Need Help - References - Force Pak-Lovers to Reconsider

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Calvin
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Need Help - References - Force Pak-Lovers to Reconsider

Post by Calvin »

Folks: We are in the process of putting together a short missive that is intended to get the Congress/Senate members of the Pak caucus to reconsider their affiliation with Pakistan. This is particularly crucial, since Musharraf is going to be in town shortly.

This is what we need help on:

1. References to Pakistani proliferation to North Korea, Iran and Libya

2. References that Pak officials are not permitting the US access to AQ Khan

3. RECENT Reference to an assurance to the Ulema, by a Pakistani General, that no serious changes to the madrassas will be made

4. One reference each to Russian, Cambodian, Uzbekistan and Spanish terrorism events (from the last 2 weeks) linked to Pakistan

5. One recent reference to Pakistan directly supporting the Taliban

6. Reference to Stephen Cohen on Pakistani exports being "textiles and terror" and his quote on Pakistan being the "most anti-US country".

7. We have a reference to a US Pakistani celebrating the hurricanes
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/dmag3.htm

8. Reference to Musharraf supporting the radical islamic parties.
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Post by Calvin »

Here is one:

Top Analyst Barnett Rubin Says Pakistan Is Letting Taliban Survive
Friday, August 27 2004 @ 05:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Ron Synovitz

Islamabad's recent efforts in the war on terrorism have focused on Al-Qaeda fighters. But now there are growing calls from Western diplomats, the Afghan government and the United Nations for Pakistan to rein in Taliban militants who have fled from Afghanistan into Pakistan since late 2001. Barnett Rubin -- the director of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University -- is among many South Asia analysts who think Pakistan's security forces are intentionally overlooking the presence of Taliban militants on their territory.

Most experts agree that Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency helped create the Taliban and gave it the military and financial support it needed to take control over most of Afghanistan in the mid-1990s. Islamabad has repeatedly denied those allegations and insists that it cut all ties with the Taliban when it joined the U.S.-led war on terrorism after the attacks 11 September 2001. But like many independent analysts, Rubin insists that Pakistan's security services have fostered religious fundamentalism for years in order to promote Islamabad's foreign-policy goals. He said the key motivations include strategic concerns about India, as well as the dormant "Pashtunistan" question -- that is, the fear in Islamabad that ethnic Pashtun nationalists might take power in Kabul and make territorial claims on Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun border regions.

"Supporting some antigovernment forces in Afghanistan is something that Pakistan has done for decades in order to have some leverage over the government of Afghanistan," Rubin said. "They did have a long-term commitment toward supporting ethnic Pashtun religious extremists in Afghanistan in order to assure that an Afghan government would side with Pakistan against India and would not raise the issue of the Pashtun territories. [That's because] the Pashtun Islamists -- unlike the Pashtun nationalists -- do not support that kind of ethnic issue against a fellow Muslim country." Senior Western diplomats in Kabul told "The New York Times" this week that Pakistan's security services are allowing Taliban fighters to operate training camps in Pakistan and cross back into Afghanistan to conduct terrorist attacks aimed at undermining presidential elections there in October.

Pakistan's army calls that allegation "ridiculous." Pakistan's UN Ambassador Munir Akram told the UN Security Council yesterday that his country has taken extraordinary efforts to safeguard its border with Afghanistan, including the deployment of 75,000 troops. Rubin agrees with authorities in Islamabad who argue that Pakistan's military does not control many parts of the tribal regions near the border. But Rubin said there are other reasons Taliban militants are not being arrested in Pakistan.

"The Pakistani military is moving against Al-Qaeda, [but] they're not doing anything against the Taliban. Most of the Taliban activities are not in the tribal territories," Rubin said. "They are in the city of Quetta. They are in Balochistan. They are in areas that are firmly under the control of the Pakistan government. Therefore, Pakistan has no credibility. They've been supplied with information about the exact location of various major Taliban leaders. And they have done nothing. Instead, whenever there is pressure on [Pakistan] about the Taliban, they arrest more Al-Qaeda people -- meaning people from Arab countries or from small extremist groups. But they do not move against the Taliban." Rubin said that Pakistan is not trying to undermine Afghan Transitional Administration Chairman Hamid Karzai's government or create a new Taliban regime. But he believes that elements within the government or security services want to use Taliban militants for future leverage against pro-Indian officials in Kabul.

"They do not believe that the United States and the rest of the Western countries are going to stay in Afghanistan. They believe that it is quite possible -- maybe a year after the U.S. presidential election [in November] -- these countries will start drawing down their forces and abandon Afghanistan again," Rubin said. "And therefore, they believe it is inevitable that there will be another power struggle in Afghanistan in which various regional powers will try to position their allies within the government and within the society. They don't want to cut their ties to those who may be ready to defend their interest in Afghanistan when that struggle resumes again." Rubin said the economic issues discussed during Karzai's two-day visit to Islamabad this week could eventually act as an important counterbalance to the policies of Pakistan's security services.

"In the past, the Pakistani military saw Afghanistan only as a potential security threat or a potential security asset. Now, Pakistan's business community -- which is becoming more assertive -- is seeing Afghanistan as a major opportunity," Rubin said. "They are starting to put forward the idea that a stable, reconstructed Afghanistan is strongly in Pakistan's interests because of the economic implications, regardless of the political coloration or ethnic composition of the government of the day in Kabul." But Rubin concluded that Pakistan's security forces will continue to have the final word for now because there is no real public input into Pakistan's security policies and the military is not subject to any kind of civilian control or oversight. (Radio Free Europe)
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Post by Calvin »

Reference to Pakistani Proliferation to Libya from Congressional Research Service

http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/32007.pdf
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Post by Calvin »

ANother Congressional Research Service Reference to "Trade" between Pakistan and North Korea

http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/30781.pdf

From the Carnegie Endowment:
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/pdf/np ... 0Korea.pdf
Last edited by Calvin on 20 Sep 2004 04:39, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Calvin »

Another Congressional Research Service reference to Pakistani proliferation to Iran

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/pdf/np ... -04_04.pdf
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Post by Calvin »

Putin links Pakistani financing to the terror attack on Beslan

http://in.news.yahoo.com/040907/43/2fxsl.html
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Post by Calvin »

Spain holds 10 for involvement in terror attacks
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europ ... n.arrests/

Terrorists who bombed Madrid called Pakistani locations in the run up to the attack
http://www.4law.co.il/skim1.htm
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Post by Calvin »

Pakistani link to Uzbek attacks - Yuldash

http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazin ... 69,00.html
Western diplomats and independent Uzbek observers say the attacks signal the revival of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a group that found a safe haven in Afghanistan under the Taliban and allegedly has close links to al-Qaeda. The IMU's main aim: to overthrow Karimov. By focusing on the police, the attackers may have been trying to capitalize on growing popular discontent due to high unemployment, declining standards of living and increased repression.

The IMU was said to have suffered a huge blow when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001. In fact, an Uzbek who has followed the IMU closely says the group was just "lying low." One of its main founders, Tokhir Yuldashev, found refuge in Pakistan's tribal areas
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 004_pg7_41
Uzbekistan will seek extradition of terror leader

TASHKENT: Uzbekistan will consider seeking the extradition of the leader of a terror group if he is caught among suspected Al Qaeda militants fighting Pakistani troops near the Afghan border, an official said on Monday.

“If Tahir Yuldash is captured, we will consider his extradition, since he has committed crimes on Uzbek territory and was one of the main founders of the terrorist group IMU,” the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ilkhom Zakirov said. The Pakistani army is fighting a group of several hundred foreign militants and local tribesmen in South Waziristan. The lawless tribal region is believed to be the refuge of the IMU, which seeks to overthrow the secular government of Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic, and once trained in Afghanistan. —AP
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Post by Calvin »

Cohen says Pakistan is one of the "most Anti-US country"

http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com ... page-1.cms
WASHINGTON: Pakistan is one of the world's most anti-American countries, and if left unchecked, it could evolve into a nuclear-armed terrorist state, says well known South Asian affairs expert Stephen Cohen who is writing a book on the Islamic nation.

In the forthcoming book he writes that Pakistan also has the potential to be a major source of terrorism, having already been declared a nuclear weapons state.

Referring to the fact that Pakistan is an important ally of the US in its fight against terror, Cohen further suggests that Washington must seize the opportunity to guide Pakistan towards being more moderate and stable in its policies and actions, reports the Daily Times.

"For this to happen, Pakistan's present terrorist groups need to be checked by better police, army, and intelligence operations and the specific causes that motivate their acts.

On a preventive policy track, the US should work for a long-term engagement to revitalise Pakistan's enfeebled civilian and social institutions, a daunting but essential task", Cohen observes in the book.
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Post by enqyoobOLD »

Calvin, citing Cohen's message is as good as shooting yourself in the foot - his recommendation is exactly that of the Paki Caucus:
Pakistan poor countree onlee - need aid onlee. A few F-16s and Apache for the poor deserving al-lie - we need to show our madarssa graduates something better than the AK47s which is all they have now to study killing.

Waziristan Al Qaeda very anti-Amreeki onlee - government bhi MMA onlee - what we can do? We are poor countree onlee - no B-52 bombers to go make them pro-Amreeki - please give us F-22 onlee.

General Mush is onlee hope phor stability, saar. Please to give him baskheesh. Cost of living in New Jerzey is so high onlee.
How about citing a whole bunch of horror murders in J&K committed by these scumbags, and making the honest point that if they continue to support these terrorists, they are as good as cutting the throats of children in India - and we are bloody tired of their goddamn terrorist friends and of them if they ccntinue to suppor them.

Make the point that Friends of Pakistan are Friends of Terrorism, and need to be understood as such by the American People.

"Convert" these sh1ts? Good luck!

By the way, please convey my best wishes to them from me:

http://www.indiacause.com/columns/OL_040920.htm
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Post by shiv »

http://www.ddinews.com/Current+Affairs/ ... escope.htm
UN uranium find links Libya to Iran, Pakistan

The UN nuclear watchdog has said in a confidential report it had found traces
of high and low enriched uranium on Libyan nuclear centrifuges, as it found on
identical Pakistani-made centrifuges in Iran last year.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/arti ... 559873.cms

LATimes
Three days after she was shot, Kim's body was spirited out of Pakistan on a
chartered Pakistani cargo plane, a source said. The plane, a U.S.-built C-130
military transport, was the same one that Khan recently told investigators he
had used to ship plans and equipment for making a nuclear bomb, according to
the official, who is familiar with Khan's signed 12-page confession.

The plane carried Kim's body back to North Korea along with P-1 and P-2
centrifuges, used to enrich uranium to weapons-grade material, according to
the source.

The cargo also included drawings, sketches, technical data and depleted
uranium hexafluoride gas, which is converted into weapons-grade material in
centrifuges, the source said.
http://newyorker.com/fact/content/

THE DEAL
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Why is Washington going easy on Pakistan's nuclear black marketers?
Issue of 2004-03-08

A building that I.A.E.A. inspectors were not able to gain full access to on a
visit in March, 2003, was found on a subsequent trip to contain a centrifuge
facility behind a wall made of boxes. Inspectors later determined that some of
the centrifuges had been supplied by Pakistan. They also found traces of
highly enriched uranium on centrifuge components manufactured in Iran and
Pakistan. The I.A.E.A. has yet to determine whether the uranium originated in
Pakistan: the enriched materials could have come from the black market, or
from a nuclear proliferator yet to be discovered, or from the Iranians' own
production facilities.
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/commen ... 09,00.html
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Post by shiv »

http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm



Proliferation Unbound: Nuclear Tales from Pakistan




Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan.


By Gaurav Kampani


February 23, 2004



After years of blanket denials, Pakistan's government has finally admitted that
during 1989-2003 Pakistani nuclear scientists and entities proliferated
nuclear weapons-related technologies, equipment, and know how to Iran, North
Korea, and Libya. The Pakistani government's denials collapsed after Libya
formally decided to terminate its clandestine weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) programs in October 2003 and make a full disclosure of its efforts to
build nuclear weapons; and after Iran, in fall 2003, agreed to cooperate with
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and provide details of its
clandestine uranium enrichment programs that originated in the mid-1980s.


The Iranian and Libyan revelations have exposed a vast black market in
clandestine nuclear trade comprising of middle men and shell companies;
clandestine procurement techniques; false end-user certifications; transfer of
blueprints from one country, manufacture in another, transshipment to a third,
before delivery to its final destination. But even more remarkably, the
investigations of Iranian and Libyan centrifuge-based uranium enrichment
efforts have exposed the central role of the former head of Pakistan's Khan
Research Laboratories (KRL), Dr. A.Q. Khan, in the clandestine trade. Detailed
information has surfaced about transfers of technical drawings, design
specifications, components, complete assemblies of Pakistan's P-1 and P-2
centrifuge models, including the blueprint of an actual nuclear warhead from
KRL. But the transfer of hardware apart, there is equally damning evidence
that Khan and his top associates imparted sensitive knowledge and know how in
secret technical briefings for Iranian, North Korean, and Libyan scientists in
Pakistan and other locations abroad.


Three decades ago, Khan, with the support of Pakistan's government, set out to
create a new model of proliferation. He used centrifuge design blueprints and
supplier lists of companies that he had pilfered from URENCO's facility in the
Netherlands to launch Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. In the process, he
perfected a clandestine model of trade in forbidden technologies outside
formal government controls. By the end of the 1980s, after KRL acquired the
wherewithal to produce highly-enriched uranium for a nuclear weapons program,
it reversed course and began vending its services to other clients in the
international system. KRL and Khan's first client was Iran (or possibly China
even earlier); but the list gradually expanded to include North Korea and
Libya. Starting in the late 1980s, Khan and some of his top associates began
offering a one-stop shop for countries that wished to acquire nuclear
technologies for a weapons program. Khan's key innovation was to integrate
what was earlier a disaggregated market place for such technologies, design,
engineering, and consultancy services; and in the process offer clients the
option of telescoping the time required to develop a nuclear weapons
capability.


As independent evidence of diversions from KRL has come to light, the Pakistani
government has swiftly sought to distance itself from Khan and his activities.
President Pervez Musharraf's regime has publicly denied that it or past
Pakistani state authorities ever authorized transfers or sales of sensitive
nuclear weapons-related technologies to Iran, Libya, or North Korea. Islamabad
attributes Khan's clandestine nuclear trade to personal financial corruption,
abuse of authority, and megalomania. Alarmed that Khan's past indiscretions
might directly implicate the Pakistani military and state authorities, the
Musharraf regime also launched an internal probe to apparently get a clearer
picture of the activities of its top nuclear lab and senior scientists. In
fall 2003, Pakistani investigators traveled to Iran, Dubai, Vienna, and Libya
to investigate US and IAEA complaints against Khan. They discovered that the
complaints were borne out by evidence; and more alarmingly, that Khan had
apparently made unauthorized deals unbeknownst to Islamabad and reaped huge
personal financial rewards in the process.


Since October-November 2003, Khan and his close associates' movements have been
restricted. While Khan himself has been under placed under informal house
arrest, his aides are undergoing what Pakistani government spokesmen politely
describe as "debriefing sessions." In late January 2004, the government
ultimately stripped Khan of his cabinet rank and fired him from his position
as senior advisor to the chief executive. As part of a deal, Khan made a
public apology on television before the Pakistani nation. In that apology, he
admitted to personal failings, accepted responsibility for all past
proliferation activities, and absolved past and present Pakistani state
authorities of any complicity in his acts. In return, the Jamali cabinet
granted Khan a conditional pardon. However, Khan's senior aides remain in
custody and the government has not made up its mind on whether to press formal
charges against them for violating the state's national secrets or to pardon
them.


