, let them be reminded Dr. Afridi languishes in a Pakistani prison.”

Sony, the studio behind “Zero Dark Thirty,” as well as its producers and stars did not respond to a request for comment.

And while Hollywood figures in general seem to have stayed silent on the issue so far, those rallying behind Afridi are confident increased attention could really help.

“This is the year of ‘Zero Dark Thirty,’ a movie which depicted one man – Dr. Shakil Afridi – who was left behind by the U.S. government even though he was the one who collected the pivotal evidence that led to raid on Usama bin Laden,” a source close to the efforts to free the doctor told us. “He is languishing in a forsaken jail and is now viewed as a forgotten, abandoned hero. People see this as the exact time to come to his rescue while the film ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ is so hotly in the spotlight. It's the most crucial moment there can be in which Hollywood can create public awareness.”

Public relations professional Ronn Torossian says Hollywood could indeed make an enormous impact.

“It would be immensely powerful and heard around the world if stars at the Oscars would raise a voice of moral conscience for Dr. Shakil Afridi," he said. "Afridi is a hero who helped America and celebrity attention could help this man tremendously. It would send an incredible message to the world that America cares about people who help them if Hollywood would demand freedom for Dr. Shakil Afridi."

Danielle Jones-Wesley contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/02/22/group-urges-hollywood-to-use-oscars-to-help-free-jailed-pakistani-doctor-who/#ixzz2LfIRvQtC

Pakistan says it is ready for peace talks with Taleban militants

theinnoplex

ISLAMABAD (AP) - Pakistan's interior minister says the government is ready to hold peace talks with Taleban militants who have been waging a bloody insurgency that has killed thousands of people in his country.

Mr Rehman Malik's comments on Monday are the latest sign of growing momentum for negotiations with the Pakistani Taleban. His comments follow statements by senior leaders of the militant group who also have indicated that they are ready to sit down at the negotiating table.

The government appears to have dropped an earlier demand that the Taleban lay down their weapons and denounce violence prior to talks, a position rejected by the militants. 

Pakistan turmoil deepens as court orders PM's arrest

Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf/ tribune.com.pk

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered the arrest of the prime minister on Tuesday on corruption allegations, ratcheting up pressure on a government that is also facing street protests led by a cleric who has a history of ties to the army.

The combination of the arrest order and the mass protest in the capital Islamabad led by Muslim cleric Muhammad Tahirul Qadri raised fears among politicians that the military was working with the judiciary to force out a civilian leader.

"There is no doubt that Qadri's march and the Supreme Court's verdict were masterminded by the military establishment of Pakistan," Fawad Chaudhry, an aide to Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, told Reuters.

"The military can intervene at this moment as the Supreme Court has opened a way for it."

However, the ruling coalition led by the Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP) has a majority in parliament and lawmakers can simply elect another prime minister if Ashraf is ousted. In June, Ashraf replaced Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, who was disqualified by the Supreme Court in a previous showdown between the government and the judiciary.

Also, elections are due in a few months and President Asif Ali Zardari hopes to lead the first civilian government in Pakistan's 65 years as an independent nation that will complete its full term.

Keep reading >>

Senior al-Qaida leader killed in drone strike in Pakistan, jihadis, US officials say

Flashpoint-intel.com

By Robert Windrem
NBC News

A senior al-Qaida official and potential successor to the group’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed Friday morning in a Predator drone strike, according to reports on jihadi web forums and U.S. officials.

Sheikh Khalid Bin Abdul Rehman Al-Hussainan, aka Abu-Zaid al Kuwaiti, was killed in Pakistan while eating breakfast, according to the accounts.  The 46-year-old cleric was seen as part of the “very top tier" of al-Qaida's remaining leaders in the wake of the death of Osama bin Laden, according to one expert on the terror group.

The news was first announced on an al-Qaida web forum early Friday. “We celebrate to you the news of the martyrdom of the working scholar Shaykh Khalid al-Hussainan (Abu Zaid al-Kuwaiti) while eating his Suhoor (dawn time) meal, and we ask Allah to accept him in paradise," a post said.

Evan Kohlmann, an NBC News counterterrorism analyst, said al-Hussainan was at the forefront of a new wave of al-Qaida leadership.

“That's a big gap in the leadership,” said Kohlmann, who is also a Justice Department consultant. “He was the last senior Al-Qaida leader in the Afghanistan-Pakistan area who was, one, from the Arabian Peninsula and, two, who had serious clerical credentials.  Now there is no obvious publicly recognizable candidate left to succeed Zawahiri.”

In recent years, al-Hussainan was seen in numerous al-Qaida videos offering religious training to the group’s operatives. The videos were widely circulated by al-Shabab, al-Qaida’s media wing. He also authored several books of religious thoughts.

The U.S. killed three other up-and-coming members of the terror group’s next generation leadership in the months after bin Laden was killed in a raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by U.S. Navy SEALs in May 2011. Ilyas Kashmiri, the leader of a Pakistani group associated with al-Qaeda was killed June 3. Atiyah Abd-al Rahman, bin Laden’s chief of staff, was killed on Aug. 22 and Ayman al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who was a leader of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, was killed Sept. 30. US officials say that hints about their whereabouts were found in materials gathered by the Navy SEALs in the raid on bin Laden’s compound.

Al-Hussainan is the highest ranking al-Qaida official to be killed since those leaders were killed. More >>

U.S. pulls negotiating team from Pakistan

Security Clearance/  By Barbara Starr

The U.S. is withdrawing its negotiating team from Pakistan because after several weeks, the two sides have failed to reach an agreement on re-opening land routes from Pakistan into Afghanistan that have been used to carry supplies for the war.

"We have not reached resolution," said George Little, Pentagon press secretary. He noted that some of the team left Pakistan over the weekend, and others are expected to leave shortly. "We expect others to leave soon unless circumstances change."

