Pakiban- Origins, Composition, Tactics and Leadership

[Paul]

The Mumbai attacks have vindicated the relevance of my post above..........

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Army is using the PPP govt as a shield to conduct subversive ops deep inside the indian heartland.


Many months ago I had warned that the Taliban crossing the Indus will have dangerous consqeuences for the Indian state.


The problems in the past will start looking like a walk in the park from now on....

Every cloud has a silver lining...from now on the dilli billis and mumbai elites will feel the heat equally as in the border.

Anil Ambani will pay the price for consequences of the actions of his flunkey Amar Singh.

[gandharva]

Replace British with USA and history repeats again starting with Mumbai attacks.

ANTI-BRITISH JIHÃD ALWAYS ENDED AS ANTI-HINDU


We have already related in an earlier chapter how the residues of Islamic imperialism had reacted immediately after the Mughal empire collapsed in the first half of the 18th century. Shah Waliullah was a voluminous exponent of that reaction. But his appeals for an India-wide jihãd against the Marathas had borne very little fruit. Ahmad Shah Abdali of Afghanistan, whom Waliullah had invited to join the jihãd, inflicted a major military defeat on the Marathas in the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761 AD. But he also could not salvage the Mughal empire from the slough of disintegration into which it had sunk. By the time Waliullah was succeeded by his son Abdul Aziz (1746-1822) in the theological saddle at Delhi, the Marathas were already on the retreat before the fast advancing British. So Abdul Aziz converted his father’s jihãd against the Marathas into a jihãd against the British. A fatwa was issued that India under British rule had become a Dãr-ul-harb (zone of war or infidel land) and that it was the duty of all mu‘mins either to migrate to a Dãr-ul-Islãm (Islamic country) or to fight the firanghî for the restoration of Muslim rule.


Abdul Aziz found a devoted disciple in Syed Ahmad Barelvi. To start with, he sent Barelvi to get training in the art of warfare by joining the army of Amir Khan, the Pindari chieftain. Next, he commissioned Barelvi to go to Mecca in order to acquire the requisite religions zeal. Barelvi arrived in Mecca in 1822. He travelled extensively in Arabia and Syria and met many masters of Islamic lore. It is not certain whether he met Abdul Wahab, the founder of the Wahabi Movement in Arabia. But the similarity of his ideas with those of his Arabian contemporary earned for his movement the name Wahabi, though he himself had designated it as Tarîqah-i-Muhammadiyah (the way of Muhammad). In any case, he came back to India towards the end of 1822 fully convinced of his mission, which was to purify Islam in India of all non-Islamic accretions and then, with the help of this revived Islam, establish an Islamic state a la the model prescribed by the Prophet and the first four pious Caliphs. In the process, the British were to be driven out of India by means of a jihãd.


Barelvi was quite successful in setting up a network of centres in various cities of North India. He enlisted an impressive following, particularly among the upper class Muslims. He also collected a lot of money at the same time. He called upon Muslims to eliminate three kinds of excesses - firstly, those advocated by heterodox Sufis; secondly, those practised by the Shias; and thirdly, those ‘borrowed’ from the Hindus. Prof. Aziz Ahmad writes: “This last category was by far the most important, and was most vigorously denounced by Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi. It had included pilgrimage to Hindu holy places, shouting Hindu religious slogans, and adorning the tombs with lingams (Hindu phallic symbol), worship of Hindu deities, borrowing from Hindu animism, consulting Brahmins for good or bad omens, and celebration of Hindu festivals. Next came external Hindu manners, such as eating on leaves or keeping pig-tails or piercing women’s ears and nose to wear jewellery or shaving one’s hair and eyebrows in imitation of yogis or even dressing like Hindus.”5


Barelvi forgot that a majority of Muslims in India were converts from the Hindu fold, and that Islam sat rather lightly on most of them. This is understandable. After all, Barelvi was an Islamic missionary and not a historian of Islam in India. What amazes one is that even Muslim scholars in modern times have managed to forget that the ‘impurities’ or ‘excesses’ of Islam in India were not injected into it by Hindus from the outside, but were brought along by Hindu converts who were driven or lured into the fold of Islam by force or fraud. Nor has any Muslim scholar noted that it is these ‘impurities’ and ‘excesses’ which have prevented the total brutalization of native Muslims such as had always been and is being advocated by their Ashrãf (foreign) mentors.


To resume the story, Barelvi’s confidence in a jihãd against the British collapsed when he surveyed the extent and the magnitude of British power in India. He did the next best under the circumstances, and declared a jihãd against the Sikh power in the Punjab, Kashmir and the North-West Frontier. The British on their part welcomed this change and permitted Barelvi to travel towards the border of Afghanistan at a leisurely pace, collecting money and manpower along the way. It was during this journey that Barelvi stayed with or met several Hindu princes{modernday Lalus and Paswans}, feigned that his fulminations against the Sikhs were a fake, and that he was going out of India in order to establish a base for fighting against the British. It is surmised that some Hindu princes took him at his word, and gave him financial help. To the Muslim princes, however, he told the truth, namely, that he was up against the Sikhs because they “do not allow the call to prayer from mosques and the killing of cows.”6


Barelvi set up his base in the North-West Frontier near Afghanistan. The active assistance he expected from the Afghan king did not materialise because that country was in a mess at that time. But the British connived at the constant flow not only of a sizable manpower but also of a lot of finance. Muslim magnates in India were helping him to the hilt. His basic strategy was to conquer Kashmir before launching his major offensive against the Punjab. But he met with very little success in that direction in spite of several attempts. Finally, he met his Waterloo in 1831 when the Sikhs under Kunwar Sher Singh stormed his citadel at Balakot. The great mujãhid fell in the very first battle he ever fought. His corpse along with that of his second in command was burnt, and the ashes were scattered in the winds. Muslims hail him as a shahîd.

The scattered remnants of the Wahabis fought a few more skirmishes with the Sikhs. But they also met with no success. Next, they turned their fury against the British when the latter took over from the Sikhs in 1849. There was a lot of organizing and shouting of Allah-o-Akbar in the North-West Frontier as well as in several centres inside India such as Patna, Meerut, Bareilly and Hyderabad. But they produced very little fight. The British smashed them everywhere and it was all over by 1870. The greatest ‘achievement’ of the Wahabis after four decades of ‘fighting’ was the murder of Justice Norman at Calcutta in 1871, and of Lord Mayo, the Viceroy, at Port Blair in 1872.


One of Barelvi’s distinguished disciples was Mir Nasser Ali of Barasat in Bengal, better known as Titu Mir or Titu Mian. He had met the master in Mecca in 1822, and returned to Calcutta a few years later in order to organize another jihãd against the British. He set up his headquarters at Barasat, and declared that India under British rule was a Dãr-ul-harb. But, in due course, his invectives also came to be increasingly directed against the unarmed Hindus in the countryside of Bengal.


Narahari Kaviraj, a Communist scholar who hails Titu’s rascals as peasant revolutionaries, describes the exploits of his hero in the following words: “They first sallied forth in a body of about 500 persons to attack the market place of the village known as Poorwa, where they slaughtered a cow. With the blood of the animal they defiled a Hindu temple. Then they hung up the four quarters (of the cow) in the different parts of the market place. They maltreated and wounded an unfortunate Brahmin and threatened to make him a Muslim… The village of Laoghatty in the Nadia district was their next object attack. Here they commenced operations by the repetition of the same outrage to the religious feelings of the Hindus which they had committed at Poorwa, viz, the slaughter of a cow in that part of the village exclusively occupied by Hindu residents. But being opposed by Hardeb Ray, a principal inhabitant of the village, and a Brahmin, at the head of a party of villagers, an affray ensued in which one Debnath Ray was killed and Hardeb Ray and a number of villagers were severely wounded… Titu’s party went on increasing and with growing confidence they went on killing cows in different places, making raids on the neighbouring villages, forcing from the raiyats agreements to furnish grain, compelling many of them to profess conformity to the tenets of their sect… They openly proclaimed themselves masters of the country, asserting that the Mussalmans from whom the English usurped it, were the rightful owners of the empire… The rebels issued parwanas to the principal zamindars of the district. Their tenor was as follows: “This country is now given to our Deen Mohammed. You must, therefore, immediately send grain to the army.’ In a written report the magistrate of Nadia states that a paper written in Bengali and signed in Arabic characters, was put into his hand, purporting to be an order of Allah to the Pal Chowdhuries of Ranaghat to supply russud (rations) to the army of fakirs who were about to fight with the government.”7 All of this was an early rehearsal of what the Moplahs were to do in Malabar in 1921 during the Khilafat agitation against the British.


The British government at Calcutta had to take action at last, not because it was bothered about what was happening to the Hindus at the hands of Muslim mujãhids but because the Wahabis of Bengal were becoming a menace to the British system of law and order. Titu Mian was killed in the very first encounter with a British battalion in 1839. A number of his followers were hanged or sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.


Another movement on similar lines had flared up simultaneously in the Faridpur district of Bengal. This was the Faraizi Movement launched by Shariatullah who also had spent 20 years in Mecca and Medina. He had also declared that India under the British was a Dãr-ul-harb, and that Muslims should not observe Friday prayers and the two Ids till Islamic rule was restored. He also tried to ‘purify’ Islam of ‘un-Islamic accretions’ borrowed from the hated Hindus. And he also acquired a large following of fanatic Muslims in order to mount his jihãd against the British. But like his contemporary, Titu Mian, he also ended by spending all his spleen against the Hindus. Kaviraj writes: “As the followers of Shariatullah increased in numbers, and as they became too bold and overbearing, they carried their incursions against Hindu zamindars and committed acts of cruelty against Hindu families.”8 Shariatullah died in 1837 without achieving anything more spectacular. That was left to his son who had meanwhile returned from Mecca after a stay of several years.