Most proliferation specialists and independent observers of Pakistani politics
have watched the surreal saga of what is perhaps the greatest proliferation
scandal in history with disbelief.
Most also find the Pakistani government's assertions of innocence and attempts
to absolve itself of any responsibility in the matter astonishing. For most,
the mammoth scale of the diversion from KRL, its extended time span, the
logistics of transporting material and machines out of Pakistan, and the
difficulty of circumventing the security detail surrounding senior Pakistani
scientists and KRL, are obvious pointers to state complicity. In the past
three months, senior Pakistani politicians have raked up the historical record
to point fingers at the Pakistani Army. Others, including US government
officials, have alluded to indicators that at least some of Khan's activities
might have enjoyed tacit, if not formal sanction from oversight authorities
within the state. Such indicators include Islamabad's past unresponsiveness to
diplomatic entreaties, sharing of intelligence inputs, published documentary
records, informed public speculation about Khan and KRL's nuclear
proliferation activities, and the Pakistani military's corporate ability to
sustain its WMD programs on a weak military-industrial base, even as the state
operated at the margins of economic solvency. As new evidence surfaces by the
day, the record becomes clearer; even as the controversy surrounding the role
of the past and present Pakistani governments becomes uglier.


This research report provides an overview of the evidence that has surfaced in
the last three months to paint a clearer picture of what we now know of Khan
and KRL's contributions to Iran, North Korea, and Libya's clandestine
centrifuge-based uranium enrichment programs. It reviews the internal debate
and finger pointing in Pakistan, and analyzes the narrative presented by
President Musharraf's regime in its defense. The report also outlines some of
the reasons for the Bush administration's muted response and concludes by
offering a net assessment of the strategic implications of the new
disclosures.


What Do We Now Know?


Although Pakistan has admitted that its nuclear scientists and entities engaged
in clandestine nuclear transfers to Iran, North Korea, and Libya during the
period 1989-2003, the full extent and nature of those transfers are still
unclear. Iran has still not made a full disclosure about its two-decades-old
centrifuge enrichment program. Scientists and engineers at the US Department
of Energy are still in the process of analyzing documents and equipment turned
over by Libya. And North Korea maintains that it never admitted to pursuing a
clandestine centrifuge-based uranium enrichment program in October 2002.


But despite existing gaps, there is evidence that nuclear transfers to Iran
from Pakistan occurred during 1989-1995.[1] According to Pakistani government
sources, North Korea obtained similar assistance between the years
1997-2001.[2] However, US intelligence agencies believe that strategic trade
between Pyongyang and Islamabad continued as late as August 2002.[3] Khan also
began cooperating with Libya in 1997and such cooperation continued until fall
2003.[4]


All three countries - Iran, North Korea, and Libya - obtained blueprints,
technical design data, specifications, components, machinery, enrichment
equipment, models, and notes related to KRL's first generation P-1 and the
next generation P-2 centrifuges.
Cooperation between Pakistan and Iran most likely began in 1987 after the two
countries signed a secret agreement on nuclear cooperation for peaceful
purposes. Apparently, Khan sold "disused" P-1 centrifuges and what he
describes as outmoded equipment to Iran along with the drawings and technical
specifications and possibly components or complete assemblies of the more
advanced P-2 model.[5] Initial deliveries were made during the years
1989-1991; but evidence has surfaced that transfers continued as late as
1995.[6] Pakistani investigators believe that some of the shipments were
probably transported over land through a Karachi-based businessman. Other
shipments were routed through Dubai.


Similarly, Khan and his associates supplied Pyongyang with centrifuge and
enrichment machines, and depleted uranium hexaflouride gas (UF6).[7] Orders
for the North Korean contract were placed in 1997 and deliveries continued
until 1999. KRL also rendered further technical assistance to Pyongyang during
1999-2001.[8] Some of the shipments to North Korea were flown directly from
Pakistan using chartered and Pakistan Air Force transports.[9]


In 1997 Khan supplied Libya with 20 assembled P-1 centrifuges; with components
for an additional 200 more for a pilot facility. The Libyans also obtained
1.87-tons of UF6 in 2001; the consignment was directly airlifted from Pakistan
on board a Pakistani airline. IAEA sources believe that amount is consistent
with the requirements for a pilot enrichment facility. In September 2000,
Libya placed an order for 10,000 centrifuges of the more advanced P-2 model.
Component parts for the centrifuges began arriving in Libya by December
2002.[10] However, a subsequent consignment of parts was intercepted by US
intelligence agencies in October 2003, after which Libya decided to make a
full disclosure and terminate its nuclear weapons program. But more
alarmingly, in either late 2001 or early 2002, Khan also transferred the
blueprint of an actual fission weapon to Libya as an added bonus.[11]


The supply package to all the three countries did not just include hardware and
design information. Khan and his associates also provided their clients
integrated shopping solutions in a fragmented market. They shared sensitive
information on supplier networks, manufacturers, clandestine procurement and
smuggling techniques, and arranged for the manufacture, transport, and
delivery of equipment and materials through a clutch of companies and
middlemen based in South-East Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.[12]
Pakistani scientists and technicians held multiple briefing sessions for their
Iranian counterparts in Karachi, and locations in Malaysia and Iran.[13]
Briefings for Libyan scientists were held in Casablanca and Istanbul.[14] Khan
also visited North Korea nearly a dozen times, and it is likely that technical
briefing sessions for North Korean scientists were arranged during those
visits. But there are also reports that North Korean scientists were allowed
to train at KRL itself.[15] In addition, Pakistani engineers and scientists
were also on hand for providing consulting advice and trouble-shooting
services through intermediaries.


US intelligence analysts believe that the nuclear weapon blueprint that Khan
and his network sold Libya is most likely a design that China tested in the
late 1960s; and later shared with Pakistan. Apparently the design documents
transferred from Pakistan contain information in both Chinese and English,
establishing their Chinese lineage; they also provide conclusive evidence of
past Chinese assistance to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.[16] The
blueprint provides the design parameters and engineering specifications on how
to build an implosion weapon weighing over 1,000 pounds that could be
delivered using aircraft or a large ballistic missile.[17] Analysts believe
that the design is not currently in use in Pakistan, which has graduated to
building more advanced nuclear weapons.[18] However, the transfer of an actual
weapon design to Tripoli has left open the question whether Tehran and
Pyongyang obtained a similar copy; whether the design is still in circulation;
or who else might have obtained it.


In the mid-1990s, Khan also set up a clandestine meeting with a top Syrian
official in Beirut to offer help with setting up a centrifuge enrichment
facility for an HEU-based nuclear weapons program.[19] In mid-1990, he also
made a similar offer through a Gulf-based intermediary to Saddam Hussein's
regime. However, the Iraqi government ignored the offer in the erroneous
belief that it was likely a sting operation or a scam.[20] There is also
fragmentary and indirect evidence to suggest that Khan may have offered his
nuclear services to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.[21] But little
is publicly know about the outcome of those overtures.


The Internal Blame Game


The Pakistani government claims that the nuclear trade with Iran, North Korea,
and Libya was unauthorized; that KRL proliferated centrifuge technologies,
equipment, and related intellectual property clandestinely and illegally,
unbeknownst to military oversight authorities formally in charge of the
nuclear weapons program. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has publicly
accused A.Q. Khan and his top aides of corruption and attributed their actions
to financial gains.[22] In an attempt to distance Pakistani state authorities
from the scandal's fallout, Musharraf has also suggested that the scientists
were rogue operators, who abused the trust and autonomy granted by state
authorities to pursue their personal agendas.[23]


In calculated leaks to the press, senior Pakistani government officials have
painted Khan as a megalomaniac; a publicity hound who created a
larger-than-life image of himself. They have narrated tales of KRL's corrupt
culture; of Khan's parceling of procurement contracts at exorbitant prices to
family members and associates; bribes for procurement orders from vendors;
Khan's palatial houses and real estate investments in Pakistan and abroad; his
lavish lifestyle; and unaccounted for millions in secret bank accounts.[24]
Pakistani government sources from the president on down have also made it
plain that Khan's corruption and profiteering from proliferation activities
were critical factors behind his removal from KRL in March 2001.[25]


However, Khan has disputed Musharraf's allegations in private debriefings with
Pakistani government investigators. Apparently Khan has made the case that he
was pressured to sell nuclear technologies to Iran by two individuals close to
former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The first, Dr. Niazi, was a friend,
while the latter, General Imtiaz Ali, served as military advisor to
Bhutto.[26] Both individuals are now deceased. Khan has further alleged that
aid for Iran's uranium enrichment program was also approved by then Chief of
Army Staff, General (retd.) Mirza Aslam Beg (1988-1991). Similarly, Khan
claims the nuclear-for-missile deal with the Kim Jong Il regime was backed by
two former army chiefs, Generals (retd.) Abdul Waheed Kakar (1993-1996) and
Jehangir Karamat (1996-1998). The latter, according to Khan, made a secret
trip to North Korea in December 1997 and presided over efforts to obtain
Nodong ballistic missiles from that country. Khan's friends have also
privately suggested that General Pervez Musharraf, who succeeded Karamat and
took over responsibility for the Ghauri missile program in 1998, had to have
known about the transfers to North Korea.[27]


In interviews with Pakistani government investigators, Khan apparently insisted
that no investigation would be complete until all the actors - Khan, former
army chiefs, and other senior military and government officials - were
questioned together. Equally significant, Khan is believed to have challenged
his interlocutors' reticence to probe the nature of the technology and
equipment transfers to North Korea as against the blanket charge of
proliferation; the import of his suggestion being that either the equipment
and material transferred to North Korea would not enable it to enrich uranium
to weapons-grade in the short-term, or alternatively, that the logistics of
the equipment and technology transfers would directly implicate the military
and state authorities. [28] There are also rumors that Khan has smuggled out
evidence with his daughter Dina, who is a British citizen, which would
directly implicate senior Pakistani officials in an unfolding scandal.[29]


Fearing that any further washing of Pakistan's dirty nuclear laundry in public
could cause irretrievable harm to the Pakistani military and state
authorities, Musharraf has sought to cap the controversy by pardoning Khan for
his past transgressions. In the bargain, Khan has accepted personal
responsibility for all acts of proliferation and absolved the Pakistani state
and the military from blame. However, in his contrite public confession on
television, Khan declared that he acted in "good faith but on errors of
judgment," obliquely hinting at the likely involvement of the Pakistani
military and other state authorities in his activities.[30]


Despite the Pakistani government's attempts to absolve itself from the charges
of proliferation, most independent analysts of Pakistani politics remain
unconvinced that A.Q. Khan and his associates could have engaged in nuclear
transfers over nearly two decades without sanction or tacit acknowledgement
from sections or individuals within the Pakistani government. The Pakistani
military's tight control over the nuclear weapons program, multiple layers of
security surrounding it, the exports of machinery and hardware from Pakistan,
as well as rumors, leaks, and past warnings about Pakistan's nuclear
cooperation with Iran and North Korea by Western intelligence agencies, have
led analysts to believe that the current effort to pin the blame on a small
number of senior officials from KRL is a cynical ploy to prevent the Pakistani
military and state from being implicated in the unfolding scandal.[31]


Musharraf's Narrative


Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has deployed four arguments to explain why
Khan and his associates were able to proliferate nuclear technologies and
secrets for nearly two decades without the knowledge of successive Pakistani
governments.


First, he has argued that during the covert phase of Pakistan's nuclear weapons
program, which lasted from 1975-1998, A.Q. Khan and KRL had to rely on shell
companies, clandestine procurement techniques, smuggling networks, and
middlemen for the purchase of equipment and technologies that were on the
export control lists of advanced industrial countries. Thus the same networks
that supplied the Pakistani nuclear weapons effort were redirected to meet the
demand for similar technologies in the international market. Once Khan and his
associates developed a successful model of clandestine trade in forbidden
technologies outside formal governmental control, they were able to offer
their services for financial rewards to other bidders in the international
system.[32]


During a press briefing earlier in February, Musharraf explained that since
Pakistan's nuclear weapons program was covert until 1998, civilian governments
were out of the nuclear decision-making loop. But more astonishingly, he
sought to peddle the line that even former army chiefs, who were supposed to
exercise oversight authority over KRL, never knew of the intimate happenings
within the entity. Musharraf's proffered explanation for successive army
chiefs' ignorance: the KRL's near total organizational autonomy. According to
Musharraf, such autonomy was an essential precondition for the lab to achieve
its mandated objectives However, the army never imagined that Khan would abuse
the trust and confidence reposed in him by the state. Furthermore, Khan
gradually capitalized on his successes and the state's mythologizing of his
contributions to elevate himself to the status of a national hero. Hence, the
organizational demands for success during the development phase of the nuclear
weapons program, as well as Khan's nearly unassailable position within
domestic Pakistani politics, made it difficult for successive army chiefs to
confront him for his transgressions.[33]


Third, Musharraf maintains that the United States did not share intelligence on
Khan's proliferation network with the Pakistani government until very
recently.[34] In the absence of such damning evidence, it was difficult for
the Pakistani government to proceed against Khan and his associates.[35] And
finally, Musharraf insists that the bulk of the proliferation from Pakistan
occurred in the form of intellectual property transfers; the implication of
his suggestion being that it is easier for governments to safeguard industrial
hardware and nuclear material than the transmission of software.[36]


The Counter Narrative


Musharraf's defense provides some useful information on the historical
evolution of Pakistan's nuclear command authority, the relationship between
the military and the nuclear entities and scientists, and damning disclosures
about Khan's personal corruption, but it does not offer credible explanations
as to how or why successive Pakistani governments remained ignorant of Khan's
activities for such a long period of time; or why they should not be held to
account. On balance, the historical evidence points in the direction of a more
complex and murkier reality that casts aspersions on Musharraf's motivations.


Admittedly, it is easier for governments to safeguard industrial hardware and
equipment in comparison to software which resides in the neural networks of
human beings, floppy disks, CDs, and computers. Humans can carry software on
their person, unbeknownst to oversight authorities; and transmit it either
verbally or electronically. However, evidence has surfaced that Khan and his
associates proliferated both hardware and software. Pakistan's Attorney
General Makhdoom Ali Khan recently told the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore
High Court that the scientists transferred "secret codes, nuclear materials,
substances, machinery, equipment components, information, documents, sketches,
plans, models, articles and notes entrusted them [scientists] in their
official capacity."[37] Given the logistics of moving machinery and materials,
it is extraordinarily difficult to believe that the Pakistani military and its
intelligence agencies had no inkling of the nuclear trade.


Musharraf has offered a novel explanation as to why the army did not know of
the intimate happenings at KRL. According to him, the military commanders
tasked with KRL's security detail were under the lab's autonomous control; the
military officers were answerable to Khan and not the army high command.[38]
However, most independent observers who are familiar with the Pakistani Army's
professional ethics, training procedures, and command protocols are skeptical
that this would indeed be the case.[39] Others more familiar with KRL's
security detail are equally dismissive of Musharraf's explanations.[40]


Pakistani government sources have also suggested that KRL's security detail was
designed to prevent penetration and sabotage of the nuclear weapons program
from the outside. But it was not particularly well-designed to prevent the
egress of men, material, and equipment in the reverse direction.[41] The
obvious flaw of designing a one-dimensional security model apart, the nature
of nuclear cooperation with Iran and North Korea suggests that sensitive
nuclear facilities in Pakistan were penetrated from the outside; and the
osmosis of technical exchange between the scientists and entities was
facilitated by formal nuclear cooperation agreements between the Pakistani and
Iranian and later North Korean governments.[42]


Iranian nuclear scientists reportedly traveled to the port city of Karachi in
Pakistan for technical briefings during the early 1990s.[43] The ease with
which foreign scientists and technicians gained access to Pakistani scientists
and sensitive facilities stands in sharp contrast to the difficulty former
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto encountered while trying to gain similar access.
For example, the army denied Bhutto security clearances to visit KRL during
her first tenure as prime minister (1988-1990).[44] General (retd.) Mirza
Aslam Beg allegedly withheld details about the nuclear weapons program from
the prime minister on the rationale that "briefings at Kahuta were on a
need-to-know basis."[45] In another episode, the French ambassador to Pakistan
was physically manhandled by Pakistani security forces when he made the
mistake of venturing close to KRL.[46] Thus, some of the anecdotal evidence
from the early 1990s undercuts the army's recent assertions about lapses in
KRL's security network.


