Osama death 'a curse for US', warns Al Qaeda

Cairo:  Al Qaeda released a statement on militant Web sites on Friday confirming the death of Osama bin Laden, news agencies reported.

The statement, dated May 3, was signed by "the general leadership" of the group, the Associated Press said.

"We stress that the blood of the holy warrior sheik, Osama bin Laden, God bless him, is precious to us and to all Muslims" the statement said according to the A.P., adding that his death would not "go in vain." The statement also said, "We will remain, God willing, a curse chasing the Americans and their agents, following them outside and inside their countries."

Bin Laden was killed by a United States raid early Monday morning in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The statement said a voice recording that Bin Laden made a week before his death would be released soon, Reuters reported. The statement also called on the people of Pakistan to rebel against their government and warned of reprisal attacks against America.

"Soon, God willing, their happiness will turn to sadness," the statement said, according to the Associated Press, "their blood will be mingled with their tears."

Support for Osama; anti-US protests across Pakistan

Abbottabad/Peshawar/Quetta:  Thousands of protesters took to the streets across Pakistan on Friday, denouncing the US raid which killed the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

In Kuchlak near Quetta, close to the Afghan border, protesters chanted "Osama is alive", holding aloft placards with pictures of bin Laden.

"After the martyrdom of Osama, billions, trillions of Osamas will be born," warned Abdullah Sittar Chishti, who works for the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema Islam political party.

Some protesters set fire to an American flag.

Further north, in Peshawar, hundreds of people marched through the town after Friday prayers.

Protestors were seen carrying green flags of the Jamat-e-Islami political party, who organised the demonstration.

A local Jamat-e-Islami leader called for "proof or evidence" about the US Special Forces raid on bin Laden's Abbottabad compound, accusing US President Barack Obama of using the raid as part of a ploy to win a second term in office.

"What they want more is to put pressure on the Pakistani government, and Obama wants to win his next election by using this drama," said Shabir Ahmed Khan.

In Abbottabad, the town where bin Laden was captured and killed, another protest saw hundreds taking part.

Waving Jamat-e-Islami party flags, and carrying homemade placards, some people chanted "Osama is alive" and "burn the US parliament".

The leader of Jamat-e-Islami, Mohammad Ibrahim, said supporters had come "on the highways and roads" to Abbottabad to take part in the protest, and condemn "the American assault and attack upon the solidarity and sovereignty of Pakistan"

Protesters also burned tyres in the streets.

Bin Laden, the face of global Islamist militancy, was killed in a firefight in Abbottabad with elite American forces early on Monday, then quickly buried at sea in a low key finale to a furtive decade on the run.

ISI chief Shuja Pasha may step down: Reports

Islamabad:  Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt General Ahmad Shuja Pasha may step down in the wake of widespread criticism of the Pakistani establishment over US special forces killing Osama bin Laden near a key military facility in the garrison city of Abbottabad, according to a media report.

Pasha may quit as the Pakistan government "looks for a fall guy for the bin Laden debacle", unnamed senior officials were quoted as saying by 'The Daily Beast', a news website affiliated to Newsweek magazine.

The senior officials said "they recognise that an important head has to roll and soon" to allay domestic and international anger over bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad, located close to the federal capital of Islamabad.

The officials said the "most likely candidate to be the fall guy is Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha". They said it was "nearly a done deal". Pakistani analysts with close connections to the military agreed. "It would make a lot of sense...It's in his (Pasha's) personal and the national interest to take the heat off," said Lt Gen (retired) Talat Masood, one of Pakistan's leading defence analysts.

An official statement issued after a meeting of Corps Commanders chaired by Army chief Gen Ashfaq
Parvez Kayani said the military admitted its "own shortcomings in developing intelligence on the presence of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan".

 It added that "an investigation has been ordered into the circumstances that led to this situation".

The Daily Beast reported that Pakistanis were furious that the ISI and the powerful military, which control national security policy, "could have been so incompetent not to know that the al Qaeda leader was comfortably holed up in Abbottabad", only 80 km north of Islamabad.

"Never before have the military and the ISI come under such criticism," said Masood.

People are angry that the military, which gets the lion's share of the budget, could be totally unaware that US helicopters had violated Pakistani airspace during the raid that killed bin Laden on Monday.

Pakistani officials, both from the civilian government and the military, have said the US did not inform them about the raid.

"People are outraged...They see this as the fault of the military in which they have invested so much trust," Masood was quoted as saying.

However, a senior ISI officer told The Daily Beast he could not confirm the report and he had no knowledge of Pasha being "pressured into resigning". 

According to some reports in the Pakistani media, Pasha left on Friday for Washington to explain Pakistan`s position on the presence of bin Laden in the country before he was killed in the US raid on May 2.