Pakistani Role in Global Terrorism

[ramana]

I guess the Norweigians have their own business lobby to shut them up.

Meanwhile from Pioneer, 11 June 2008

West ignoring ISI's deadly role

KPS Gill

Despite the experience of the post-9/11 age, Washington continues to view Al Qaeda as the most serious threat to the US. Similarly, Britain's MI5 speaks of as many as 30 'active plots' in the UK, most of which have links back to Al Qaeda in Pakistan. In the process, the real devil -- Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence -- is studiedly ignored

For decades, now, the West has systematically misread what it perceives as 'Islamic' or 'Islamist' terrorism, and despite the experience -- and one would presume, large volumes of intelligence -- of the post-9/11 age, continues to do so. Thus, on the one hand, the US National Intelligence Estimates, 2007, continued to view Al Qaeda as "the most serious threat to the Homeland, as its central leadership continues to plan high-impact plots, while pushing others in extremist communities to mimic its efforts and to supplement its capabilities". Similarly, the UK's MI5 speaks of as many as 30 'active plots' in the country, most of which "have links back to Al Qaeda in Pakistan".

On the other hand, some analysts have reduced the threat, principally, to what one writer describes as a "leaderless jihad", a loose-knit network of terror in the West, inspired by the Al Qaeda brand of Islamist extremism, but operating essentially as independent "bunches of guys", with no direct or necessary contact with any central structure of command. (Overtly Pakistan-controlled Islamist terrorism in theatres such as India and Afghanistan seldom receives significant attention in these analyses).

In all this, there is a studied neglect of the realities of the ground, particularly of the fact that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) -- as an organ of the country's military and political establishment -- has been, and remains, the principal source of the impetus, the infrastructure and the organisational networks of Islamist terrorism across the world. Historically, it is now common knowledge, it was the ISI that created virtually the entire structure of Islamist terrorist groupings behind the global jihad, which has now proliferated in new areas through the agency of various proxies. This includes Al Qaeda, and the entire spectrum of affiliates that continues to operate, with varying degrees of freedom, from Pakistani soil more than six-and-a-half years after 9/11.

At least part of the selective blindness of the West (and, indeed, of much of the world) is because 'Al Qaeda' has begun to mean different things to different people and, in much of the commentary, has become shorthand for a wide range of ideologically sympathetic groups located in Pakistan, many of which continue to receive active state support. Of the numerous cases of arrests, conspiracies and terrorist attacks related to Islamist groupings across the world (which I have documented in some detail in Pakistan: The Footprints of Terror, www.satp.org), connections that are generally attributed to the 'Al Qaeda', have been found, on closer scrutiny, to be more correctly ascribed to a range of other groupings, prominently including Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Harkat-ul Mujahiddeen, Harkat-ul jihad Islami, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and various factions of the Taliban -- everyone of which was a sarkari (state-sponsored) jihadi group in its origins, and most of which (with the exception of the SSP, and, more ambiguously, some of the Taliban factions) continue to receive state patronage in Pakistan.

In the immediate aftermath of Operation Enduring Freedom, when the Afghan infrastructure of Islamist terrorism was uprooted, Indian intelligence sources and various analysts, including this writer, had repeatedly asserted that Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leadership and remnants, and the defeated rump of the Taliban, had all been relocated in Pakistan with the active co-operation and collaboration of the ISI and the Pakistan Army. A perfunctory denial by President Pervez Musharraf was immediately and uncritically seized upon by the West as sufficient 'proof' that this was not the case, despite the overwhelming burden of intelligence and evidence -- significant parts of which were actively suppressed by US agencies. When attacks against US coalition and Afghan forces, increasingly sourced from Pakistani soil, began to draw blood in Afghanistan, these same denials continued to be blindly accepted, or remained sufficient grounds for the Western political leadership to muddle over the Pakistani role.

More recently, these positions have begun to shift subtly -- though their principal thrust remains the same. Western commentators easily concede past Pakistani 'misdemeanours', but are quick to justify their favoured 'allies' in the 'war on terror', on the grounds that the establishment at Islamabad is now, itself, a victim of the same Islamist groups.

It is, of course, the case that some elements of state-initiated terrorism have now turned against their sponsoring state. But this is natural in any association of violent groupings not explicitly and effectively bound by law and a dominant mechanism of legitimate control. The 'implosion of terrorism' in Pakistan is a fact -- as with revolutions, terrorism consumes its own children and, one may add, progenitors. Pakistan has, par excellence, harnessed terrorism as an instrument of state policy for well over two decades. Today, Pakistan is in the grips of a violent 'blowback', what the Italian magazine Limes has described as Il Boomerang Jihadista.

Nevertheless, the fact that the Pakistan establishment continues to use Islamist extremism and terror as a principal instrument of state policy -- despite the disastrous implosion within the country -- is equally inescapable. This is most visibly the case across Pakistan's Afghan and Kashmir borders -- as well as in the substantial infrastructure of support in Pakistan for the terrorists operating in these theatres -- but is equally true of the far more dispersed incidence of Islamist terrorism in Western countries. Despite the internal turmoil they have contributed to, the Islamist fundamentalist and extremist groupings in Pakistan remain a necessary element of the state's instrumentalities of domestic management and external projection -- giving the country leverage far beyond its natural means, in every concentration of Muslim populations across the world. It is Pakistan, through its state agencies, and loosely controlled radical and jihadi affiliates, that continues to propagate Islamist jihad among the Muslim youth across the world, and that offers opportunities for training and absorption into terrorist organisations headquartered on its soil.

The Pakistani establishment's apparent conflict with Al Qaeda and elements of the Taliban is, at worst, tactical and transient -- in the long term, there is an identity of undiluted purpose. Were the Al Qaeda to be completely destroyed at some (improbable) stage in the foreseeable future, Islamist terrorism would continue to thrive on and from Pakistani soil.

The reality is, there is no such thing as Islamist terrorism. To understand the position correctly, we need to recognise that there is only ISI terror that has been dubbed as 'Islamist terror'. What we have, on the ground, is the proliferation of Pakistani terrorism, strategically compounded across new areas of disorder by networks loosely affiliated with their Pakistani sources. If Pakistani state support to so-called Islamist terrorism ended today, it would not be long before the various terrorist groups atrophied and withered away, lacking safe havens, institutional support and training infrastructure, and the vast ideological resources that have been brought to bear on the so-called global jihad. This does not, of course, mean that no Islamist terrorist incident whatsoever would then be possible.

Disaffected 'bunches of guys' may still secure the capacity and will to execute the occasional attack -- but another 9/11 (not to mention the ongoing campaigns in Afghanistan and Jammu & Kashmir) would need at least as much state support as the last one had.

[Tilak]

X-Posted :

US DOD Video : Pakistan Airstrike. [12 June, 2008]

Coalition Forces Repel Militant Attack in Afghanistan

Coalition forces being engaged by anti-Afghan forces in Konar province during a planned exercise with Pakistan, an unmanned aerial system identifying anti-Afghan forces firing at Coalition forces and Coalition forces using close-air support to gain fire superiority until the threat was eliminated.

A0A! A0A! There's a new Drone in Town called the "Warrior".

[enqyoobOLD]

VERY important slip of the tongue: From Karzai's rant threatening to send troops into Pakistan:

The president also taunted the leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Muhammad Omar, calling him a Pakistani, since he has been based in this country since fleeing Afghanistan in 2001.

“And the other fellow, Pakistani Mullah Omar, should know the same,” Mr. Karzai said. “This is a two-way road in this case, and Afghans are good at the two-way-road journey. We will complete the journey and we will get them and we will defeat them. We will avenge all that they have done to Afghanistan for the past so many years.”

“Today’s Afghanistan is not yesterday’s silent Afghanistan,” he warned. “We have a voice, tools and bravery as well.”

I have always maintained that Mullah Omar is a Colonel or higher in the Pakistan Army.

[Vivek_A]

Taliban Commander Is Face of Rising Threat
By CARLOTTA GALL

KABUL, Afghanistan — The attack was little reported at the time. A suicide bombing on March 3 killed two NATO soldiers and two Afghan civilians and wounded 19 others in an American military base.

It was only weeks later, when Taliban militants put out a propaganda DVD, that the implications of the attack became clear. The DVD shows a huge explosion, with shock waves rippling out far beyond the base. As a thick cloud of dust rises, the face of Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, a Taliban commander who presents one of the biggest threats to NATO and United States forces, appears. He taunts his opponents and derides rumors of his demise.

“Now as you see I am still alive,” he says.

The deadly attack was also devastating for what it showed about the persistence of the Afghan insurgency and the way former mujahedeen leaders, like Maulavi Haqqani, combined tactics and forces with Al Qaeda and other foreign terrorist groups.

As a renewed sense of crisis grips the war here, fueled by reports on Monday that Taliban had overrun districts in southern Afghanistan after a huge jailbreak last week, these new networks have given the insurgents a broader pool of recruits and added power and sophistication to their attacks, American military officials say.

The bomber in the March attack, for instance, turned out to be a German citizen of Turkish origin who was trained in Pakistan, according to European officials in Kabul.

The combined terrorist-insurgent networks have flourished from sanctuaries in Pakistan. In a sign of the increasing frustration of the president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, with the challenges to his government, he threatened on Sunday to send Afghan troops into Pakistan to hit militant leaders who have vowed to continue a jihad in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Pakistani forces have been reluctant to move against the Haqqanis. According to European officials and one senior Pakistani official, Maulavi Haqqani has maintained his old links with Pakistani intelligence and still enjoys their protection.

Asked in 2006 why the Pakistani military did not move against Maulavi Haqqani, a senior Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that it was because he was a Pakistani asset.

Maulavi Haqqani has by now become so powerful in his redoubt that a Western military official who has worked in both Pakistan and Afghanistan said the problem of going after him was that the Pakistani military was not capable of taking him on and feared failure if it tried.

