Many people, including some intelligence agencies officers, know the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden. The fugitive Al Qaeda founder is protected by fiercely loyal tribal chiefs in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, claims veteran journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave in the Washington Times. Borchgrave, who in the past has written that Osama Bin Laden is alive and well and living in the city of Peshawar, claims to have high-grade sources in both Pakistan and the United States. He writes that in his meeting with NWFP Chief Minister Akram Durrani, the MMA leader felt no compunction in recounting his Taliban likes and American dislikes. Borchgrave calls the North Waziristan peace deal a sham from the get-go. The paper signed by tribal chiefs was, in effect, a deal with the Taliban, whose guerrillas continued to cross the mythical border with impunity. General Musharrafs perceived weakness was rewarded with the affair of Lal Masjid in Islamabad, he adds.
Borchgrave writes, Musharraf has never seriously cracked down on religious zealots who want him dead for capitulating to Bush. And he now finds himself on the horns of a painful dilemma. He can see what most of the world perceives as an inevitable humiliating US withdrawal from Iraq, followed by a collapse of the NATO consensus in Afghanistan...But Musharraf knows he cannot afford to ignore President Bushs resolve in the light of a new National Intelligence Estimate, which said publicly and unequivocally that Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies are back in business in FATA big time.
A clerics convention on the protection of madrassas declared on Tuesday that suicide bombings were un-Islamic and must not be encouraged. A declaration made at the convention organised by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) NWFP, accused secret forces of plotting suicide attacks against Muslims. Nearly 2,000 clerics from across Pakistan participated in the convention. The declaration said that movements like the ones started in Malakand and Khyber Agency and in some parts of the country in the past were initially peaceful, but later turned to militancy and violence because the activists took the law in their hands.
After banning music in the tribal areas, local Taliban are reportedly fining taxi drivers and citizens Rs 500 for listening to music cassettes in their cars. I was stopped by the Taliban at Sarband village near Bara, Khyber Agency, last Saturday. They searched my taxi and found some music cassettes, and then asked me to pay Rs 500 as a fine, Khanimullah, a Peshawar-based taxi driver, told Daily Times. 
An executive council meeting of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazl) (JUI-F) that was scheduled for February 4 in Islamabad will now be held in Lahore because of Fazlur Rehman and 
Contrary to Maulana Fazlur Rehmanâs statement on registration of madrassas, government sources and Wafaqul Madaris Secretary Hanif Jalandhry said that Maulana himself had given âa go aheadâ to the registration ordinance.