Muhammad Mohsin, better known as Dudhu Mian (1819-1860), was a more full-fledged fundamentalist than his father. Professor Murray Titus writes that “Among other things, we are told that he insisted upon his disciples eating the common grass-hopper (phaDinga), which they detested, because the locust (tiDDi) was used as food in Arabia.”9 Dudhu Mian was convinced that Allah had entrusted him with the mission of restoring Islam in India to its pristine purity and bygone glory. That implied a fight against the British. But like his father, he also found that the unarmed Hindus in the countryside of Bengal were a far more attractive prey. According to Kaviraj, Dudhu’s followers were well-armed with swords, shields and a variety of other weapons. In April 1839, they raided 76 Hindu houses in seven villages. They committed atrocities on innocent Hindus, killed cows and broke the images worshipped by the Brahmins inside their homes. Later on, one of their victims was Kalicharan Kanjilal, a gomashta in a British-owned Indigo factory. Kanjilal was given the full treatment prescribed for kafirs in the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet. The atrocities heaped on this poor and unoffending Hindu by a Islamic-cum-Communist ‘hero’ are described in detail in contemporary government records.


Finally, the British Indigo planters put pressure on the British government to bring the hoodlum to book. “He was charged with plunder in 1838, committed to sessions for murder in 1841, tried for trespass and for unlawful assembly in 1844, and for abduction and plunder in 1846. But it was found impossible to induce witnesses to give evidence, and on each occasion he was acquitted.”10 It was only in 1857 that he was put in jail without trial. He died there in 1860.


The last effort made by the mujãhids of all sorts to overthrow the British rule and restore the ‘Muslim empire in India’ was in 1857. They were able to enlist Hindu support on a large scale because of reasons in which we need not go here. But this grand jihãd was also defeated, and its leaders had to seek shelter in the Hindu kingdom of Nepal. The last Mughal emperor ended his days of disgrace in far off Rangoon. Ishtiq Husain Qureshi names this period as that of the ‘lowest depths of broken pride’.11


Thus, by about the year 1860, the multifarious mujãhids had emptied themselves of all the heat stored in them by their sojourn in the ‘holy land’ of Hijaz. They could not shake a single brick in the edifice of the British empire. It was now the turn of the Muslim magnates, sitting pretty in their palatial mansions, to rescue the mujãhids from the theological knots into which the latter had tied themselves. Meanwhile, the British had seen the Muslim potential for mischief against the Hindus who had started taking pride in their history and heritage, and demanding self-rule. An invitation was extended to the residues of Islamic imperialism to revise their strategy when W.W. Hunter wrote The Indian Musalmans in 1871. The invitation was readily accepted by the other side.

http://voiceofdharma.org/books/muslimsep/ch7.htm#5

[Singha]

The Army is using the PPP govt as a shield to conduct subversive ops deep inside the indian heartland.

that is correct, but during the long years of the musharaff era countless
attacks were carried out in the same indian heartland by the army/jihadis.

so it looks like people do not need shields to attack India, given our nature of GOI.

[ramana]

Looks like most othe near term predictions of this thread have come true with the SWAT being Pakibanised.

[ramana]

From Pioneer, 4 April 2009

Know your Baitullah Mehsud

M Rama Rao

The Pakistani ISI-military establishment is fattening this man and even lending him a sheen of invincibility so as to deceive the US into parting with billions of anti-terrorism dollars

Baitullah Mehsud behind the attack on police academy at Manawan outside Lahore? A laughable proposition it is by any stretch of imagination even as he grandly declares, 'We have attacked Lahore, US next". Mehsud has never set foot outside his turf in Wazirstan and his group has had no spectacular strikes that are in the league of, say, 26/11, which was executed by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) with clinical and military precision. His only claim to fame is the assassination of Benazir Bhutto but the government headed by the late 'daughter of the East' is yet to confirm that. Now, the Pakistan government is going all out of its way to give full credit for the attack to Mehsud. In him, the Asif Ali Zardari - Gilani- Kayani combine appear to find an easy way to cover their discomfiture.

The Manawan Academy was considered a low key target. It was not a highly protected place even according to reports in the Pakistani media. So it does not need the expertise of a Mehsud and his outfit. Any of the social and religious vigilantes that abound in Pakistani could have carried out this mission. There is no dearth of such elements and groups across Punjab province which provides the main recruitment base for the Lashkars of all hues. It is also an established fact that all recruits don't finally make it to the charmed warrior group and some of them get discarded at the end of their rigorous training.

There is no precise estimate of the number of 'discarded' jihadis. They are itching for action of some kind and to come back into reckoning so that after 'martyrdom' they would be welcomed by 72 Houris into heaven. These irregulars should be quite big in number since Jihad is more than a two-decade-old, officially sponsored enterprise of Pakistan. They are prepared to do hatchet jobs for the establishment and for the shadowy figures and the big daddies of the Taliban brand of Islamist enterprise. Many of the recent attacks on police posts are attributable to these irregulars as the established Jihadi groups would prefer to shun over-exposure.

It is no surprise that in the Manawan episode also, the initial claim has come from a little-known outfit called the Fedayeenal-Islam. Its spokesman has taken credit for the deadly September attack on Marriot hotel in Islamabad that killed 54 people. The TTP,which should be happy with the Manawan attack, has shied away from taking responsibility.

Baitullah Mehsud taking responsibility for the Manawan, the government should find it difficult to continue with the Swat deal negotiated with the help of a Sufi-led TNSM. Any responsible government would have declared the deal dead by now. But the Zardari government has not done any such thing; it is, in fact, planning more such peace deals. What a double game it is by a regime buffeted between growing public outrage over terrorist incidents and public resentment of the support to the US in the war against terror.

Baitullah Mehsud suits the needs of the day for Pakistan just as AQ Khan had fitted the bill when the 'Land of the pure' was on a mission to make the 'Islamic' (nuclear) bomb a reality. Like Khan, the metallurgist turned B-smuggler, Mehsud is a megalomaniac. While Khan has acted as the front for the Nuke Wall-Mart set up by the invisible hands that hold the destiny of Pakistan, the local Taliban commander is a willing partner of the Mission to convert the country into an Islamist State run by an Amir-ul-Momineen (leader of the faithful). The $ 5-million bounty on his head placed by the US government is not a deterrent. It only adds to the Mehsud mystique. And when he declares that the attack on Manawan Police Academy was in retaliation for the US missile strikes, his image gets a big boost and serves the goals of Pakistan State and people as well.

Any student of Pakistan knows that General Zia-ul-Haq had deepened the Islamist roots of Pakistan while serving the interests of US in Afghanistan. Benazir Bhutto made her own lasting contribution to the phenomenon when, with the help of the ISI, she had put together the elements that have come to be known as Taliban as the hardline campaigners of pan-Islamism.

Meanwhile, Washington is deluding itself that there are 'moderates' among the Talib. Actually, the distinction between moderates and hardcore elements is non-existent. Today's Taliban is an assortment hardcore neo-Taliban, local mafia, criminal gangs, warlords, drug cartels, and irregulars keen on seeing some action. The only difference, if there is any, between Mullah Omar's classical Talib and its Pakistani version is in their goals. The Mullah wants to establish a single Islamist State comprising Pakistan and Afghanistan as the first step towards creating the modern day Khalifat. Baitullah and his ilk, on the other hand, are content with some tinkering with Sharia and banning girls' education and women in shopping areas. In short, their anti-modernist ideology is supreme.

It is time for India to take a closer look at the composition and philosophy of the Pakistani Army. It serves no purpose to parrot the Washington view that rogue elements in the Army and ISI are behind the jihadi groups. The Pakistani Army, right from Zia's time to the present day, is a highly Islamised force with the goal of securing strategic depth in Afghanistan in order to ruin the Kafirs on the east. Any contrary view should be rolled back after the way the Kayani Army had handed over the Swat region to the Taliban. And the Baitullah Mehsud phenomenon should cause nightmares because the army will instead of remaining a passive spectator, will be an active player in his enterprise. Just as it pump-primed the AQ Khan enterprise.

I don't think the US has any great influence over the Pakistani military establishment. However, it controls the civilian leaders and the local media. Islamabad and Washington have perfected the art of mutual deception. Each in its own interest. Consider this fact. Every time Washington needed a favour, it simply alerts a friendly scribe to the presence of Osama somewhere in Chitral, Northern Areas or Waziristan. The Pakistani Army has never accepted any decree from the White House or State Department which is not to its liking.

This has been a constant since the days of General Zia, who had dared to tick off President Carter, and dubbed the military aid offered to face the threat posed by Soviet occupied Afghanistan as 'peanuts'. Ever since then, Washington tends to believe that the only way to win over GHQ in Rawalpindi is by liberally supplying military hardware. According to the Washington Post, the Pentagon is going to provide as much as $3 billion over the next five years to train and equip Pakistan army.

So, with the US revelling in half-baked policies and unwilling to learn from history, India has to come to grips quickly with the danger from its next door. It will do well to remember that the picturesque Swat valley is the gateway from Afghanistan and beyond to Indian subcontinent right from the days of Alexander, the Great.

