S. Arabia warns US over censure move
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NEW YORK: Saudi Arabia has warned the Obama administration that it will sell off American assets worth $750 billion if the US Congress passes a bill declaring the Saudi government responsible for the Sept 11, 2001 attacks, The New York Times said on Saturday.
“The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill’s passage,” the NYT quoted administration officials and congressional aides as saying. According to the newspaper, officials warned senators of “diplomatic and economic fallout” if the bill was adopted.
Related: US report on 9/11 invites Saudi ire
The allegation about Saudi involvement exploded on US news channels after the CBS News aired a report last Sunday where former senator Bob Graham, chairman of the commission set up to investigate the 9/11 attacks, called upon President Barack Obama to take up the issue with the Saudi government during his visit this month.
According to the NYT, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al Jubeir brought King Salman’s message during his visit to Washington last month.
Also Read: US judge drops Saudi Arabia from 9/11 lawsuit
“Adel al Jubeir told American lawmakers that Saudi Arabia will be forced to sell off $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts,” the report said.
Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2016
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Comments (90) Closed
Apr 17, 2016 08:06am
It was an inside job. The truth can only be hidden so long
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Apr 17, 2016 08:08am
Very unfair bill.
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Apr 17, 2016 08:08am
Stakes are much higher than $750 billion investment risk... The passage of bill would consequently expose countries to lawsuits and may take away their sovereign immunity... Don't put all eggs in one basket... Invest in third world countries to support their economies… Would also help poor countries in their efforts to eradicate poverty…
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Apr 17, 2016 08:10am
Trillions of dollars stashed in America while having no consideration for muslim refugees, who are being rescued by Canada and by Pope.
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Apr 17, 2016 08:11am
When US released the list of 11 attackers involved in 9-11, they belonged to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan etc which are US allies and none was from Iraq and Afghanistan. Guess what countries did US attacked post 9-11.
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Apr 17, 2016 08:13am
This is somthing beyond a common man's comprehension , the whole matter is so complicated and its implications so bad that millions are dead . All this judcial legal aspects should have been dealt before invading Iraq , there is no end to human misery there now.US is a non sense war monger conuntry he'll bent on killing millions in name of freedom and justice.
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Apr 17, 2016 08:13am
It seems like the ground work to cease all the Saudi assets in the USA has begun already.
I strongly believe that the Saudi Government should sell off all its assets in the USA as early as possible before it is too late!
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Apr 17, 2016 08:13am
Very smart move; threatening America always works, as it has been seen, time and time again; clearly KSA has some serious brains - as was seen in the 34 nation alliance (is pak leading the front or the rear?) to fight IS with 3/4 nations endorsing the effort. great job.
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Apr 17, 2016 08:14am
Most if not all of the attackers were Saudi so by default the source of the problem seems to be Saudis Arabia. They have been sponsors of much of the extremism in the Middle East and abroad as well. Time to face the elephant in the room.
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Apr 17, 2016 08:18am
MR. Jubeil time to act rather issuing warning before its too late. Better do this investment in Russia to gain its trust and establish good ties with asian neighbouring super power instead of relying on an untrustworthy partner i.e. US
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Apr 17, 2016 08:27am
It's a ticking time bomb. USA and Saudi Govts maybe acting delusional. The fact is that it's just a matter a time before this relation will fall out. Past 50 years it has been a transactional relation and now the transactions are almost over.
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Apr 17, 2016 08:39am
Please sell it Trump will buy it all.
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Apr 17, 2016 08:43am
Finally we all are figuring out the ugly side of Saudi Arabia.
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Apr 17, 2016 08:46am
Instead of threatning, Saudia should give evidence and prove that they were not involved. Because no matter US aprove the bill or not, Saudia is alleged now.
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Apr 17, 2016 08:47am
US must past that bill and Saudi should sell those assets and remainder 93 percent of the world population would live peacefully.
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Apr 17, 2016 08:53am
A final stage is being setup for the big show!
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Apr 17, 2016 08:57am
Blackmailing?
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Apr 17, 2016 08:59am
Is Saudi resorting to black mail ? Looks like, it is. With Oil prices down and $750 billion frozen, Saudi Arabia would be another Syria.
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Apr 17, 2016 09:02am
First Afghanistan was responsible, destroyed it and created regional chaos. Then WMDs are in Iraq, the great Axis of Evil, lets destroy that too. Then 15 years later.....oh it was actually Saudi Arabia not Afghanistan.....
Well I guess The Saudis are in trouble anyway's with a fallout in oil prices, entry of Iran in the oil market and slowdown of the global growth engines of East Asia and not to forget the search for alternative resources over oil gaining ground.....................