Pakistani forces accompanied by Americans raided a mosque owned by Maulavi Haqqani while searching for him in North Waziristan in 2002, but since then he has been largely left alone.

One Western military official said there was an unspoken agreement between Pakistani and American officials that United States Predator drones would generally be used in the tribal areas against foreign Qaeda members, rather than Pakistani or Afghan targets, like the Haqqanis.

As Maulavi Haqqani has aged, his son has increasingly taken over military operations from his father and, according to the United States military, has expanded his father’s connections with foreign financing and fighters.

[SSridhar]

Europeans trained in Pakistan terror camps planning attacks

Dozens of white Europeans, trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan's tribal belt, have been dispatched to plan attacks against Europe and possibly the US in what the American intelligence fears may be beginning of a new breed of al-Qaeda-affiliated terror, a media report said.

The terrorists, ABC News said quoting intelligence sources, hail from the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Romania and Estonia.

There is growing evidence that some European recruits may have already gone operational, the television network said, adding that two of the suspects arrested in a September 2007 plot to kill American soldiers in Germany were native Germans.

An April 2008 report from Europol also noted that an increasing number of European nationals attended training in Pakistan "and were later involved in, or suspected of, terrorist offences in the EU," the report said.

[Amber G.]

Todays NY times has a long article about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's Interrogation by CIA etc...
FWIW and without comments the link:

Inside a 9/11 Mastermind’s Interrogation

[Rangudu]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/ju ... stan/print

Pakistan troops 'aid Taliban'
New classified US documents reveal that mass infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan insurgents is helping latest offensive


Peter Beaumont and Mark Townsend

The Observer, Sunday June 22, 2008

The Pakistani Frontier Corps has been heavily infiltrated and influenced by Taliban militants, sometimes joining in attacks on coalition forces, according to classified US 'after-action' reports compiled following clashes on the border.

According to those familiar with the material, regarded as deeply sensitive by the Pentagon in view of America's fragile relationship with Pakistan, there are 'box loads' of such reports at US bases along the length of the Pakistan-Afghan border. Details of the level of infiltration emerged yesterday on a day when five more US-led soldiers were killed in southern Afghanistan. Four of the soldiers died in a bomb and gunfire attack outside the southern city of Kandahar.

Nato officials have reported a dramatic increase in cross-border incidents compared with the same period last year. The US documents describe the direct involvement of Frontier Corps troops in attacks on the Afghan National Army and coalition forces, and also detail attacks launched so close to Frontier Corps outposts that Pakistani co-operation with the Taliban is assumed.

'The reality,' said a source familiar with the situation on the ground, 'is that there are units so opposed to what the coalition is doing and so friendly to the other side that when the opportunity comes up they will fire on Afghan and coalition troops. And this is not random. It can be exceptionally well co-ordinated.'

Another source - who has seen the reporting - described an attack last year where two Frontier Corps outposts appear to have been directly involved in firing on Afghan forces before a militant attack.

Frontier Corps personnel have in the past been implicated in the past in murdering US and Afghan officers. In the most high-profile case, a Frontier Corps member 'assassinated' Major Larry J Bauguess during a border mediation meeting. In another incident, an Afghan officer was killed. Since then the problem appears to have worsened as the Taliban renew their insurgency on the Afghan side of the border.

'The United States and Nato have substantial information on this problem,' said an American official. 'It's taking place at a variety of places along the border with the Frontier Corps giving direct and indirect assistance. I'm not saying it is everyone. There are some parts that have been quite helpful... but if you have seen the after-action reports of their involvement in attacks along the Afghan border you would appreciate the problem.'

James Appathurai, a Nato spokesman, said: 'The real concern is that the extremists in Pakistan are getting safe havens to rest, recuperate and retool in Pakistan and come across the border. The concerns have been conveyed to the Pakistan authorities.'

Seth Jones, author of the Rand report, which found evidence of collaboration, said the issue had been troubling the US even before the invasion of Afghanistan: 'If you go back a decade to the Clinton administration when the US targeted militant camps, members of the Pakistani intelligence services were killed along with militants.'

The allegation that senior Pakistani officials continue to offer lukewarm assistance to the coalition while offering help to the Taliban is also reiterated in Descent into Chaos, a new book by the veteran Pakistani author Ahmed Rashid.

Relations between the US and Pakistan were strained this month when 11 members of the Frontier Corps were killed when the US allegedly bombed their outpost near the border town of Gora Prai during a gun battle with militants on the border. Pakistani sources have questioned why the troops were hiding in a bunker in the midst of the battle and why they were 'unaware' of an hour-long firefight going on so close by.

The issue of the Taliban's ability to cross and recross the border with Pakistan into that country's Federally Administered Tribal Areas is becoming one of the most contentious issues of the war, with many - including Afghan President Hamid Karzai - insisting that his country is involved in a 'regional conflict' and threatening to send troops across the border.

The death of the five soldiers yesterday came as the Taliban stepped up their offensive. It happened a day after two other US-led soldiers died in separate incidents, including a suicide bombing.

[Singha]

ya ya so what are they going to do about it? demolishing a FC post or two every
month is not going to scare anyone in that region. its part and parcel of life there to
join in a gunbattle every week over water, women, goats or just because there's nothing
else to do.

rawalpindi elites are far above the local mayhem and continue to make $$ on every
front - direct baksheesh, supply contracts to Afghan, stealing american gear like
helicopter engines for Hu,....

methinks baksheesh can be severely curtailed for starters and all arms deals put in
cold storage. this is something even a lame duck admin should be able to do.

[Rangudu]

http://www.chowk.com/articles/14202

Another Lal Masjid in the Making?

Ahmad Bilal June 8, 2008

In April, I had to make an emergency trip to Pakistan due to declining health of my father. Since my last couple of trips had been very short, this was after more than two years that I was visiting Pakistan for four weeks, most of them to be spent in my hometown of Bahawalpur. When I had visited backin 2005, it was a visit after 4 years, so new roads and cell phones in every hand looked quite fresh. This time, at least on the surface, little seemed to have changed since my last trip. On my way home from the airport, it looked like the same old desert town of Bahawalpur. The date palms, the early summer heat, the dust and the desert wind were all too familiar.

As the car stopped at the main gate of my parents’ house, a poster pasted on the gate caught my attention. The title of the poster was “Azmat-e-Quran Conference”. And the key speaker was going to be someone named Masood Azhar. Why did the name sound familiar? I thought about it for a moment, but then as the car moved in, the happy feeling of meeting my parents again overwhelmed me and I quite forgot about it all. The next few days were spent making courtesy calls and getting over the jet lag.

Then came the day when I was fresh again to go out and meet relatives and family friends in the city. As I went out, I saw the same poster pasted all over the city with a lot of white flags hoisted on all major intersections. I wondered what was going on, and the name Masood Azhar clicked with some old memories of watching this man on the news a long time ago. Yes, he was the same Masood Azhar who founded the Jaish-e-Muhammad organization and served time in Indian jails before getting freed through hijacking of an Indian Airlines jet.

Bahawalpur always used to be laid back small town where everyone knew everyone. Masood Azhar was a neighbor of my cousins and used to have a small low profile house which wasn’t even visible from the road. I remember when he was released, the BBC wanted to film his return from the terrace of my cousins’ house, but they refused due to privacy concerns. Since then, we heard little about him in the news or local gossip. In general, the people didn’t give him much credibility.

While I was thinking about the past, my attention was drawn towards the wall chalking around me. Gone were the usual slogans of old times, directing people to visit miraculous witchdoctors for solutions of all their problems. The walls were filled with anti-west hate slogans, with “Al-Jihad Al-Qital” (holy war, bloody battle) written everywhere around the central mosque. This was not the Bahawalpur I knew when I was growing up.

As we got closer to the central mosque, I saw the adjacent ground filled with bearded men in white robes, with more of them reaching the place in buses, chanting the slogans which were written all over the city. A number of men were uniformed, and they had closed the road to facilitate movement of buses into the place. The purpose of the conference was to distribute a new book of Masood Azhar which had supposedly substantiated that the jihad these men thought they were preparing for was actually sanctioned by the verses of Quran, based on their strict politically-motivated interpretation.

We reached the house of our family friends with mixed thoughts. Obviously disturbed by these developments, I asked them what was going on in the city. They said it had been silently going on for a long time. Over the years, Masood Azhar had converted his small house into a multi-floor concrete compound housing 700 armed men, who freely did target practice there. All this was located in a very central part of the city, ironically called Model Town. The police dared not touch these men, and instead of putting pressure on them to stop their activities, the local politicians were actually hiring these men as bodyguards during the elections.

After leaving their house, as we got closer to my cousins’ house, a strange tall building with the same white flags on top was visible from a distance. This was Masood Azhar’s compound. A few blocks away from my cousins’ house, our car got stuck in a crowd of the same bearded men in white robes who flocked outside the compound and watched us suspiciously as we drove through them. For a moment, I felt like a stranger in my own hometown. Everyone at my cousins’ house thought of all this as something normal and didn’t seem to be bothered.

While talking to people about this, I had some interesting conversations with some of the people who were involved in local politics and the internal politics of Islamabad. Their understanding was that Masood Azhar was like Rasheed Ghazi of Lal Masjid. The way they explained it was that ISI gets money channeled through CIA. Some of it goes to fund extremists, some of it goes to eliminate them, and most of it goes in shady bank accounts. The agencies get their money, the US benefits from the instability in the region to maintain military presence here, Musharraf gets to stay in power by showing his performance in war on terror, and the bearded men in white robes think they are doing some great service to religion by dedicating their lives to militancy. So this was a win-win situation for all parties, at the expense of the fabric of Pakistani society.

