Pakistan agencies foil IS plot to bomb ISI office in Multan

Agencies

August 21, 2018

Lahore, Aug 21: Pakistan's security agencies claimed to have foiled a terror plot to bomb the offices of spy agencies - the ISI and the Intelligence Bureau - and arrested two suspected Islamic State terrorists in Multan city in Punjab province.

"A CTD team along with police arrested two suspects belonging to the militant Islamic State (IS) group during a raid in Multan. A huge cache of explosives and weapons, including hand grenades, were seized during the raid," said the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of the Punjab Police.

It also said that money that was to be used for terror financing has also been recovered from them.

The suspected IS members arrested on Monday from Multan district, some 350-km from Lahore, had plans to bomb the buildings that house offices of intelligence agencies -- Inter-Services Intelligence and Intelligence Bureau -- in the city.

The police said it received information that IS terrorists possessing arms and explosives were present at Vehari Road, Multan and planning to target vital installations and offices of intelligence agencies.

"After receiving information, CTD along with police and intelligence teams launched an operation and managed to arrest the suspected terrorists identified as Waseemur Rehman and Samiullah," it said in a statement.

It said Samiullah was an accomplice of Azfaal Ahmad, who was the leader of the local Al-Qaeda chapter that later merged into IS.

"Samiullah was involved in recruitment for the IS from Khanewal and Multan districts of Punjab and also provided a hideout to the group members and was involved in transportation of weapons," it said, adding that Rehman is a close associate of Kashif Qayyum, the former head of the local IS network.

The CTD said more disclosures are expected as the arrested suspects are being interrogated.

The Pakistan government often claims that there has been no presence of IS network in the country but at times the security agencies arrest suspects belonging to the deadly terror group.

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Trump’s associates told to avoid racist language making them ‘look like Nazis’

News Network

November 18,2024

Advisors to US President-elect Donald Trump have instructed his allies and associates to refrain from using the inflammatory language they previously employed when discussing issues related to migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers, in a bid to avoid “looking like Nazis.”

US media reports said that Trump’s associates had been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to accommodate migrants rounded up in deportation operations across the country.

The reports said the US president-elect’s allies had been ordered to stave off such charged terms as they would bring to mind “Nazis,” and be used against Trump.

“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” one Trump ally told American monthly magazine Rolling Stone.

“Apparently, some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”

The presidential advisers also cautioned surrogates and allies to keep racist terms, which have dogged Trump’s campaign, out of their remarks.

They said with Trump’s heated rhetoric that used to compare undocumented immigrants to “animals” and his slight that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” detractors did not need to reach too far to find parallels to Nazi Germany.

Stephen Miller, who Trump tapped to be his deputy chief of staff of policy, specifically used the word “camps” to describe holding facilities that he hoped the military could put together for immigrants.

Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is chosen by Trump to be in charge of the US borders, was no stranger to such language.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”

Becoming a little more forthright about the new government’s aggressive deportation plans, Homan likened the early days of the Trump administration to the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I got three words for them – shock and awe,” he said. “You’re going to see us take this country back.”

Trump made immigration a central element of his 2024 presidential campaign but unlike his first run, which was mainly focused on building a border wall, he has shifted his attention to interior enforcement and the removal of undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

People close to the US president and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise.

The businessman-turned-politician deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.

The figure do not include the millions of people turned away at the border under a Covid-era policy enacted by Trump and used during most of Biden’s term.

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