-- The writer is editor, Asian Tribune

[SSridhar]

The above analysis has flaws, IMHO.

As Ramana pointed out, BM has indeed claimed responsibility.

TTP is an umbrella organization that simply devises strategies, coordinates various groups, and franchises terror to its various groups. That's why the term Taliban denotes today Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban, Pakhtun commanders/tribal leders/warlords from either side of the Durand Line, and various Pakistani jihadist groups. The linkages among these groups have been based on their common enemies Yahud-Hunud-Nasara. Increasingly, as they believe that their chances of defeating the US-NATO/ISA Forces are increasing, they are also confident of creating a worldwide Caliphate. TTP, in that respect, is functioning like neo-Al Qaeda, as a base for disparate groups.

Again, I do not see any distinction between Mullah Omar-led Afghan Taliban and Baitullah-led TTP. BM, Maulvi Nazeer and Gul Bahadur, three of the strongest commanders among the Pakistani Taliban, have come together recently and accepted Mullah Omar as their Emir. So, BM's agenda is not merely anti-modernist. Besides, anti-women and similar extremist activities are taking place only in Swat which is not part of FATA and which enjoyed modernity and progress until now because FATA areas are long used to fundamentalist Islam (though subservient to Pakhtunwali. The Pakhtunwali is being dethroned and substituted by Wahhabism by the Taliban).

[Lalmohan]

what we are possibly witnessing is the replacement of the Arab led khilafat movement (al qaeda) with a Pashtun led khilafat movement (taliban in the broad sense) - with an immediate goal of taking over the pashtun areas of afghanistan and pakistan, and then onto consolidating their hold on all of af-pak. in this regard the pakhtun possibly regard the pakjabis as no better than 'hindus' - to be pillaged as is their centuries old practice. the real fools here might well be the pakjabis who think they have brothers in arms here...

without a doubt, the next step will be a raid to delhi... as is traditional

[Paul]

AQ is Accenture which takes on the high dollar value engagements. Taliban are like the back office operators (Dalda co etc.) who have some ways to go before they can take on the responsibilities of the consulting cos.

It will be some time but they will surely get there. India is the training ground for these backend cos. They hone their subversive skills here before transferring the operations to the high end operators…should make sense to most BRFites.

[ramana]

X-post for completeness....

Attention gurulog, aamlog and lurkerlog. Himal Mag (a peacenik publication of quality) has a Af-Pak special in its April 2009 edition.

http://himalmag.com/index.php

In the Magazine
April 2009
himal Volume 22 No 4
Seamus Murphy
Table of Contents

Commentary: Release of the Pashtun knot (Region)

Locked in their nation-state dogmas, will the citizens of Southasia be able to control the cancerous spread of violence from the Pashtun region?

Afghanistan unravelling
By: Aunohita Mojumdar

A date for presidential elections has finally been agreed upon, but little else about the country’s near future is clear.

The Taliban primer
By: Rahimullah Yusufzai

Who is Baitullah Mahsud?

The establishment of a Taliban emirate
By: Kamran Arif

Under the terms of the ‘peace deal’ in PATA, the militants have gained everything and the government nothing.

Mullah Radio
By: Manzoor Ali

By using illegal FM radio broadcasts, militants in Pakistan are gaining the stature of a parallel government, yet with no credibility.

Stunted development
By: Ahmed Dawi

The only ones that seem convinced of the efficacy of international aid to Afghanistan are the aid agencies themselves.

In the shades of grey
By: An ETT Soldier

Amidst the conflict and chaos, one US soldier sees hope in Afghanistan.

Essay: Violence as nation-building
By: Aziz Hakimi

The issue is not who should rule Afghanistan, but rather how. And the answer is devolution of power and local governance under a constitution that can be owned by all.

[ramana]

X-post...

Folks as the TSP admits there are three kinds of Taliban- 1)those in the FATA badlands who now target Afghanistan, 2)the Baitullah Mehsud types who want to create a Pashtun area and 3) the Sufi Mohammed type sarkari Pakiban who are given SWAT.

So when one posts a news item about Taliban did this or that try to read the story and post which type is involved. The crucial thing is the gains for Pashtun revival.

Thanks, ramana

1) Haqqani and others are definitely in the ISI's good books.

2) The Pakistani Govt. has continuously turned a blind-eye towards Fazlullah. They did not shut down his FM station. They let his father-in-law TNSM chief Sufi Mohammed go scot free. They handed him a whole division in NWFP: Malakand on a platter. They let him grow. Fazlullah is definitely on the payroll of TSPA.

3) Baitullah Mehsud has had a few military operations directed against him in Bajaur etc. The Pakistanis have often complained that they have been providing Americans with Baitullah's coordinates, but the Americans were not inclined to shoot him down with a few Hellfire missiles. Baitullah is not on the payroll of ISI.

Now Fazlullah did accept Baitullah as his Amir. This was reported a few months back.

My theory is that the ISI is showering Fazlullah with gifts and victories, so that his stature within the Taliban is on the ascendant. ISI would preferably want Taliban's leadership to pass from Baitullah Mehsud to someone, more approachable by the ISI. So all these noises coming from Sufi Mohammed of war with Pakistani forces could be simply an agreed upon plan to raise his stature as well. This Sufi Mohammed has long been entertained at Govt expenditure. It is possible that he has been worked upon before allowing him to go free. Basically everything coming from Sufi Mohammed should be taken with a pinch of salt. He could be a government mole.

Fazlullah's program is to islamize Pushtun areas more vigorously, and Pakistanis do not seem to have a problem with that. The Nizam-e-Adl was passed in the National Assembly almost unanimously, upon TSPA's recommendation. The Jihadi commanders probably think a dose of extremer Islam can be a tonic against their deteriorating position viz-a-viz India.

Baitullah on the other hand, has made the drone attacks in FATA his war cry, which is basically a Pushtun sovereignty issue. The Lal Masjid attack was the other issue, Baitullah latched on to. Lal Masjid was a shelter, one could even call it an embassy, for FATA Pushtuns in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. On both of these issues he holds Pakistani State and the state apparatus responsible. The more Americans attack the FATA region, the more support he becomes. The more Pakistanis attack Pushtuns, the more support he becomes. He does support the Islamization agenda, but that would be a given, considering that he belongs to the Taliban.

Fazlullah on the other hand has shown little concern for Pushtun issues. He has allowed Swat residents to become refugees on his watch. He has not protected them. He has not asked them to stay put in their homes. Of course, with Pakistani security forces themselves asking Swat residents to leave the area, and threatening them with bombardment, it was enough reason for this refugee flight. His sole concern has been to expand his writ across the area, based on Islamization.

It will be very interesting to observe how the positions of Baitullah and Fazlullah within the Taliban's pecking order change with time. If Fazlullah gets the upper hand, then the ISI can control the whole of the Taliban, all three variants - Afghan Jihad, Pushtun Jihad and Radio Jihad.

Mullah Omar, the Taliban Amir was very hesitant initially accepting Baitullah Mehsud into the Taliban franchise. It has been speculated in various sources that Mullah Omar is sitting pretty in Quetta availing of the famous Pakistani hospitality. Now if Mullah Omar was hesitant in accepting Baitullah into the fold, a most resourceful asset, then it must be because ISI was unsure how to deal with him, as he is a horse, who most probably does not come from the Sarkari stables.

Mullah Omar's influence being more restricted to Afghan areas, the ISI needed somebody else, who could eclipse Baitullah Mehsud's charisma and leadership. Hafiz Gul Bahadur, Mullah Nazir and Mullah Fazlullah are government protégés.

Hafiz Gul Bahadur: A Profile of the Leader of the North Waziristan Taliban: Jamestown Foundation
http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/s ... 06a838faf0

Taliban Guide

[ramana]

From Tilak in The TSP Global Terrorism thread......

X-Posted :

***Must Read***

Book review: Jihad goes on in Pakistan —by Khaled Ahmed

Jihad goes on in Pakistan —by Khaled Ahmed

The Fluttering Flag of Jehad
By Amir Mir - Mashal Books Lahore 2008 Pp306; Price Rs 700

Amir Mir was able to interview Benazir Bhutto just before she fell to the terrorism of Al Qaeda or whoever it was who assassinated her in December 2007. She thought Pervez Musharraf was secretly in league with the terrorists and had tried to kill her in Karachi in October 2007, and was sure he would get terrorists like Abdur Rehman Otho of Lashkar-e Jhangvi and Qari Saifullah Akhtar of Harkat Jihad Islami, protégés of the ISI, to do the job. She named Brigadier Ijaz Shah and Brigadier Riaz Chibb etc. in her final writings. She predicted her death and blamed it on the army; months later, Major General Faisal Alvi too predicted his own death at the hands of the army and was shot down in Islamabad.

Musharraf claimed that Benazir was killed by Baitullah Mehsud through his suicide-bombers whose minder was taped talking to him on the phone about the achievement. Evidence in place was destroyed by the establishment, and questions arising from her murder could not be answered although Al Qaeda was at first quoted in the press as having taken care of ‘the most precious American asset’ in the words of Mustafa Abu Yazid, the Al Qaeda commander in Afghanistan. Benazir had her moles inside the ISI (p.28); but Amir doesn’t accept that Baitullah Mehsud killed her and gives a convincing critique of the findings of Scotland Yard.

