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The suspect in the Times Square bomb attempt claims to have visited fighters' camps in Waziristan [AFP

The raid targeted North Waziristan, a tribal region near the Afghan border where many Taliban-affiliated networks are based.

Pakistani intelligence officials said two missiles hit the house of Awal Gul, a local tribesman, in Inzarkas, a village 50km west of Miran Shah.

Residents spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

The suspect in the recent failed car bombing in New York City’s Times Square has claimed he visited in a Taliban fighters camp in the Waziristan region.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said Washington expects more co-operation from Pakistan in fighting terrorism and warned of “severe consequences” if an attack on US soil were traced back to the South Asian country.

She made the remarks in an interview with CBS television’s “60 Minutes” that were to be broadcast later on Sunday.

The US has stepped up its drone attacks on suspected Pakistan Taliban sites after a Jordanian suicide bomber killed seven CIA employees at a US base across the border in the eastern Afghan province of Khost last December.

Pakistan publicly rejects CIA’s drone attacks, saying they are a violation of its sovereignty and fuel anti-US feelings, which complicates its efforts against Taliban fighters.

In another development, Pakistani army helicopters attacked suspected fighters’ hideouts on Sunday morning in the Shana Garhi area of the Orakzai tribal region, killing at least eight of them, Jahanzeb Khan, a local official, said.

Pakistan security forces are carrying out an operation against fighters who escaped the military offensive in South Waziristan. Some have taken refuge in Orakzai, which lies next to North Waziristan, and other neighbouring tribal areas.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates (L) talks with India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during a recent trip to New Delhi.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned that militants might provoke a war between nuclear armed Pakistan and India.

Gates said in New Delhi on Wednesday that India cannot be expected to show restraint, should it be attacked by a militant group with roots in Pakistan.

“I think it’s not unreasonable to assume India’s patience would be limited were there to be further attacks,” Gates said following the talks with senior Indian officials.

Tension between India and Pakistan escalated particularly after the November 2008 Mumbai attacks that left nearly 170 people dead.

India blames Pakistani-based anti-India groups for the attacks.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since the two neighbors secured independence from Britain in 1947.

Gates, who is visiting the Indian capital of New Delhi, also discussed the prospect of stronger military ties between the US and India. He has pledged to help India gain access to high-tech military technology.

Gates also told Indian officials that Washington intends to be involved in the region for a very long time.

Taliban commander speaks out

Al Jazeera has obtained an exclusive interview with Sirajuddin Haqqani, a Taliban commander fighting US and Nato forces in Afghanistan.

US commanders have identified the Pakistan-based Haqqani network - widely  believed to have ties with Pakistan’s spy agency – as one of the biggest threats to US forces in Afghanistan.

The network, which was initially nurtured by the CIA, carries out attacks on foreign forces across the majority of eastern Afghanistan.

The US has put a $5 million bounty on Sirajuddin Haqqani’s head. David Chater has the latest from Kabul.

Pakistani officials say Hakimullah Mehsud, Pakistan's Taliban chief, was targeted in the attack

A suspected US drone attack has killed at least 18 people and injured 14 others in Pakistan’s northwest tribal belt, near the Afghan border, security officials say.

The attack took place in Pasalkot village in North Waziristan, a stronghold of Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked fighters.

Two missiles were fired at a compound on Thursday, where Hakimullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban chief, was believed to have been.

“We had information that he was around there. We’re checking on whether he was killed,” a Pakistani security official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters news agency.

However, a Taliban spokesman told Pakistan’s Dawn TV that Mehsud was safe and had left minutes before the assault.

Increased attacks

Alan Fisher, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Pakistan, said the US were likely to view the operations as a “huge success”.

“The use of drone strikes in Pakistan is highly controversial but there’s no sign of the Americans stopping them any time soon,” he said.

“They will regard this latest operation as a huge success – targeting and killing what they say were a number of militants.”

Mehsud took over as leader of the Pakistani Taliban five months ago, after Baitullah Mehsud, his predecessor, was killed in a similar US drone attack.

The US has increased drone attacks in Waziristan since a suicide bomber crossed over Pakistan’s border and killed seven CIA employees in an attack in eastern Afghanistan on December 30.