Two former cabinet ministers in the first Nawaz Sharif government (1990-1993),
Senator Ishaq Dar and Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan have stated for the record that
in 1991 former Chief of Army Staff General (retd.) Mirza Aslam Beg lobbied
Sharif for the transfer of nuclear technology to a "friendly state," for the
sum of $12 billion. The proposed figure was apparently supposed to underwrite
Pakistan's defense budget for the decade.[47] According to Dar, a
representative of that "friendly state" accompanied Beg when he made the
offer. However, Sharif, rejected Beg's proposal.


Similarly, Nisar Ali Khan maintains that in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War,
Beg proposed that Pakistan should sell its nuclear technology to Iran as part
of a grand alliance. The general's reasoning: that after the United States
succeeded in defeating Iraq, it might be the turn of Iran and Pakistan next.
Sharif, according to Nisar, rejected Beg's proposal. But this does not rule
out the possibility that Khan and Beg might have acted independently of the
prime minister, who never had control over the nuclear weapons program in any
case.[48]


Musharraf's protestation to the contrary, Pakistani governments have had some
knowledge about Khan's activities and about equipment and technology transfers
from KRL to Iran and North Korea. There is evidence to suggest that every army
chief from the late 1980s has known of Tehran's interest in acquiring
enrichment technologies from Pakistan for a weapons program. Apparently,
Pakistani investigators have also found evidence that Khan informed Beg of
equipment transfers to Iran. However, Beg claims that he received assurances
from Khan that the equipment being sold to the Iranians was outmoded and
disused and would not enable them to enrich uranium in the short term.[49]


Washington has also raised proliferation concerns with Islamabad repeatedly
since the early 1990s. Former US Ambassador to Pakistan Robert B. Oakley
(1988-1991) recalls Beg telling him in 1991 that he had reached an
understanding with the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards to help Tehran with
its nuclear program in return for an oil facility and conventional weapons. An
alarmed Oakley broached the subject with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.[50]
Subsequently, according to Oakley, Sharif and Pakistani President Ghulam Ishaq
Khan informed the Iranian government that Pakistan would not carry such an
agreement through.[51]


In the mid-1990s, when UNSCOM inspectors in Iraq uncovered documentary proof
that Khan had approached Saddam Hussein's regime with offers of assistance in
the area of centrifuge-based uranium enrichment, the Pakistani government
declared that it had conducted an internal investigation and found the
allegations to be fraudulent.[52]


Similarly, Washington began querying Islamabad about possible nuclear transfers
to North Korea as early as 1998.[53] Musharraf also recently confirmed that
the ISI raided an aircraft bound for North Korea in 2000 after it was tipped
off that KRL was transferring sensitive equipment to Pyongyang; but that raid
drew a blank.[54] More recently, US State Department spokesperson Richard
Boucher took issue with Musharraf's charge that Washington did not provide the
Pakistani government with timely intelligence against Khan; Boucher insisted
that the United States had "discussed nonproliferation issues with Pakistan
repeatedly, over a long period of time, and it's been an issue of concern to
us and President Musharraf...so it's not a single moment of information."[55]


Besides the intelligence inputs that Islamabad received from Washington,
whistle blowers within the Pakistani nuclear establishment began warning the
Pakistani military and its intelligence agencies about Khan's corruption as
early as the late 1980s.[56] Musharraf recently admitted that he suspected
Khan of clandestine proliferation activities as early as 1998; and that it was
a critical factor behind his removal from KRL in March 2001.[57] Yet, despite
Khan's removal, US intelligence tracked strategic trade between Pakistan and
North Korea until fall 2002. More alarmingly, Khan and his network coordinated
nuclear trade with Libya until October 2003; and Khan, despite being moved out
of KRL, was able to transfer a nuclear weapons design to Libya in late 2001 or
early 2002.[58]


But oddly enough, despite mounting evidence that Khan might have profited
illegally by selling the Pakistani state's most sensitive secrets, the
Pakistani military did not consider it fit to investigate him or his top
associates until October 2003. Despite repeated foreign government entreaties,
published documentary evidence, foreign intelligence leaks, and news reports
alleging nuclear proliferation to Iran and North Korea over a period of 14
years, the proverbial Pakistani military watchdog did not bark. Furthermore,
even after the Pakistani government launched an internal probe after receiving
incriminating intelligence from the United States and the IAEA in fall 2003,
Pakistani investigators visited Iran, Libya, Dubai, and Malaysia, but excluded
North Korea from their itinerary.[59]


The Pakistani military's lack of institutional curiosity in investigating the
internal affairs of its nuclear scientists and labs, physical transfers of
machinery, nuclear materials, and components from Pakistan over land routes
and on board chartered and air force transports, travel of Pakistani
scientists to Iran, and training/briefing sessions for Iranian and North
Korean scientists in Pakistan, suggests that the Musharraf regime is being
frugal with the truth. In fact, Musharraf alluded to the latter reality in an
address to Pakistani journalists when he said that even if for the sake of
argument it were accepted that the Pakistani military and governments were
involved in nuclear proliferation, the Pakistani press should avoid debating
the issue out of deference to the country's national interests.[60]


Washington's Muted Response


Washington's public reaction to what is perhaps the greatest proliferation
scandal in history has been relatively muted. Although US officials have
privately expressed disbelief that such massive diversions from KRL could have
occurred for nearly two decades without the knowledge and consent of the
Pakistani military, the Bush administration has publicly accepted Musharraf's
fiction that Khan's was a rogue operation; and that the Pakistani military and
other state functionaries were probably unaware of some of Khan's operations.
Senior administration officials have also publicly lauded President Musharraf
for investigating Khan and his associates and strengthening internal controls
over KRL.[61]


However, Washington has privately warned Musharraf that Pakistan risks
jeopardizing the $3 billion proposed economic aid package and its relations
with the United States. During a visit to Islamabad in October 2003, US Deputy
Secretary of State Richard Armitage personally presented evidence against Khan
to Musharraf and threatened that Pakistan could be reported to the United
Nations Security Council and suffer sanctions if it failed to put an end to
Khan's nuclear entrepreneurship permanently.[62] The implicit bargain between
Washington and Islamabad: the United States will avoid publicly hectoring and
embarrassing Musharraf in return for a Pakistani undertaking to tear up Khan's
clandestine nuclear trading network from its "roots"; intelligence inputs that
would help US intelligence agencies fill critical gaps in their knowledge
about the scale, depth, and modus operandi of the clandestine global trade in
nuclear technologies; and details on North Korea[63] and possibly Iran's
uranium enrichment programs.


Washington's public nonchalance has also been determined by the necessity of
avoiding actions that might rebound on Musharraf domestically. The Bush
administration regards Musharraf and the Pakistani Army as critical allies in
the global war on terror against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Since the launch of
the Afghan war in fall 2001, Pakistan has rendered critical intelligence,
logistical, and military support for US military operations. Pakistan's
cooperation has also been critical in apprehending al-Qaeda operatives taking
shelter in Pakistan and along the Pakistan-Afghan border. Because Osama Bin
Laden and his key lieutenants remain at large, and because the United States
needs Pakistan's political support to pacify the resurgent Taliban threat in
Afghanistan, the Bush administration has resorted to quiet diplomacy to force
changes in Islamabad's proliferation policies.[64]


In this regard, re-imposition of US economic sanctions would only compound the
problem. On the one hand, because the drivers that led to Pakistani
proliferation in the past would remain in place, economic privation would only
create further incentives for the Pakistani military to feed its corporate
appetite through weapons of mass destruction-related technology sales abroad.
On the other hand, the consequences of military action against Pakistan would
be infinitely worse. If the United States ever made the mistake of degrading
or destroying the Pakistani military's coercive capacity, Pakistan might
become a failed state, and the problem of securing its nuclear facilities,
fissile materials, scientific personnel, and actual weapons and delivery
systems would become a security nightmare.


Because it is likely that some of past clandestine nuclear trade had the tacit
if not formal support of the Pakistani military, the United States is also
perhaps trying to avoid actions that would place Musharraf, who is also the
head of the army, in an institutional quandary.
Perhaps the quiet calculation in Washington is that a policy of selective
intelligence leaks, private and multilateral diplomacy, and a combination of
carrots and sticks would constitute more robust means to persuade Islamabad to
mend its ways. More enticing is the possibility, howsoever remote, of
recruiting the Pakistani military's intelligence agencies and nuclear labs to
help roll up the global black market in nuclear technologies they helped
create in the first place.[65]


Finally, the US reticence in publicly rebuking Islamabad for its proliferation
transgressions is an acknowledgement of the sensitive regard with which
nuclear issues are treated in domestic Pakistani politics. Nuclear weapons are
closely tied to the Pakistani nation's sense of self-worth and national
identity. Pakistanis count their nuclear capability as one of the few areas of
national achievement. Nuclear scientists are treated as cult figures; and
until recently, the Pakistani state lionized Khan as a national hero.[66] Khan
and the nuclear establishment also enjoy the support of the Islamist parties
in Pakistan. Hence, Washington has been keen to avoid giving the impression
that it is intruding into the holy sanctum of Pakistan's nuclear politics; or
doing anything that would compromise Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. But,
behind the fa?de of public calm, US policy makers have launched a quiet
program of cooperation to help Pakistan institute more reliable personnel
reliability protocols, and enhance the safety and security of its nuclear
warheads, fissile materials, and sensitive nuclear facilities.[67]


Preliminary Conclusions


Without a doubt, the new revelations show that Pakistan remains the most
problematic nuclear state in the international system and perhaps the state of
greatest proliferation concern. KRL's diversion of centrifuge blueprints,
designs, models, complete assemblies, components, enriched uranium, and the
actual design of a warhead itself without a nary afterthought of the likely
political consequences of such actions, is unparalleled in the history of
nuclear proliferation.


In the mid-1970s and 1980s, Pakistan's nuclear weapons program presented a new
model of proliferation. In the past, state-to-state cooperation had been the
main conduit for the passage of nuclear weapons-related technologies. However,
Pakistani entrepreneurs such as A.Q. Khan demonstrated how loose export
control regulations, dual-use technologies, market ethics, and a fragmented
manufacturing base spread across different countries could be exploited by a
determined proliferator to build an integrated fissile material production
complex. The Pakistanis perfected a system of clandestine trade through
middlemen and shell companies; through clandestine procurement techniques,
false end-user certificates, and diversion of industrial goods and
technologies placed on the export control lists of advanced industrial nations
using circuitous routes. But that effort took about a decade to
accomplish.[68]


In comparison, new proliferators such as North Korea and Libya have been able
to reduce substantially the lead time for setting up similar facilities.
Libya, for example, was able to set up a pilot uranium enrichment plant within
five years; and could have conceivably extracted enough enriched uranium for a
single nuclear weapon on a crash basis.[69] The critical difference between
the Pakistani and North Korean and Libyan cases is that the latter tapped into
the services of nuclear entrepreneurs such as Khan who provided a one-stop
shop for uranium enrichment programs: integrated shopping solutions for
complete centrifuge assemblies; component parts and manufacturing services;
enriched uranium; engineering consultancies and trouble shooting services; and
finally the blueprint of an actual fission weapon itself. Thus the same
fragmented network that fed the Pakistani nuclear weapons effort morphed into
what IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei described as an underground
international Wal Mart for nuclear weapons technologies.


Any analysis of the proliferators' motivations will have to wait until we have
a more definitive idea of whether Khan's activities were entirely a rogue
operation or conducted at the behest of the Pakistani military. Revelations of
Khan's disproportionate wealth and the modus operandi of his associates
clearly suggest that money was a primary motivation. But Khan has also
justified his actions as means to help other "Muslim" nations and divert
Western attention and pressure from the Pakistani nuclear weapons program.[70]
However his sales to secular regimes in North Korea and Libya, and offers to
other secular regimes in Syria and Iraq suggest that although ideology and
antipathy to the West might have played some role, it was in part a cover to
mask his greed and megalomania.


Although the Pakistani government has distanced itself from Khan's activities,
it is difficult to believe that a diversion of such massive scale and scope
over a period of nearly two decades could have occurred without the knowledge
of oversight authorities within the Pakistani government. Evidently, Khan made
nuclear transfers to Iran under the rubric of a secret peaceful nuclear
cooperation agreement that the two countries signed in the mid-1980s. The
historical record shows that former Pakistani president, the late General
Zia-ul-Haq, was aware of Iran's interest in purchasing Pakistani enrichment
technology that would enable it to enrich uranium to weapons grade. The
historical record is equally clear that General (retd.) Beg, who immediately
succeeded Zia, toyed with the idea of nuclear technology sales to finance
Pakistan's defense budget. Khan also informed Beg of the equipment sales to
Iran. However, Beg insists that Khan had assured him that the equipment being
sold was outmoded, old, and disused, and would not enable Tehran to enrich
uranium in the near term. Similarly, the Musharraf regime has never admitted
to Nodong imports from North Korea or explained how it cobbled together the
resources to pay for them.


But there is also the possibility that the Pakistani military approved
transfers of a limited scope and nature to Iran and North Korea; but that Khan
and his associates abused the authority granted them to make unauthorized
sales of goods and services and reap huge personal financial rewards in the
process. However, the Musharraf regime's attempt to absolve the Pakistani
state of all blame in the current controversy by suggesting that Pakistani
scientists acted out of pecuniary and career goals borders on the
preposterous. If the above argument were accepted in principal, no future
government in Islamabad could be held accountable for transfers or theft of
fissile material, warheads, or other weapons-related technologies and know how
from Pakistan. By Musharraf's logic, Khan and his associates could have also
diverted weapons-grade uranium or an actual nuclear weapon itself to foreign
clients and the Pakistani military would claim innocence. Even if the nuclear
entities and scientists were acting independently, the Pakistani state is
ultimately responsible for the guardianship of all nuclear assets,
technologies, and personnel on its territory.


Although Islamabad's proliferation record raises serious concerns, the current
Pakistani government's assertion that its scientists and entities might have
acted at cross purposes and in a manner unbeknownst to state authorities, is
infinitely worse. For the record would then suggest that not only did civilian
governments in Islamabad lack effective control over the nuclear weapons
program during its developmental phase, but that the military too, which
analysts believe effectively monitors the nuclear weapons effort, exercised
only perfunctory control. The implications of such abdication of internal
sovereignty by the state are staggering. It suggests that behind the fa?de of
centralized control, Pakistan's strategic military-industrial complex is
dangerously fragmented, compartmentalized, and autonomous; that government
agencies lack effective oversight; and individuals act as authorities unto
themselves. In light of their alleged past behavior, the possibility that such
individuals might share secrets concerning the dark nuclear arts with other
countries and terror groups for ideological and financial motivations is not
as remote as it had once seemed.


Iran's and Libya's revelations about their Pakistani connection are also likely
to have a sobering effect on other proliferators in the international system.
Proliferator states, rogue entities, scientists, engineers, manufacturers and
suppliers can no longer feel assured that their identities will be protected
by client states. Tripoli and Tehran's acts have also undermined the Pakistani
Islamists' ahistoric notions of an imagined pan-Islamic community of Muslim
nations. During a press conference, Musharraf raged that Pakistan had been
outed by its Muslim brothers with whom it had shared its most sensitive
defense technologies; and such treachery is the reason why Pakistanis should
abandon chimeras of an "Islamic bomb."[71]


Equally significant, the disclosure that Khan and his associates sold the
blueprint of a nuclear weapon design, which the Chinese had shared with
Pakistan, to Libya and possibly Iran and North Korea, is likely to embarrass
China. It confirms what was known for a long time; that China helped Pakistan
with the design for nuclear weapons. But despite the obvious strain on
Sino-Pakistani relations, it remains unclear whether the new disclosures will
lead Beijing to reappraise its decision to continue help for Pakistan's
solid-fuel ballistic missile and possibly nuclear programs.


Finally, although Pakistan can be expected to provide some intelligence inputs
to help root out the clandestine international network in nuclear trade, the
extent of its cooperation is likely to be limited. For Islamabad's own nuclear
weapons and ballistic missile programs have profited from such trade; and
remain dependent on it. Recently, a South African businessman was discovered
trying to illegally export "triggered spark gaps" that can be used in nuclear
weapons to Pakistan through false end-user certification.[72] This episode is
a small indicator of just how far Pakistan is from achieving self-sufficiency.