Now a lot of writers use inside information from the US government to claim that Musharraf was sympathetic to the Taliban as they fled from the US attack in 2001. Amir Mir tells us that Corps Commander Peshawar General Safdar Hussain, who signed the peace accord with Baitullah Mehsud at Sararogha near Wana in February 2005, had called him a soldier of peace even as Mehsud’s warriors shouted ‘Death to America’. Major General Faisal Alvi was to accuse some elements in the army high command of being on the side of the Taliban before his assassination in 2008. Baitullah rewarded General Hussain with 200 captured Pakistani troops in August 2007.

Benazir believed Qari Saifullah Akhtar was involved in the attempt on her life in Karachi in October 2007 (p.43). Qari was in prison for trying to kill Musharraf in 2004 and was sprung from there to do the job on Benazir. Musharraf was outraged when he got to know that an ISI protégé had tried to kill him from his safe haven in Dubai after fleeing from Afghanistan in 2001. Qari was special because he was rescued by the spooks after he was found involved in trying to stage a military coup in league with Islamist fanatic Major General Zaheerul Islam Abbasi in 1995. He along with his Harkat Jihad Islami was to become the favourite of the Taliban government.

The place to be mined for leadership talent was Karachi’s Banuri Mosque where the Qari and that other protégé Fazlur Rehman Khalil had received their Deobandi orientation. The third Banuri Mosque protégé of the state was Maulana Masud Azhar, who formed Jaish-e Muhammad and was rescued from an Indian jail together with Omar Sheikh, the man who later helped kill Daniel Pearl in Karachi. Qari was recalled from Dubai and kept in custody, and the Lahore High Court did not release him on a habeas corpus petition. But he was released quietly before Benazir arrived in Pakistan in October 2007 (p.45).

After Benazir named him in her posthumous book, Qari was arrested again in March 2008. The reaction came in the shape of a suicide attacks on the Naval War College and the FIA office in Lahore where Qari’s terrorists were being kept for interrogation into the War College attack (p.47). A Karachi terrorist court heard the case against Qari and freed him on bail because the proof with which the prosecution could have proved him guilty had ‘disappeared’. Later he was rearrested but then quietly released by the Home Department because the spooks wanted him freed (p.48).

Fazlur Rehman Khalil is another protected person who lives in Islamabad but governments hardly know what he has been saying to the American authors who visit him. When Islamabad got into trouble with its own clerics in Lal Masjid, it was Khalil who was taken out and made to negotiate with them (p.109). He is the sort of person who can some day get Pakistan into trouble after which Islamabad will have to say he has mysteriously left the country and cannot be produced. He is Osama bin Laden’s man and his Harkatul Mujahideen was prominent among the jihadi organisations in Kashmir and ran training camps for warriors in Dhamial just outside Rawalpindi, at least that is what an American suspect Hamid Hayat told the FBI after visiting it (p.108).

It is not only Dr AQ Khan whom Pakistan has to save from being kidnapped by the anti-proliferationist West, there is also Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, the top scientist who enriched uranium at Khushab and then conferred with Osama bin Laden about building a nuclear bomb when he was in Kabul looking after his charity organisation called Umma Tameer Nau (p.111). He is the crazy bearded man who once presented a paper to General Zia saying Pakistan could make electricity from jinns. He also thought he could use a nuclear bomb to clear up a silted Tarbela Dam. Daniel Pearl was on to him, but he got killed when he got close to another protected person.

The other person was Mubarak Shah Gilani, a scion of the great Sufi of Lahore, Mianmir, who actually controlled jinns and ran a jihadi organisation named Al Fuqra still alive and doing well in the UK’s Londonistan. He had recruited Richard Reid, the Shoe Bomber terrorist who was caught before he could blow up an aircraft. Daniel Pearl had traced Mubarak Shah Gilani to Karachi and was going to interview him when he was tricked by Omar Sheikh into going with Lashkar-e Jhangvi gunmen who then handed him over to Khaled Sheikh Muhammad, who confessed at Guantanamo to personally beheading him (p.116). Omar Sheikh, who got involved in planning the 9/11 strike, was finally made to surrender after sheltering in home secretary and ex-ISI officer Ijaz Shah’s residence in Lahore for a week.

The book says on page 122 that the ISI chief General Mehmood was later investigated by FBI for sending $100,000 to plane hijacker Atta, who led the 9/11 strike on the World Trade Centre. The conduit for Mehmood was Omar Sheikh. The Wall Street Journal, Daniel Pearl’s paper, reported that an examination of Omar Sheikh’s telephone record showed him talking to General Mehmood, proving also that the money sent by General Mehmood through Omar Sheikh was funding for the New York strike (p.122). General Musharraf in his book reported, as if in rebuttal, that Omar Sheikh was first recruited by the British spy agency MI6.

The book also reports that the hijacking — done by Masood Azhar’s brother Abdul Rauf and brother-in-law Yusuf Azhar — of an Indian airliner that led to the release of Omar Sheikh and Masood Azhar from an Indian jail was linked to the ISI because its Quetta-based officers talked to the hijackers on the wireless set at Kandahar (p.128). Masood Azhar then went on to attack the Parliament in New Delhi in 2001, a month after 9/11. ISI chief Javed Ashraf Qazi on March 6, 2004 admitted that Jaish was involved in the New Delhi parliament assault (p.134). Later Jaish militants were to be housed in Lal Masjid during its siege by state troops in 2007 (p.141).

An interesting chapter is included on the infiltration of the Pakistani cricket team by the Tablighi Jama’at. As a result, the team under captain Inzamam-ul Haq lost its playing ability to its obsession with tabligh and conversion. Media manager PJ Mir accused the team of neglecting the game during the 2007 World Cup and spending all the time trying to convert the innocent people of the West Indies (p.204). *

Baithullah Mehsud Press Conference denies involvement in Bhuttos Assasination@2:28 :

[ramana]

SSridhar and others, Looks like the Deobandis in TSP are turning Wahabi. Look at all the 'graduates' who are the leading lights of Pakiban. Are we seeing the merging of the Deobandi & Wahabi streams in TSP madari?

Something to reflect on.

[Y I Patel]

The Pakiban have obtained their playbook from J&K Terrorism.

It is important to underscore right up front that the spearhead for implementing the overall strategy is not a military organization, but a socio-political movement. There were the Jamait-e-Islami and the JKLF long before there were HUM and LET. It is only after India neutralized the socio-political movements that the terrorist organizations shed their garb and came out in their true colors. The parallel governments in FATA and now Swat are for Pakistan what the JKLF and their brethren were in J&K.

The first part of the overall strategy is to paint the federal government in question (Pakistan itself in this case; India in case of J&K) as anti-Islamic, to create political space for the terrorist movement. In India's case, this was an easy and obvious tack. More difficult to paint a Pakistani government in those colors, but it has happened as all can see now.

The subversion of the local government and the local political class follows. One big thrust in this strategy is the attack on pro-government elements of the local political establishment. In J&K, judges, politicians, civil servants, and moderate religious leaders were assassinated or kidnapped. The same thing is now happening in areas of Pakistan slipping into Pakiban control. There, instead of religious jihad, this strategy has been executed under the banner of class warfare. The targets are local zamindars and politicians who have been threatened and forced to flee.

At the same time, supporters of the movement are inserted gradually into an area, and grass roots organizations are set up. Recall, how for the longest time, Indian security forces were targeting 'divisional commanders' of tanzeems - most notably this applied to HUM, which was always more of a local organization run by indigenous terrorists. That gave them terror potential that LET has never been able to mobilize. Of course, LET with its roving Lashkars has an entirely different strategy which makes them harder to pin down and uproot. Again, coming to Pakistan's case, this is going on actively - sleepers get inserted, local madrassas and masjids start being used for spreading terrorist dogma... all old news to students of J&K terrorism.

Finally, the terror part. In Pakistan, this has to be done very differently than it was and is being done in India. In Pakistan, terror has to be spread by imposing Islamic edicts. Anyone not toeing the line or not actively supporting the movement becomes a sympathizer and is treated accordingly. The rest, out of fear, fall in line.

What is needed to break all this is resoluteness from local civil authorities. Not the jack boot kind that media love to portray. It is a steady, unrelenting, unflinching, but understated and measured show of determination. It is Governor Krishna Rao standing erect and unbending at an Independence day ceremony, while a bomb exploded in the same stadium. It is politicians, including Sonia Gandhi, electioneering in Baramulla. It is BSF and CRPF Road Opening Parties, going in day after bloody day to keep NH 1, India's artery to the valley, open through high terrorist season, it is AS Daulat alternatively cajoling and threatening terrorists till they ended the Hazrat Bal seige.... and it is all those instances when it would have been all too easy to bomb the crap out of a village but the Indian Army did not. But Pakistanis were never allowed to develop any institutions with integrity in the first place, and now their masters and creators are looking at the grim crop they will reap.

So what does this foretell about what the Pakiban will do? PakPunjab is flavor of the month for South Asia 'experts', but they may be looking in the wrong direction... the left field, if you are looking at PakPunjab from Afghanistan, is something called NA, and it is ideal territory for terrorists. Together, POK and NA have inaccessible areas, ineffectual local government, a population already primed to support terrorist miltias, and grass roots socio-political organizations that took the lead after Pakistani earthquake and have local credibility and respect. So far, all of them were looking eastwards, but if someone starts whispering the right words to them, they could be induced to turn their heads southwards. So hear this well:

Pakistan banega Kashmir.

[JE Menon]

A marvellous post YIP. Thank you.