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Apr 17, 2016 09:08am
some thing secret both govts kept under closed door as politically does not suit to them to disclose the truth. As terrorism and financial and security expert of the world saying long before these new development that 9/11 type of attack cannot be execute without huge finance , and mastery over other state of the art technique and years of planning . They say that its seems that 9/11 is a biggest jigsaw puzzle of the century as a bunch of people cannot execute 9/11 without direct or indirect help from some countries govt.
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Apr 17, 2016 09:14am
I don't mean to be selfish
but usa should state the obvious if its true irrespective of the fallout, what is the big thing of democracy, rule of law, human rights ect usa keeps talking about if at the time of speaking the truth and standing u to your ideals to back off bec it will hurt u economically
india stands to gain if our Saudi brothers pull out their money they will need another economy where they can invest and what better then india
I think china, india, ect will benefit, india the most
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Apr 17, 2016 09:34am
This is what the Qadhafi of Libya had suggested too, but then he was assassinated in a fake "revolution"...
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Apr 17, 2016 09:46am
S750Billion is peanut for US. Saudi will not able to sustain itself.
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Apr 17, 2016 09:55am
How is that going to affect America? US$750 billion is peanuts when you think about the S economy. Just the city of Los Angeles generates more than a trillion dollar per annum....
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Apr 17, 2016 09:56am
Who cares.
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Apr 17, 2016 09:55am
Walls in House of Saud are cracking.
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Apr 17, 2016 10:01am
If they have nothing to hide.......Why would Saudi act this way?
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Apr 17, 2016 10:01am
Obama Administration will have to chicken-out again!
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Apr 17, 2016 10:12am
USA must have done its homework before taking this step. KSA will suffer more losses, and the kingdom will become a democracy in a couple of years.
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Apr 17, 2016 10:13am
America and its allies must foot the bill for the damage they have caused in all the Middle East.
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Apr 17, 2016 10:19am
Past should be forgiven. But, both US and Saudi should take cognisance of positive measures on the findings of US Court / Commission and lessons we had these days to prevent further acts of terrorism. Saudi Arabia has now formed a consortium of 34 Nations to combat terrorism and has thus exhibited its leading responsibility and serious concerns on terrorism. It would be wise for both US and Saudi to iron out all misgivings and move ahead.
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Apr 17, 2016 10:27am
Afghanistan and Pakistan paid the price for 9/11. All involved in tragedy were Saudi nationals-but KSA's money-wall saved them.
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Apr 17, 2016 10:33am
is it the feasible time to fix the issue? NO
Here both parties have more sever issues than 9/11 law suit.
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Apr 17, 2016 10:34am
All is not well! If KSA economy goes down, several countries will suffer and the whole region could be in economic turmoil.
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Apr 17, 2016 10:37am
Those who actually did it, would be laughing out loud both at the expense of Saudis and the American public.
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Apr 17, 2016 10:39am
House of Saud propped by Americans and thus began an unabated cruelty and suffering of the peoples all over the world. The sponsorhip of terrorosim implied or orherwise needs ro be stopped
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Apr 17, 2016 10:47am
Clearly an indication of American decline. Since they can no longer honour their financial commitments they are now trying to lessen their financial burdens by taking measures that will eventually lead to 'freezing the assets' of rogue nations. The point is Americans are angry and their government is trying to find innovative ways to robbing foreign investors of their assets and feeding the booty to the angry middle class.
Saudi Arab understands these shenanigans and preempted the US move. If the Saudis sell their assets it will be a death blow to American economy. Not because America will have to pay 750 Billion dollars to Saudis but because they cannot pay. And this will expose the weakness of American economy to the world and US credit rating will drop to C ---
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Apr 17, 2016 11:09am
@fawzia It was America and its allies who discovered oil and made these gulf states rich. Otherwise these states would have remained poor the way they were 100 years back!
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Apr 17, 2016 11:10am
@Farhan Do you know in 2015 US owed the world 18 trillion dollars?
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Apr 17, 2016 11:13am
Bill will hurt all effort for peace in the world. It should be stopped at every cost.
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Apr 17, 2016 11:23am
Strange Bill! Cant blame an entire country for 9/11. US-Saudi relations are strong and funny bills like this wont make a difference.
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Apr 17, 2016 11:26am
Time to put democracy in saudi arabia.
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Apr 17, 2016 11:30am
It was coming..First Sanctions against lifted and then Iran-US made KSA suffer and put pressures on them. Now US is preparing grounds against KSA. Everyone knows what is happening and how stories are being fabricated. But one thing is for sure KSA is and will remain in the hearts of each and every Muslim.