Worse, most of the drivers that led Pakistani entities such as KRL to
proliferate nuclear technologies in the past remain. Khan's greed was only one
variable in the proliferation equation. Other drivers such as the Pakistani
military's corporate appetite for a nuclear deterrent and maintaining
proportional parity with their larger and more powerful neighbor India, are
constants in the Pakistani political spectrum. Domestically as well,
Pakistan's institutions remain relatively undeveloped. Individuals dominate
institutional processes; there is little respect for the rule of law or
constitution; and critical sectors such as the nuclear weapons and ballistic
missile programs remain beyond the pale of civilian oversight. It was this
combination of factors - the military's corporate desperation for nuclear and
missile deliverables, undeveloped institutions, personalization of power,
fragmented and compartmentalized authority structures, and the absence of
civilian oversight - that provided opportunities for Khan and his associates
to peddle their dangerous wares in the international market. Although the
Pakistani Army appears to be making efforts to tighten its grip on the nuclear
and missile military-industrial complex, the larger structural problems in the
Pakistani polity remain. And it is this combination of factors that might pave
the way for a similar recurrence in the future. It is also why Pakistan will
require careful monitoring and reform and remain one of the most significant
foreign policy challenges for the United States in the near and medium term.


[1] Although the Pakistani government maintains that transfers to Iran occurred
between 1989-1991, evidence has surfaced that Khan continued to transfer
components as late as 1995. See, David Rhode and David E. Sanger, "Key
Pakistani Is Said to Admit Atom Transfers," New York Times, 1 February 2004,
http://www.nytimes.com; Patrick Chalmers, "Police: Pakistan's Khan Arranged
Uranium for Libya," Washington Post, 20 February 2004,
http://www.washingtonpost.com.
[2] Ibid; "Re-imposition of sanctions feared: US aid may be jeopardized -
official," Dawn, 5 February 2004, http://www.dawn.com.
[3] Glenn Kessler, "Pakistan's N. Korea Deals Stir Scrutiny: Aid to Nuclear
Arms Bid May Be Recent," Washington Post, 13 November 2002, p. A01; David E.
Sanger, "In North Korea and Pakistan, Deep Roots of Nuclear Barter," New York
Times, 22 November 2002, http://www.nytimes.com; John Lancaster and Kamran
Khan, "Pakistan Fires Top Nuclear Scientist," Washington Post, 1 February
2004, p. A01.
[4] Peter Slevin, "Libya Made Plutonium, Nuclear Watchdog Says," Washington
Post, 21 February 2001, p. A15.
[5] John Lancaster and Kamran Khan, "Pakistani Confesses To Aiding Nuclear
Efforts: Scientist Helped N. Korea, Libya, Iran," Washington Post, 2 February
2004, p. A12; Peter Slevin and Joby Warrick, "U.N. Finds Uranium Enrichment
Tools in Iran," Washington Post, 20 February 2004, p. A15.
[6] Ellen Nakashima and Alan Sipress, "Insider Tells of Nuclear Deals, Cash,"
Washington Post, 21 February 2004, p. A01.
[7] Rhode and Sanger, "Key Pakistani Is Said To Admit Atom Transfers"; Mubashir
Zaidi, "Scientist Claimed Nuclear Equipment Was Old, Official Says," Los
Angeles Times, 10 February 2004, http://www.latimes.com.
[8] "Re-imposition of sanctions feared: US aid may be jeopardized - official."
[9] Rhode and Sanger, "Key Pakistani Is Said To Admit Atom Transfers."
[10] Slevin, "Libya Made Plutonium, Nuclear Watchdog Says."
[11] Ibid.
[12] Douglas Frantz and Josh Meyer, "For Sale: Nuclear Expertise," Los Angeles
Times, 22 February 2004, http://www.latimes.com.
[13] Rhode and Sanger, "Key Pakistani Is Said To Admit Atom Transfers."
[14] Ibid.
[15] Kessler, "Pakistan's N. Korea Deals Stir Scrutiny: Aid to Nuclear Arms Bid
May Be Recent"; Sanger, "In North Korea and Pakistan, Deep Roots of Nuclear
Barter."
[16] Joby Warrick and Peter Slevin, "Libyan Arms Designs Traced Back To China,"
Washington Post, 15 February 2004, p. A01.
[17] "Chinese Warhead Drawings Among Libyan Documents," Los Angeles Times, 16
February 2004, http://www.latimes.com.
[18] Ibid; also see, William J. Broad, "Libya's A-Bomb Blueprints Reveal New
Tie to Pakistani," 9 February 2004, http://www.nytimes.com.
[19] Peter Slevin, John Lancaster, and Kamran Khan, "At Least 7 Nations Tied to
Pakistani Nuclear Ring," Washington Post, 8 February 2004, p.A01.
[20] Joby Warrick, "Alleged Nuclear Offer to Iraq Is Revisited," Washington
Post, 5 February 2004, p. A16; William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, "Warhead
Blueprints Link Libya Project to Pakistan Figure," New York Times, 4 February
2004, http://www.nytimes.com.
[21] Jane Perlez, "Saudi's Visit to Arms Site in Pakistan Worries US," New York
Times, 10 June 1999, http://www.nytimes.com; Ian Black and Richard
Norton-Taylor, "Saudis Trying to Buy Nuclear Weapons," Guardian, 4 August
1999, http://www.guardian.co.uk; "Government offers UAE nuclear training but
not bomb on a platter," Jasarat, 26 May 1999; in Lexis-Nexis Academic
Universe, 26 May 1999, http://www.lexis-nexis.com.
[22] "Full Text of Musharraf Interview," CNN, 23 January 2004,
http://www.cnn.com.
[23] See "Text of President Pervez Musharraf's Press Conference," PTV, 4
February 2004; in FBIS Document SAP20040209000072, 5 February 2004.
[24] John Lancaster and Kamran Khan, "Pakistan Fires Top Nuclear Scientist,"
Washington Post, 1 February 2004, p. A01.
[25] David Rhode and Amy Waldman, "Pakistani Leader Suspected Moves by Atomic
Expert," New York Times, 10 February 2004, http://www.nytimes.com; Matthew
Pennington, "Pakistan Warned on Nuke Scientist in '98," Washington Post, 10
February 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com.
[26] David Rhode, "Pakistanis Question Official Ignorance of Atom Transfers,"
New York Times, 3 February 2004, http://www.nytimes.com.
[27] John Lancaster and Kamran Khan, "Musharraf Named in Nuclear Probe,"
Washington Post, 3 February 2004, p. A13.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Massoud Ansari, "Pakistan demands nuclear papers," Washington Times, 16
February 2004, http://www.washtimes.com; Amir Mir, "Neatly Buttoned Up,"
OutlookIndia, 16 February 2004, http://www.outlookindia.com.
[30] See Text of "A.Q. Khan's Apology to Pakistanis," New York Times, 4
February 2004, http://www.nytimes.com.
[31] For example see, Anwar Syed, "An affair to remember & regret," Dawn, 15
February 2004, http://www.dawn.com; also see, Rhode, "Pakistanis Question
Official Ignorance of Atom Transfers."
[32] "Text of President Musharraf's Press Conference," PTV, 4 February 2004.
[33] Ibid.
[34] President Musharraf was reportedly briefed on the nature of the evidence
against Khan by a US delegation led by US Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage and General John Abizaid, head of the US Central Command, on 6
October 2003. See, Slevin, Lancaster, and Khan, "At Least 7 Nations Tied to
Pakistani Nuclear Ring."
[35] Rhode and Waldman, "Pakistani Leader Suspected Moves by Atomic Expert."
[36] "Full Text of Musharraf Interview," CNN..
[37] "Government submits reply in detention case: Scientists jeopardized
national security," Daily Times, 12 February 2004,
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk.
[38] "Text of President Pervez Musharraf's Press Conference," PTV, 4 February
2004.
[39] Rhode, "Pakistanis Question Official Ignorance of Atom Transfers"; Amir
Mir, "Neatly Buttoned Up," OutlookIndia, 16 February 2004,
http://www.outlookindia.com.
[40] Pervez Hoodbhoy, "The Nuclear Noose Around Pakistan's Neck," Washington
Post, 1 February 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com.
[41] David Rhode, "Nuclear Inquiry Skips Pakistani Army," New York Times, 29
January 2004, http://www.nytimes.com.
[42] John Lancaster and Kamran Khan, "Pakistanis Say Nuclear Scientists Aided
Iran," Washington Post, 24 January 2004, p. A01; Yuji Shinogase, "Defector
Says DPRK Began Uranium-Based Nuclear Program Under Deal with Pakistan," Tokyo
Shimbun, 8 February 2004; in FBIS Document: JPP20040208000054, 8 February
2004; Amir Mir, "Fission Smokescreen," OutlookIndia, 23 February 2004,
http://www.outlookindia.com.
[43] Zaidi, "Scientist Claimed Nuclear Equipment Was Old, Official Says"; Rhode
and Sanger, "Key Pakistani Is Said to Admit Atom Transfers."
[44] Hoodbhoy, "The Nuclear Noose Around Pakistan's Neck."
[45] Irfan Husain, "The atomic arms bazaar," Dawn, 7 February 2004,
http://www.dawn.com.
[46] Hoodbhoy, "The Nuclear Noose Around Pakistan's Neck."
[47] Zahid Hussain, "Pakistan Targets Nuclear Scientists For Selling Nuclear
Secrets," Wall Street Journal, 26 January 2004, p. A3; Lancaster and Khan,
"Pakistanis Say Nuclear Scientists Aided Iran"; Shaukat Piracha, "Beg asked
Nawaz to give nuclear technology to a 'friend', says Ishaq Dar," Daily Times,
24 December 2003, http://www.dailytimes.com.pk.
[48] Lancaster and Khan, "Pakistanis Say Nuclear Scientists Aided Iran."
[49] Lancaster and Khan, "Musharraf Named in Nuclear Probe."
[50] Lancaster and Khan, "Pakistanis Say Nuclear Scientists Aided Iran."
[51] Ibid.
[52] "A Secret Nuke Offer?" Newsweek, 11 May 1998, p.11.
[53] Frantz and Meyer, "For Sale: Nuclear Expertise."
[54] Rhode and Waldman, "Pakistani Leader Suspected Moves By Atomic Expert."
[55] "Pakistan's Nuclear Claim Disputed," New York Times, 11 February 2004,
http://www.nytimes.com; Sridhar Krishnaswami, "Enough evidence was given to
Musharraf: U.S.," Hindu, 12 February 2004, http://www.hinduonnet.com.
[56] Kamran Khan, "Dr. Qadeer linked to N-black market," The News, 28 January
2004, http://jang.com.pk/thenews/.
[57] Rhode and Waldman, "Pakistani Leader Suspected Moves by Atomic Expert."
[58] Slevin, "Libya Made Plutonium, Nuclear Watchdog Says."
[59] "Team visited Iran, Libya to investigate claims: Rashid," Dawn, 23 January
2004, http://www.dawn.com.
[60] "Text of President Pervez Musharraf's Press Conference," PTV, 4 February
2004.
[61] David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, "White House Hails Action by
Pakistani on Atom Sales," New York Times, 6 February 2004,
http://www.nytimes.com.
[62] Slevin, Lancaster, and Khan, "At Least 7 Nations Tied to Pakistani Nuclear
Ring."
[63] Barry Schweid, "Bush Official: N. Korea Buys Nuclear Info," Washington
Post, 11 February 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com; "Pakistan will share
findings of N-probe with Japan: Musharraf," Daily Times, 12 February 2004,
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk; George Gedda, "Scientist May Have Info on N.
Korea Nukes," Washington Post, 11 February 2004,
http://www.washingtonpost.com.
[64] David E. Sanger, "Confronting the Nuclear Threat America Didn't Want to be
True," New York Times, 8 February 2004, http://www.nytimes.com.
[65] U.S. Urges Pakistan Against Nuclear Network," New York Times, 9 February
2004, http://www.nytimes.com.
[66] David Rhode and Salman Masood, "Pakistanis' Yearning For a Hero Eclipses
His Misdeeds," New York Times, 8 February 2004, http://www.nytimes.com.
[67] David Blair, "Code Changes 'Secure' Pakistan Warheads," London Daily
Telegraph, 9 February 2004, http://www.telegraph.co.uk.
[68] Craig S. Smith, "Roots of Pakistan Atomic Scandal Traced to Europe," New
York Times, 19 February 2004, http://www.nytimes.com; William J. Broad, David
E. Sanger and Raymond Bonner, "A Tale of Nuclear Proliferation: How Pakistani
Built His Network," New York Times, 12 February 2004, http://www.nytimes.com.
[69] Slevin, "Libya Made Plutonium, Nuclear Watchdog Says."
[70] Lancaster and Khan, "Pakistani Confesses to Aiding Nuclear Efforts."
[71] "Full Text of President Musharraf's Press Conference," PTV, 4 February
2004.
[72] Peter Fabricius, "The man who used hospitals to trade in nukes," IOL, 15
February 2004, http://www.iol.co.za.



CNS Experts on Pakistan's Nuclear Trade:


Gaurav Kampani
Senior Research Associate, Proliferation Research and Assessment Program (PRAP)
gkampani@miis.edu



View previous Research Stories.







Author(s): Gaurav Kampani
Related Resources: Nuclear, South Asia, Weekly Story

Date Created: February 23, 2004
Date Updated: -NA-










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http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/030127fa_fact



THE COLD TEST
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
What the Administration knew about Pakistan and the North Korean nuclear program.
Issue of 2003-01-27
Posted 2003-01-20

Last June, four months before the current crisis over North Korea became public, the Central Intelligence Agency delivered a comprehensive analysis of North Korea's nuclear ambitions to President Bush and his top advisers. The document, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, was classified as Top Secret S.C.I. (for "sensitive compartmented information"), and its distribution within the government was tightly restricted. The C.I.A. report made the case that North Korea had been violating international law—and agreements with South Korea and the United States—by secretly obtaining the means to produce weapons-grade uranium.

The document's most politically sensitive information, however, was about Pakistan. Since 1997, the C.I.A. said, Pakistan had been sharing sophisticated technology, warhead-design information, and weapons-testing data with the Pyongyang regime. Pakistan, one of the Bush Administration's important allies in the war against terrorism, was helping North Korea build the bomb.

In 1985, North Korea signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which led to the opening of most of its nuclear sites to international inspection. By the early nineteen-nineties, it became evident to American intelligence agencies and international inspectors that the North Koreans were reprocessing more spent fuel than they had declared, and might have separated enough plutonium, a reactor by-product, to fabricate one or two nuclear weapons. The resulting diplomatic crisis was resolved when North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, entered into an agreement with the Clinton Administration to stop the nuclear-weapons program in return for economic aid and the construction of two light-water nuclear reactors that, under safeguards, would generate electricity.

Within three years, however, North Korea had begun using a second method to acquire fissile material. This time, instead of using spent fuel, scientists were trying to produce weapons-grade uranium from natural uranium—with Pakistani technology. One American intelligence official, referring to the C.I.A. report, told me, "It points a clear finger at the Pakistanis. The technical stuff is crystal clear—not hedged and not ambivalent." Referring to North Korea's plutonium project in the early nineteen-nineties, he said, "Before, they were sneaking." Now "it's off the wall. We know they can do a lot more and a lot more quickly."

North Korea is economically isolated; one of its main sources of export income is arms sales, and its most sought-after products are missiles. And one of its customers has been Pakistan, which has a nuclear arsenal of its own but needs the missiles to more effectively deliver the warheads to the interior of its rival, India. In 1997, according to the C.I.A. report, Pakistan began paying for missile systems from North Korea in part by sharing its nuclear-weapons secrets. According to the report, Pakistan sent prototypes of high-speed centrifuge machines to North Korea. And sometime in 2001 North Korean scientists began to enrich uranium in significant quantities. Pakistan also provided data on how to build and test a uranium-triggered nuclear weapon, the C.I.A. report said.