Although I took their explanation with a grain of salt, I thought a lot of it did make sense. On my way back home, a huge billboard at the heart of the city grabbed my attention. It showed a passenger plane on fire with a slogan on top: Another Victory for Muslims. I had a flight back to the US coming up, and the plane on the billboard resembled the 777 I took to fly to Pakistan. I wondered if the ones behind this billboard actually realized what they were portraying. Beneath the billboard, the cityscape was filled with common Pakistanis going about their everyday struggle for survival

[Gerard]

On my way back home, a huge billboard at the heart of the city grabbed my attention. It showed a passenger plane on fire with a slogan on top: Another Victory for Muslims.

[Singha]

I have always assumed that Azhar bahawalpur compound would get the benefit of a
IAF strike or missile attack in any Indo_pak conflict. its being in middle of town complicates the collateral damage issue, but I think it will be be implemented even then.
he will ofcourse decamp for the hills at the first sign of trouble, but seeing his palace
in rubble would be a good moral victory.

[Sanjay M]

Canadian 'bomb plotter' on trial

A Canadian software developer was part of a plan to detonate a 600kg bomb which would have caused "massive" loss of life, a court has been told.

Momin Khawaja, 29, designed a remote bomb detonator which he called the "hi-fi digimonster", prosecutors in the Canadian capital Ottawa have alleged.

[Sanjay M]

$2 billion in U.S. aid to Pakistan questioned
Overall, the U.S. has paid more than $5 billion to reimburse the country for counter-terrorism expenses, a GAO report says.

The GAO also documented apparent overcharges for meals and vehicle maintenance. During one period, the Defense Department was paying the Pakistani navy more than $3.7 million per year in repair and maintenance charges on "a fleet of fewer than 20 passenger vehicles" that was never used in combat. The charges amounted to more than $19,000 per month for each vehicle.

Pakistan sometimes seemed to be double-dipping, submitting separate charges for "vehicle damage" and "cost of vehicles repaired" without explaining the difference between the two categories.

[Rangudu]

http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/449857

Pakistan's army trains Taliban: ex-guerilla

TheStar.com - World - Pakistan's army trains Taliban: ex-guerilla

Bomb-making training offered to Taliban in Pakistani army barracks, former Taliban fighter asserts

June 26, 2008
THE CANADIAN PRESS

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – A former Taliban fighter has provided a gripping first-hand account of being secretly trained by members of the Pakistani military, paid $500 a month and ordered to kill foreigners in Afghanistan.

Mullah Mohammed Zaher offered a vivid description of a bomb-making apprenticeship at a Pakistani army compound where he says he learned to blow up NATO convoys.

He's one of three former Taliban fighters introduced to The Canadian Press by an Afghan government agency that works at getting rebels to renounce the insurgency.

Zaher insists he was neither forced to go public with his story nor coached by Afghan officials, whose routine response to terrorism on their soil is to blame neighbouring Pakistan.

Pakistan officially sides with the West against the insurgents and vigorously denies mounting accusations that it is a two-faced participant in the war on terror.

A report produced for the Pentagon and released this month by the Rand Corp., a U.S. think-tank, claims individuals in the Pakistani government are involved in helping the insurgents.

An illiterate, career warrior, Zaher has not seen the 177-page report. But he made a series of claims in a 90-minute interview that supported its broad conclusions – and offered a deluge of new details.

He described how men in khaki army fatigues housed, fed, paid and finally threatened insurgents into carrying out attacks on foreign troops.

Perhaps most startling of all was his description of the repeated warning from Pakistani soldiers about where trainees would be sent if they refused to fight: Guantanamo Bay.

He said there was an inside joke among insurgents whenever the Pakistanis turned over a high-profile rebel to the Americans for detention at the U.S.-run prison camp in Cuba.

"Whenever we heard on the news that Pakistan caught a Taliban commander, we used to say: `He stopped obeying them'," Zaher said through a Pashto-language interpreter.

Two other former insurgents interviewed by The Canadian Press said they were aware of colleagues being trained in Pakistan, but said such fighters were part of an elite minority.

Mullah Janan said he heard that some of his Taliban comrades had received training in Pakistan, with many more receiving shelter or medical treatment across the border.

When infighting broke out between Taliban factions, Janan said, mediators from Pakistan even came across the border to help settle the dispute.

Zaher said he was among the elite.

He said he arrived in 2003 for his first of several training sessions at a walled military compound in the Nawakilli area outside Quetta, Pakistan.

He said he was greeted warmly by men in military fatigues, introduced to his fellow trainees and taken to a single-storey white building where for the next 20 days he would eat, sleep and learn the finer points of waging jihad.

On his first day there he quietly sipped tea and gobbled down a hearty meal of chicken curry, and said he was brought to a classroom the next morning.

He said he remembers only the last name of the man in the khaki uniform, Khattak, who presided over the orientation session.

The man told his pupils their homeland had been invaded again by non-Muslims, just as it had been by the Soviets in the 20th century and the British in the 19th.

Zaher said the group was told that the infidels had been stopped before and they must be stopped again.

"You are supposed to get good training here – and you are supposed to go and kill them there," Zaher recalled being told.

"We have to kick their asses out of Afghanistan and send them back to their own country ... We have to fix mines for them, destroy them and get them out of Afghanistan."

Zaher said he learned to produce a variety of explosives. They ranged from a crude bomb with wiring and fertilizer stuffed into a plastic jug, to more sophisticated remote-contolled devices.

"I can even make a bomb by buying stuff at the bazaar – for $10."

Zaher said he attended three sessions at the compound, lasting from 20 days to two months.

A half-dozen trainees would sleep on the floor in a common dormitory in the single-storey white building, he said.

On a typical day, they had breakfast at 10 a.m., lunch at 2 p.m., and spent every other waking hour learning how to kill foreigners.

Zaher said he doesn't know how many soldiers died from the bombs he planted on roads in Zhari, Panjwaii, Khakrez and Maywand districts of Kandahar province. And he said he has no idea whether the vehicles he blew up were Canadian, American or British.

He showed no remorse.

On the contrary, his dark eyes softened, his smile sparkled and his nasally voice quivered with excitement as he listed the places where he had ended enemies' lives.

"Sure, I've killed many foreigners," he said. "I was very happy when I killed people. That was supposed to be my task – and it made me very happy."

Zaher said he doesn't know much about Canada except that it's a foreign country.

The Canadian military began moving operations from Kabul to Kandahar in August 2005, initially establishing a provincial reconstruction team. By February 2006, some 2,000 Canadian troops had arrived and taken charge of security in Kandahar province.

Zaher said he left the insurgency about two-and-a-half years ago – around the time the Canadians entered Kandahar in force.

He wanted to come back home.

Upon being offered amnesty under the Afghan government's reconciliation program, he crammed his family and a few possessions into their Mazda minivan, rolled out of Pakistan in the middle of the night and moved into Kandahar city's District Six.

Zaher has since trimmed his once-bountiful beard and turfed his turban in favour of a white skull cap.

But he eagerly showed off old pictures of himself holding rocket launchers, AK-47 assault rifles and dressed in trademark Taliban garb.

Zaher said he was a district commander outside the capital under the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan. After the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-led forces in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, he returned to Kandahar and struggled to adapt to the changed life.

He said he grew tired of being harassed, threatened and extorted by corrupt officials in the new Afghan government.

Like many of his friends, he fled to Pakistan in 2003.

Almost immediately upon arriving in Quetta, he said he received phone calls from his old allies offering him a lucrative opportunity to work with the Pakistanis.

He called them generous employers.

They gave him a motorbike and later upgraded it to the minivan. He said he lived in a rent-free house in Quetta big enough to accommodate him, his wife and their 10 children.

And he said he could ask anytime for an advance of up to three months on his salary.

Because he was illiterate, Zaher said the soldier who handed over the cash accepted an ink thumbprint as proof of payment.

But the generosity came with strings attached.

He was expected to spend about half the year fighting in Afghanistan.

If he wanted to see his family in Pakistan, he had to find someone to replace him in Afghanistan. It was like shift work. "He would come from Pakistan, replace me, and I would go home to Quetta. It was very important for me to find a replacement."

There was another catch.

Each time he received his payment, and every time he went for training, soldiers would remind him about what happened to trainees who refused to fight in Afghanistan.

"`If you don't go there, you will go to Guantanamo'," Zaher said.

"People who were saying they didn't want to do the training ... they were sent to Guantanamo. They were accused of being Talibs and they're getting punished over there."

The Pakistani government has strongly denied allegations that hardline Islamist factions within its security forces have been helping the Taliban.

How could the army possibly be aiding the insurgency, Pakistani officials argue, when pro-Taliban rebels have killed far more soldiers from Pakistan than any other country?

The Rand Corp. report offered several possible reasons why certain elements in the Pakistani government would support the Taliban.

Islamic militancy is only one of those factors, wrote Seth Jones, the report's author.

His report said Pakistanis want to continue exerting more influence in Afghanistan than their arch-nemesis, India – an emerging economic superpower that has helped bankroll a number of construction projects including Afghanistan's new parliament building.

Jones suggested some people in Pakistan may want to hedge their bets in Afghanistan in case of a NATO defeat, maintaining close ties to the rebels as a backup plan.

Finally, Jones said they want to keep Pakistan's Pashtun population loyal – an unstable Afghanistan next door will solidify their sense of belonging to Pakistan.

Among former insurgents, Pakistan's involvement is described as a matter of fact.

Mullah Mirza Akhun said he met some of his old friends two months ago when he travelled to Quetta to get medical treatment for his mother.

"I met some Taliban there – and they offered me a job," said the Kandahar resident, a self-described former Taliban commander.

"I was told by some of my friends that the Pakistani government can give you training to destroy Afghanistan."

"But I refused."

[Rangudu]

Hat tip to Vivek A

AP

Pentagon: Taliban a resilient force in Afghanistan

By LOLITA C. BALDOR – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Taliban has regrouped after its initial fall from power in Afghanistan and the pace of its attacks is likely to increase this year, according to a Pentagon report that offers a dim view of progress in the nearly seven-year-old war.