A video was later released showing Hakimullah Mehsud sitting beside the CIA bomber, a Jordanian double agent, creating the impression that his group played a major role in the second biggest attack on the CIA in its history.

The attack was the seventh suspected US missile assault in the tribal district this month.

North Waziristan houses Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters as well as members of the Haqqani network, a powerful group known for staging attacks on foreign troops in Afghanistan.

The US government has called on Islamabad to step up its efforts against Taliban- and al-Qaeda-linked fighters who cross over into Afghanistan.

The Pakistani army recently completed an offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan, which borders North Waziristan.

The building in the city of Karachi collapsed after the explosion on Friday

At least seven people have been killed after an explosion destroyed a house in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi.

Police said that the blast on Friday appeared to have been caused by explosives stored in the building.

Television footage showed police removing guns, suicide vests and grenades from the site, in the city’s Baldia Town neighbourhood.

“It seems that explosives which were stored in the house caused the explosion,” Waseem Ahmad, the Karachi police chief, said.

“It seems that the house was being used by terrorists. We are taking utmost care in removing the rubble. Bomb-disposal officials have arrived at the scene to determine the exact nature of the explosion.”

Two people were arrested at the scene of the blast, police said.

“Police believe that this was terrorist cell hiding out in Karachi,” Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Islamabad, said.

‘Suspects from Swat’

Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s interior minister, said the people living in the house were from Swat, a district in the North West Frontier Province where the Pakistani military last year launched an operation against Taliban fighters.

“According to reports they were all asleep in the courtyard when this blast occurred,” he said.

The same account was given by a suspect, who was injured in the blast and later captured by police, the Express News television channel reported.

Express News cited unnamed officials as saying that the suspect – identified by a single name, Imran – told investigators that three suicide bombers had put on explosive vests and one went off accidentally as its wearer was dozing.

Karachi has largely avoided the suspected Taliban attacks experienced in the rest of the country, but there have been outbreaks of sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

A bomb attack on December 28 hit a procession of Shia Muslims marking the Ashoura ceremony leaving more than 40 people dead.

Al Jazeera’s Fisher said: “There has always been a concern about Karachi because it has been seen by many as the gateway that people use to get in and out of the country.

“Finance has been raised for some of the groups behind the bombings in Pakistan in Karachi, there is a support network there.

“There is a concern, given the attack on the parade in the city, this may be the start of more attacks in Karachi.”

Attacks across Pakistan have intensified in recent months in an apparent response to a military offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan.

Blackwater was criticised for its actions while working for the US defence department in Iraq

Two former employees of the US private security contractor Blackwater, now known as Xe, have been arrested over the killings of two Afghans last year.

Justin Cannon and Chris Drotleff were charged on Thursday with second-degree murder, attempted murder and weapons charges.

The two Afghans were killed, and a third was wounded, in a shooting incident that apparently took place after a traffic accident Kabul on May 5.

The two men have told the Associated Press news agency that they were justified in opening fire on a car that caused an accident in front of their vehicle, then turned and sped towards them.

“I feel comfortable firing my weapon any time I feel my life is in danger,” Drotleff said. “That night, my life was 100 per cent in danger.”

The indictment, unsealed in a federal court in the US state of Virginia on Thursday, provided no details about the incident other than it occurred at an intersection of two roads in the Afghan capital.

Xe ‘co-operation’

Drotleff and Cannon were employed by Paravant LLC, a unit of Xe which was previously known as Blackwater Worldwide, and were providing weapons training to the Afghan National Army.

“Xe Services immediately and fully co-operated with the government’s investigation of this tragic incident and terminated the individuals involved for violating company policy,” the company said in a statement.

“In respect for the judicial process, the company will not provide further comment.”

The latest charges against former employees of the private security contractor came as Xe settled seven cases concerning alleged illegal activities that led to the deaths of an number of Iraqis.

The company said in a statement that they were “pleased” with the settlement, which came after months of negotiations.

Dozens of Iraqis had accused the company of behaviour that led to a culture of recklessness and illegality, including the deaths of several people, and sought compensation through the courts.

Last week, a court dismissed manslaughter charges against five Blackwater security guards who were accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007.

Paramilitary soldiers stand guard outside the US Consulate in Karachi.