It had taken Pakistan a decade of experimentation, and a substantial financial investment, before it was able to produce reliable centrifuges; with Pakistan's help, the North Koreans had "chopped many years off" the development process, the intelligence official noted. It is not known how many centrifuges are now being operated in North Korea or where the facilities are. (They are assumed to be in underground caves.) The Pakistani centrifuges, the official said, are slim cylinders, roughly six feet in height, that could be shipped "by the hundreds" in cargo planes. But, he added, "all Pakistan would have to do is give the North Koreans the blueprints. They are very sophisticated in their engineering." And with a few thousand centrifuges, he said, "North Korea could have enough fissile material to manufacture two or three warheads a year, with something left over to sell."

A former senior Pakistani official told me that his government's contacts with North Korea increased dramatically in 1997; the Pakistani economy had foundered, and there was "no more money" to pay for North Korean missile support, so the Pakistani government began paying for missiles by providing "some of the know-how and the specifics." Pakistan helped North Korea conduct a series of "cold tests," simulated nuclear explosions, using natural uranium, which are necessary to determine whether a nuclear device will detonate properly. Pakistan also gave the North Korean intelligence service advice on "how to fly under the radar," as the former official put it—that is, how to hide nuclear research from American satellites and U.S. and South Korean intelligence agents.

Whether North Korea had actually begun to build warheads was not known at the time of the 1994 crisis and is still not known today, according to the C.I.A. report. The report, those who have read it say, included separate and contradictory estimates from the C.I.A., the Pentagon, the State Department, and the Department of Energy regarding the number of warheads that North Korea might have been capable of making, and provided no consensus on whether or not the Pyongyang regime is actually producing them.

Over the years, there have been sporadic reports of North Korea's contacts with Pakistan, most of them concerning missile sales. Much less has been known about nuclear ties. In the past decade, American intelligence tracked at least thirteen visits to North Korea made by A. Q. Khan, who was then the director of a Pakistani weapons-research laboratory, and who is known as the father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb. This October, after news of the uranium program came out, the Times ran a story suggesting that Pakistan was a possible supplier of centrifuges to North Korea. General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's leader, attacked the account as "absolutely baseless," and added, "There is no such thing as collaboration with North Korea in the nuclear area." The White House appeared to take the Musharraf statement at face value. In November, Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters he had been assured by Musharraf that Pakistan was not currently engaging in any nuclear transactions with North Korea. "I have made clear to him that any . . . contact between Pakistan and North Korea we believe would be improper, inappropriate, and would have consequences," Powell said. "President Musharraf understands the seriousness of the issue." After that, Pakistan quickly faded from press coverage of the North Korea story.

The Bush Administration may have few good options with regard to Pakistan, given the country's role in the war on terror. Within two weeks of September 11th, Bush lifted the sanctions that had been imposed on Pakistan because of its nuclear-weapons activities. In the view of American disarmament experts, the sanctions had in any case failed to deal with one troubling issue: the close ties between some scientists working for the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and radical Islamic groups. "There is an awful lot of Al Qaeda sympathy within Pakistan's nuclear program," an intelligence official told me. One American nonproliferation expert said, "Right now, the most dangerous country in the world is Pakistan. If we're incinerated next week, it'll be because of H.E.U."—highly enriched uranium—"that was given to Al Qaeda by Pakistan."

Pakistan's relative poverty could pose additional risks. In early January, a Web-based Pakistani-exile newspaper opposed to the Musharraf government reported that, in the past six years, nine nuclear scientists had emigrated from Pakistan—apparently in search of better pay—and could not be located.

An American intelligence official I spoke with called Pakistan's behavior the "worst nightmare" of the international arms-control community: a Third World country becoming an instrument of proliferation. "The West's primary control of nuclear proliferation was based on technology denial and diplomacy," the official said. "Our fear was, first, that a Third World country would develop nuclear weapons indigenously; and, second, that it would then provide the technology to other countries. This is profound. It changes the world." Pakistan's nuclear program flourished in the nineteen-eighties, at a time when its military and intelligence forces were working closely with the United States to repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The official said, "The transfer of enrichment technology by Pakistan is a direct outgrowth of the failure of the United States to deal with the Pakistani program when we could have done so. We've lost control."

The C.I.A. report remained unpublicized throughout the summer and early fall, as the Administration concentrated on laying the groundwork for a war with Iraq. Many officials in the Administration's own arms-control offices were unaware of the report. "It was held very tightly," an official told me. "Compartmentalization is used to protect sensitive sources who can get killed if their information is made known, but it's also used for controlling sensitive information for political reasons."

One American nonproliferation expert said that, given the findings in the June report, he was dismayed that the Administration had not made the information available. "It's important to convey to the American people that the North Korean situation presented us with an enormous military and political crisis," he said. "This goes to the heart of North Asian security, to the future of Japan and South Korea, and to the future of the broader issue of nonproliferation."

A Japanese diplomat who has been closely involved in Korean affairs defended the Bush Administration's delay in publicly dealing with the crisis. Referring to the report, he said, "If the intelligence assessment was correct, you have to think of the implications. Disclosure of information is not always instant. You need some time to assess the content." He added, "To have a dialogue, you really have to find the right time and the right conditions. So far, President Bush has done the right thing, from our perspective." (The White House and the C.I.A. did not respond to requests for comment.)

President Bush's contempt for the North Korean government is well known, and makes the White House's failure to publicize the C.I.A. report or act on it all the more puzzling. In his State of the Union address in January of last year, Bush cited North Korea, along with Iraq and Iran, as part of the "axis of evil." Bob Woodward, in "Bush at War," his book about the Administration's response to September 11th, recalls an interview at the President's Texas ranch in August: " 'I loathe Kim Jong Il!' Bush shouted, waving his finger in the air. 'I've got a visceral reaction to this guy, because he is starving his people.' " Woodward wrote that the President had become so emotional while speaking about Kim Jong Il that "I thought he might jump up."

The Bush Administration was put on notice about North Korea even before it received the C.I.A. report. In January of last year, John Bolton, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control, declared that North Korea had a covert nuclear-weapons program and was in violation of the nonproliferation treaty. In February, the President was urged by three members of Congress to withhold support for the two reactors promised to North Korea, on the ground that the Pyongyang government was said to be operating a secret processing site "for the enrichment of uranium." In May, Bolton again accused North Korea of failing to coöperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the group responsible for monitoring treaty compliance. Nevertheless, on July 5th the President's national-security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, who presumably had received the C.I.A. report weeks earlier, made it clear in a letter to the congressmen that the Bush Administration would continue providing North Korea with shipments of heavy fuel oil and nuclear technology for the two promised energy-generating reactors.

The Administration's fitful North Korea policy, with its mixture of anger and seeming complacency, is in many ways a consequence of its unrelenting focus on Iraq. Late last year, the White House released a national-security-strategy paper authorizing the military "to detect and destroy an adversary's WMD assets"—weapons of mass destruction—"before these weapons are used." The document argued that the armed forces "must have the capability to defend against WMD-armed adversaries . . . because deterrence may not succeed." Logically, the new strategy should have applied first to North Korea, whose nuclear-weapons program remains far more advanced than Iraq's. The Administration's goal, however, was to mobilize public opinion for an invasion of Iraq. One American intelligence official told me, "The Bush doctrine says MAD"—mutual assured destruction—"will not work for these rogue nations, and therefore we have to preëmpt if negotiations don't work. And the Bush people knew that the North Koreans had already reinvigorated their programs and were more dangerous than Iraq. But they didn't tell anyone. They have bankrupted their own policy—thus far—by not doing what their doctrine calls for."

Iraq's military capacity has been vitiated by its defeat in the Gulf War and years of inspections, but North Korea is one of the most militarized nations in the world, with more than forty per cent of its population under arms. Its artillery is especially fearsome: more than ten thousand guns, along with twenty-five hundred rocket launchers capable of launching five hundred thousand shells an hour, are positioned within range of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. The Pentagon has estimated that all-out war would result in more than a million military and civilian casualties, including as many as a hundred thousand Americans killed. A Clinton Administration official recalled attending a congressional briefing in the mid-nineties at which Army General Gary Luck, the commander of U.S. forces in Korea, laconically said, "Senator, I could win this one for you—but not right away."

In early October, James A. Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, flew to Pyongyang with a large entourage for a showdown over the uranium-enrichment program. The agenda was, inevitably, shaped by officials' awareness of the President's strong personal views. "There was a huge fight over whether to give the North Koreans an ultimatum or to negotiate," one American expert on Korea told me. "Which is the same fight they're having now." Kelly was authorized to tell the Koreans that the U.S. had learned about the illicit uranium program, but his careful instructions left him no room to negotiate. His scripted message was blunt: North Korea must stop the program before any negotiations could take place. "This is a sad tale of bureaucracy," another American expert said. "The script Kelly had was written in the N.S.C."—the National Security Council—"by hard-liners. I don't think the President wanted a crisis at this time." The C.I.A. report had predicted that North Korea, if confronted with the evidence, would not risk an open break with the 1994 agreement and would do nothing to violate the nonproliferation treaty. "It was dead wrong," an intelligence officer told me. "I hope there are other people in the agency who understand the North Koreans better than the people who wrote this."

"The Koreans were stunned," a Japanese diplomat who spoke to some of the participants told me. "They didn't know that the U.S. knew what it knew." After an all-night caucus in Pyongyang, Kang Suk Ju, the First Vice Foreign Minister of North Korea, seemed to confirm the charge when he responded by insisting upon his nation's right to develop nuclear weapons. What he didn't talk about was whether it actually had any. Kang Suk Ju also accused the United States, the Japanese diplomat said, of "threatening North Korea's survival." Kang then produced a list of the United States' alleged failures to meet its own obligations under the 1994 agreement, and offered to shut down the enrichment program in return for an American promise not to attack and a commitment to normalize relations. Kelly, constrained by his instructions, could only re-state his brief: the North Koreans must act first. The impasse was on.

But, as with the June C.I.A. report, the Administration kept quiet about the Pyongyang admission. It did not inform the public until October 16th, five days after Congress voted to authorize military force against Iraq. Even then, according to Administration sources quoted in the Washington Post, the Administration went public only after learning that the North Korean admission—with obvious implications for the debate on Iraq—was being leaked to the press. On the CBS program "Face the Nation" on October 20th, Condoleezza Rice denied that news of the Kelly meeting had been deliberately withheld until after the vote. President Bush, she said, simply hadn't been presented with options until October 15th. "What was surprising to us was not that there was a program," Rice said. "What was surprising to us was that the North Koreans admitted there was a program."

"Did we want them to deny it?" a former American intelligence expert on North Korea asked me afterward. He said, "I could never understand what was going on with the North Korea policy." Referring to relations between the intelligence service and the Bush Administration, he said, "We couldn't get people's attention, and, even if we could, they never had a sensible approach. The Administration was deeply, viciously ideological." It was contemptuous not only of the Pyongyang government but of earlier efforts by the Clinton White House to address the problem of nuclear proliferation—a problem that could only get worse if Washington ignored it. The former intelligence official told me, "When it came time to confront North Korea, we had no plan, no contact—nothing to negotiate with. You have to be in constant diplomatic contact, so you can engage and be in the strongest position to solve the problem. But we let it all fall apart."

The former intelligence official added, referring to the confrontation in North Korea in October, "The Kelly meeting and the subsequent American statement have tipped the balance in Pyongyang. The North Koreans were already terrifically suspicious of the United States. They saw the Kelly message as 'When you fix this, get back to us.' They were very angry. That, plus the fact that they feel they are next in line after Iraq, made them believe they had to act very quickly to protect themselves."

The result was that in October, as in June, the Administration had no option except to deny that there was a crisis. When the first published reports of the Kelly meeting appeared, a White House spokesman said that the President found it to be "troubling, sobering news." Rice repeatedly emphasized that North Korea and Iraq were separate cases. "Saddam Hussein is in a category by himself," Rice said on ABC's "Nightline." One arms-control official told me, "The White House didn't want to deal with a second crisis."

In the following months, the American policy alternated between tough talk in public—vows that the Administration wouldn't be "blackmailed," or even meet with North Korean leaders—and private efforts, through third parties, to open an indirect line of communication with Pyongyang. North Korea, meanwhile, expelled international inspectors, renounced the nonproliferation treaty, and threatened to once again begin reprocessing spent nuclear fuel—all the while insisting on direct talks with the Bush Administration.

One Clinton Administration official who was involved in the 1994 talks with Kim Jong Il acknowledged that he felt deeply disappointed by the North Korean actions. "The deal was that we'd give them two reactors and they, in turn, have to knock off this shit," he said. "They've got something going, and it's in violation of the deal." Nonetheless, the official said, the Bush Administration "has got to talk to Kim Jong Il." Despite the breakdown of the 1994 agreement, and despite the evidence of cheating, the C.I.A. report depicted the agreement as a success insofar as over the past eight years it had prevented North Korea from building warheads—as many as a hundred, according to some estimates.

Last week, President Bush gave in to what many of his advisers saw as the inevitable and agreed to consider renewed American aid in return for a commitment by North Korea to abandon its nuclear program. However, the White House was still resisting direct negotiations with the Kim Jong Il government.

In a speech in June, Robert Gallucci, a diplomat who was put in charge of negotiating the 1994 agreement with Pyongyang, and who is now dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, recalled that Bush's first approach to North Korea had been to make it "a poster child" for the Administration's arguments for a missile-defense system. "This was the cutting edge of the threat against which we were planning and shaping our defense," he said. "There was a belief that North Korea was not to be dealt with by negotiation.

"But then September 11th happened, and September 11th meant that national missile defense could not defend America, because the threat was going to come not from missiles but from a hundred other ways as well," he said. "And so we've come full circle. . . . North Korea and other rogue states who threaten us with weapons of mass destruction threaten not only because they themselves might not be deterrable but because they may transfer this capability to those who can't be deterred or defended against."

One American intelligence official who has attended recent White House meetings cautioned against relying on the day-to-day Administration statements that emphasize a quick settlement of the dispute. The public talk of compromise is being matched by much private talk of high-level vindication. "Bush and Cheney want that guy's head"—Kim Jong Il's—"on a platter. Don't be distracted by all this talk about negotiations. There will be negotiations, but they have a plan, and they are going to get this guy after Iraq. He's their version of Hitler."
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Re: Need Help - References - Force Pak-Lovers to Reconsider

Post by jrjrao »

Calvin wrote: 2. References that Pak officials are not permitting the US access to AQ Khan
Tuesday, August 31, 2004. The Washington Post.

Link to the article in the non-free Wash. Post archive

IAEA Questions Libya's Nuclear Program; Report Says Country Has Given Conflicting Statements on Source of Uranium
by
Dafna Linzer. The Washington Post. Washington, D.C.: Aug 31, 2004. pg. A.15
Libya has offered conflicting information about whether North Korea or Pakistan supplied uranium for its nuclear weapons program and has been unable to account for some equipment that could be used to make a bomb, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which released a report yesterday on its investigation of Libya and the nuclear black market that supplied it.

IAEA inspectors said efforts to resolve one of the biggest mysteries about Libya's program were complicated by statements from one Libyan, who said the uranium came from North Korea, and from another who pointed the finger at Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist. Khan supplied much of Libya's nuclear infrastructure.

The IAEA report made it clear that some countries are cooperating with its investigation. But the report reflects the difficulty its inspectors are having as they try to unravel the Pakistani black market that supplied Libya and Iran, and to understand the extent of international trafficking in nuclear materials.

"We've had conflicting reports and we can't nail it down," one IAEA official said, referring to the competing claims about Libyan suppliers. "But if North Korea is another player in the black market, then things are much worse than we know." The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity.

In Washington, a Bush administration official familiar with the report said the source for the North Korea claim was credible, but there was nothing else to corroborate the story.

North Korea is not believed to have the capability to supply the type of uranium found in Libya, and there has been no firm evidence that it provides nuclear materials to other countries.

Throughout the IAEA report, which was written ahead of the agency's Sept. 13 board meeting, Libya is praised for providing inspectors with access to facilities and responses to inquiries. But the report notes that Libya has failed to account for sophisticated enrichment technology that could have been stolen, hidden or lost, and also notes that some of Libya's responses have not been borne out by test results and soil samples.