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Apr 17, 2016 11:33am
Saudi Rulers, Just sell your Saudi Oil in Saudi Riyals. This is your property. U will deflate US dollar . USA is more than
$ 19,000,000,000,000/ budget deficit
mirtariq@yahoo.com
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Apr 17, 2016 11:34am
This bill is a game changer in the Middle East.
What happens if Saudis sell US assets worth $750 billion?
Suppose if they are able to do that, then they need to get out of US Dollars too. The conversion in other major currencies will shake the foreign exchange rates plus GCC will surely delink Oil prices from US Dollar to other currencies.
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Apr 17, 2016 11:35am
friends iam not for any side but both sides are very selfish if saudis has not done anything wrong then why this panic, and what about the destruction lives & infrastructure crossing more than 10 trillion dollars across the world by US.
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Apr 17, 2016 11:42am
Saudi Arabia has to be blamed as most of the culprits were Saudi nationals and Usama bin Laden went hiding in Afghanistan. Who paying the price? Pakistan.
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Apr 17, 2016 11:42am
Saudi Arabia, should learn lesson from what US did with Pakistan after the Afghan war of 1980's. Pakistan was immediately slapped with sanctions because of its nuclear program. Same will happen with KSA, bill will be passed implication KSA with 9/11, their accounts worth 100s of billions frozen, and oil imports cancelled which will be replaced with oil from Iran, and KSA will keep wagging their tail trying to make their master happy. Well this is what one deserves when all they think is making high rise buildings, and living lavishly.
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Apr 17, 2016 11:45am
@Kamal Khan, If passed, this bill will not hurt anyone but only Saudis. This is a ploy. Where else Saudis will keep this money?
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Apr 17, 2016 11:47am
The Saudis and American relationship is very old and very deep. Americans have protected Saudis and Vice versa. This is a temporary set back and both will find a way soon.
From an American citizen standpoint the lawsuit seems valid. American democratic systems are intensely protective of its citizens. At the same time Americans support their allies deeply. It's a tough situation but nonetheless a solution will come through.
The threat of Saudis pulling out money from US is nothing significant for the Americans, but it would cripple Saudi. A strong Kingdom is in America's interest. Saudi is feeling deep impact of low oil prices on its finances. The threat seems mere posturing. Whatever or whoever attempts to disturb a certain financial order is partly committing suicide. US can hold low oil prices for at least another decade but OPEC can break within few years.
Global order requires such unwanted tensions to ease.
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Apr 17, 2016 11:47am
At the end of day more copperation between Saudi Arab & Israel.just watch complet episode.
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Apr 17, 2016 12:05pm
First 750 billion is a very large amount. Nearly 3 years of Pakistans GDP. Secondly it serves Saudi Arabia right as they have invested so much in an unreliable anti muslim country...remember how USA froze the accounts of Iran.
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Apr 17, 2016 12:11pm
The old saying that "never put all your eggs in one basket" is very correct.Saudi to learn lesson and to invest in Pakistan and other muslim countries before it is too late.Today or tomorrow USA and West are going to freeze their assets as paying them back even the investment return will be harmful to their economy.
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Apr 17, 2016 12:13pm
The Saudi Government can be correctly blamed for promoting religion based extremism and the international community should demand that the export of such ideologies need to stop immediately but it is unfair to hold the Saudi Arabian government directly responsible for the 9/11 events. It seems that the US is now pulling the plug on existing security guarantees being provided to the Saudi ruling family
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Apr 17, 2016 12:36pm
Time of ME to abandon US , NATO alliance and join China Russia and Pakistan led alliance , it is where the future is.
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Apr 17, 2016 12:52pm
@Sad and Hopeless true
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Apr 17, 2016 12:57pm
This is really frightening. Please remember that US dollar has it's status because of Saudi oil.
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Apr 17, 2016 01:09pm
china, Russia and Pakistan alliance!
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Apr 17, 2016 01:19pm
Income from natural resources, Hajj and Umrah invested in US instead of on/in poor Muslim nations and countries. Saudi's have not learned lesson from Hosni Mubarak, Shah Iran, Qaddafi, Saddam and so on. Billion and billions of dollars were frozen by the so called developed nations .
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Apr 17, 2016 01:40pm
750 billion dollars?American ecomy is around 16 trillion dollars , does saudi have 50% effect on us economy?
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Apr 17, 2016 02:11pm
If Saudi Arabia sell its assets in America....other Arab countries will buy them ( through off shore companies if need be ).