Noting that insurgent violence has climbed, the report said that despite U.S. and coalition efforts to capture and kill key leaders, the Taliban is likely to "maintain or even increase the scope and pace of its terrorist attacks and bombings in 2008."

The Taliban, it said, has "coalesced into a resilient insurgency."

At the same time, the Afghan Army and national police are progressing slowly and still lack the trainers they need.

The report was released Friday along with a separate plan for the development of Afghan security forces. They are the first two comprehensive Pentagon reports to evaluate progress in Afghanistan.

Vast problems — corruption, the illegal poppy trade, human rights abuses and slow progress in reconstruction — were detailed, as well as the struggle to train and equip the Afghan Army and police.

The report described a dual terror threat in Afghanistan that includes the Taliban in the south, and "a more complex, adaptive insurgency" in the east. That fragmented insurgency is made up of groups ranging from al-Qaida and Afghan warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's radical Hezb-i-Islami group to Pakistani militants such as Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Insurgents will continue to challenge the government in southern and eastern Afghanistan, and the may also move to increase their power in the north and west, the report predicted.

The assessment was bluntly pessimistic as it described efforts to train the Army and police.

As of March, it said, just one Army battalion and a headquarters unit could operate independently, while 26 battalions, five brigade headquarters and two corps headquarters units could plan and execute counterinsurgency operations with the support of coalition forces.

In addition, as of the spring, the U.S. had provided only 44 percent of the nearly 2,400 trainers needed for the Afghan Army, and just 39 percent of the mentors for the Afghan police.

Development of the Afghan police is taking longer and has been hindered by "corruption, insufficient U.S. military trainers and advisors, and a lack of unity of effort within the international community," the report noted.

The recent deployment of 1,200 U.S. Marines to serve as trainers for the police has beefed up the totals, but when those troops leave in the fall, the need for 1,400 police mentors will remain.

Overall there are 32,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, including 14,000 serving with the NATO forces and another 18,000 conducting training and counterinsurgency. As of Friday, the Defense Department has confirmed the deaths of 527 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, along with 310 from other coalition members since the start of the war in late 2001.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates referred to the worsening problems in Afghanistan on Thursday, noting that when he traveled to the border area of Khost last year, security was better.

"It actually was not bad until a few months ago," said Gates. "This is a fairly recent phenomenon of seeing the numbers (of insurgents) come across the border. After all, Khost was an example of a successful counterinsurgency."

A key to the deterioration there, he said, has been recent efforts by Pakistan to negotiate peace agreement with tribal leaders along the lawless border. Those talks, he said, took the pressure off insurgent groups and "they've therefore been more free to be able to cross the border and create problems for us."

The report concurs, calling the insurgents' safe havens in Pakistan's tribal areas along the border "the greatest challenge to long-term security" in Afghanistan.

On a positive note, there is a nod to the economic and political gains in Afghanistan — including successful elections and improvements within the ministries of defense, foreign affairs and finance. It also that women are now holding government posts and teaching positions — although it said that challenges remain in eliminating human rights abuses.

In a separate report, also required by Congress and focusing on the U.S. approach to developing Afghan security forces, the Pentagon said the goal is to build a national police force of 82,000. The report said that once an assessment is made of recent reform efforts, there should be a decision on whether even larger numbers are needed.

"However, at this point in time, a lack of U.S. military trainers and mentors available for police mentor teams precludes the acceleration or expansion" of the training program, the report said.

The Afghan national army is scheduled to reach a strength of 70,000 by the end of this year, with an ultimate goal of 80,000 soldiers. The Pentagon's report offered no detailed assessment of the performance of either the police or the army; rather it described the structure of U.S. and international efforts to develop the forces and their importance to the overall goal of rebuilding Afghanistan.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/ ... iptid=4249

Q Sir, Barbara Starr from CNN. Given the fact the Pakistani side of the border impacts the security picture in your area so much, what is your assessment of the safe haven? What is going on, on that side of the border? Are there any -- what's the status of the Pakistani military trying to go after the militants? Or is it a complete safe haven? And what did you mean by the attacks are now then more complex? What are you actually seeing?

GEN. SCHLOESSER: Ma'am, Barbara -- by the way, it's -- I'm from Kansas, so -- you had about four questions there. I'm going to have to write them on down. But I'll do my best to kind of work my way through it.

The first thing, I think -- let me say a little bit about the Pakistani army. As I said, I've been on the other side and talked to most of the 11th Corps commanders, as well as the general headquarters. And I'm convinced that they have tried hard over a period of time to address the lack of stability in the FATA, in the North-West Frontier Provinces. They've -- I'll note that they've lost well over a thousand soldiers over the last couple years in trying to do so.

We are concerned, you know, as they work through some sort of peace agreements in a certain number of these agencies.

Pakistan's clearly a sovereign government. They can do exactly what they want. I would just urge and have urged that whatever agreements that they have are enforceable and verifiable, and that they do result in stopping any kind of movement from the Pakistani side back into the Afghan side of either insurgents or terrorist groups of a variety of natures.

Is it a safe haven in my mind? Yes, it is. I'm -- quite honestly, we track a variety of different groups. We think that -- we call it, in fact, a syndicate of groups. That's not just the Taliban or the Taliban in Pakistan, but groups like LET, Lashkar-e-Taiba; TNSM, Tehreek-Miram-Shariyah Mohammadiyah (sp), a number of groups. People like Baitullah Mehsud have come into that area and tried to take it on over. I believe in my heart of hearts that the Pakistanis are concerned about that, and -- but it's a very difficult area to operate in, and it's a very difficult task.

You also asked, Barbara, about the complexity of the attacks, and that is, in simply military terms, before what you might have seen as an IED with no fire covering it, or an ambush with nothing to stop the convoy and so the convoy could drive right through, what we're seeing now is an IED that stops a convoy, fires on maybe two sides; that try and pin it down or fix the convoy itself; and then as a quick reaction force comes it, an actual IED is then detonated to stop them.

[NRao]

Pakistan launches Taliban offensive

Not in support of Uncle tho'.

However: Rambo rules:



Is that legit helmet? Or stolen from a mumbling Taliban?

[arun]

ISI implicated.

Sayeed Ansari, spokesman for the Afghan intelligence service :

Afghans See Pakistan Role in Karzai Plot

By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA and GRAHAM BOWLEY
Published: June 26, 2008

...... “Based on the investigation of the case and documents we found, as well as confessions by suspects we arrested, they show that the real schemers and organizers of the terrorist attack” on the celebratory parade on April 27 “is the intelligence organization of Pakistan, ISI, and its associates, which committed unforgivable crimes.” .....

Same story, other sources :

Washinton Post : Pakistani Intelligence Accused in Karzai Plot

AFP : Afghan intelligence accuses Pakistan spy agency of Karzai attack

AP : Afghanistan blames Pakistan in Karzai attack

[Rangudu]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/42739.html

Criticism grows as Pakistani military pursues limited offensive
Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: June 30, 2008 07:29:22 PM

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistan's fitful military operation against Islamist extremists pushed into its third day Monday, but there was no sign of overt combat — and growing criticism of the army's failure to crack down on the Taliban and al Qaida, which operate out of the country's lawless tribal belt.

A senior official in the North West Frontier Province, Afrasiab Khattak, said that despite the election of a civilian government in February, the army — with the support of President Pervez Musharraf — continues to dictate Pakistan's policy toward Afghanistan and to use the tribal belt sanctuaries to undermine the U.S.-backed Afghan government.

The military operation has consisted primarily of isolated assaults on buildings used by warlords in Khyber agency in the tribal belt, which have met almost no resistance. The main targets were the compounds of Khyber militant leader Mangal Bagh, whose religious warriors had for months been menacing the outskirts of the provincial capital, Peshawar. The lightly armed Frontier Corps paramilitary was used, rather than the regular army.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said that it would be "premature" to start an offensive in South Waziristan, a part of the tribal zone known for more hard-core militants, as the government still hoped for a peace deal there. "This operation is to clear the suburbs of Peshawar," Abbas said.

Bagh himself was on the other side of Khyber agency, close to the Afghan border in the remote Tirah valley, when troops blew up his home in the town of Bara, which is just outside Peshawar. Whether the military presses on to the Tirah valley will be a key test of its resolve, experts said.

Talat Masood, a retired general turned military analyst, said: "If he (Bagh) is not pursued, then this is a PR exercise, which is very dangerous. It would be a grave mistake if they did not follow through and pursue this group to the Tirah valley and also stop them escaping to Afghanistan. That would just embolden them."

The military also has blown up a series of compounds that Bagh used and an outpost of his enemy, Qazi Mehboob, whom he's battling in a bloody skirmish in the Tirah valley.

On Monday, a building in the Khyber area used by Bagh's close ally Haji Namdar was mysteriously destroyed, killing a reported seven of his fighters. Namdar's men claimed that it was destroyed by a missile strike, possibly from U.S. aircraft coming in from Afghanistan. The Pakistani forces denied involvement. It's possible that explosives stored there simply ignited, however.

The offensive thus far has avoided Pakistan's homegrown Taliban movement, which is holed up along with its Afghan counterparts in other parts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, such as Bajaur and South Waziristan, the home of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of Pakistan's Taliban. From there, they can slip across the border easily to pursue their "holy war" in Afghanistan.

Khattak is a prominent politician and human rights activist who serves as a "peace envoy" for the newly elected government of the North West Frontier Province, and his criticism echoed the United States' concerns.

"Unfortunately, the (Taliban) sanctuaries have not been dismantled. They are still functioning. The Pakistan state has all the power. The problem is that we lack political will," he told McClatchy.

"They (Musharraf and the Pakistan army) want the Afghan government to fail," he said.

A "hangover of the 'strategic depth' policy is still running," he said.

He was referring to the Pakistani army's doctrine calling for a cooperative regime in Kabul to prevent Afghanistan from siding with India in the event of another India-Pakistan war. Islamabad had backed the Taliban government, which held power in Kabul from 1996 until a U.S.-led intervention ousted it in late 2001.