Despite Libya's commitment to the United States and Britain to come clean about its weapons programs, "there are gaping holes in this investigation," another IAEA official said.

"Much of what the Libyans have told us appears to be consistent with our findings, but the black market is still murky enough that we're not closing any doors right now," the official said. Libya is hoping that the IAEA's board will agree next month that the country no longer requires special inspections.

The IAEA has been active in Libya since the country's leader, Moammar Gaddafi, agreed to give up his biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs in December 2003. That concession was part of a deal that ended years of sanctions against the country for its role in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet that killed 270 people in Lockerbie, Scotland.

The White House often cites Libya's decision as evidence of progress in its efforts to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. On Monday, President Bush said while campaigning that Gaddafi had "heard a clear message and voluntarily got rid of his weapons of mass destruction program."

Libya's decision exposed Khan, and the IAEA believes that he and a network of middlemen in 20 countries supplied Libya and Iran with equipment and technology for enriching uranium.

Khan also is expected to feature prominently in an IAEA report due this week on Iran, which maintains that its equipment is for use in a program designed to produce energy, not weapons. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, is considered a national hero at home. Despite his activities, he was pardoned by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and lives under government protection.

The agency is conducting forensic analysis of warhead designs Khan gave Libya, in an effort to determine whether the drawings were copied or shared with other countries. The designs were Chinese in origin, obtained by Pakistan and then sold by Khan.

The report also expressed frustration with the level of cooperation by Pakistan. In a veiled reference to Khan and Pakistan, the agency wrote that its ability "to derive a credible assessment . . . would benefit greatly from the provision of additional information, including from the provider of the weapons design."


The agency also noted that Pakistan has refused to allow inspectors to take samples at Pakistani laboratories that could help confirm where Libya and Iran got their nuclear materials. The Pakistanis have insisted on conducting their own tests, without outside observers, and then sharing data with the IAEA.

"This investigation is continuing but can only be completed if the agency is permitted to take independent swipe samples at locations where the enriched uranium contamination may have originated," the IAEA wrote.
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Post by enqyoobOLD »

http://static.highbeam.com/n/newinterna ... debombers/
Start / N / New Internationalist / December 01, 2001 / Inside a terrorist camp. (Kashmir).(training suicide bombers)
Inside a terrorist camp. (Kashmir).(training suicide bombers)



New Internationalist; December 01, 2001;

Read the Full Article, Get a FREE Trial for instant access »


New Internationalist

December 01, 2001

life, camp leader, kashmir, felt, village, camps, heaven, told, camp, suicidal attacks, prayer, asked, aziz, pakistan, jihad
There were 12 of them in all, in one of the camps of
Lashkar-i-Tayaba located on one of the highest mountain areas of
Kashmir: all of them devoted to the planning and execution of suicide
missions. It was a communication centre, well-equipped to monitor the
activities of its Fadaieen inside the area of Kashmir under Indian
occupation. Fadaieen are those who commit themselves to die alongside
their enemies. Many of them from different camps have gone to
Indian-occupied Kashmir for jihad. The main purpose of this camp was to
keep in contact with them via radio.

Many of the mujahideen (holy warriors) from the Afghan jihad time
of the 1980s were unemployed after the Soviet-supported regime of Dr
Najibullah collapsed in 1992. The search for a new area for jihad
brought them to Kashmir, where Pakistani military intellig...
Read New Internationalist: Inside a terrorist camp. (Kashmir).(training suicide bombers) with your FREE TRIAL
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Post by enqyoobOLD »

http://www.kashmir-information.com/Terr ... letin.html

Kashmir Terrorism Bulletin
Day-to-day details about Pakistan-aided terrorism in Kashmir
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Post by jrjrao »

The Washington Post again. (In the archive again).
September 4, 2004 Saturday.

HEADLINE: S. African's Arrest Seen as Key to Nuclear Black Market
BYLINE: Dafna Linzer and Craig Timberg, Washington Post Staff Writers
A South African man arrested Thursday is suspected of playing a major role in the nuclear black market that supplied Libya, according to American and foreign officials. They said arrests and raids in South Africa, Germany and Switzerland over the past week mark a significant turning point in the international investigation of the network.
...
After months of complex investigations, the International Atomic Energy Agency and partners in about 20 countries are getting closer to understanding the scope of the black market run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, according to government officials and experts involved with proliferation issues. The network is suspected of helping North Korea, Iran and Libya develop nuclear programs.
...
Khan, who amassed a personal fortune selling weapon designs to Libya and nuclear components to Iran, was pardoned by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf -- a key U.S. ally. The IAEA hasn't been given access to Khan, and Pakistan has refused to let the agency do key investigative work in the country, something that has significantly slowed its efforts.

In two recent reports on Iran and Libya, the agency complained that it was unable to confirm details or identify sources without access to Khan or the ability to conduct sampling in Pakistan.
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Post by enqyoobOLD »

http://ikashmir.org/Miscellaneous/Pak_terrorism.html
Pakistan Supports Terrorists Rebels in Kashmir
Hon. Bill McCollum of Florida
in the House of Representatives
Wednesday, June 22, 1994
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring to the attention of the House a very important matter. The role of Pakistan in aiding and abetting terrorism in Kashmir is well documented, so much so that the administration almost placed the Pakistani regime on the 1993 list of state sponsors of terrorism. However, the administration did not take such action because it was assured by Pakistan that Islamabad was taking credible steps to disassociate itself from the militants in Kashmir.

Recent reports however, suggest that Pakistan never stopped its aid to the terrorists in Kashmir. A report in the Washington Post dated, May 16, 1994, titled, "Pakistan Aiding Rebels in Kashmir: Muslims Reportedly Armed and Trained," by John Ward Anderson, datelined Muzzabarabad, gives a first-hand account of such assistance by Pakistan to terrorists in Kashmir.

The State Department has also confirmed this fact in its annual report titled, Patterns of Global Terrorism" I quote, "...there were credible reports in 1993 of official Pakistani support to Kashmiri militants ..."

This fact is further confirmed from a study conducted by The Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare titled, "The Kashmir Connection," which I would like to place on the RECORD, immediately following these remarks which details the Pakistani involvement in aiding the terrorism in Kashmir.

This house should take cognizance of this serious issue particularly as some of those who have been indicted in the bombing of the World Trade Center had also received training in Pakistan.

THE KASHMIR CONNECTION
[By Yosef Bodansky and Vaughan S. Forrest]

Chief of Staff note: The following paper was prepared in light of the publication in the Monday, May 16 issue of The Washington Post of an article discussing Pakistan's extensive involvement in rendering support to terrorist elements in Kashmir. That piece revealed the fact of Pakistani involvement, but not the extent. In this paper, and future papers, the Task Force will seek to explore

in-depth Pakistani role in international terrorism and its profound ramifications for the Central Asian region in general, and India in particular.

As the rivalry between India and Pakistan has intensified, perhaps no other region has taken on the significance of Kashmir. That province is unique among all the crisis points along the Indo- Pakistani border in that it is not just an area of strategic and economic importance, it is also the object of the ideological passions of the various states in the region. Thus, the following paper will briefly summarize the ongoing rivalry in Kashmir, focussing on Pakistan, Iran, the various Islamist movements, and the military/terrorist dimension of the conflict.

For Islamabad, the liberation of Kashmir is a sacred mission, the only task unfulfilled since the days of the Pakistan's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinah. However, Kashmir is equally important in that it serves the domestic interests of the Pakistani government in in three crucial respects. First, tension over Kashmir creates a division from frustration at home. Second, the Kashmir cause allowes Islamabad to rally the support of Pakistan's Islamist parties and their loyalists in the military and the ISI, and third, it serves the regime as an important access point to the markets of Central Asia.

Similarity, Iran considers an escalation of the Jihad for the liberation of Kashmir a key to the assertion of its own strategic importance, particularly under the auspices of its own Islamic block. Indeed, Iran sees Kashmir, because it is the land of the Ayatollah Khomeni's roots, as sacred ground and is using that fact to instill ideological zeal in the various nationals who make up Tehrn's terrorist infrastructure. Not surprisingly, having taken the proverbial tiger by the tail and invested such prestige in the "Islamization" of Kashmir, Tehran now finds itself committed to fighting for it.

Additionally, beyond Iran and Pakistan, the Armed Islamic Movement, as well as several Saudi, Gulf Arab, and other supporters of Islamist causes, put Kashmir high on their list of jihads to be fought. This is not only because of Kashmir's aforementioned material and "spiritual" importance, but also because it is seen as a relatively easy target. Being geographically isolated and chocked full of weapons and terrorist cells, many Islamist groups believe that the wrestling of Kashmir from India would be a great prize at minimal cost and would inspire their followers and further the cause.

Whatever the validity of such an assumption, all of the states and organizations engaged in Kashmir have large, highly trained and well equipped forces, and most have not been committed to Kashmiri jihad yet. Thus, there exists an environment in which ideological zeal and strategic and political considerations have coalesced. Specifically, as already noted, Pakistan needs Kashmir as a distraction from its domestic problems. Various "Afghan" groups are chomping at the bits to move, awaiting only a wink and a nod from ISI, and Iran and various Arab states stand willing to finance the effort.

Thus, it is safe to assume that fighting in Kashmir will escalate significantly, with numerous additional highly trained and well equipped mujahadeen, many of them professional special forces and terrorists, joining the fight and expanding the struggle into the rest of India. Indeed, they are already in place extensive stockpiles of weapons as well as large sums of money to sustain and support such a conflict.

Consequently, apparently reassured about the steadfastness of its Islamist support, Islamabad has acknowledged openly the futility of its negotiations with India over the Kashmir issue. At the same time, Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has begun to accede to demands from her military leaders for further increases in the Pakistani defense budget.

THE TERRORIST DIMENSION

In fact, the rising militancy of Pakistani officials is far from empty rhetoric, for Islamabad has used the increasing tension in Kashmir as pretext for expanding its terrorist training and support system for operations in Central Asia and elsewhere in the world.

To that end, the ISI has established the Markaz-Dawar, a center for worldwide Islamist activities. Mulavi Zaki, the center's spiritual leader, has told the trainees that their destiny is to fight and liberate "the land of Allaha from infidels wherever they might be. The commanders and instructors at Markaz-Dawar are AIM members, primarily Ikhwan from Algeria, Sudan and Egypt, and most of them have more than a decade of combat experience in Afghanistan.

In early 1992, some of these Afghans were transferred to Azad Kashmir where new camps were being built for them by the Pakistani Army. By early 1993, there were over 1000 "afghan" mujahdeen in the Markaz-Dawar alone. Following the completion of their advanced training, the Afghans were sent to Kashmir, Algeria and Egypt. Furthermore, Islamabad's claim to the contrary notwithstanding, the main offices of the Islamist terrorist organizations have remained functioning in Peshawar.

In addition to the transfer noted above, a series of "raids" by police since October 1992 resulted in the shifting of some 200 terrorist operatives, included some wanted by Western police officials, to facilities near Jalalabad, just across the Afghan border. Indeed, in the fall of 1993, an Arab Afghan with first hand knowledge of the situation confirmed that Pakistan had "pushed them out of the door only to open a window for them to return and they come and go as they wish in Peshawar."

In the meantime, in the summer of 1993, the ISI had in the Markaz-Dawar another force of some 200 Afghans - mainly Jallaludin Haqqani's people from the Khowst area - operating under its direct command and earmarked for special operations in Kashmir. According to Mohammad Fazal al-Haji, a PFLF (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) terrorist captured in southern Kashmir in the summer of 1993, additional "Afghans" and Afghan nationals were being prepared by the ISI for a forthcoming escalation in Kashmir. At least 400 "afghans" and Afghan nationals were known to have been organized in one camp, where they were trained by the ISI to augment and provide a leadership core for the Kashmiri Hizb-ul- Mujahdeen. There was also a corresponding expansion of the preparation of Islamist terrorists for operations in forward bases in Kashmir, with some 600 terrorists, about half of them veteran "afghans" and Afghans, already at the final phase of their training.

Indeed, many Arab volunteers continue to arrive in Peshawar almost every day. The preferred port of entry is the Karachi airport. There a special department run by a Major Amir - an ISI Major with Afghan experience "turned" director of Immigration at the airport - oversees the volunteer's "proper" entry into Pakistan and quick dispatch to Peshawar. The main Ikhwan facility is the Maktaba-a-Khidmat (Services Offices), which was originally established by the late Shaykh Abd Allah Azzam and is now run by his successor, Shaykh Mohammad Yousaf Abbas. The Maktaba-i-Khidmat still processes volunteers for AIM, but at present many of the volunteers are dispatched to the numerous training camps run by the Arab "Afghan" militants inside Afghanistan. The ISI continues to provide the weapons and experience necessary to support this operation.

Meanwhile, the government of Pakistan has also increased its support for terrorist training and preparation. This growing direct investment is important because the man operating bases for the ISl's activities in Central Asia are in northern Afghanistan. The origins of this arrangement run back to the aftermath of the fall of Kabul. At that time, many Arab "Afghans" returned to Peshawar where they were organized by the Pakistani government to support various Islamist causes in concert with Iran and Sudan. Many of these fighters later returned to Afghanistan as quality forces or to serve as personal guard details.

Subsequently, in early December 1993, during a state visit to Pakistan, Maulana Araslan Rahmani, elaborated on Kabul's perception of the Islamist struggle worldwide, and especially in Central and South Asia. He hailed Afghanistan's active support for Islamist armed causes and stressed that "we don't consider this support as intervention in any country's internal affairs." Maulana Araslan Rehmani also admitted that Afghanistan was providing military assistance to various insurgencies because "we cannot remain aloof from what is happening to the Muslims in occupied Kashmir, Tajikistan, Bosnia, Somalia, Burma, Palestine and elsewhere ... We are not terrorists but Mujahdeen fighting for resorting peace and preserving honor .."

Rehmani acknowledged that Afghanistan has played a major role in a recent development among the Islamist organizations fighting in Indian Kashmir, namely the merger of the Harakat ul-jihad Islami and Harakat ul-Mujahdeen into the potent Harkat ul-Ansar group. This support for the unification of the two movements, according to Rehmani, was but part of the active support given by Afghanistan to the Islamist fighters in Kashmir, Tajikstan, and Bosnia. "There are about 8.000 members of Harkat ul-Ansar who are supporting the Kashmiri struggle against Indian occupation," Rehmani stated.

OF MEN AND ARMS

The ISI also provides these and other terrorists with new weapons. For example, in the summer of 1993, the Kashmiri Mujahdeen were provide with powerful long-range missiles - called "chemical missiles" by the Sikhs who had learned about them while in training in Pakistan. At that time, the Kashmiri and ISI crews were being trained in the use of these missiles in Pakistani Kashmir. In fact, these are "saqr" missiles which were developed in the 1980 with help from the United States for use by the mujahdeen in Afghanistan.

Subsequently, there has been a significant expansion in the smuggling of quality weapons from Pakistan into Kashmir and as of late 1993 there has been a corresponding change in the tactics used by the terrorists, including the use of hit and run strikes by highly trained and well-equipped detachments. Among the new weapons now used in Kashmir are 1 07mm rockets, 60mm mortars, 40mm automatic grenade launchers (Soviet and Chinese models), a modification of the 57mm helicopter rocket pods with solar-powered timing devices for the deelayed firing of rockets and a LAW-type tube-launched ATMs (Soviet and Chinese models).

In addition, the Kashmiri terrorists have also begun using sophisticated communication systems including small radios (systems with frequency hopping, selective broadcast, digital burst communications, etc.) and collapsible solar-systems for reload systems, as well as frequency scanning devices for detecting and homing in on military-type broadcast. All the communication systems are of NATO/US origin, with some components made in Japan. All of these systems have been used by the Mujahdeen in Afghanistan, having been provided via the ISI.

On top of all this, there has been a large increase in the quantities of small arms provided to the Kashmiris, including Type 56 ARs (PRC AK-47s), several types of machine-guns, long-range sniper rifles, pistols and RPGs, all of Soviet or Chinese manufacture. Also, some of the Kashmiri terrorists have begun receiving highly specialized weapons for assassination projects.