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Apr 17, 2016 02:14pm
@Shan Kazmi
What the US has given to Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan is just pure destruction and not the so called democracy.
Whatever works for you is good for you.
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Apr 17, 2016 02:36pm
This bill is just to declassify the 28 pages so that the families can sue. The Saudi gov wouldn't make such threats unless they were very, very guilty.
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Apr 17, 2016 02:38pm
the more the saudis see the americans as untrsutworthy allies, the more they will turn to countries like Pakistan for defence. so its good news for Pakistan.
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Apr 17, 2016 02:45pm
what a hollow threat. it's like fall from grace which reminds me part of the childhood poem "all the king's horses and all the king's men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again".
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Apr 17, 2016 02:47pm
@Zak bro don't be under any misconception, China has only seen a section of the problem, but I am sure they r wise enough keep them self at distance away from current problem
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Apr 17, 2016 03:02pm
Sell it please as this will not stop what already been planned
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Apr 17, 2016 03:02pm
@Umer this is not the job of Saudia to prove itself innocence but America needs to provide evidence and then Saudia should counter the evidence if required.
America has the habit of doing this and then say sorry which doesn't mean anything. Look at what have they done to Iraq and they couldn't found anything from there
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Apr 17, 2016 03:07pm
@Farhan are you living in a dreamworld. USA has taken 10 trillion dollars in loan from China which is the second largest economy and at present the mightiest country...if Saudi pulls up its 7.5 trillion dollars you can imagine the already sinking economy to new lows...
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Apr 17, 2016 03:58pm
Other countries need to follow similar procedure. Countries from which terrorists originated, should pay for the damage caused by the attack.
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Apr 17, 2016 04:02pm
Money talks. In the end the lobbies will make a lot of money behind the scenes and the case will be closed.
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Apr 17, 2016 04:35pm
The selling of assets to which party and in what currency it is not an easy option.
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Apr 17, 2016 04:42pm
Saudis are responsible for everything going on in middle east.
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Apr 17, 2016 05:17pm
KSA is close to bankruptcy already, and this bill will be a final nail in the coffin. USA oil tank is full so now they can take action against the Saudis. Oil reserves in KSA are in Shiat majority provinces so civil war is inevitable. Americans haven't forgotten what Saudis did to them (great depression), it's revenge time.
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Apr 17, 2016 05:25pm
Do not dig out decades long buried dead. It is time for peace, not war. What happened in the past must be forgotten once and for all. Let KSA and US come close to each other to diffuse and address public problems instead of promoting a new air of animosity in the region.
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Apr 17, 2016 05:29pm
Good preventive move by KSA.They rule the world particularly Islamic states with their assets. Such states must withdraw all assets from US
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Apr 17, 2016 07:04pm
@Farhan $750b is not peanuts - even for USA - and secondly you are not condisering the rippling impact of that money around the world. Obama administration is trying to block the bill for some reasons too...
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Apr 17, 2016 08:32pm
Since west recently released iranian assets, they are looking for the ways to block others' assets to maintain balance.
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Apr 17, 2016 09:04pm
The ship is sinking.
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Apr 17, 2016 10:22pm
Sell the assets before the bill is tabled or passed... You cannot rely on US .. old days are gone.
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Apr 18, 2016 02:34am
Americans respect your laws. Its KSA's turn to respect our laws.
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Apr 18, 2016 02:37am
The 750 Billions if taken out will evaporate in no time. Saudi should come to the terms about their role in 9/11. Will this hurt Pakistan too , time will decide..
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Apr 18, 2016 04:32am
If they sell the assets, it means someone else is buying them. Does US really care who owns them?
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Apr 18, 2016 05:30am
All the countries whose nationals were involved, should have done separate biased inquiries to silence these rumors, on who funded & assisted them and and go after their sources. Terrisom is a universal issue not regional.
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Apr 18, 2016 05:55am
US needs to pay for its arrogance....
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Apr 18, 2016 07:09am
@junaid well said, who is going to sue US
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Apr 18, 2016 10:43am
I hope both the countries will find some way out , otherwise things can become ugly , which is not in interest of India & Pakistan.
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Apr 18, 2016 05:34pm
@Ahmed USA Agreed, but that would make so much sense...
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Apr 18, 2016 06:09pm
@Omar You have to be deaf, dumb and blind to not see the Elephant in the room for fifteen years.
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Apr 18, 2016 06:41pm
fairly recent history when western countries were put on oil embargo ... the repercussion!!!!! the Arabs are still paying for it..
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