"General Musharraf's policy toward Afghanistan has had a duality. While he claimed to be supporting the broad process, his government tolerated sanctuaries of the fighters. The sanctuaries were in FATA; the fighters were fighting in Afghanistan. That is the root cause of the problem," Khattak said.

Musharraf, the army chief until the end of last year, was supposed to have retreated to a ceremonial role, and the military said it would be subservient to civilian rule. But Khattak, who's a leader of the Awami National Party and heads the North West Frontier Province government's negotiations with militants, said the army was still dominant.

"In the past, the Afghan policy has been led by the (Pakistan) army. ... I have no reason for saying it has been reversed. Actions speak louder than words."

[Rangudu]

http://canadianpress.google.com/article ... qHmy_4TT_Q

Mullah Omar wears shades, has trimmed beard, lives in Pakistan: ex-follower
3 hours ago

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The notorious leader of the Taliban, one of the world's most wanted fugitives, has reportedly had a makeover and been sighted on numerous occasions in Pakistan.

The one-eyed cleric Mullah Omar has significantly changed his appearance since he fled from his native Afghanistan seven years ago, says a former follower. Mullah Mohammed Zaher says he has personally met with the reclusive jihadist several times in Quetta, Pakistan.

He says the Taliban founder has turfed his trademark turban, trimmed his beard and begun wearing sunglasses.

Coupled with the fact that few pictures of him exist, Zaher says it would be difficult to pick Omar out of a crowd.

"He has totally changed his appearance," says Zaher, a self-described Taliban commander under the former regime.

"He does not look like a Talib anymore. He does not even wear a turban."

Zaher says Omar has several safe houses in the Quetta area, and that he has eaten meals with him there more than once in recent years.

"I used to meet him. I have seen his home," Zaher said through a Pashto-language interpreter.

"He used to call us over."

Zaher also lent support to a claim made five years ago by Afghan President Hamid Karzai about what the Taliban founder has been up to.

He says Omar is now a religious imam and has led Friday prayer services at a mosque next to a medical clinic in Quetta's Saleem plaza.

The Afghan president publicly declared in 2003 that his intelligence sources had informed him that Omar was seen praying at that mosque in the bustling plaza.

Despite Karzai's claim, few reports have emerged since then about the fugitive mullah's whereabouts.

"We got a call about 10 days ago from our sources in Quetta that Mullah Omar was seen at a mosque near Saleem complex in the city," Karzai told Newsline.com in December 2003. "I know where the Saleem complex is. I have lived in Quetta myself for many years."

A U.S. intelligence source told CNN in 2006 that American officials believed Omar was in the Quetta area, and that at one point they had his whereabouts pinned down to a precise neighbourhood.

Britain's Independent newspaper reported last year that Omar was being sheltered by Pakistan's intelligence services - a claim the Pakistani government vigorously denied.

But Zaher says it's true.

He says Omar has even spent the night on a military compound in the Nawakilli area near Quetta, where he says he and other militants received bomb-making lessons from members of the Pakistani army.

Zaher escaped to Pakistan after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.

He says he became tired of facing harassment and extortion from corrupt officials in the new Karzai government, and he moved his family to Quetta in 2003.

He says old Taliban friends soon contacted him and put him in touch with Pakistani military officials, who trained him and paid him $500 a month to join the insurgency.

He says he left the insurgency a little over two years ago, and moved back to Kandahar city's District Six.

Zaher says he has not seen or spoken to Omar since then.

When asked how it could be possible that the Americans would still be searching for Omar despite all these supposed sightings, Zaher grows cross.

His voice rising to a near-shout, he lays out a cynical conspiracy theory that appears to be remarkably popular even among ordinary Afghans:

"Nobody wants to catch him!"

A.R. Khan, a Kandahar-based journalist, did additional reporting and provided translation during the interviews.

[Sanjay M]

Didya hear the one about the bus driver, the ski lift operator and the gym rat?

Pakistan: Negligent on Terror?(TIME)

[Gerard]

Musharraf accused of shielding Taliban

President is trying to undermine Afghan government, Pakistani negotiator says

In an interview, Afrasiab Khattak, the "peace envoy" of the government of the insurgency-racked North West Frontier Province, charged that Mr. Musharraf and the army are still dictating policy for the region, and that "they want the Afghan government to fail. A hangover of the 'strategic-depth' policy is still running."

[arun]

X Post.

Pakistan, haven of choice for the world's terrorists :

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Iran cautions Pakistan over Jundullah

Iran’s Prosecutor General urges neighboring Pakistan to take necessary measures to prevent terrorists from taking shelter in the country.

Qorban-Ali Dorri Najaf-Abadi said Tuesday that Tehran has already cautioned Islamabad to take necessary steps to stop Pakistan-based terrorists who operate in Southeastern Iran. ……….

Jundullah, which operates in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan and Pakistan’s Balochistan, has carried out a number of attacks against high profile Iranian targets, especially government and security officials. ………

Dorri Najaf-Abadi said Iran hopes that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and his government would respond to Tehran’s demands.

He added that if such terrorist groups continue to operate in southeastern Iran and inside Pakistan, the region would be destabilized.

When asked if Tehran had contacted Pakistani officials, the prosecutor general said a letter of warning had been sent to Islamabad last week.


(Source: Press TV)
Tehran Times

[SSridhar]

Pakistan, haven of choice for the world's terrorists :

It works both ways. Pakistan is a haven of choice for world's terrorists to go for indoctrination, training etc. And, in turn, Pakistani terrorists spew out all over the world like termites out of the woodwork as the following list shows:

The list is long and broad: India (all over), USA, Britain, Oz, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland, China (Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region), Russia(Chechnya), Uzbekistan (Tashkent, Ferghana valley), Dagestan, Southern Philippines, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Indonesis, Malaysia, Palestine, Maldives, Spain, and Burma (the Arakan).

[Karan Dixit]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States is facing a major dilemma as ally Pakistan grapples with surging militant violence fueled by groups who may also have a hand in Afghanistan's worsening security crisis, experts say.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080709/wl ... 0709022644

[ramana]

He says Omar is now a religious imam and has led Friday prayer services at a mosque next to a medical clinic in Quetta's Saleem plaza.

Can we have google coordinates or better yet a picture of this please?

[Vivek_A]

Conviction of Pakistani in NY subway bomb plot

NEW YORK: A federal appeals court has upheld the conviction and 30-year sentence of a Pakistani man found guilty in an unsuccessful plot to bomb a busy subway station in New York. The Manhattan court decided that Shahwar Matin Siraj, 25, was treated fairly at his federal court trial. A jury found him guilty in a 2004 plot to blow up the Herald Square subway station in a congested shopping district where Macy’s has long had its flagship store. Lawyers for the defendant had argued that a police informant had set up their client. But the government proved Siraj had shown an interest in violent jihad through books and a videotape. ap

[Karan Dixit]

But the government proved Siraj had shown an interest in violent jihad through books and a videotape. ap

Moral of the story:
Pakis should stay away from books and videotape.

[Rangudu]

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/ ... terror.php

"More than 100 terror camps" in operation in northwestern Pakistan

By Bill Roggio

July 11, 2008 9:05 AM


Al Qaeda continues to grow its network and expand its capabilities in northwestern Pakistan, US military and intelligence officials told The Long War Journal. The peace agreements have given the Taliban and al Qaeda time and space to reestablish their networks, which pose a threat not only to Pakistan, but the West as well.

Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and allied terrorists groups, collectively called al Qaeda and allied movements, or AQAM, by some in US military and intelligence circles, has set up a series of camps throughout the tribal areas and in the settled districts of the Northwest Frontier Province. "More than 100" terror camps of varying sizes and types are currently in operation in the region, a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal. As of the summer of 2007, 29 terror camps were known to be operating in North and South Waziristan alone.

Some camps are devoted to training the Taliban's military arm, some train suicide bombers for attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, some focus on training the various Kashmiri terror groups, some train al Qaeda operatives for attacks in the west, and one serves as a training ground the Black Guard, the elite bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. A US Special Forces raid against the Black Guard camp in Danda Saidgai in North Waziristan, Pakistan in March 2006 resulted in the death of Imam Asad and several dozen members of the Black Guard. Asad was the camp commander, a senior Chechen al Qaeda commander, and associate of Shamil Basayev, the Chechen al Qaeda leader killed by Russian security forces in July 2006.

The growth in the number of camps US intelligence officials said Pakistan is outpacing Iraq as the destination for recruits, The New York Times reported earlier this week. Iraq is now seen as a lost cause by jihadists while Pakistan is now seen as al Qaeda's main effort. Recruits from Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East are heading to Pakistan.

Al Qaeda has also reformed Brigade 055, the infamous military arm of the terror group made up of Arab recruits. The unit is thought to be commanded by Shaikh Khalid Habib al Shami. Brigade 055 fought alongside the Taliban against the Northern Alliance and was decimated during the US invasion of Afghanistan. Several other Arab brigades have been formed, some consisting of former members of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guards, an intelligence official told The Long War Journa.

A strike in South Waziristan

The deteriorating situation in Pakistan's tribal agencies is highlighted by the increased incidences of cross border attacks over the past several months. Today, eleven Pakistanis, including nine soldiers, were wounded in an attack launched from Afghanistan into the lawless, Taliban-controlled tribal agency of South Waziristan.

Conflicting reports exist on the nature of the attack, and there is no confirmation on who carried it out. An unnamed Pakistani official told Reuters that "about 60 rounds fell in Angoor Adda," a town near Wana in South Waziristan. BBC reported more than 10 "shells" landed near a military outpost just hundreds of yards from the Afghan border. Xinhua and The News reported that the attack was conducted by US aircraft. The US military has not confirmed conducting an attack, but it rarely confirms such incidents.