Given this obviously high level of sophistication, it would seem safe to assume that the situation in Kashmir will become increasingly ominous. As Pakistan and India eye each other with suspicion, and as other powers come into play, the danger of outright war becomes ever more real. In future reports, the Task Force will examine the full extent of this danger and will explain its ramifications.


Kashmiri Pandits

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http://in.rediff.com/news/2003/oct/07jk1.htm
85 terror camps in PoK: Army

Josy Joseph in New Delhi | October 07, 2003 17:18 IST

Pakistan is pumping in terrorists from 85 terror camps and some 120 launching pads along the Line-of-Control to step up violence in Kashmir, the India Army claimed on Tuesday, even as it paraded a Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorist from Pakistan before defence attaches of over 30 countries and journalists.

A senior army officer said Pakistan "continues to retain its infrastructure to calibrate cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir" and that "approximately 85 terrorist camps" are in operation in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir.

The level of infiltration in Jammu and Kashmir in the recent days is comparable to the previous years, but the level of violence has gone up, he said.

"Violent incidents are showing an upward trend," the officer said, claiming that frustrated terrorists are looking for soft targets, including civilians.

The terrorists' communication network has seen drastic�improvement and equipment for encoding radio communications is being used extensively. Renaming and re-siting of some of the communication control stations�is also being done frequently.

In the first week of this month, the army foiled three infiltration attempts and killed 25 terrorists. In September, 77 infiltration attempts were foiled and 211 terrorists were killed.�"It is the highest figure for a month since militancy started in Kashmir," the officer said.

The army has re-deployed its forces in the border areas of Kupwara, where a sudden spurt in infiltration has been noticed.

The army has also developed capacities to track terrorists from their launching pads in PoK through their infiltration routes and these abilities are helping the army in higher kill of terrorists.

New equipment, such as hand-held thermal imagers and night vision equipment, has given the army an edge in its fight against militancy in the Valley.

The officer said the army is also involved in welfare activities in the Valley to win over locals to its side. Seven battalions of Territorial Army, comprising almost 7000 Kashmiri youths, called the Home and Hearth Battalions in Kashmir, are being raised.

The terrorist, Mohammed Shahzad, whom the army brought before the media and foreign defence attaches, said he was a resident of Faisalabad, Pakistan.

A class-nine dropout, he was brain-washed into joining Lashkar-e-Tayiba and take up arms. But once in the Indian side of Kashmir, he realised the situation was "not as bad as it was being made out be in Pakistan," he said.

The army said it captured the jehadi in Doda during an operation on September 13.

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http://www.saag.org/papers5/paper477.html
South Asia Analysis Group

Paper no. 477



17. 06. 2002



home.jpg (6376 bytes)






KASHMIR &THE PRO-BIN LADEN TERRORIST
INFRASTRUCTURE IN PAKISTAN
by B. Raman

(This note was prepared by me before the recent explosion outside the US Consulate in Karachi in connection with a visit to the USA in the first fortnight of June, 2002, for participating in discussions with a cross-section of experts on terrorism. This may kindly be read in continuation of my notes recorded after an earlier visit to the US for the same purpose in February, 2002, which are available at www.saag.org)

Pakistan waged unsuccessfully its first proxy war against India in the North-Eastern frontier areas between 1956 and 1971 from the then East Pakistan. Since1981, the military-intelligence establishment of the Government of Pakistan has been waging a second proxy war against India in the hope of thereby achieving its strategic objective of annexing the Indian State of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). This second proxy war, which involves the use of State-sponsored terrorism to keep the Indian Security Forces and the civilian population bleeding without provoking a conventional war, was first started in the Indian State of Punjab in 1981 and extended to J&K in 1989.

2. The activities of Pakistan's State-sponsored terrorists in Indian Punjab have been brought under control by the Government of India since 1995, but the terrorist violence in J&K has not yet been brought under control due to the involvement of a large number of Pakistani Punjabis and other foreign mercenaries trained, armed and infiltrated by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and the surviving remnants of bin Laden's Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

3. Between 1989 and 1993, Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment relied largely on indigenous Kashmiri organisations for promoting terrorist violence in the Indian territory. Following their perceived failure to make headway on the ground, it started infiltrating into J&K since 1993 trained and armed cadres of a number of Pakistani organisations, mainly of Pakistani Punjabis, in order to intensify the proxy war. The more prominent of these Pakistani organisations are:


* The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), which was designated by the USA as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in October,1997 under its then name of Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA).

* The Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), which was designated by the USA as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in December, 2001.

* The Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), which was also designated by the USA as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in December 2001.

* The Harkat-ul-Jihad-Al-Islami (HUJI), which has not yet been so designated.

* The Al Badr, which too has not yet been so designated.

4. Of these, the oldest is the Al Badr, which was got floated by the ISI through the intermediary of Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) in the then East Pakistan before 1971 in order to use it to massacre a large number of Bengali Muslim intellectuals, which shocked the civilised world in 1971. After the birth of Bangladesh, the Al Badr was shifted by the ISI to Pakistan and was amongst the organisations used by the ISI against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

5. The HUM, the LET and the HUJI came into being in the 1980s and played an active role against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. The JEM was formed in the beginning of 2000 through an ostensible split in the HUM.

6. These Pakistani organisations, whose cadres were infiltrated in increasing numbers into J&K after 1993, have virtually taken over the leadership of the terrorist movement and given it a pan-Islamic direction. Their objective has nothing to do with the interests and welfare of the Kashmiris. They project J&K as the gateway to India and describe their final objective as the "liberation" of the Muslims of India and the creation of two more 'Muslim homelands" in South Asia.

7. The following characteristics of these organisations have not received from the rest of the world the attention they deserve:


* They describe Western-style liberal democracies as anti-Islam since they advocate that sovereignty lies in the people. According to these organisations, sovereignty lies in God and the clerics, as the interpreters of Islam, should have the decisive role in law-making and implementation. They look upon the successful functioning of the Indian democracy as a corrupting influence on Pakistan's civil society and elite.

* They say that they do not recognise national frontiers and that they recognise only the frontiers of the Ummah and assert the right of the Muslims to go and wage a jihad (holy war) in any country where, in their perception, Muslims are suppressed, even if it be in a Muslim country.

* They describe Pakistan's atomic bomb as the Ummah's and advocate that Pakistan's bomb and nuclear technology should be available to any Muslim country which needs them to protect itself.

* They support bin Laden's argument that the Muslims have the right and even a religious obligation to acquire and even use Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), if necessary, to protect their religion.

* Their office-bearers and cadres are largely Pakistani Punjabis. Their training and logistics infrastructure was based in Afghanistan and Pakistan before October 7, 2001, and is now totally based in Pakistani territory after they were driven out of Afghanistan by the international coalition led by the USA. Many of the training camps in Taliban-controlled territory destroyed by the USA's cruise missile strikes in August,1998, belonged to the HUM and the HUJI

* All of them look upon the US, India and Israel as the principal enemies of Islam and are members (except the Al Badr, which is not) of bin Laden's International Islamic Front For Jehad (Crusade) against the USA and Israel, which was formed in 1998. The HUM was the first to join it in 1998 and the others followed later. Their cadres, believed to have been trained by bin Laden's 055 Brigade in Afghan territory, played an active role in assisting the Al Qaeda and the Taliban initially in their fight against the Northern Alliance before October 7, 2001, and then in their fight against the international coalition led by the USA thereafter.

8. These organisations imported into J&K bin Laden's brand of suicide terrorism, which was unknown in J&K before the middle of 1999 and have been responsible for most of the acts of terrorism since 1999. The only important Kashmiri organisation, which is still carrying on a campaign of terrorism, is the Hizbul Mujahideen, the militant wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) of J&K, which is an appendage of the JEI of Pakistan. Thus, what we have been witnessing in J&K since 1999 is no longer just Kashmiri militancy as it is often described, but Pakistani Punjabi terrorism in the name and under the guise of Kashmiris and drawing its inspiration from its post-1998 association with bin Laden.

9. According to the Pakistani media, about 6,000 trained terrorists of these organisations, the largest component of them belonging to the HUM and the HUJI, were killed in the operations of the US-led international coalition in Afghanistan. The surviving remnants, estimated to be 40,000 plus, have entered Pakistan from Afghanistan along with the surviving remnants of the Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

10. They initially took sanctuary in the tribal areas of Balochistan, the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Federally-Administered Tribal areas (FATA) of Pakistan, but have since spread over to other parts of Pakistan away from the Pakistan-Afghan border, including Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan).

11. This became evident during the capture of Abu Zubaida, stated to be the No.3 in the Al Qaeda, and 19 other members of the Al Qaeda by the Pakistani security forces, when they were reportedly pressurised to act by the US counter-terrorism officials on the basis of precise intelligence, from hide-outs in Faislabad in Pakistani Punjab. It was reported that they had been given shelter there by the LET.

12. This also became evident during the interrogation of one Fazal Karim, a terrorist of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) by the Karachi Police in connection with the investigation into the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the young American journalist, while he was doing an investigative story on the Pakistani links of Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber. The "News" (May 23, 2002), the prestigious daily of Pakistan, reported as follows on the interrogation:

13. "Pakistani security officials believe that because of increased monitoring activities by the military services in the tribal areas, scores of the foreigners, earlier hiding there, have now moved with the help of their trusted Pakistani religious supporters to the populous urban centres, such as Karachi. "There are scores of Arabs and their Pakistani loyalists who are desperate to blow themselves up to settle score with the Americans and other westerners," an official quoted Fazal Karim as saying. "These Arabs residing in various neighbourhoods in the outskirts of Karachi are on do-or-die missions," he added. Fazal told his investigators, "Our Arab friends hosted us in Afghanistan when we were on the run, now it's our turn to pay them back."

14. The paper added: "Giving more specific information about the new terrorist threat in Karachi, Fazal is believed to have disclosed that the Airport hotel near Karachi airport, where the western military personnel of International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) were staying, had been selected by his group for a possible suicidal strike.

15. "Informed diplomats in Islamabad termed "a watershed" and "very dangerous" the evidence that previously friendly groups have merged operationally. Al-Qaeda signatures, not seen previously in Pakistan, were starkly visible in the recent attacks apparently carried out principally by the Pakistanis: detailed planning, western targets and, in the two attacks, suicide bombers, " the paper concluded. The two attacks with the Al Qaeda's signature referred to by the daily were the grenade attack on Christian worshippers in an Islamabad church on March 17, 2002, in which five persons, including the wife and daughter of an American diplomat, were killed, and the car bomb explosion in Karachi on May 8, 2002, in which 11 French nationals were killed.

16. Since December, 2001, sections of the Pakistani media have been reporting about the movement of the Al Qaeda survivors towards Pakistani Punjab as well as the POK with the complicity of the ISI-supported Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). This movement has continued, despite the ostensible ban on the LET imposed by Gen. Pervez Musharraf on January 15, 2002, under US pressure.

17. The role played by the LET's headquarters at Muridke, near Lahore, in facilitating the movement of Al Qaeda cadres to and from Afghanistan was highlighted by the prestigious "Friday Times" of Lahore in its issue for the week from December 14 to 20, 2001. It wrote: "Muridke, a city within a city, was built with Arab (My comment: bin Laden's) money.....Its (the LET's) contact with the Wahabi camps in Kunnar in Afghanistan has never been disowned although Muridke carefully mutes its obvious connections with the Arab warriors in Afghanistan. Its connections with Osama bin Laden have also been carefully hidden although news appearing in the national press have linked the two....Lashkar's office in Muridke used to receive a large number of Arabs on a daily basis and was a transit camp for those leaving for Afghanistan and Central Asia."

18. With the complicity of the ISI, the LET started moving the Al Qaeda survivors to private homes in different towns in Punjab as well as to its camps in the POK. The "Friday Times" reported in its issue for February 1 to 7, 2002: "Sources say that when Dawatul Irshad (Markaz Dawa Al Irshad since re-named as Jamaat al-Dawa), parent organisation of the now banned Lashkar Tayyaba (Lashkar-e-Toiba), shifted its activities to Azad Kashmir (POK), it took with it many non-Pakistanis suspected of links to Al Qaeda. All these organisations were loosely affiliated and their activists moved across organisations and cells with a great degree of ease, an intelligence source said."

19. The "Friday Times" added: " Just before the Musharraf Government took action against the organisation, there were quite a few foreigners residing at Dawa's headquarters in Muridke. Most of these people had infiltrated into Pakistan in the initial stages of the war, says an insider. Some of these people shifted along with other Lashkar cadres to Azad Kashmir (POK) after Hafiz Mohammed Saeed resigned under pressure from the Government. After his resignation, he also constituted another jehadi group called Jamaat al-Dawa while the supreme council nominated Abdul Wahid Kashmiri, another senior member of the Dawatul Irshad, as its new Amir. Insiders say some of these foreigners are also said to be linked to Hezbul Tehreer and work under the supervision of Abdul Qadeem Zaloom, a Saudi-based person with links to the Al Qaeda," it concluded.

20. In its report on "Patterns of Global Terrorism 2000" released on April 30, 2001, the Counter-Terrorism Division of the US State Department had warned as follows: "Taliban-controlled Afghanistan remains a primary hub for terrorists and a home or transit point for the loosely-organised network of "Afghan alumni", a web of informally linked individuals and groups that were trained and fought in the Afghan war. Afghan alumni have been involved in most major terrorist plots or attacks against the United States in the past 15 years and now engage in international militant and terrorist acts throughout the world. The leaders of some of the most dangerous terrorist groups to emerge in the past decade have headquarters or major offices in Afghanistan and their associates threaten stability in many real and potential trouble spots around the globe----from the Philippines to the Balkans, Central Asia to the Persian Gulf, Western China to Somalia and Western Europe to South Asia. That is why the Taliban's continued support for these groups is now recognised by the international community as a growing threat to all countries."

21. These Afghan alumni of the 1980s vintage were responsible not only for most acts of terrorism against the USA, but also for most acts of terrorism against India during the last nine years in J&K and other parts of India. The surviving members of these Afghan alumni of the 1980s vintage have now been joined by the surviving members of the Afghan alumni of the post-October 7, 2001, vintage. They have made Pakistan, including the POK and the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan), the new primary hub for terrorists and a home or transit point for terrorists operating against India, the USA, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, China, the Central Asian Republics, Russia and West Europe. These new alumni are being guided in their operations by serving and retired officers of the ISI. Among the retired officers playing an active role in keeping up their trans-national terrorism alive are former heads of the ISI such as Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, Lt. Gen. Javed Nasir, Lt. Gen. Naseem Rana, presently Pakistani High Commissioner to Malaysia, and Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed. Lt. Gen. Nasir and Lt. Gen. Rana were active members of the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) even when they were in service. Unless and until the international community led by the USA recognises that Pakistan's continued support for or complicity with these groups constitutes a serious threat to all these countries and acts against it as determinedly as it acted against the Afghanistan-based alumni, the world will not be free of this evil.

22. The Government and the people of India have reasons to be grateful to the Government and the people of the USA for their solidarity with India in its fight against Pakistan's State-sponsored terrorism after the barbarous attack on the Indian Parliament at New Delhi on December 13, 2001, by elements of these Afghan alumni, which fortunately failed due to the brave fight put up by the Indian Police and other security personnel guarding the Parliament, many of whose members, including a lady officer, died while thwarting the attack.

23. They are also grateful to President Bush and his colleagues for mounting pressure on Pakistan's military regime to stop supporting cross-border terrorism against India. Stopping support to cross-border terrorism has two aspects: firstly, destroying the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory, including the POK and the Northern Areas, and, secondly, stopping cross-border infiltration of trained and armed terrorists into India.

24. As a result of the US pressure after the attack on the Indian Parliament, President Pervez Musharraf announced a series of measures to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory. These included the following:


* Freezing the bank accounts of organisations based in Pakistani territory, which were named by the UN and the US as terrorist or suspected terrorist organisations.

* Arrests of about 2000 cadres and the leaders of the LET, the JEM, the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), which is a Sunni extremist organisation, the Tehrik Jaffria Pakistan (TJP), which is a Shia extremist organisation, and the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi ( TNSM), a terrorist organisation based in the FATA.

