The Washington Post on Tuesday confirmed that a former deputy chief of the FBI was “Deep Throat,” the mysterious source that helped unravel the Watergate scandal in the early 70s, which ultimately led to President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation.

Vanity Fair magazine first identified W. Mark Felt as Deep Throat in an article revealed on Tuesday. Later in the day, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story, and their former top editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee, confirmed the information.

The three, who had sworn not to disclose Deep Throat’s identity until after he had died, revealed their three-decade secret after Mr Felt’s family and Vanity Fair magazine identified the 91-year-old Felt, now a retiree in California.

“W. Mark Felt was ‘Deep Throat’ and helped us immeasurably in our Watergate coverage,” according to a statement issued by Woodward and Bernstein. “However, as the record shows, many other sources and officials assisted us and other reporters for the hundreds of stories that were written in The Washington Post about Watergate.”

The revelation ended more than three decades of speculation about Woodward and Bernstein’s famous confidential source in reporting on the cover-up by the Nixon White House following the bungled break-in of National Democratic Committee headquarters at the Watergate office-hotel-apartment complex on June 17, 1972.

According to the story in Vanity Fair, Mr Felt told California attorney John D. O’Connor, a family friend who wrote the article: “I’m the guy they called Deep Throat.”

Bradlee told the Washington Post that he knew the paper was “on the right track” by using Mr Felt. “The No. 2 guy at the FBI, that was a pretty good source,” he said. The “quality of the source” and the soundness of his guidance made him sure of that, he said.

Woodward and Bernstein used Deep Throat largely to confirm information or fill gaps from other sources. He also helped point them in the right direction and gave them tips, according to the reporters’ 1974 book “All the President’s Men,” which was made into a movie two years later.

When Woodward needed to meet the source to check information, he would place a flag in a flowerpot on a certain place on his windowsill, as a signal for the pair to meet in secret in an underground car park in the dead of night.

Mr Felt gave Woodward information on “deep background” and met him often in Washington parking garages. The Deep Throat nickname, coined by a Washington Post editor, was a play on the phrase and a popular porn movie by the same name.

In his 1979 book, “The FBI Pyramid from the Inside,” Mr Felt had denied he was Deep Throat. “I never leaked information to Woodward and Bernstein or to anyone else!” he wrote. The Vanity Fair article said Mr Felt had kept the secret even from his family members until 2002 because he felt his act of leaking information had been dishonorable.

On Tuesday, Mr Felt appeared at the door of the Santa Rosa, California, home where he lives with his daughter, Joan Felt, and smiled. “He’s grinning from ear to ear,” Joan Felt said. “I think it’s a great moment in American history; it’s a great moment for our family.”

Islamabad, June 1
BJP President L.K. Advani, on a historic visit to Pakistan, today suggested friendship associations be formed by different groups from both countries to strengthen the current peace process.

“Friendship associations in different professions and fields can strengthen the peace process between the two countries,” he told reporters after meeting National Assembly Speaker Amir Hussain at his chamber in the parliament building.

Mr Advani, who met President Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and other top Pakistani leaders yesterday, told reporters that his meetings had gone “more than” his expectations. — IANS

Kabul, June 1
More than 30 persons, including Kabul's police chief, are feared dead after a suicide bomb ripped through a mosque in Afghanistan's Kandahar province today where mourners had gathered to pay tributes to a murdered cleric, reports Xinhua.

However, Reuters put the toll at 17.

“We confirm the suicide bombing, and till now over 30 persons have been killed and many injured,” an official from Kandahar said.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at Mullah Abdul Fayaz Mosque where hundreds of people had gathered to pay their respects to Muslim leader Mawlavi Abdullah Fayaz who was killed in Kandahar on Monday.

Fayaz, chairman of the Islamic Scholar Council, was a known critic of the Taliban and had frequently addressed meetings in the mosque about driving out the hardline rulers who were ousted from power in 2001.

Commander of the Afghan National Army Muslim Hamid confirmed the explosion but said the number of casualties was not so high. “Nearly 10 persons were killed and 15 were injured,” he said.

Officials in Kandahar did not rule out the possibility of a link between the explosion and Fayaz's killing.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has criticized the killing of the Muslim leader. Nearly 50 persons were detained in Kandahar on a charge of involvement in the killing.

Kabul police chief Akram Khakreezwal was among mourners at Abdul Rab Akhundzada mosque in the troubled southern city of Kandahar. It was the first suicide attack on a mosque in Afghanistan, a government spokesman said.

Fayaz served as the head of the Islamic scholar's council, a government-appointed body, and criticised reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar at a recent gathering of clerics.

Fayaz survived a bomb attack at the Abdul Rab Akhundzada mosque two years ago that was blamed on the Taliban, and the Taliban claimed responsibility for his death.

A Taliban spokesman said he knew nothing about today's blast as none of his men had contacted him about it.

Kandahar doctor Hashim Alakozai, who said he had seen the mangled body of the man believed to have been the bomber, said he looked like an Arab. — IANS

Toronto, June 1
India-born Canadian MP Gurmant Grewal, who created history last year by getting elected to Parliament along with his wife Nina Grewal, is embroiled in a controversy, after tapes showing the two being enticed to defect on the eve of the May 19 confidence vote surfaced.

The tapes reportedly show Prime Minister Paul Martin’s aides making offers to the husband-wife duo to defect from the Conservative Party and support the Liberal government. The aides on the tape are believed to include Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh.

Mr Martin won the confidence motion by a wafer-thin margin of one vote, after Conservative MP Belinda Stronach crossed the floor to the Liberals and was later made a Cabinet Minister.

Just before the vote, Mr Grewal had claimed that he was offered an ambassadorship and his wife, Nina, a Senate appointment, for abstaining from the budget vote. However, Mr Dosanjh claimed that it was Grewal who had approached him with the offer of his vote in exchange for favours.

According to the TV channel CTV, transcripts of Mr Grewal’s taped conversations show the Prime Minister was ready to talk to him about defecting and to offer him a government post within two weeks of the vote. — UNI

Islamabad, June 1
President Pervez Musharraf said on Tuesday that Pakistan had handed over a top Al-Qaida suspect to the USA, having completed his interrogation. Pakistan announced in May that it had captured Abu Faraj Farj Al Libbi, a Libyan that US counter-terrorism agents say became Al-Qaida’s third-most important figure two years ago.

General Musharraf said he did not know where Al Libbi currently was, in Pakistan, or in US custody. “We have extracted all the information and intelligence from him and I presume that he may have been deported already to the USA,” President Musharraf said in response to a question at a forum organised by CNN that was televised live.

“We had decided that having gathered all the information, interrogated him, we are going to deport him. We don’t want him in Pakistan,” the President added. Pakistan says Al Libbi was Al-Qaida’s operations chief and was behind two assassination attempts against Musharraf in December 2003.

Asked why Pakistan should be willing to hand over Al Libbi when he had twice tried to kill him, General Musharraf said: “Yes, indeed, he did attack me twice. But then there are other more important issues of his role in Al-Qaida and his information and intelligence that needs to be corroborated with all the other intelligence gathered through interrogation of other Al-Qaida personalities who we have apprehended.

“Therefore, these are bigger issues involved and finally we will come to his trial later.” President Musharraf said Al Libbi had not provided any useful information that might help catch Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the USA in 2001.

He said Al Libbi had denied contacts with Osama and may have relied on a courier network, other members of which had also been arrested. “Maybe he was not in direct contact with him. It was only through the courier network that he was exchanging messages but he hasn’t told us anything about that,” General Musharraf said.