[ramana]

New name Hakimullah Mehsud of TTP.

Taliban Claim Pakistan Bomb Attack

In telephone calls to Reuters and The Associated Press, a Pakistani insurgent commander, Hakimullah Mehsud, said, “We have achieved our target. We were looking for this target for a long time.”

A group calling itself Tehreek-i-Taliban Punjab, in a posting on a Turkish militant Web site, said Thursday that it had staged the assault.

In his phone call, the news agencies reported, Mr. Mehsud warned of further violent attacks.

“We want the people of Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Multan to leave those cities, as we plan major attacks against government facilities in coming days and weeks,” he said in the call to Reuters.

Soooooo ................ Uncle has another nephew that has "militants" or are they freedom fighters, too.

Is this "Punjab" Taliban something relatively new?

[ramana]

SSridhar, The TOI had an op-ed from one Shaun Gregory of Pakistan Security Research Unit based in Uty of Bradford, UK. It seems to be the gathering place for usual suspects. Look at their profiles.

Here is their link:

Pakistan Security Research Unit, Bradford

They have a collection of reports in their portal. One of them is pdf on Sunni Jihadi groups in TSP.

Sunni Jihadi Groups in Pakistan


We hould start collating our info in such a fashion for BRF.

[SSridhar]

New name Hakimullah Mehsud of TTP.

Ramana, Hakeemullah Mehsud has been around for a while and is steadily going up the Taliban hierarchy. He was responsible for the suicide blast that killed en masse 100 jirga elders at Orakzai in Oct. 2008 and later another one that killed 22 jirga elders at Bajaur. After the massive Orakzai attack, Hakeemullah Mehsud assumed complete control of Orakzai. His compound was drone-attacked by the US on April 1, 2009. An enraged Hakeemullah announced "the pain of this attack will be felt in Islamabad". We are waiting for that to happen.

[SSridhar]

We should start collating our info in such a fashion for BRF.

Ramana, have you seen this one ?

You have mail.

[ramana]

got the mail.

[ramana]

TTP's strength

Commanders who lead bands of Taliban marauders in other agencies are: Hakimullah (Orakzai and Kurram with 8,000 men), Rehmanullah and Hazrat Ali (Khyber, 1,200), Umar Khalid (Mohmand, 5,000), and Faqir Muhammad (Bajaur, 5,000). Baitullah himself is estimated to dispose of 30,000 warriors, supplemented with Tahir Yuldashev’s 4,000 Uzbeks and other “foreigners”. The TTP could have nearly 50,000 men at its disposal. If you also count the non-Baitullah Taliban, the total estimate comes to over 100,000.

According to some estimates, Baitullah could have in his kitty around Rs 4 billion to spend annually. This money comes from drugs facilitated by Al Qaeda contacts, Arab money from the Gulf, money made from kidnapping for ransom, looting of banks, smuggling and “protection money” in general. He has weapons produced in Russia, the US and India, and has been looting explosives produced at the Wah munitions factory. His strength has been built up during a period of benign neglect in Islamabad

So Baitullah has the largest group and most resources. How does he support his ammo needs for the various weapons he has?

[Muppalla]

So Baitullah has the largest group and most resources. How does he support his ammo needs for the various weapons he has?

I always had this question? How are these militants and warriors get the wepons to constantly fight US and Pak forces. Guns, grenades etc. If the NATO forces are doing war genuinely why are not able to block the routes that gets guns to these mercenary forces.

I beleive the only way they can get these guns are from Pakistan army.

[ramana]

I dont see the ISI thread.

X Posted.

Abdul Hamid Khan, Chairman Balawaristan National Front (BNF) on the links of the Pakistan Army and its subordinate organisation the ISI, to terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan itself :

Thursday, June 4, 2009, Jamadi-ul-sani 10, 1430

Terrorism in South Asia

………… The so-called fight against terrorism by Pakistani Military is nothing but an exercise to make Taliban stronger and more aggressive. These Taliban and other terrorists can be used against India, Afghanistan, USA and other countries as a part of its future strategy, because Pakistani Military has no courage to fight directly. The war of Talibaan and that of Al-Qaeda are planned and implemented with full assistance from Pakistan Army and its ISI. To introduce Sharia throughout Pakistan in due course is pre-plan of Pakistan Army to get money both from USA and Saudi Arab. Everyone knows that the communication facility used by Talibaan without being interrupted is due to ISI Talibaan understanding, else how could one explain Taliban and Al Qaeda managing to deliver their propaganda material and how do they contact the media? This cannot be done without full support from the ISI. Why has Pakistani forces and its ISI failed to cut the militants’ supply lines; how journalists can talk to Fazlullah and other Talibaans but security forces are unable to trace them; how Sufi Mohammad was able to meet with Fazlullah along with heavy convoy.

Instead of helping NATO forces the deployment of Pakistan Army along with the borders with Afghanistan is protecting Talibaan and Al-Qaida. In Swat, Pakistan, Pakistan Army is providing training to 700 Talibaan near a lake beyond Shangla Top towards Mingora in these days, and ISI terrorist camps in Astore and Ghowadi of Gilgit Baltistan are still intact. Al-Qaida and Talibaan come to Pakistan Army camps in Waziristan between 3-4 AM in the dark and take huge quantity of Ammunition and Arms by mules.

From:

Pakistan Observer

[ramana]

"Freedom fries" what?!

Mysterious 'chip' is CIA's latest weapon against al-Qaida targets hiding in Pakistan's tribal belt• Tribesmen plant devices to guide drone attacks
• Locals shun fighters for fear of becoming targets

Declan Walsh in Peshawar
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 31 May 2009 23.55 BST
Article history

The CIA is equipping Pakistani tribesmen with secret electronic transmitters to help target and kill al-Qaida leaders in the north-western tribal belt, in a tactic that could aid Pakistan's army as it takes the battle against extremism to the Taliban heartland.

As the army mops up Taliban resistance in the Swat valley, where a defence official predicted fighting would be over within days, the focus is shifting to Waziristan and the Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud.

But a deadly war of wits is already under way in the region, where tribesmen say the US is using advanced technology and old-fashioned cash to target the enemy.

Over the last 18 months the US has launched more than 50 drone attacks, mostly in south and north Waziristan. US officials claim nine of the top 20 al-Qaida figures have been killed.

That success is reportedly in part thanks to the mysterious electronic devices, dubbed "chips" or "pathrai" (the Pashto word for a metal device), which have become a source of fear, intrigue and fascination.

"Everyone is talking about it," said Taj Muhammad Wazir, a student from south Waziristan. "People are scared that if a pathrai comes into your house, a drone will attack it."

According to residents and Taliban propaganda, the CIA pays tribesmen to plant the electronic devices near farmhouses sheltering al-Qaida and Taliban commanders.

Hours or days later, a drone, guided by the signal from the chip, destroys the building with a salvo of missiles. "There are body parts everywhere," said Wazir, who witnessed the aftermath of a strike.

Until now the drone strikes were the only threat to militants in Waziristan, where the Pakistani army had, in effect, abandoned the fight. But now, emboldened by a successful campaign to drive militants out of Swat, a region about 80 miles from Islamabad, the army is preparing to regain lost ground in the more remote eastern tribal belt.

It will be a much tougher campaign than in Swat, with the army pitched against a formidable, battle-hardened opponent. Yesterday Taliban fighters ambushed a military position in what could be a prelude to much more intense combat.

For the US military, drones have proved to be an effective weapon against al-Qaida targets, although they have done little to prevent militants from attacking targets inside Pakistan.

On 1 January a drone-fired missile killed Usama al-Kimi, a Kenyan militant who orchestrated last year's Marriott hotel bombing in Islamabad, a senior official with Pakistan's ISI spy agency said.

It is a high-tech assassination operation for one of the world's most remote areas. The pilotless aircraft, Predators or more sophisticated Reapers, take off from a base in Baluchistan province. But they are guided by a joystick-wielding operator half a world away, at a US air force base 35 miles north of Las Vegas. Barack Obama has approved the drone campaign, which is cheap and limits the danger posed to US troops. But the strikes have many unintended victims. A Pakistani newspaper estimated that 700 people had been killed since 2006, most of them civilians, as a result of drone attacks.

For the tribesmen who plant the microchips and get it wrong, the consequences can be terrible. Last month the Taliban issued a video confession by Habib ur Rehman, 19. "They money was good," he said in a quavering voice, describing how he was paid 20,000 rupees (£166) to drop microchips hidden in a cigarette wrapper at the home of a target.

Rehman said his handler promised thousands of pounds if the strike was successful, and protection if he was caught. The end of the video showed Rehman being shot dead with three other alleged spies. Residents say such executions – there have been at least 100 – indicate how much the drone strikes have worried the Taliban.

In Wana, the capital of south Waziristan, foreign fighters are shunning the bazaars and shops, and locals are shunning the fighters. "Before, the common people used to sit with the militants," said Wazir. "Now they are also afraid.

Paranoid militant commanders are closely monitoring cross-border traffic with Afghanistan, from where they suspect the chip-carrying CIA spies are coming, said Imtiaz Wazir, a resident of Spin Wam village in north Waziristan. "If I go to Afghanistan without any purpose, the militants come to ask why," he said.

A local transporter named Haji Hamid who gave the wrong answer, he said, was found shot dead two months ago, his legs and fingers broken.

The drone strikes are despised across Pakistan, where politicians including President Asif Ali Zardari denounce them as a breach of sovereignty. But behind the scenes his government is quietly colluding with Washington.

