Washington, March 18
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) believes Osama bin-Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are inside Pakistan though it does not know precisely where.

The agency officials believe the two are hiding, "either in the northern tribal areas or in North Waziristan, or somewhere in that vicinity," CIA Director Leon Panetta told The Washington Post. While there have been no confirmed sightings of either man since 2003, the continued pressure on the Al-Qaida increases the opportunities for catching one or both, he said.

Relentless attacks against the Al-Qaida in the Pakistan tribal region appear to have driven bin-Laden and other top leaders deeper into hiding, leaving the organisation rudderless and less capable of planning sophisticated operations, Panetta told the Post. So profound is the Al-Qaida's disarray that one of its lieutenants, in a recently intercepted message, pleaded to bin-Laden to come to the group's rescue and provide some leadership, Panetta claimed.

In what the post called a near-acknowledgement of the CIA's war against extremists in Pakistan, Panetta credited an increasingly aggressive campaign against the Al-Qaida and its Taliban allies, including more frequent strikes and better coordination with Pakistan. Calling it "the most aggressive operation that the CIA has been involved in in our history," he said, "Those operations are seriously disrupting the Al-Qaida."

Panetta cited recent arrests of the top Taliban figures-mostly notably Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, captured in Karachi on February 8, as tangible evidence of improving ties with the Pakistan's intelligence service. He said Pakistan had given the CIA access to Baradar since his capture, and added, "we're getting intelligence" from the interrogation.

Panetta acknowledged that the Al-Qaida was continuing to look for ways to kill Americans and was specifically seeking to recruit people who lacked criminal records or known ties to terrorist groups to carry out missions.

Still, the CIA under the Obama administration is "without question putting tremendous pressure on their operation," Panetta said. "The President gave us the mission to disrupt, dismantle and defeat the Al-Qaida and their military allies and I think that's what we are trying to do." — IANS 

ISLAMABAD: The Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Reforms (PCCR) completed its work on Wednesday and resolved the thorny issue of provincial autonomy and removal of distortions made in the 1973 Constitution by dictatorial regimes.

Except for the renaming of the NWFP, all issues on which parties in the committee had sent their proposals were resolved by consensus, sources told Dawn.

They said the chairman of the committee, Mian Raza Rabbani, would present a draft of constitutional amendments in the National Assembly after having been elevated to the office of adviser on law. Rabbani denied media reports about his resignation from the PCCR.

The Rabbani committee suggested amendments to over 50 articles of the Constitution. The sources said the committee did not confine its job to repeal of the controversial 17th Amendment. It recommended transfer of the President’s powers to the Prime Minister, as envisaged in the original 1971 Constitution, and some major amendments to the articles relating to provincial autonomy.

The proposals will be presented in parliament as the 18th Constitution Amendment Bill, 2010.

The committee agreed to a demand of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement to give more powers to the Council of Common Interests. The council is being made an executive body under a proposed amendment. The committee suggested some major amendments to the Constitution to give more administrative, financial and political autonomy to the provinces.

Besides eliminating the presidential powers to dissolve the National Assembly and dismiss an elected government under Article 58(2)b, the committee recommended that the presidential powers of appointing the armed forces’ chiefs and the Chief Election Commissioner should be transferred to the Prime Minister.

While reviewing articles relating to the process of general and by-elections, the committee proposed to clip discretionary powers of the President and Governors and made it binding on them to consult other public office-holders before appointing a caretaker government for holding the general election.

— By arrangement with Dawn

London, March 18
An advertisement by a British IT firm seeking someone “preferably of Indian origin” has sparked a racism row in UK. The advertisement, which appeared on a popular recruitment website, was placed on behalf of a Bristol-based computer company, Torry Harris, which has bases in Britain and India.

The advertisement reads: “Minimum six years of experience in IT. The person should be a UK citizen with security clearance from the UK government. Preferably of Indian origin.”

According to a report in the Daily Mail, the advertisement was removed last night from jobsite.co.uk as the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) launched an investigation.

The advertisement for the £38,000-a-year job was spotted by IT consultant Vince Silva of Chepstow, Gwent.

He said: “I have never seen a recruitment advert like this before, and think it is appalling that job applicants could be discriminated against in this way.

“It raises a wider question about the way in which some big companies in Britain are bringing in IT workers from abroad instead of recruiting them here.”

Torry Harris has declined to comment, but the EHRC said: “It is unlawful to discriminate against a job applicant on the basis of their nationality. We will be looking into the matter.” Recruitment agency McGregor-Boyall Associates said the advert had been placed in error.

Spokesman Farhaan Majid said: “This is a mistake. I put the advert through like this when I shouldn’t have done.”

He said: “Some companies prefer to employ people of Indian origin because they are immediately available and don’t mind moving. Often people in Britain have mortgages and don’t want to move.”

The recruitment firm’s managing director Laurie Boyall said: “It should not have been put up, and was cut and pasted from material sent to us by a client in India.”

Conservative MP David Davies has condemned also the advertisement.

He said: “It is quite clearly racist. I call on the EHRC to show resolute action in dealing with cases of anti-British discrimination.” — PTI 

British child Sahil Saeed sits with his grandmother Tasneem Bashir at the British High Commission in Islamabad on Thursday. — AP/PTI

The five-year-old British boy of Pakistani origin who was kidnapped for ransom early this month was reunited with his father here on Thursday at the British Embassy and later flew to Manchester to join his mother.

Sahil's father Raja Naqqash Saeed arrived here from London to receive his son ending his two-week ordeal that involved Interpol and law-enforcing agencies in Pakistan, Britain, France, Spain and Romania.

Sahil Saeed was recovered by the Pakistani police on Tuesday near Jhelum. He was kidnapped at gunpoint from his grandmother's house in Jhelum as he and his father prepared to fly home to Britain after a family holiday on March 3.

Sahil, from Shaw, Oldham, Greater Manchester, was held captive for 13 days after being kidnapped by an armed gang on March 3. He was found wandering in a field at Kharian, 25 miles from Jhelum, on Tuesday, alone but unharmed. His hair had been cropped and his shoes were missing.