The attack inside Pakistan appears to be a response to a Taliban attack on a base in Barmal in Paktika province in Afghanistan, according to several of the reports. In the past, the US military has conducted hot pursuit of Taliban forces as they flee across the border to Pakistan.

Afghan and Coalition forces have fought a series battles with the Taliban along the ill-defined border as Taliban have been attempting to overrun military bases and district centers in the region. US and Afghan forces have killed more than 200 Taliban fighters in the lopsided battles. Many of the Taliban attacks have been launched from inside North and South Waziristan in Pakistan.

The most controversial counterattack into Pakistan occurred as US forces engaged a Taliban force as it retreated from Afghanistan’s Kunar province across the border into Pakistan's Mohmand tribal agency on June 10. The engagement sparked an international incident. The US confirmed it killed eight Taliban fighters, while the Pakistani government said 11 Pakistani paramilitary troops were killed. The Pakistani government expressed outrage over the strike. But the incident has sparked suspicions that the Pakistani paramilitary Frontier Corps either aided the Taliban or were part of the attack force.

The security situation in Pakistan's tribal agencies has spiraled downward since the government negotiated peace agreements with the Taliban in North and South Waziristan in 2006 and throughout early 2007. The agreements gave the Taliban and al Qaeda time and space to consolidate their hold in the tribal areas and in some settled districts of the Northwest Frontier Province. The Taliban renewed their efforts to destabilize the Afghan government and boldly conducted a series of military attacks in Northwestern Pakistan and a deadly suicide campaigns in the major cities.

The new Pakistani government has reinitiated peace negotiations with the Taliban in the northwest. Peace agreements have been signed with the Taliban in North Waziristan, Swat, Dir, Bajaur, Malakand, Mohmand, and Khyber. Negotiations are under way in South Waziristan, Kohat, and Mardan. The Taliban have violated the terms of these agreements in every region where accords have been signed.

[Sanjay M]

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2008/07 ... lized.html

[arun]

The Voldemort of terrorism :

Breaking the silence on Pakistan and terrorism

By Con Coughlin
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 20/07/2008

The biggest threat to the West is not al-Qa'eda, Afghanistan or Iran, but the country that, thanks to its laxity, has become the terrorists' chief hideout and breeding ground.

It's the threat to world peace that dares not speak its name.

We hear plenty about the dangers posed to our security by al-Qa'eda, Afghanistan and Iran. But when it comes to talking about the country that arguably constitutes the greatest threat to our everyday wellbeing, Pakistan hardly ever seems to merit a mention.

This is rather surprising, given that if you talk to any of the military commanders or politicians responsible for prosecuting the war against Islamist terrorism, Pakistan is the country that is almost universally identified as constituting the most serious active threat to our national security.
And it is also seen as the greatest obstacle to our efforts to combat the pernicious threat of jihad by terrorism.

Last week, the subject came up in conversations I had with one of our leading military commanders and a senior politician who is personally involved in the defence of the realm.

About the only response I could evoke from my military acquaintance when I raised the thorny issue of Pakistan was a deep sigh and a shrug of the shoulders. "Ah yes, Pakistan," he said with a world-weary sigh. "A multitude of problems with no obvious solutions."

As for the politician, I was curious as to why the Government seems to have imposed a news blackout on making any statement that might be deemed critical of the Pakistani government. "The fact is, the country is teetering on the precipice of total collapse, and we don't want to be the ones to push it over the edge."

Indeed, the idea of Pakistan replicating the near-anarchy that prevails across the border in Afghanistan is almost too terrifying to contemplate.
While coalition forces have enjoyed much success in eradicating the operational infrastructure of the Taliban and al-Qa'eda in southern Afghanistan, they are deeply frustrated by the fact that the terrorists have simply been allowed to regroup and rebuild across the border in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas.

British military commanders last week told The Sunday Telegraph that the five-fold increase in roadside bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan was the result of the training that Taliban fighters were receiving at religious schools in Pakistan, where they are being taught to make explosives and build improvised explosive devices.

And while al-Qa'eda is not the force it was when it carried out the September 11 attacks, Western intelligence experts believe the core of al-Qa'eda's leadership - possibly including Osama bin Laden himself - is based in the inhospitable mountain ranges of Waziristan in Pakistan, where they continue to plot their diabolical schemes to attack the West.

To this potent Taliban/al-Qa'eda terrorist mix has now been added the new ingredient of Pakistan's home-grown Islamist radicals, which Western security experts call the Pakistani Taliban to distinguish them from their Afghan neighbours.

The Pakistani Taliban is made up of indigenous Muslims who have been radicalised in one of the hundreds of Saudi-funded madrassahs, which openly preach that young Muslims have an obligation to wage Jihad against the infidels of the West.

Nearly all the major terror plots against Britain - both those that succeeded, such as the July 7 bombings, and those that have been foiled by the vigilance of our security services - have been linked in some way to Pakistan.

The emergence of a new, home-grown terrorist organisation in Pakistan has dramatically increased the threat the country poses to Britain.

As if this wasn't enough to give us all sleepless nights, Pakistan is the only Muslim country known to possess a nuclear weapons arsenal.

So long as President Pervez Musharraf remains the country's titular head, the West has some degree of assurance that Pakistan's nukes remain secure for, in his former capacity as the head of Pakistan's armed forces, Musharraf allowed US officials to make sure the necessary safeguards were in place to ensure the nukes did not fall into the wrong hands.

Al-Qa'eda's training manuals make no secret of the fact that the organisation would love to get its hands on a nuclear device, and the only two likely places it could do this are Pakistan and Iran.

Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal, spent the Nineties making a tidy profit from hawking his nuclear-bomb blueprints to some of the world's less stable regimes, and North Korea, Libya and Iran were among some of the more notorious beneficiaries.

Although Dr Khan was placed under house arrest after his activities were exposed by Western intelligence agencies in 2002, Pakistan's new coalition government, bowing to nationalist pressure, has indicated it is prepared to rehabilitate the disgraced nuclear scientist, even though the West is still struggling to come to terms with the consequences of his clandestine nuclear proliferation network.

This is just one of several disturbing developments to emerge from Pakistan since the new coalition government took power earlier this year, in reaction to the West putting pressure on Mr Musharraf to return the country to democratic rule.

At the time, both London and Washington believed that Pakistan having a democratic government would increase its co-operation in fighting terrorism. In fact, the opposite appears to have happened.

The West might have been frustrated by what it perceived as Mr Musharraf's lack of commitment to rooting out terror groups in Waziristan, but at least while he was directly running the country there were sporadic bouts of activity.

But talk to any of the military commanders involved with prosecuting the war against the Taliban and al-Qa'eda, and they will tell you that Pakistani co-operation has virtually ground to a halt since the coalition government took control.

Until now, the West has maintained a discreet silence about its concerns regarding Pakistan's lack of commitment to rooting out Islamist terror cells, hoping that the new government in Islamabad can be persuaded to mend its ways. But the West's mounting frustration is unlikely to be contained for much longer.

Barack Obama, the Democrat presidential nominee, last week became the first leading Western politician to voice his frustration with Islamabad when he declared that he would have no hesitation in ordering American troops to pursue terror suspects across the Pakistani border "if Pakistan cannot or will not act".

The Pakistanis ignore this shot across their bows at their peril.

Telegraph

[Sanjay M]

Here's a video a few months old, which speculates that Benazir was assassinated not by the Musharraf forces, but by the ISI forces who were afraid she would allow US commandos into FATA region:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F1oRcsEJEc

[ramana]

From deccan Chroncile, 24 July 2008

America’s war on terror: The dark side is revealed
By Bob Herbert

You want a scary thought? Imagine a fanatic in the mould of Dick Cheney but without the vice-president’s sense of humour.

In her important new book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, Jane Mayer of the New Yorker devotes a great deal of space to David Addington, Dick Cheney’s main man and the lead architect of the Bush administration’s legal strategy for the so-called war on terror.

She quotes a colleague as saying of Mr Addington: "No one stood to his right." Colin Powell, a veteran of many bruising battles with Mr Cheney, was reported to have summed up Mr Addington as follows: "He doesn’t believe in the Constitution."

Very few voters are aware of Mr Addington’s existence, much less what he stands for. But he was the legal linchpin of the administration’s Marquis de Sade approach to battling terrorism. In the view of Mr Addington and his acolytes, anything and everything that the President authorised in the fight against terror — regardless of what the Constitution or Congress or the Geneva Conventions might say — was all right. That included torture, rendition, warrantless wiretapping, the suspension of habeas corpus, you name it.

This is the mindset that gave us Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and the CIA’s secret prisons, known as "black sites."

Ms Mayer wrote: "The legal doctrine that Addington espoused — that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, had the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries if national security demanded it — rested on a reading of the Constitution that few legal scholars shared."

When the constraints of the law are unlocked by the men and women in suits at the pinnacle of power, terrible things happen in the real world. You end up with detainees being physically and psychologically tormented day after day, month after month, until they beg to be allowed to commit suicide. You have prisoners beaten until they are on the verge of death, or hooked to overhead manacles like something out of the Inquisition, or forced to defecate on themselves, or sexually humiliated, or driven crazy by days on end of sleep deprivation and blinding lights and blaring noises, or water-boarded.

To get a sense of the heights of madness scaled in this anything-goes atmosphere, consider a brainstorming meeting held by military officials at Guantánamo. Ms Mayer said the meeting was called to come up with ways to crack through the resistance of detainees.

"One source of ideas," she wrote, "was the popular television show ‘24.’ On that show as Ms Mayer noted, "torture always worked. It saved America on a weekly basis."

I felt as if I was in Never-Never Land as I read: "In conversation with British human rights lawyer Philippe Sands, the top military lawyer in Guantánamo, Diane Beaver, said quite earnestly that Jack Bauer ‘gave people lots of ideas’ as they sought for interrogation models."

