PAKISTAN SUCCESSFULLY TEST FIRES A NUKE CAPABLE CRUISE MISSILE - HATF VII (BABUR)

  

The Pakistani military says it has successfully test-fired a medium-range cruise missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

The domestically-developed Cruise Missile Hatf-VII (Babur) with a range of 700 km was test-fired on Friday, Pakistan's military said in a statement.

"The Babur cruise missile, which can carry strategic and conventional weapons over a distance of 700 kilometers, has stealth capabilities," military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said.

The missile also incorporates the most modern cruise missile technology of Terrain Contour Matching (TERCOM) and Digital Scene Matching and Area Co-relation (DSMAC).

The missile test was conducted to validate the design parameters of the weapon system and a new Missile Launch Vehicle (MLV).

The three-tube MLV enhances the targeting and deployment options in the conventional and nuclear modes.

The missile test comes as tensions between Pakistan and the US have intensified after White House officials threatened to launch a military action against Islamabad, accusing Pakistan of not being serious about fighting militancy on the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Pakistan's powerful Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani cautioned the US to think "10 times" before launching a military offensive. Kayani reminded US officials that Pakistan was a nuclear power and nothing like Iraq or Afghanistan.

CIA CENSORS EX-FBI AGENT'S 9/11 BOOK

 The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has expurgated extensive parts of a book by a former FBI agent on September 11, 2001 events in a bid to rewrite the history of post-9/11 America.

The CIA did not allow the full publication of a memoir by Ali H. Soufan, the former FBI agent that spent years near the center of the battle against al-Qaeda.

Soufan argues in the book that the CIA missed a chance to derail the 2001 incident by withholding the information by FBI about two 9/11 hijackers living in San Diego.

He also gives a detailed, firsthand account of the US spy agency's move toward brutal treatment of detainees in its interrogations, saying the harsh methods were unnecessary and counterproductive.

Soufan, a counterterrorism agent that played a central role in most major terrorism investigations between 1997 and 2005, has told colleagues he believes the censored portions of his book are intended not to protect national security, but to prevent him from recounting episodes that reflect badly on the CIA.

In a letter sent on August 19 to the FBI's general counsel, Valerie E. Caproni, a lawyer for Soufan, David N. Kelley, wrote that “credible sources have told Mr. Soufan that the agency has made a decision that this book should not be published because it will prove embarrassing to the agency.”

Soufan has called the CIA's cuts to and editing of his book “ridiculous,” but said he thought he would prevail in getting them restored for a later edition.

He said he believed that counterterrorism officers have an obligation to face squarely “where we made mistakes and let the American people down.”

The book, entitled The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against Al Qaeda has been written with the assistance of Daniel Freedman, a colleague at Soufan's New York security company, and is scheduled to go on sale on September 12.

US government employees who hold security clearances are required to have their books vetted for classified information before publication. However, since decisions on what should be classified can be highly subjective, the prepublication review process often becomes a battle.

Several former US spies have gone to court to fight redactions to their books, and the Defense Department spent nearly $50,000 last year to buy and destroy the entire first printing of an intelligence officer's book, which it said contained secrets.

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A SOLID PROOF OF FAKE OPERATION CONDUCTED AGAINST OSAMA BIN LADEN IN PAKISTAN