Mastung blast: Pak forces kill ISlinked mastermind
QUETTA: Pakistani security forces on Friday killed the mastermind of the country’s worst ever suicide bombing in an early morning shootout in the southwest province of Balochistan, officials said.
The operation was carried out on an intelligence tip off about the presence of an Islamic State operative identified as Hidayat Ullah in a house in Darenjo village of Qalat district in the restive province.
A senior Frontier Corps official told AFP Ullah was facilitator of Hafeez Nawaz, who carried out the suicide bombing last week which killed at least 149 people.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack at an election rally in Balochistan’s Mastung district.
Trump was asked who he believes on accusations of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential polls — Putin, who denies interfering, or US intelligence agencies. Trump said: "I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia. I will say this — I don't see any reason why it would be"
It took more than 24 hours for Trump to take back his remarks. "The sentence should have been: I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be Russia. Sort of a double negative,” he said
He also injected some uncertainty into his walk-back by saying: "Could be other people also; there's a lot of people out there"
Trump praised Putin's "incredible offer" of allowing the US to question the 12 Russian military officials indicted for hacking into the Democratic presidential campaign. In exchange, he said, Russian authorities could interview several Americans the Kremlin accuses of unspecified crimes.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a clarifying statement: "It is a proposal that was made in sincerity by President Putin, but President Trump disagrees with it."
Trump was asked by a reporter if Russia was still targeting the US, to which he replied "no". Sanders later said his comment was misinterpreted as Trump was saying "no" to answering additional questions — although that didn't appear to be the case
Trump said he was "not happy" that the federal reserve was raising interest rates, breaking with long-standing tradition at the White House of avoiding any influence on the US central bank. A White House spokeswoman later said Trump "respects the independence of the Fed"
However, Trump called on the federal reserve to change course. "The United States should not be penalized because we are doing so well," he tweeted
Putin had his own walk-back. In Helsinki, he alleged investor Bill Browder, who is accused of financial crimes in Russia, contributed $400 million to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. On Tuesday, the Russian general prosecutor's office clarified that Putin misspoke and meant $400,000