Donald Rumsfeld described the detainees at Guantánamo as "the worst of the worst." A more sober assessment has since been reached by many respected observers. Ms Mayer mentioned a study conducted by attorneys and law students at the Seton Hall University Law School.

"After reviewing 517 of the Guantánamo detainees’ cases in depth," she said, "they concluded that only eight per cent were alleged to have associated with Al Qaeda. Fifty-five per cent were not alleged to have engaged in any hostile act against the United States at all, and the remainder were charged with dubious wrongdoing, including having tried to flee US bombs. The overwhelming majority — all but five per cent — had been captured by non-US players, many of whom were bounty hunters."

The US shamed itself on George W. Bush’s and Dick Cheney’s watch, and David Addington and others like him were willing to manipulate the law like Silly Putty to give them the legal cover they desired. Ms Mayer noted that Arthur Schlesinger Jr, the late historian, believed that "the Bush administration’s extralegal counterterrorism programme presented the most dramatic, sustained and radical challenge to the rule of law in American history."

After reflecting on major breakdowns of law that occurred in prior administrations, including the Watergate disaster, Mr Schlesinger told Ms Mayer: "No position taken has done more damage to the American reputation in the world — ever."Americans still have not come to grips with this disastrous stain on the nation’s soul.

It’s important that the whole truth eventually come out, and as many of the wrongs as possible be rectified.

Ms Mayer, as much as anyone, is doing her part to pull back the curtain on the awful reality. The Dark Side is essential reading for those who think they can stand the truth.

So TSP sent innocent Abduls to uncles camps to appease the 'anger'. Those bounty hunters are TSP/ISI folk. H&D still being protected.

[Neshant]

US was glad Benazir was assasinated.

They did not want a strong leader in Pakistan not under their control. They rather have some karzai type of guy in power.

Look at the way the bogus UK probe into her death was wrapped up in a short period of time (just before the elections) and gave a whitewash of the whole affair.

These folks are as much into terrorism as the taliban terrorists they are fighting.

[arun]

The Pakistani’s are to be complimented for sticking the bill for creating and sustaining the Taliban on the US and NATO. With the frustration levels climbing in Afghanistan, I expect yet a another generous aid package coming Pakistan’s way talk of "International Courage" notwithstanding.

Alternatively the US and NATO are to be castigated for their credulous stupidity .

From Canada's Globe & Mail :

THE AFGHAN MISSION: 'LET'S HAVE SOME INTERNATIONAL COURAGE ON THIS FRONT'

UN envoy backs Karzai against Pakistan

Canadian the first Western diplomat to publicly support Afghan leader's accusation that Islamabad spies are behind recent attacks

GRAEME SMITH
July 28, 2008

KABUL -- Pakistan's intelligence agents are likely responsible for recent attacks in Afghanistan, and the international community should support the Afghan government's complaints about such activity, a senior United Nations envoy says.

Chris Alexander, a former Canadian ambassador now serving as a UN deputy special representative in Afghanistan, says he believes the Afghan authorities, who say their neighbour's spy service is sending terrorists across the border.

President Hamid Karzai has accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency of plotting many spectacular attacks in his country in recent months, including an attempt on his life and an embassy bombing that killed at least 41 people in Kabul.

"We have to ask ourselves, was Karzai right on this point?" Mr. Alexander said in an interview. "I think the answer is yes."

While many foreign officials and analysts have privately endorsed Mr. Karzai's view of the ISI, Mr. Alexander is the first Western diplomat to back the accusation in public.

"If we support him as President of Afghanistan, and we support the cause of peace and security in Afghanistan, we should be prepared to speak lucidly about these issues as well, and not be given pause or forced to back down simply because there's a reaction from someone who, quite frankly, is speaking for the spoilers," Mr. Alexander said.

"Let's have some international courage on this front."

Western diplomats have previously said they tread carefully with Pakistan in part because of the country's fragile politics, its mistrust of foreign pressure and its nuclear arsenal.

When asked how Islamabad might react to blunt accusations of waging a proxy war, Mr. Alexander shrugged. "I'm not sure, but there's only one way to find out. The project on which we're embarked - with its high stakes, with its serious investment, with its sacrifices - deserves at least that level of courage with regard to this issue. Otherwise we really are pretending that Niagara Falls doesn't flow."

Islamabad has consistently denied using intelligence services to interfere with its neighbour, but Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani bowed to international pressure on the weekend by removing the ISI from military control and placing it under the Interior Ministry's civilian supervision.

The head of Pakistan's ruling party said the move was intended to deflect criticism of the spy agency and the announcement was timed to coincide with Mr. Gilani's visit to Washington today for talks with U.S. President George W. Bush.

But the switch to civilian oversight was only a symbolic gesture and could aggravate the chaotic situation in Pakistan as power brokers struggle for control of the spy agency, according to an assessment published yesterday by Strategic Forecasting Inc., a private intelligence firm.

"Increased civilian say over the affairs of the agency will, in the short term, add to the crisis of governance faced by the state," the assessment says.

After years of excusing rumours of Pakistani involvement as being the work of rogue agents or retired intelligence officials acting on their own, Western leaders have become increasingly blunt with Pakistan in private conversations about the ISI's role in the Afghan war.

Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Pakistan this month and confronted his counterparts in a meeting that one diplomat described as stormy. "He lost his temper," the diplomat said.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson, who made a whirlwind visit to Kabul on the weekend, was more measured when a reporter asked him about relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"Canada does have concerns about the insurgency platform, if you like, that is developing and has developed in the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan," Mr. Emerson said.
" ...We believe that ultimately there has to be a collaborative approach to solving the situation between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and look forward to dialogue taking place in the months ahead."

Pakistan's intelligence services are widely believed to have helped create the Taliban in 1994 and to have shepherded the movement toward its takeover of nearly all of Afghanistan. Pakistan formally cut ties with the Taliban in 2001, under U.S. pressure, but rumours of assistance received by Taliban insurgents in the lawless border region have persisted for years.

Mr. Alexander said the message to Pakistan must go beyond pressing the government. Concrete actions should be demanded against the networks of terrorists and insurgents who take shelter in the country's tribal areas, he said.

But assurances must also be given to Pakistan that moving against militants in the border regions will not harm its own national interest, he said, alluding to Pakistan's concerns about India. Members of the military establishment in Pakistan have argued that supporting Islamic militants can give their country a supply of irregular forces if needed against India, and prevent Pakistan from being squeezed on two fronts in the event of war.

[arun]

The CIA / ISI lovefest comming to an end

New York Times :

July 30, 2008

C.I.A. Outlines Pakistan Links With Militants

By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON — A top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled secretly to Islamabad this month to confront Pakistan’s most senior officials with new information about ties between the country’s powerful spy service and militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas, according to American military and intelligence officials.

The C.I.A. emissary presented evidence showing that members of the spy service had deepened their ties with some militant groups that were responsible for a surge of violence in Afghanistan, possibly including the suicide bombing this month of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the officials said.

The decision to confront Pakistan with what the officials described as a new C.I.A. assessment of the spy service’s activities seemed to be the bluntest American warning to Pakistan since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks about the ties between the spy service and Islamic militants.

The C.I.A. assessment specifically points to links between members of the spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and the militant network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, which American officials believe maintains close ties to senior figures of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

The C.I.A. has depended heavily on the ISI for information about militants in Pakistan, despite longstanding concerns about divided loyalties within the Pakistani spy service, which had close relations with the Taliban in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 attacks.

That ISI officers have maintained important ties to anti-American militants has been the subject of previous reports in The New York Times. But the C.I.A. and the Bush administration have generally sought to avoid criticism of Pakistan, which they regard as a crucial ally in the fight against terrorism.

The visit to Pakistan by the C.I.A. official, Stephen R. Kappes, the agency’s deputy director, was described by several American military and intelligence officials in interviews in recent days. Some of those who were interviewed made clear that they welcomed the decision by the C.I.A. to take a harder line toward the ISI’s dealings with militant groups.

Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, is currently in Washington meeting with Bush administration officials. A White House spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, would not say whether President Bush had raised the issue during his meeting on Monday with Mr. Gilani. In an interview broadcast Tuesday on the PBS program “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” Mr. Gilani said he rejected as “not believable” any assertions of ISI’s links to the militants. “We would not allow that,” he said.

The Haqqani network and other militants operating in the tribal areas along the Afghan border are said by American intelligence officials to be responsible for increasingly deadly and complex attacks inside Afghanistan, and to have helped Al Qaeda establish a safe haven in the tribal areas.

Lt. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the acting commander of American forces in Southwest Asia, made an unannounced visit to the tribal areas on Monday, a further reflection of American concern.

The ISI has for decades maintained contacts with various militant groups in the tribal areas and elsewhere, both for gathering intelligence and as proxies to exert influence on neighboring India and Afghanistan. It is unclear whether the C.I.A. officials have concluded that contacts between the ISI and militant groups are blessed at the highest levels of Pakistan’s spy service and military, or are carried out by rogue elements of Pakistan’s security apparatus.

With Pakistan’s new civilian government struggling to assert control over the country’s spy service, there are concerns in Washington that the ISI may become even more powerful than when President Pervez Musharraf controlled the military and the government. Last weekend, Pakistani military and intelligence officials thwarted an attempt by the government in Islamabad to put the ISI more directly under civilian control.

Mr. Kappes made his secret visit to Pakistan on July 12, joining Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for meetings with senior Pakistani civilian and military leaders.

“It was a very pointed message saying, ‘Look, we know there’s a connection, not just with Haqqani but also with other bad guys and ISI, and we think you could do more and we want you to do more about it,’ ” one senior American official said of the message to Pakistan. The official was briefed on the meetings; like others who agreed to talk about it, he spoke on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic delicacy of Mr. Kappes’s message.

The meetings took place days after a suicide bomber attacked the Indian Embassy in Kabul, killing dozens. Afghanistan’s government has publicly accused the ISI of having a hand in the attack, an assertion American officials have not corroborated.