Pakistani security forces have arrested five US citizens in the province of Balochistan near the country’s border with Iran.

Pakistani police said on Thursday that the Americans were carrying out suspicious activities along the border. They were driving in a car with fake license plates, police added.

The five Americans were freed after the US consulate in Karachi intervened and demanded their release. The US consulate apparently told police that the Americans enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

A number of US citizens, most of them armed, have recently been arrested in several Pakistani cities. But they were freed following interventions by the US embassy.

Zeid, a Jordanian intelligence officer killed in the attack, was honoured in Amman

A suicide bomber who killed eight people when he attacked a US base in Afghanistan has been identified as a “double agent” working for Jordanian intelligence, according to US media and intelligence reports.

Al Jazeera sources in Afghanistan on Tuesday said that the man, identified as Hammam Khalil al-Balawi, had been brought to the base in the eastern Afghan province of Khost, by car, from across the border in Pakistan.

Al-Balawi, also known as Abu Dujana al-Khorasani, is believed to have offered the CIA new information on the whereabouts of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda second in command.

He had apparently duped his employers into believing that statements he had made in the past on websites about wanting to die as a martyr were part of his cover.

The bombing, which occurred last Wednesday, killed seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer, identified by Jordan’s state news agency Petra as Captain Sharif Ali bin Zeid.

Al-Qaeda connection

Former CIA officers said Zeid, who was related to the Jordanian royal family, was al-Balawi’s reporting officer.

Al-Balawi, who had in the past been imprisoned in Jordan, is thought to have been recruited by Jordanian intelligence to help track down al-Zawahiri because of his connections with al-Qaeda.

Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and White House adviser, said that according to unconfirmed intelligence reports, al-Zawahiri himself had ordered al-Balawi to carry out the attack using the pretext of information about his whereabouts.

“The bomber allegedly was sent by Ayman Zawahiri himself to conduct the attack and claimed he had information on Zawahiri,” Riedel was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.

The Jordanian government has not responded to requests for comment on the story.

‘Double agent’

Nisreen el-Shamayleh, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Amman, the Jordanian capital, said: “In the past al-Balawi had been imprisoned and tortured in Jordanian prisons for participating in al-Qaeda meetings. That was way back in the past.

“After being released from prison, he was summoned several times by Jordanian intelligence and it is believed that during that period, and because of al-Balawi’s valuable knowledge of al-Qaeda, he may have then been recruited by Jordanian intelligence,” she said.

“We do know that he wasn’t actually recruited by the Jordanian intelligence for very long.”

Al-Balawi, who was from the Jordanian town of Zarqa, is also known to have trained and worked as a doctor in a hospital in Amman.

The US monitoring service Site Intelligence said that so-called jihadist websites had reported al-Balawi’s arrest in December 2007 without specifying where he had been arrested.

‘Love of jihad’

Site also reported that al-Balwai was a prolific contributor to such websites, even after his release from custody when he was supposed to be working as a Jordanian agent, the monitoring group added.

In a September 2009 posting on a site run by al-Qaeda, he wrote: “If [a Muslim] dies in the cause of Allah, he will grant his words glory that will be permanent marks on the path to guide to jihad, with permission from Allah,” according to Site.

“If love of jihad enters a man’s heart, it will not leave him even if he wants to do so. Indeed, what he sees of luxurious palaces will remind him of positions of the martyrs in the higher heaven.”

El-Shamayleh said the attack would likely damage relations between the CIA and Jordanian intelligence.

“For many years Jordanian intelligence has been one of the CIA’s closest and most useful allies in the Middle East. The attack could be embarrassing for the [Jordanian] government,” she said.

“Jordan has always tried to present itself as an ally and a partner with the US in its ‘fight against terror’.”

In 2006, Jordanian intelligence helped track down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who was killed in an air raid in Iraq in June that year.

Taliban claim

The new details of attack on Forward Operating Base Chapman run contrary to earlier claims that the Taliban were behind the attack.

Soon after the blast Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said in an email: “This deadly attack was carried out by a valorous Afghan army member when the officials [Americans] were busy gaining information about the mujahideen.”

The Afghan government later rejected the claim that the bomber had been from the Afghan army.