The group had been in Pakistan for about six weeks, according to Little.

Little would not say whether the decision to leave came before or after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's remarks last week that the U.S. was running out of patience with Pakistan's safe havens for terrorists including the Haqqani network.Pakistan closed two routes for NATO supplies into Afghanistan last year after a number of Pakistani forces were inadvertently killed along the border in a U.S. strike. Little said the US still hopes to resolve the matter and get an agreement to reopen the border crossings.  He noted the U.S. could still supply troops in Afghanistan and complete the withdrawal from Afghanistan by using northern land routes, but added "the more options you have the better."

Pakistan wants to charge new fees for NATO crossings which the U.S. has not agreed to. However "there is an agreement in concept" to reopen the routes, Little said.

Rising U.S.-Pakistan tension

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Did rogue spies or ’Pakistani Blackwater’ shield Osama bin Laden?

AP, file

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is seen in an image taken from a video found at his walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The first anniversary of bin Laden's killing by U.S. Navy SEALs is on Tuesday.

By Amna Nawaz, NBC News Correspondent

ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan -- A year after Osama bin Laden was found and killed in Pakistan, one key question has yet to be answered: how did the world's most wanted man manage to move and live, undetected, in this country for so long?

Journalists, analysts, and others have been working to fill in the narrative holes over the last 12 months. Leaked and strategically released nuggets of information have helped to paint a vague picture of what life was like inside the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden spent his final years, living with three of his wives, and several children and grandchildren. We've learned of the austere conditions inside the home, the restricted lifestyle led by all inside, and the discipline with which the head of al-Qaida communicated with a trusted few. But the crucial questions -- how he got to that compound in the first place and who helped him to do so -- remain unanswered.Kamran Bokhari, vice-president for Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs at Stratfor, a global intelligence company, believes the idea that bin Laden moved around without a network of individuals organizing his transportation and logistics is simply not possible.  More >>

US drone kills senior al-Qaida militant

NBC News and news services

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD — A militant who acted as a senior operations organizer for al-Qaida was targeted and killed in one of two U.S. drone strikes launched against targets inside Pakistan last week, a U.S. official said.

U.S. and Pakistani sources told Reuters that the target of the attack was Aslam Awan, a Pakistani national from Abbottabad, the same town where Osama bin Laden was killed last May by a U.S. commando team. They said he was targeted in a strike by a U.S.-operated drone on Jan. 10 directed at what news reports said was a compound near the town of Miranshah in the border province of North Waziristan.

That strike broke an undeclared eight-week hiatus in attacks by the armed, unmanned drones that patrol Pakistan's tribal areas and are a key weapon in President Barack Obama's counter-terrorism strategy.

The sources described Awan, who also was known by the nom-de-guerre Abdullah Khorasani, as a significant figure in the remaining core leadership of al-Qaida, which U.S. officials say has been sharply reduced by the drone campaign. Most of the drone attacks are conducted as part of a clandestine CIA operation.

Pakistani officials could not confirm that Awan was killed in the drone attack, but the U.S. official said he was. More >>

Secret Pakistan [BBC Documentary]

Top Documentary Films/

Two part documentary series which explores accusations by CIA officials and western diplomats that Pakistan is failing to live up to its alliances in the war on terror.

In May this year, US Special Forces shot and killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. Publicly Pakistan is one of America’s closest allies – yet every step of the operation was kept secret from it.

Filmed largely in Pakistan and Afghanistan, this two-part documentary series explores how a supposed ally stands accused by top CIA officers and Western diplomats of causing the deaths of thousands of coalition soldiers in Afghanistan.

It is a charge denied by Pakistan’s military establishment, but the documentary makers meet serving Taliban commanders who describe the support they get from Pakistan in terms of weapons, training and a place to hide.

The second film in this timely and enthralling two-part documentary series reveals how Britain and America discovered compelling evidence that Pakistan was secretly helping the Taliban and concluded they had been double-crossed.

It tells the story of how under President Obama the US has waged a secret war against Pakistan. Taliban commanders tell the film makers that to this day Pakistan shelters and arms them, and helps them kill Western troops – indeed one recently captured suicide bomber alleges he was trained by Pakistani intelligence.

'Stop the blame game', Pakistan PM warns US

Mullen: Pakistan Helped Haqqanis Attack US

Military.com

The top U.S. military officer accused Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency Thursday of supporting extremists' planning and executing the assault on the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan last week and a truck bomb attack that wounded 77 American Soldiers days earlier.
Full Story >

EEUU anuncia la muerte del 'número 2' de Al Qaeda

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Pakistan Is Shopping On The Black Market For Materials To Create A Hydrogen Bomb

Ricky Kreitner
In court papers released last month, the United States government openly alleges for the first time that Pakistan is seeking to develop thermonuclear weapons, and has attempted to purchase the materials necessary for their production on the black market, Global Security Newswire reports.

Pakistan is already a nuclear-armed country, though it operates outside the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty framework. It is estimated to have a stockpile of approximately 100 weapons—the fastest growing stockpile in the world—though those are all uranium-based.

The new revelations represent the first official confirmation that Pakistan is seeking to build a thermonuclear, or hydrogen-based, weapon, which is about 1,000 times more powerful than a uranium weapon.

Only the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—France, Russia, China, the United States, and the United Kingdom—are known to possess hydrogen bombs.

Because Pakistan has not signed the non-proliferation treaty, it is mostly banned from the legal international nuclear trade, and has notoriously dabbled in the black market before.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/pakistan-is-shopping-on-the-black-market-for-materials-to-create-a-hydrogen-bomb-2011-7#ixzz1SZuOnelv

Pakistan Arrests Army General For Alleged Terrorist Ties

Here...