FBI Director Robert Mueller is visiting Pakistan as tensions between
the two countries spike over U.S. demands that Islamabad crack down on
Afghan militants it says get shelter on Pakistani soil.
A
Pakistani government statement says that Mueller met with Pakistani
Interior Minister Rehman Malik for talks Wednesday in the capital.
U.S. officials declined to discuss the visit.
Already
uneasy relations between the U.S. and Pakistan have soured over the
last year, with the unilateral American raid on Osama bin Laden on May
2 bringing ties to a fresh low.
U.S. officials have recently
accused Islamabad of maintaining links with the Haqqani network, a band
of Islamist fighters Washington says is behind attacks in Afghanistan,
including last week's strike on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
ISLAMABAD
(AP) — Suspected militants opened fire on an army helicopter flying in
northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, wounding a regional commander inside
the aircraft.
The chopper was flying over the Dir region near the
Afghan border when it was attacked, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar
Abbas.
He said Maj. Gen. Javed Iqbal was shot in the leg during
the incident, but that the chopper was able to keep flying. The
spokesman gave no further details.
Iqbal is the commanding officer in Pakistan's northern Swat Valley, which the army wrestled out of Taliban hands in 2009.
Pakistan's army is battling Islamist militants in several northwestern regions along its border with Afghanistan.
Separately,
a Pakistani court sentenced seven men to death for lynching two
teenagers in a mob killing that was recorded and widely shown on
television.
The court also sentenced 10 policemen who watched the
killings last year and did not intervene to three years in prison each,
prosecutor Shakil Thakur said.
The two teenage victims, alleged to be robbers, were beaten to death and then hanged from an electricity pole.
The
attack in Sialkot city in Punjab province was caught on videotape by a
bystander and aired on Pakistani television, shocking many in the
country.
The trials were held in a prison in the city of Gujranwala in Punjab province, with the verdicts handed down Tuesday. AP