A former CIA officer who served in Waziristan in 2006 said that small American teams comprising CIA agents, radio experts and special forces soldiers are stationed inside Pakistani military bases across the tribal belt.

From there, the CIA recruits a network of paid, and sometimes unwitting, informers – known as "cut-outs" – to help identify targets, he added. In most cases they are poor local men.

Ironically, support for the drone strikes is strongest in the frontier, especially among embattled security officials. "They are very precise, very effective, and the Taliban and al-Qaida dread them," said the provincial police chief, Malik Naveed Khan, with undisguised admiration. The strikes have caused friction between the US and the ISI, which would like America to give it control over the new technology. "The problem with the Americans is that the only instrument up their sleeve is the hammer, and they see everything as a nail," said a senior official.

The ISI resents the US for failing to target Mehsud, whose deputy claimed for last week's Lahore attack that killed at least 24 people, including an ISI colonel.


But as the army prepares to attack South Waziristan, with broad public support, the warlord's luck may be running out. Authorities in North West Frontier Province are preparing for up to 500,000 refugees, added to 2.5 million displaced by operations in Swat.

Mehsud faces other challenges, too. Rival militant groups, with army support, are challenging his dominance in South Waziristan.

And he faces the ever-present danger that some visitor could drop a "pathrai" at his doorstep, and bring an American drone with it.

Very confusing war field.

[ramana]

X-posted...

The recent bout of bloodletting in Karachi seems to have transformed from the original Pukhtoon dominated Awami National Party versus the Mohajir dominated Mutahida Quami Movement (Altaf) into an all Mohajir affair :

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Editorial: Now the Muttahida-Haqiqi war

The target-killing in the last seven days in Karachi reached another peak on Sunday when 13 people were killed, most of them belonging to two factions of the MQM. Earlier, on June 4, the toll was 11 MQM (Haqiqi), two MQM (Altaf), one PPP and one Jama’at-e Islami. This Sunday, MQM-H says seven of its members were killed; the rest were MQM-A members, barring one who was an ANP
worker. ………..................

A rebel spook, currently running a human rights outfit for the “disappeared persons”, had once revealed that Haqiqi was used by the intelligence agencies to weaken the street power of Altaf Hussain. It had obviously not worked. In fact it had made permanent a dangerous urban split that the agencies could not have wanted had they known in advance what their policies would bring
about. …………..................

Daily Times

[ramana]

And

Ramana-saar
MQM Haqiqi group split from MQM in '91. The Haqiqi group is futher split into Haqiqi Afaq group and Haqiqi Amir Khan Group. But both these splinter groups have declared that MQM Altaf is their enemy no 1.

MQM Altaf and MQM splinter have a glorious history of murdering each other right from '91. In fact a few tens despatched every year is not a news at all in Krachi. There are murmors that the Haqiqi group were aided by Military intelligence associated with Rangers in Krachi to fight MQM altaf and to indulge in extra judicial killings.

Way back in 2001-2002, MQM Altaf demanded that PML-Q crack down on the Haqiqi group, which they did. In fact, everyone from PML-N to Benazir, whoever has courted MQM has cracked down on the MQM-Haqiqis.

Haqiqi group dominates in eastern Krachi. Depending on where who died, it can be estimated who shot who (most people dispatched in the east are Haqiqis)

[ramana]

From Pioneer, 11 june 2009

EDITS | Thursday, June 11, 2009 | Email | Print |


Pakistan faces a new crisis

G Parthasarathy

The Americans appear overjoyed at what they seem to believe will be an early end to Taliban control over large tracts of north-west Pakistan following the ongoing Pakistani military operations in Swat. These military operations were literally forced on the Army, as fears grew that unless action was taken, the Taliban would spread their wings to the very heart of the national capital.

But, within two weeks of the commencement of the military operations, the country faces a new crisis, which threatens its national solidarity and unity. Speaking in Peshawar about the growing numbers of people (described as ‘Internally Displaced Persons’) who have fled their homes following the military operations, Information Minister of the North-West Frontier Province Iftikhar Hussein revealed on May 29 that 2.8 million people had fled their homes from the scene of recent operations. He added that this was apart from 600,000 other Pakhtuns (Pathans) who had been forced out of their homes in earlier Army operations in the province’s tribal areas.

As more and more displaced people pour into refugee camps, Pakistan’s resources are being strained. It has appealed to the UN and donor countries for urgent financial aid. But more important than the economic implications of the refugee influx is the political fallout of the military operations. It is now clear that fearing the spread of Talibanisation, major provinces like Sind and Punjab are refusing refuge and rehabilitation facilities for Pakhtuns fleeing the impact of the Army’s operations.

In the Sind province, Sindhi nationalist organisations have joined the main Muhajir political party, the MQM, which is now a coalition partner in the Provincial Government, in warning that they will not accept displaced Pakhtuns. The MQM has warned that any influx of refugees into Karachi could lead to ethnic violence. Even before these developments, ethnic clashes between Muhajirs and Pakhtuns had rocked Karachi.

The attitude of the largest province of Pakistan, Punjab has, however shocked many Pashtuns. According to one of Pakistan’s most respected journalists, Rahimullah Yusufzai, even the Punjab Government, which is headed by Mr Shahbaz Sharif, the brother of former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has let it be known that it would not provide facilities for camps for internally displaced people in the province and that camps should be set up within the NWFP for this purpose.

An anguished Yusufzai asks: “Is it asking too much from politicians who are in and out of power and are supposed to show the way to the nation to be sensitive to the pleas of IDPs instead of rubbing salt in their wounds? Or, according to their interpretation, should the IDP issue be the concern of the NWFP and the Pakhtuns only? If this is the case, then one should be worried about the damage this attitude is causing to the concept of the nationhood of the Federation of Pakistan.”

The operations in Swat against the Taliban commenced in the middle of May. How is it that in barely two weeks of military operations 2.8 million citizens of Pakistan fled their homes? The fact is that whenever the Pakistani Army commences operations against its own people, it uses excessive force. This was evident in Bangladesh in 1971, when the Pakistani Army’s brutality led to 11 million people fleeing as refugees to India.

In operations in Baluchistan in 1973-1974 and thereafter during the Musharraf dispensation, the Army has used air power and artillery indiscriminately. Air power was used to assassinate the respected octogenarian Baluch leader Nawaz Akbar Bugti. Use of excessive force was also manifested in Pakistani Army operations in rural Sind in 1983 and thereafter between 1992 and 1996 against Muhajirs in Karachi.

What are the implications of more violence of this nature against Pakhtuns of the NWFP? In the NWFP, the Pakistani Army is today operating against the kinsmen of those whose cause it had purportedly championed in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion of that country and thereafter in backing the Taliban in Afghanistan. Worse still, the Army and the ISI have continued to provide haven and support to the Afghan Taliban leadership led by Mullah Omar in the capital of Baluchistan, Quetta, over the past seven years or more, and similar support and haven to the Afghan Taliban military commanders like Jalaluddin Haqqani in the tribal areas of the NWFP, while acting against Pakistani Pakhtuns who support their Afghan kith and kin.

For how long can this contradiction persist? Are the Pakhtuns so naïve that they cannot see through such intrigues? Finally, for how long will Pakhtun soldiers and officers, who constitute over 20 per cent of the Pakistani Army, tolerate such duplicity? Moreover, are the Americans so naïve that they will not take note of such duplicity and turn on the heat for action against the Afghan Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies?

There has been concern about the spread of Taliban influence towards India’s borders. It should, however, be remembered that the Taliban are predominantly a Pakhtun phenomenon. What is, however, now happening is that the influence of groups allied to the Taliban, made up predominantly of Punjabi Pakistanis, is now spreading across the Punjab Province of Pakistan. These organisations have cells in virtually all towns and cities in the province.

Recent attacks in Lahore on the Sri Lankan cricket team, the Police Training facility and the ISI headquarters are evidently the work of those now called in Pakistan as the ‘Punjabi Taliban’ or the ‘Tehreek-e-Taliban Punjab’. Conservative Wahaabi Muslim practices are being increasingly advocated and even sought to be enforced by these groups in Punjab Province. Can these challenges be overcome in Pakistan’s most populous province bordering India, given the jihadi inclinations of the Army establishment and the ISI? The Lahore elite seems oblivious to, and in a dangerous denial mode of, these developments.

Given these challenges and with the country virtually bankrupt and under constant American pressure to act militarily on its borders with Afghanistan, Pakistan’s leadership will not be able to effect any change in its usual hackneyed rhetoric on relations with India. This was obvious from recent comments by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Jammu & Kashmir. The more important question, however, is whether given the Army’s failure to act quickly and decisively against the Taliban, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani will seek to divert attention by escalating terrorist violence across Pakistan’s eastern borders?

Good article. Clears up the confusion about Afghani Taliban (good), Pakistani Pathans (bad) and Pakistani Punjabi or aka Pakiban (ugly). Then we have the Sarkari terrorists like L-e-T etc (hideous).

We need to popularize these distinctions.

[ramana]

From Canada:

Appraising the Threat of Islamist Takeover in Pakistan

PDF 46 pages long

Pakistan local Politics and Afghanistan

Read the last part about Afghan interventions in TSP from 1950s and a confession.

[ramana]

A lurker liked this terminology

Afghani Taliban (good), Pakistani Pathans (bad) and Pakistani Punjabi or aka Pakiban (ugly). Then we have the Sarkari terrorists like L-e-T etc (hideous).