The attack in Khost was the worst single loss of life for the CIA since the bombing of the US embassy in Beirut in 1983.

Following the attack, the base was locked down. An Al Jazeera source said that about 150 mostly Afghan labourers at the base were detained for three days.

The CIA has not released the names of those killed or provided details about the work its agents had been carrying out, citing “the sensitivity of their mission and other ongoing operations”.

About 113,000 foreign troops are in Afghanistan fighting Taliban-led fighters

Two separate roadside bomb attacks in Afghanistan have left four US troops and a British soldier dead.

The US soldiers, the first American military casualties in Afghanistan in the new year, were killed in an explosion on Sunday in the south of the country, Nato-led forces said in a statement.

The UK soldier died while on foot patrol in Helmand province, Britain’s ministry of defence said on Monday.

The Taliban said that a series of explosions on Sunday in Panjwai district of southern Kandahar had killed several foreign soldiers, but their report could not be verified immediately.

Meanwhile, the Afghan defence ministry said its soldiers killed more than 10 Taliban fighters on Sunday in northern Kunduz province’s Imam Sahib district.

Nato and the US have 113,000 troops in Afghanistan fighting Taliban-led fighters, who are aiming to overthrow the government of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president.

Break suspended

On Monday, Karzai ordered parliament to suspend a winter break so that politicians can vote on new cabinet nominees, after politicians rejected over two thirds of his original candidates.

Parliament refused 17 out of 24 of his nominees on Saturday, casting Afghanistan into further political array after a UN-backed probe in October threw out nearly one third of his votes from August’s presidential poll.

Karzai’s decree ordered that the legislature should delay its 45-day recess until he proposes new ministers in place of those rejected by the parliamentarians at the weekend, his office said in a statement.

It ordered “the national assembly to postpone leave until the members of the cabinet are approved”.

If Karzai fails to have his cabinet approved in the next few weeks he will have to head to a London conference later this month seeking extra funds from Western donors without being able to say who will control a significant chunk of them.

The latest attack came two days after a blast at a volleyball match killed nearly 100 people

A former provincial cabinet minister was among four people killed by a roadside bomb in the northwest of Pakistan, police have said.

Ghani-ur Rehman, a former irrigation minister in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), died in a an explosion in Bagto village, about 10km from the city of Hangu, on Sunday.

“Four people, including Ghani-ur Rehman have died in the  attack,” Abdul Rashid Khan, the police chief of Hangu city, told the AFP news agency.

“The other three are a bodyguard, his driver and a friend.”

Fazal Naeem, a police spokesman, said that a remote-control device was used to target Rehman’s car.

“High-intensity explosives were used. The vehicle was completely destroyed,” he said.

Taliban blamed

Rehman, who was a former mayor of Hangu, spent time in jail under the previous military government before benefitting from an amnesty that protected 8,000 politicians, businessmen and officials from corruption charges.

That amnesty was scrapped by the supreme court last month.

Hangu has a history of sectarian clashes between Pakistan’s majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shia Muslims.

However, Rehman’s son blamed the Pakistani Taliban for the bombing.

“My father was targeted twice before. Taliban and militant groups are involved in this attack,” Ateeq-ur Rehman told AFP.

Bagto village is close to Orakzai, home of Hakimullah Mehsud, the head of the country’s main Taliban faction.

The blast follows a suicide car bombing at a volleyball game in a northwestern village that killed at least 98 people on Friday.

More than 600 people have died in suspected Taliban attacks since October in an apparent response to a military offensive against Taliban fighters in the south Waziristan region.

About 30,000 troops have secured key towns in the region since the operation was launched on October 17, but thousands of fighters are believed to have fled into the nearby tribal districts of North Waziristan, Kurram and Orakzai.

Drone attack

Meanwhile Pakistani intelligence officials said suspected US drone missiles struck near the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan on Sunday, killing five men.

Officials said the missiles targeted the house of a well-known tribesman in Mosakki village, about 25km east of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan.

The tribesman’s grandson was also reportedly killed in the attack which destroyed a vehicle nearby.

“A total of five militants have been killed, two are local and three are foreigners,” a Pakistani security official in Miranshah told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Sunday’s attack was the third suspected US missile strike in the tribal belt in less than a week.