Six people in Florida and Pakistan have been charged with providing financing and material support to the Pakistani Taliban, a designated foreign terrorist organization, US federal officials said today.
The United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and local FBI agents announced the four-count indictment against three US citizens resident in Florida and three other individuals living in Pakistan.
They were charged with being involved in a conspiracy to "murder, maim and kidnap persons overseas," as well with conspiring to provide material support to the Pakistani Taliban.
Three of the accused, who are all originally from Pakistan, were US citizens arrested in South Florida and Los Angeles. They include two Imans, or Muslim religious leaders, from mosques in Florida.
The other three charged were living in Pakistan and still at large.
Earlier today, Pakistan's parliament condemned the US raid to find and kill Osama bin Laden, calling for a review of US ties and warning that Pakistan could cut supply lines to American forces in Afghanistan if there were more such attacks.
Pakistan's intelligence chief was cited as saying he was ready to resign over the bin Laden affair, which has embarrassed the country and led to suspicion that Pakistani security agents knew where the al-Qaeda chief was hiding.
Yesterday, two suicide bombers attacked a military academy in a northwestern town killing 80 people in what Pakistani Taliban militants said was their first act of revenge for bin Laden's death on May 2nd.
The secret US raid on bin Laden's compound in the garrison town of Abbottabad, 50km north of Islamabad, has strained already prickly ties with the United States.
It has also led to domestic criticism of the government and military, partly because bin Laden had apparently remained undetected in Pakistan for years, but also because of the failure to detect or stop the US operation to get him.
"Parliament . . . condemned the unilateral action in Abbottabad which constitutes a violation of Pakistan's sovereign," it said in a resolution issued after security chiefs briefed legislators.
Pakistan has dismissed as absurd any suggestion that authorities knew bin Laden was holed up in a high-walled compound near the country's top military academy.
The US administration has not accused Pakistan of complicity in hiding bin Laden but has said he must have had some sort of support network, which it wants to uncover.
Pakistan has a long record of using Islamist militants as proxies, especially to counter
the influence of nuclear-armed rival, India.
Members of the two houses of parliament said the government should review ties with the United States to safeguard Pakistan's national interests and they also called for an end to US attacks on militants with its pilotless drone aircraft.
Pakistan officially objects to the drone attacks, saying they violate its sovereignty and feed public anger, although US officials have long said they are carried out under an agreement between the countries.
The legislators said US "unilateral actions" such as the Abbottabad raid and drone strikes were unacceptable, and the government should consider cutting vital US lines of supply for its forces in Afghanistan unless they stopped.
Hours earlier, a US drone fired missiles at a vehicle in North Waziristan on the Afghan border killing five militants. It was the fourth drone attack since bin Laden was killed.
Reuters