Tali/Pakiban Groups

So Afghani Taliban = Afghan Pashtuns like Mullah Omar, Haqqanis, Hekmatyar etc also allied to Al Qaida

Pakistani Pasthuns= Baitullah Mehsud, Fazallullah etc operating in bajour, SWAT and BUner, WANA & FATA

Pakistani Punjabis = Lal masjid types

Sarkari Army of Allah = Lashakr -e- Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Sipah-i-Saheba and others.

Mohajir groups:

MQM Altaf group = Original Mohajir based group
MQM Haqiqi Afaq group= Splinter group to fight MQM Altaf
MQM Haqiqi Amir Khan group= Another splinter group

Baloch groups:

Tribal = Mengal & Bugti groups
BLA = combination of above two

Who else?

Sindhis have Jiye Sind group.


criminal groups:

Dawood Ibrahim gang

His opponents who shot his brother?

What about Afghan groups in Karachi?

[Lalmohan]

^^^ how do the shia militias figure in this picture?

[ramana]

About the known alliances of Islam with Christians over all others:

Had to share this Quranic gem

Certainly you will find the most violent of people in enmity for those who believe (to be) the Jews and those who are polytheists, and you will certainly find the nearest in friendship to those who believe (to be) those who say: We are Christians; this is because there are priests and monks among them and because they do not behave proudly. Quran 5:82

[ramana]

X-post....



Singh Warns Obama: Pakistan is Lost India Gets Ready for a Taliban-Ruled Nuclear Neighbor

“Pakistan has already imploded. You are ten minutes behind history," was the ominous message Indian prime minister Manmoham Singh gave US President Barack Obama in a long telephone conversation earlier this month, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's exclusive sources in New Delhi.

He went on to say: "You don't see it now because of the dust clouds thrown up by the collapse, but when they disperse, you'll see the full scale of the calamity.”

And that was not all. "The nuclear weapons and the missiles are already partly in the hands of the Muslim extremists," said the Indian prime minister in that conversation. "There is no longer any way to prevent them from taking control.”

In a surprising apparent non sequitur, Singh added: "We see the situation (of Pakistan's nuclear weapons) with the same clarity as Israel does."

The Indian prime minister referred to two locations as keys to Pakistan's nuclear and missile arsenals – both in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP): Kohat and the Wah Cantonment Pakistani Ordnance Complex in the city of Kamra.

See attached
map
(http://www.debka-net-weekly.com/pics/pa ... uclear.jpg)

Singh's reference to these top-secret places when he talked with Obama is explained by their strategic locations, DEBKA-Net-Weekly adds.

Dominated by mountains and hills, Kohat is the capital of the district of that name, made important by a Pakistani air base, airport, and the military road opened in 1901 linking it through the Kohat Pass to Peshawar, 60 kilometers to the north.

Kohat also has good highways to the capital Islamabad, Bannu, Waziristan in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Baluchistan, Karachi and Sindh. It is about 50 kilometers from the Afghan border.



Taliban is encroaching on both nuclear sites



Kamra is roughly 180 kilometers northeast of Kohat air base. It is home to the Pakistani Wah Cantonment Ordnance Complex, which consists of three armament facilities in Wah (Pakistan Ordnance Factories - POF), Kamra (Air Weapon Complex - AWC), and Taxilia (Heavy Industries Taxila -HIT).

This complex is associated with the storage and assembly of nuclear weapons and components, especially those at the "screwdriver level," and the modification of aircraft and missiles for nuclear attacks.

The Air Weapon Complex at Kamra houses air-to-surface missiles and is probably the site of the development and storage of nuclear warheads.

Pakistan's two nuclear sites are situated in the same rugged, mountainous northwest as the suspected hideouts of al Qaeda's top leaders including Osama bin Laden, whence they are running their global operations. Both al Qaeda and Taliban maintain heavy concentrations of fighters in this forbidding region.

According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources, Kohat and the Kamra region are in much more dangerous straits than the Swat Valley and Buner Province on which US and Western attention has been focused.



If Kohat falls, Islamabad is cut off from its nuclear arsenal



Taliban controls key sections of Kohat town and the roads connecting it to Kamra. The Pakistani air base is under intermittent siege, depending on ad hoc agreements between the base commanders and local Taliban chiefs. The siege tightened earlier this month after a Pakistani military helicopter exploded "in suspicious circumstances" during takeoff from the air base, killing all the officers trained in special anti-Taliban combat aboard.

Our military sources stress that if Kohat falls completely to the Taliban, Islamabad and the Pakistani high command will be cut off from Kamra and its nuclear arsenal.

According to Indian intelligence reports cited by prime minister Singh to President Obama, some Pakistani officers of the units guarding the Wah complex are in daily communication with Taliban chiefs in an effort to keep them at bay. But those ties may be ambivalent. Indian agents find it hard to determine where their loyalties lie. More and more Pakistani officers on duty in both nuclear locations, Kohat and Kamra, are to be seen openly hobnobbing with Taliban adherents.

Indian intelligence analysts cannot therefore say for certain who they will obey if ordered by Islamabad to transport the nuclear arsenal out of the endangered towns – headquarters in Islamabad or their local Taliban friends. In any case, they calculate that evacuation of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and missiles to safety from the semi-besieged towns is no longer possible. The Americans, they say, have missed the boat, thereby contradicting the assurance of its safety given by the US Central Command chief, Gen. David Petraeus just a week ago.



India prepares for a hostile neighbor



The predicament outlined by the Indian prime minister in northwest Pakistan is doubly troubling for Washington. Most of all, the danger of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Taliban and by extension, al Qaeda, looms ominously close. But the US is also loath to see India going its own way and working on the assumption that the Pakistan government has already fallen and Taliban is in control of the Pakistani state and military.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources see India preparing to deal with a fellow-nuclear neighbor ruled by a hostile entity. On May 5, the Indian Army’s Strike Corps conducted a three-day exercise, called “Hind Shakti” in the plains of Punjab, using tanks and other heavy equipment, to counter enemy incursions as well as a possible "nuclear-biological-chemical warfare environment."

Watched by the Indian Army Chief Gen. Deepak Kapoor and GOC-in-C Western Command Lt. Gen. T.K. Sapru, the Kharga Corps exercise included a mechanized and reorganized Plains Infantry Division, which drilled a blitzkrieg-type armored incursion focusing on the rapid penetration of enemy territory.

Aircraft and artillery support were also part of the exercise.

India is clearly going through its military paces ready for operating inside a Pakistan ruled by the Taliban.

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• Can we have people look at local press news stories about Kamar and Kohat to confirm the Pakiban advance?
• Also while we concentrate on jihadi outlook of TSPA we forget that its Fizzleya that has had jihadis at the helm. One of its Chiefs was suspected to have been killed in plane crash as a result of the 911 investigations. And dont forget its was FizzleYa officer who was room-mate of the 911 hijacker Mohd. Atta. My CT is all those 911 hijackers were FizzleYa trained if not personnel on fake passports from ISI.
  So its most likely that they too are in contact with the Pakiban as per above report.

[shravan]

Editorial: Unforgivable!
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 2009_pg3_1
Wednesday, June 03, 2009

This is the first grievous consequence of a system of condominium (joint rule) in the FR areas of the NWFP. Since long, Bannu and Kohat are being ruled jointly by the government — or whatever is left of it — and the various warlords of the Taliban. Hangu is another place where the administration belongs to the NWFP government but sovereignty and power rest with the Taliban groups hovering near the city limits. There are “influential” persons in these areas that arrange “communication” between the two sides but are actually conduits of the terrorists for passing on their orders. One such “influential” person of Kohat was present as a go-between when the Lal Masjid operation was undertaken in Islamabad in 2007.
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Clearly, the local administration failed to take into account the new developments in the FATA configuration of Taliban power after the decision by Islamabad to extend military operations to South Waziristan. It ignored the fact that the college principal had ruled “teaching” too dangerous, clearly indicating lack of trust in the “arrangement’ with Gul Bahadur. It knew that the three above-mentioned warlords had decided to bury their hatchets and come together to face up to the emerging situation. Non-application of this knowledge to actual strategy came from the conditions of condominium prevailing in a region that contains cantonments and an air force base in Kohat. The Taliban, despite “arrangements” with cooperative bureaucrats, have regularly burnt schools in the region and kidnapped people for money, and targeted the Shia community.

[ramana]

Thanks Shravan.

Meanwhile

57 PAF men arrested for having contacts with terrorists

57 PAF men arrested
for having contacts
with terrorists
ISLAMABAD: 57 men of Pakistan Air Force (PAF) ranging from Chief technicians to senior officers were arrested over their contact with terrorists and involvement in anti state activities.
According to media reports, the arrests were made during last 1 and half to two years after inquiry process.

Sources further told that 6 officials were sentenced to death including Khalid Mehmood, Senior Technician Karam Din, Technician Nawazish, Niaz and Nasrullah, while 24 were arrested and dismissed for opposing policies of the then President Musharraf and government policies. The PAF men who were found involved in having contacts with terrorists were given strict punishments and vigorous imprisonment. According to the channel 26 PAF men were court martial for their involvement in terrorism.
According to reports, the arrested were working in airbases included Pakistan Aeronautical Complex Kamra, Minhas Airbase, Sargodha Airbase, Lahore Airbase, Faisal Airbase and Mianwali Airbase.