A ban on the above-mentioned organisations.

25. The misgivings of India about the sincerity of his intentions were subsequently proved correct by the following developments:

* As pointed out by the Pakistani media itself, the freezing of bank accounts and the seizure of terrorist funds proved to be a farce. The terrorist organisations were told in advance of the impending action, thereby enabling them to withdraw the amounts from their accounts or to transfer them to other accounts in different names. The two accounts of the HUM had a total of Rs.4,742 (US $ 70 ), the JEM had Rs.900 (US $ 12), the Al Rashid Trust, which handled the accounts of the Taliban and the LET, had Rs.2.7 (US $ 40,000) million in Pakistani currency and US $ 30. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, of the Al Jihad, Egypt, who operated the accounts of the Al Qaeda, had just US $ 252. Pakistani Rs.68 are equivalent to one US dollar. The "News" of Islamabad reported as follows on January 1, 2002: " Experts said the policy to freeze the accounts in "pieces" gave ample time to most of these account-holders to withdraw their money."
* Most of the cadres arrested performed duties such as running the offices of the organisations in small towns, collecting funds in streets, distributing pamphlets, pasting propaganda posters on walls etc. Most of them were released after three months on the ground that there was no evidence of their involvement in terrorism. The ISI and the Police raided only the offices of these organisations in small towns, but not their headquarters. No raids or arrests were made in the POK and the Northern Areas. There were no arrests anywhere of trained terrorists.

* The ban on the above-mentioned five organisations was not made applicable to the POK and the Northern Areas and the trained terrorists were shifted there. No ban has been imposed on the HUM and the HUJI, which have close links with the Army, anywhere in Pakistan.

* The compliance report sent by the military regime to the Monitoring Committee of the UN Security Council (UNSC) as required under UNSC Resolution No.1373 has been a farce. This Resolution called upon all member-States not to give active or passive support in their territory to terrorist organisations acting against other States or nationals from their territory and to stop their actvities. The questionnaire issued by the Monitoring Committee required each member-country to give specific examples of the action taken in matters such as closing down sanctuaries. The Pakistani regime has avoided giving any such specific examples because it has not taken any of the specific actions laid down in the Resolution.

* It has not complied with the request of the Government of India for the extradition of 20 terrorists, 14 of them Indian nationals, who have been given sanctuary in Pakistan.

26. Like all member-States of the UN, Pakistan too has the following obligations with regard to terrorism:


* Comply with the provisions of international conventions regarding mutual legal assistance in matters relating to aircraft hijackings. Since 1971, there have been seven hijackings of Indian Airlines aircraft by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists. All of them were carried out when the military was in power. Pakistan has not carried out its legal obligations.

* Comply with the red-cornered notices issued by the International Police Organisation (INTERPOL) to locate and arrest terrorists and transnational criminals wanted by India, who were in its territory. It has not complied with them on the ground that they were not in its territory. It has not complied with the requests of the Govt. of India and the notices of the INTERPOL to arrest and extradite to India Dawood Ibrahim, the mafia leader, and others involved in the Mumbai (Bombai) blasts of March, 1993, which killed nearly 300 innocent civilians. During his visit to India in July, 2001, Musharraf denied they were in Pakistani territory, but "Newsline", a prestigious monthly of Pakistan, reported in September, 2001, that they were living in Karachi under the protection of the Pakistani intelligence agencies. When Mr. Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, Pakistan's former High Commissioner to India, was asked about it in a TV interview, he replied: "Newspaper reports are no evidence."

* Comply with the UNSC Resolution 1373. Its compliance has been evasive

27. After the recent massacre of the family members, including children, of Indian army personnel by Pakistani terrorists near Jammu on May 14, 2002, the US Government has mounted further pressure on the Musharraf regime to stop cross-border infiltration. During the visit of Mr. Richard Armitage, US Deputy Secretary of State, to Islamabad on June 6, 2002, Musharraf is reported to have stated that he has already given instructions to stop this permanently.

28. Keeping in mind his past record of insincerity, the people of India have valid reasons to be skeptic about this new commitment by him. Mr. Najam Sethi, the distinguished Pakistani Editor, wrote in the "Friday Times" ( May 18 to 24, 2001) as follows: " The Musharraf model seeks to covertly ally with the jihadi groups while overtly keeping the mainstream religious parties out of the power loop. This is to enhance and sustain its covert external agenda, while internally maintaining an overtly moderate anti-fundamentalist stance for the comfort of the international community whose economic support is critical to Pakistan's financial viability."

29. Mr. Sethi's observations remain as valid today as they were when they were made a year ago. There is no evidence so far to indicate that Musharraf is a changed man, who has genuinely realised the criminality, the barbarity and the futility of the use of terrorism as a weapon to achieve Pakistan's strategic objective against India.

30. Religious fundamentalism is not unique to Pakistan. It has swept through other Muslim countries too. What is unique to Pakistan is the advocacy by its jehadi groups of the right and the obligation of Muslims to acquire and use, if necessary, WMD. One does not come across this advocacy in the statements and writings of Islamic fundamentalist organisations of other countries. There is a disturbing similarity in irrationality in the arguments relating to the use of WMD employed by Musharraf and bin Laden.

31. The only difference is that whereas bin Laden and other Afghan alumni say that they would be prepared to acquire and use WMD against the USA if left with no other means of protecting Islam, Musharraf says he would be prepared to use his Chinese-given nuclear weapons against India, if left with no other alternative to protect Pakistan.

32. It would be unwise and dangerous for the US and other members of the international community not to take notice of this irrational hub of WMD-threatening terrorism in Pakistani territory and act as determinedly against it as it acted against the hub in Afghanistan and dismantle not only the terrorist infrastructure, but also Pakistan's WMD capability in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of the new and more irrational Afghan alumni of the post-October 7, 2001, vintage.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com )
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Post by enqyoobOLD »

http://members.tripod.com/israindia/isr ... hiekh.html
PAKISTAN--SHEIKH-EL-JABBAL RESURRECTED-II
By Lieutenant Colonel Thakur Kuldip S Ludra (Retd)

(Continued from last week) Subhash Kirpekar has written that Pakistan has been trying to export Islamic Fundamentalism, through terrorist acts to Egypt and Algeria (1). The Egyptian President, Mr. Houssani Mubarak made no bones about his resentment at the anti-government extremists operating out of Pakistan. The hand of these terrorists had extended even to the level of attacking the Prime Minister of Egypt, Mr. Altif Sidiki, in Cairo on 25 November 1993. The responsibility for this attempt was accepted by Mohammed Makkawi, an Egyptian youth, who fought along with Afghan Mujahadeen in Afghanistan.

It would be worthwhile to mention that Pakistan took no action to apprehend this young man. In fact he accepted his involvement in an interview to the Frontier Post, a Pakistani Newspaper, at Jalalabad, just across the Durand Line. This is the area that was and has been under control of Pakistan controlled Mujahadeen, led by Hekmetyar and then the Taliban. This man was also known to spend a lot of time in Peshawar (2). Today, the emphasis and the control of the Taliban has shifted through Osama Ben Laden, originally and the original protégé of the American Central Intelligence Agency.

The Algerian Prime Minister, Mr. Reda Malek, in his turn has also accused Pakistan of training a large number of Algerians, for fomenting trouble in Algeria. Nearer home, regarding trouble created in Jammu and Kashmir, a thirty minute documentary titled "Terrorism Incorporated" and shown in the United States of America on the Public Broadcasting System on 4 March '95 carried interviews of former Secretary of State, Mr. James Baker; Prime Minister of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir; and the Staff Director of the House of Representatives Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Mr. Youssef Bodensky (3). It proved in no uncertain terms that subversion and terrorism have become an important component of Pakistan's Regional Strategy. Today Pakistan has graduated to a level of global reach, to further her Global Fundamentalist Islamic ambitions

Youssef Bodensky, according to the same report, identified three levels of terrorist camps operating in Pakistan, for carrying out varying degrees of trouble around the world. There is one basic training camp, around Muzaffarabad, in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, where Kashmiris, Bosnians, Arabs, Europeans and not a few North Americans are trained in hit and run tactics. In the second level the recruits are trained for subversion in India, particularly its western parts. These camps are for more serious training. The training may take several months to a year. The training is carried out directly under the control of the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate. The third level of camps are even more sensitive and are meant to train terrorists for operations all over the world, on behalf of International Islamic Terrorist System of which Pakistan today is the fulcrum. The trainees include Americans, Arabs, Bosnians and even Thais, who later operate in Bosnia; Algeria; Egypt; the Far East, which would also include Philippines; Africa; and even the United States of America (4). According to the latest reports the Saudi Arabian multi-millionaire Osama-ben Laden is also directly involved in the training at this level.

The report then goes on to talk of Robert Gates, formerly of the Central Intelligence Agency, of the United States of America, submitting a report on Pakistan's policy of supporting terrorism, which led to, according to James Baker, the United States of America cautioning Pakistan. This, according to Baker, led to a temporary let up. (However, it is of importance that, Pakistan, with its consistent record of terrorism, was just cautioned, while Libya, for just one act of terrorism, and which was not even proved at that, was bombed by the United States of America.). The report also goes onto state that Pakistan has reverted to her past behavioural pattern since 1992. According to Baker, Pakistan has been encouraging radical Islamic Fundamentalism.

The Tribune of Chandigarh elaborated the report referred to above (5). It quoted Mr. McCollus, who said, "Camps in Pakistan are growing rather than lessening." He also expressed concern at the increase in smuggling of quality weapons from Pakistan to Kashmir.

True to her behaviour, Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence Directorate engineered the Bombay blasts, which, in turn, resulted in riots and a large number of deaths, apart from the damage caused by the blasts and the riots (6). According to the box report (7), Pakistan had extended her tentacles into Nepal also.(For greater details of the ISI in Nepal read 'TheSerpent Strikes'.)

Mr. S.B.Chavan, the then Indian Home Minister in Narsimaha Rao Cabinet, had made no bones about linking the Bombay blasts to the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate of Pakistan. He had also linked Pakistan's illegal but very lucrative export of narcotics, with the export of terrorism. (8)

Today, in fact, there is no doubt that Pakistan is directly involved in exporting narcotics, through India, to all the major, advanced countries of the of the world. The comparative buoyancy of Pakistani economy, notwithstanding the economic doldrums its white economy is supposed to be suffering, is directly linked with the production, refining and export of opium derivatives. It helps Pakistani economy on the following accounts: -

1. Provides her the requisite foreign exchange to meet her needs, legitimate and illegitimate.
2. Keeps a large number of people employed and off the rolls of the unemployed.
3. Finances her purchase of armaments and weapon systems.

In addition, Pakistan has been using the smuggling of narcotics as another instrument of her policy. She would thus be able to pump in large quantities of drugs into India and other target countries. This in turn will create social tensions, in those areas, apart from moral degeneration.

1. Subhash Kirpekar in his article Pak Hand Active in Egypt, Algeria Too, published in the Times of India of 10 January '94
2. Subhash Kirpekar in Times of India ibid.
3. Times of India of 9 March 1995, in a report, titled Documentary Exposes Pakistan Terrorism.
4. Times of India report ibid.
5. The Tribune of 12 March 1995
6. Yakub Memon's confession, reported in the Indian Today, August 31, 1994, page 46.
7. Box report on page 51 India Today ibid.
8. India Today of September 30, 1994.

Please Let us know what you think of this article
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Post by enqyoobOLD »

And HERE's what American aid to Pakistan pays for:

This is August 2004. Lets see what "Friend of Pakistan" means:
DON,T SAY TERROR CAMP.THERE IS FREEDOM FIGHTER TRAINING CAMP IN AZAD KASHMIR RUN by jammat islami with help of pakistan army and isi.
KOTILI CAMP, NAKIAL, SMAHNI, BEMBER,NEALEEM,BAGAH.
OK, OK, I know its verboten, but this is a case where simply getting those Congressional Fools Who Think Pakistan is a Friend browsing the page proves the point that Pakistan is the Terrorist State of Pakistan, and all Pakis are terrorists.

Give Peace a Chance. Let B-52s and Halliburton Rebuild Pakistan[/quote]
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Post by enqyoobOLD »

Calvin:

Tell the CongressPakis of Mark Twain's declaration:

Suppose you are a Congressman.

Now suppose you are an idiot.

Ah! But I repeat myself...
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Post by Sohum »

Can you post the short missive once you are finished compling the information and writing it?
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Post by Umrao »

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Post by Y. Kanan »

The Kerry campaign needs to see this stuff. There is enough evidence to indict the Bush administration for covering up the Pakistani nuclear proliferation. Bush & Co. could be (rightly) accused of treason for this. The fact that they covered up Pakistan's very real nuclear proliferation while cooking up false evidence to justify invading Iraq further highlights their crime.

The Democratic party is a bunch of spineless twits. Their failure to go after Bush on Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan is unforgivable. What a bunch of whining little pinkos. For their failure to capitalize on Bush's monumental treason against the American people ... well they certainly deserve to not win back the White House.
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Post by shiv »

Support to Taliban
jrjrao wrote:
Broken Promises
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... Sep20.html
IT'S NOT SURPRISING that Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, intends to break his commitment to retire as army chief of staff by the end of this year and thereby restore civilian rule to Pakistan five years after he led a coup against an elected government. After all, Mr. Musharraf has betrayed nearly every promise he has made about democracy and social reform in Pakistan. What's interesting is his timing: The general chose to reveal his intentions just days before his planned meeting in New York tomorrow with President Bush.

Mr. Bush has cast himself as a champion of democracy in the Muslim world, repudiating the past U.S. practice of backing authoritarian rulers when expedient. Yet Mr. Musharraf obviously believes he has nothing to fear. In fact, he was probably encouraged in his latest reversal by signals from Washington. Despite his continual repression of political opponents, Mr. Musharraf is toasted by senior administration officials, who describe his government as a "major non-NATO ally." His latest announcement prompted a State Department statement that the administration "fully share[s]" Mr. Musharraf's "vision for Pakistan's future." :roll:

Nor is there much dissent outside the administration. Democratic nominee John F. Kerry has said that democracy would not be a priority in his dealings with Pakistan. The bipartisan Sept. 11 commission concluded that "Musharraf's government represents the best hope for stability in Pakistan and Afghanistan" and proposed that the United States offer him "promises it is prepared to keep, for years to come."

Why such coddling? Mr. Musharraf has won widespread sympathy in Washington for his willingness to take on al Qaeda, both in Pakistan's cities and in remote provincial areas. Hundreds of its fighters reportedly have been killed, and Mr. Musharraf has narrowly dodged two apparently retaliatory assassination attempts. The general also periodically delivers speeches and writes articles endorsing a strategy of "enlightened moderation" for Islam, including the acceptance of democracy.

But Mr. Musharraf plays a double game. While attacking al Qaeda's foreign fighters, he is more tolerant of Taliban militants who operate from western Pakistan into neighboring Afghanistan -- and he has never acted decisively against the Islamic extremists who promote terrorism in Indian-controlled Kashmir. He allowed the most extensive nuclear smuggling network in history to operate under his nose, supplying bomb materials to Iran, Libya and North Korea -- and when it was uncovered, he pardoned its leader and refused to cooperate with a subsequent U.N. investigation. He promises to restore democracy in Pakistan, but he has done his best to destroy the secular political parties and civil society that would be the logical allies of "enlightened moderation," while building up Islamic parties that espouse the very extremism he says he opposes.

U.S. officials argue that partnership with Mr. Musharraf is the safest course in an unstable country with its own nuclear arsenal. Yet that doesn't mean that Mr. Bush should accept Mr. Musharraf's cooperation on al Qaeda -- something that is in his own interest -- as sufficient return on the $3 billion in U.S. aid his regime has been promised. A long-term alliance between the United States and Pakistan must depend as well on progress toward democracy and civilian rule, cooperation on nuclear proliferation, and action against Islamic extremists of all kinds. By failing to insist on such steps -- and by tolerating moves in the other direction -- Mr. Bush stores up more trouble for Pakistan's future.
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