Sources further told that Chief Technicians were among in the arrested staff in a great number. Senior Tech Liaqat Ali whose service tenure was 17 years 15 days and commissioned at Pakistan Aeronautical Complex Kamra was sentenced to one year Vigorous imprisonment and jailed for 2 years. Jahangir Khan Working as Senior Tech in Air base Lahore whose service was11 years 3 month was imprisoned for 2 years. Senior tech Mohd Idrees was arrested from Air Base Sargodha whose service tenure was 11 years and 3 months was imprisoned for four months and sentence to Vigorous imprisonment for 5 years. These arrested officials had contacts with Baitullah Mehsud and other banned outfits of the country.—Online

But are those names of Mehsud tribes or Pathans? I think its more important to find the names of other banned orgs these people had contacts with.

But definitely Pakibanization of FizzleYa is going on at lower levels.

Quite complex picture is developing.

[shravan]

Saturday, April 18, 2009
Militant HQ blown up in Kohat

LAHORE: Security forces blew up a militant headquarters in Jarma area of Kohat, a private TV channel reported. According to the channel, the police said the militants were planning attacks on police installations, armed robberies and kidnappings. Separately, the security forces and the police also raided a seminary in Kharmatu area and arrested three suspects for allegedly assisting the| kidnappers of three OGDCL employees on Thursday. daily times monitor

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Sunday, May 10, 2009
‘Terrorists’ nabbed in Kohat

KOHAT: Police nabbed two suspected terrorists from Dartapi and Kharmatoo villages of Kohat district, police sources said. The sources said a team raided the house of Abdur Raheem, a member of a defunct organisation, and seized a government-owned vehicle. They said the vehicle was being used by officials of the Oil and Gas Development Corporation who were abducted on April 16. Raheem is said to be involved in the kidnapping. In another raid, the police seized three explosive devices with two detonators, a four-feet-long detonating cord and a 30-bore pistol along with bullets from the house of Muhammad Zahir Shah. The police arrested Shah and seized the explosives. app

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Tuesday, May 26, 2009
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 2009_pg7_7
3 policemen killed in Kohat

LAHORE: Unidentified armed men killed three policemen in Kohat, police said on Monday. According to a private TV channel, the men opened fire on a police van in Shaidpur area of the city, killing an assistant sub-inspector and two constables. An intense exchange of fire took place between the police and the men before they managed to escape, the channel added. daily times monitor

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Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Three killed in Kohat bomb blast
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 2009_pg1_3

PESHAWAR: At least two people were killed and 18 others wounded in a bomb blast at a bus station in Kohat’s Tirah bazaar, police said. Senior police official Ehsanullah Khan said that the explosive device was hidden in a sack and was detonated by remote control. A doctor at the main district hospital said two dead bodies had been brought in after the blast. The condition of three of the wounded was critical, police officials said, saying the death toll could rise. agencies

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Saturday, June 06, 2009
Explosives seized from truck bound for Kohat

MUZAFFARGARH: Police on Friday claimed to have arrested two men for carrying explosives in a Kohat-bound mini-truck. Deputy Superintendent of Police Mehr Javed Iqbal said a private company’s truck (FDZ-9911), loaded with around 40kg of explosives, was bound for Kohat when it was stopped at Khanpur Bagga Sher. During initial interrogation, the men told the police that the company supplied dynamite to the Pakistan Army and the Oil and Gas Development Company to carry out projects in the mountainous areas. The DSP said the company would be contacted for verification. app

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Sunday, June 07, 2009

4 terrorists held in Lahore, Kohat

LAHORE: Security forces on Saturday claimed to have arrested four terrorists.Abdul Qadir (40) was arrested during a police raid in Badami Bagh, APP reported. Hafiz Adnan and Ejaz were arrested from Johar town, a private TV channel reported. Security forces arrested would be suicide bomber from Kohat Cantt and recovered explosive material from his possession, Online reported. agencies

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Friday, June 12, 2009
29 Taliban held from Nowshera and Kohat

Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies arrested a trainer of suicide bombers from Kohat bypass road and took him to an undisclosed location for interrogation while 25 trained terrorists were also arrested in a search operation in Dera Bandai area of Kohat, the sources said. online

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Sunday, June 14, 2009
Roadside bomb kills 2 in Kohat
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 2009_pg7_4

PESHAWAR: A roadside bomb targeting a police vehicle in Kohat on Saturday killed two people and wounded six others, police said.

The bombing took place in the Kohat garrison.

“A policeman and a civilian were killed in an improvised explosive device blast and six others, five policemen and one civilian, were injured,” Kohat police chief Dilawar Khan Bangash told AFP.

Nobody claimed the responsibility for the attack. afp

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[ramana]

Ok so what happeening in Kamra?

[shravan]

Tuesday, May 05, 2009
‘Pak nuke projects expanding’
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/print.asp? ... 009_pg1_14

Tuesday, May 05, 2009
‘Pak nuke projects expanding’

LAHORE: Pakistan continues to expand its nuclear facilities despite growing international concerns, US experts and former officials say. According to the Guardian, David Albright, previously a weapons inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has said commercial satellite photos show two plutonium-producing reactors nearing completion at Khushab. “In the current climate, with Pakistan’s leadership under duress from daily acts of violence by insurgent Taliban forces and organised political opposition, the security of any nuclear material produced in these reactors is in question,” Albright has said in a report issued by the independent Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. Albright warned of a potential nuclear arms race with India. Another threat to nuclear security, he said, arose from territorial advances by indigenous Taliban. Besides the Khushab reactors, the report alleges, the Gadwal uranium enrichment plant is a vulnerable sit considering a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Kamra complex in December 2007. John Bolton, a hawkish former senior official in the Bush administration, said this weekend: “There is a tangible risk that several weapons could slip out of military control. Such weapons could then find their way to Al Qaeda or other terrorists, with obvious global implications.” Ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani dismissed the warnings as hyperbolic. daily times monitor

[SSridhar]

57 PAF men arrested for having contacts with terrorists

But are those names of Mehsud tribes or Pathans? I think its more important to find the names of other banned orgs these people had contacts with.

But definitely Pakibanization of FizzleYa is going on at lower levels.

Quite complex picture is developing.

Ramana, these arrests have been made over a long period of time (may be even longer than the 2 year period that the report itself mentions). Ever since the April, 2002 assassination attempt on Gen. Musharraf, the lower-level PAF officers have been caught in large numbers for attempted coup and/or assassination plans. Here are some details I have tracked:

• Feb. 20,2003 PAF Chief Air Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir was killed in a mysterious crash on his way from Chaklala airbase in Rawalpindi to Kohat airbase, widely believed to be a sabotage.
• Apr. 2003 Gen. Musharraf survives an assassination attempt when an explosives-laden van failed to detonate. Three extremists were given 10 Year RI.
• Dec.14,2003 Gen. Musharraf survives a suicide attempt. One low-ranking army soldier was given death sentence. More Army and Air Force officers have also been detained.
• Dec.25,2003 Gen. Musharraf survived another attempt when two suicide bombers rammed their cars on the General's motorcade killing 17. This plot involved jihadis, PAF, Army, ISI and the police. The two suicide bombers were later identified as belonging to JeM and HuJI. They were later given death sentences and executed.
• Several PAF officers and men were taken into custody for an alleged assassination attempt at Gen. Musharraf by using rocket launchers.

[shravan]

57 PAF men arrested for having contacts with terrorists

the arrests were made during last 1 and half to two years after inquiry process.

I think they were arrested 3 years back.

Attack on Musharraf: petition withdrawn
http://www.dawn.com/2006/03/16/top17.htm
March 16, 2006
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He was convicted for inciting six junior officers of the Pakistan Air Force, including Chief Technician Khalid Mehmood, Senior Technician Karam Din, Corporal Technician Nawazish Ali, Junior Tehnicians Niaz Mohammad, Adnan Rasheed and Nasrullah. Karam Din and Nasrullah were jailed for life and the remaining four, were sentenced to death.

[ramana]

So what interests are served for TSPA to reveal all these (old hat) in times of Pakiban stress? To me it looks like the PAF is the TSPA target. They are being painted as a jihadi force. Why? Are they getting the drones for control?

[shravan]

• Feb. 20,2003 PAF Chief Air Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir was killed in a mysterious crash on his way from Chaklala airbase in Rawalpindi to Kohat airbase, widely believed to be a sabotage.

http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullst ... wsid=19699

The crash in the Kohat area had claimed 17 lives including that of Chief of Air staff, Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir, his wife and two deputy chiefs of Air staff, Air Vice Marshal Abdul Razzaq and Air Vice Marshal Saleem A Nawaz.

The sources said Mir, who was handpicked by Gen Pervez Musharraf after superseding at least six PAF officers, had lately developed differences with the Pakistani President over the granting of airbase and facilities to FBI in connection with the raids being conducted against al-Qaeda-Taliban remnants in Northwest frontier province.

The inquiry committee, which is still continuing its probe, has not ruled out sabotage as the aircraft was declared fit just before it took-off.

Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed has said he suspected sabotage and asked why so many senior officers were accompanying the Air Chief in the same aircraft.

Mir also did not like FBI's "intervention" in operational matters of PAF in connection with the Air raids against taliban-al-Qaeda remnants hiding on the tribal areas along Pak-afghan border, they said, adding he had even shouted at Musharraf at a meeting of corps commanders in December last year.

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I think after his death they got the F-16's. And this news is not reported in the Pakistani Media.