The decision to have Mr. Kappes deliver the message about the spy service was an unusual one, and could be a sign that the relationship between the C.I.A. and the ISI, which has long been marked by mutual suspicion as well as mutual dependence, may be deteriorating.

The trip is reminiscent of a secret visit that the top two American intelligence officials made to Pakistan in January. Those officials — Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, and Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director — sought to press Mr. Musharraf to allow the C.I.A. greater latitude to operate in the tribal territories.

It was the ISI, backed by millions of covert dollars from the C.I.A., that ran arms to guerrillas fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It is now American troops who are dying in Afghanistan, and intelligence officials believe those longstanding ties between Pakistani spies and militants may be part of an effort to destabilize Afghanistan.

Spokesmen for the White House and the C.I.A. declined to comment about the visit by Mr. Kappes or about the agency’s assessment. A spokesman for Admiral Mullen, Capt. John Kirby, declined to comment on the meetings, saying “the chairman desires to keep these meetings private and therefore it would be inappropriate to discuss any details.”

Admiral Mullen and Mr. Kappes met in Islamabad with several high-ranking Pakistani officials. They included Mr. Gilani; Mr. Musharraf; Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the army chief of staff and former ISI director; and Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj, the current ISI director.

One American counterterrorism official said there was no evidence of Pakistan’s government’s direct support of Al Qaeda. He said, however, there were “genuine and longstanding concerns about Pakistan’s ties to the Haqqani network, which of course has links to Al Qaeda.”

American commanders in Afghanistan have in recent months sounded an increasingly shrill alarm about the threat posed by Mr. Haqqani’s network. Earlier this year, American military officials pressed the American ambassador in Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, to get Pakistani troops to strike Haqqani network targets in the tribal areas.

Gen. Dan K. McNeill, the senior NATO commander in Afghanistan until last month, frequently discussed the ISI’s contacts with militant groups with General Kayani, Pakistan’s military chief.

During his visit to the tribal areas on Monday, General Dempsey met with top Pakistani commanders in Miramshah, the capital of North Waziristan, where Pakistan’s 11th Army Corps and Frontier Corps paramilitary force have a headquarters, to discuss the security situation in the region, Pakistani officials said.

North Waziristan, the most lawless of the tribal areas, is a hub of Al Qaeda and other foreign fighters, and the base of operations for the Haqqani network.

On Tuesday, Pakistani security forces raided an abandoned seminary owned by Mr. Haqqani, Pakistani officials said. No arrests were made.

Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.

[arun]

OpEd from Canada’s Globe and Mail :

Time to rein in spies and frontiers

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
July 29, 2008 at 10:21 AM EDT

By openly stating his belief that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of Pakistan is behind some major terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Chris Alexander, the Canadian diplomat who is a UN deputy special representative in that country, has performed a valuable service. Other Western diplomats had privately agreed with President Hamid Karzai's accusations to that effect, but had not spoken out.

Ever since the founding of Pakistan in 1947, its armed forces have conceived their role in terms of the country's rivalry with India. In particular, relations with Afghanistan were subordinated to this regional struggle and the regional balance of power. It was always a narrow point of view, because the affairs of the region have serious effects on the rest of the world. The possession of nuclear weapons by both India and Pakistan has made this constricted perspective all the more dangerous.

The ISI has been a branch of the Pakistani military. There is little doubt that the Taliban began not only as a group of religious fanatics but also as an ISI front. The agency has never really let go of its sponsorship of the Taliban, in spite of propitiatory gestures toward the United States after Sept. 11, 2001.

India has indeed been helpful to the Karzai government, just as in the 1990s it had assisted some of the forces in northern Afghanistan that now support Mr. Karzai. As with the attempted assassination of Mr. Karzai in April, the bombing attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in early July, when four Indian civilians were killed, raised strong suspicions of ISI involvement, although the New Delhi government did not explicitly draw a conclusion.

Yousaf Razi Gilani, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, only a few days ago attempted to switch control of ISI from the military to the Interior Ministry. Civilian oversight would have been a welcome and overdue move, but the military resisted the order, as did President Pervez Musharraf, a former military chief, and the order had to be reversed within a matter of hours.
The military's control of ISI must be relinquished, but the current Islamabad government, a shaky coalition, appears powerless to bring about that necessary change. Little wonder the civilian politicians are preoccupied with the residual power of the former military dictator, Mr. Musharraf.

One of the keys to the troubles of both Afghanistan and Pakistan is Islamabad's incomplete rule over the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the North-West Frontier Province (NWP). National unity is of course in the country's interest, yet some elements in Pakistan favour these anomalies as instruments in a reckless and manipulative foreign policy.
The success of the Awami National Party in the NWP in the 2008 election - a party of pacifist Gandhian tradition - shows that the people of northwestern Pakistan are predominantly neither bellicose nor Islamist.

In the end, Pakistan's own governance, sovereignty, stability and peace will depend upon the government's taking full, normal control of its own territory - as well as of its own intelligence agencies.

URL

[arun]

The CIA / ISI lovefest comming to an end

New York Times :

July 30, 2008

C.I.A. Outlines Pakistan Links With Militants

By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON — A top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled secretly to Islamabad this month to confront Pakistan’s most senior officials with new information about ties between the country’s powerful spy service and militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas, according to American military and intelligence officials.

The C.I.A. emissary presented evidence showing that members of the spy service had deepened their ties with some militant groups that were responsible for a surge of violence in Afghanistan, possibly including the suicide bombing this month of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the officials said. .............

May be not and the love continues burning brightly :

Pakistan denies 'malicious' report on CIA confrontation

5 hours ago

ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Pakistan's military Wednesday rejected a "malicious" report that a top CIA official visiting this month confronted Islamabad over ties between the country's intelligence service and militants.

The New York Times said agency deputy director Stephen Kappes highlighted alleged ties between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and those responsible for the surge of violence across the border in Afghanistan.

"We reject this report. This is unfounded, baseless and malicious," chief Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP.

"I would like to emphasise here that ISI is a premier intelligence agency which has caught or apprehended maximum Al-Qaeda operatives including those who were linked with criminals and responsible for attacking the US mainland on September 11, 2001," Abbas said.

Citing anonymous defense and intelligence sources, the Times said the meeting focused on supposed intelligence links with Taliban commander Jalauddin Haqqani, who is based in Pakistan's tribal areas.

It said that earlier this year the US military pressed for Pakistani troops to hit the Haqqani network.

"It was a very pointed message saying, 'Look, we know there's a connection, not just with Haqqani but also with the other bad guys and ISI, and we think you could do more and we want you to do more about it," a senior US official told the Times.

The newspaper said the meeting could be a sign that the relationship between the Central Intelligence Agency and the ISI "may be deteriorating."

The report comes after Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met with US President George W. Bush in Washington and urged him not to act "unilaterally" against militants in Pakistan's lawless tribal zones.

Gilani insisted Monday that Pakistan was committed to fighting extremists.

Pakistan's fledgling government caused concern in Washington by launching talks with militants soon after beating allies of US-backed President Pervez Musharraf in elections in February.

AFP

[arun]

X Post.

Hat Tip ...... Sanjay M.

Intercepted communication shows ISI complicit in attack on our embassy in Kabul :

Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul, U.S. Officials Say

By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: August 1, 2008

WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies have concluded that members of Pakistan’s powerful spy service helped plan the deadly July 7 bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to United States government officials.

The conclusion was based on intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack, the officials said, providing the clearest evidence to date that Pakistani intelligence officers are actively undermining American efforts to combat militants in the region.

The American officials also said there was new information showing that members of the Pakistani intelligence service were increasingly providing militants with details about the American campaign against them, in some cases allowing militants to avoid American missile strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Concerns about the role played by Pakistani intelligence not only has strained relations between the United States and Pakistan, a longtime ally, but also has fanned tensions between Pakistan and its archrival, India. Within days of the bombings, Indian officials accused the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, of helping to orchestrate the attack in Kabul, which killed 54, including an Indian defense attaché.

This week, Pakistani troops clashed with Indian forces in the contested region of Kashmir, threatening to fray an uneasy cease-fire that has held since November 2003.

The New York Times reported this week that a top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled to Pakistan this month to confront senior Pakistani officials with information about support provided by members of the ISI to militant groups. It had not been known that American intelligence agencies concluded that elements of Pakistani intelligence provided direct support for the attack in Kabul.

American officials said that the communications were intercepted before the July 7 bombing, and that the C.I.A. emissary, Stephen R. Kappes, the agency’s deputy director, had been ordered to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, even before the attack. The intercepts were not detailed enough to warn of any specific attack.

The government officials were guarded in describing the new evidence and would not say specifically what kind of assistance the ISI officers provided to the militants. They said that the ISI officers had not been renegades, indicating that their actions might have been authorized by superiors.

“It confirmed some suspicions that I think were widely held,” one State Department official with knowledge of Afghanistan issues said of the intercepted communications. “It was sort of this ‘aha’ moment. There was a sense that there was finally direct proof.”

The information linking the ISI to the bombing of the Indian Embassy was described in interviews by several American officials with knowledge of the intelligence. Some of the officials expressed anger that elements of Pakistan’s government seemed to be directly aiding violence in Afghanistan that had included attacks on American troops.

Some American officials have begun to suggest that Pakistan is no longer a fully reliable American partner and to advocate some unilateral American action against militants based in the tribal areas.

The ISI has long maintained ties to militant groups in the tribal areas, in part to court allies it can use to contain Afghanistan’s power. In recent years, Pakistan’s government has also been concerned about India’s growing influence inside Afghanistan, including New Delhi’s close ties to the government of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president.

American officials say they believe that the embassy attack was probably carried out by members of a network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, whose alliance with Al Qaeda and its affiliates has allowed the terrorist network to rebuild in the tribal areas.

American and Pakistani officials have now acknowledged that President Bush on Monday confronted Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, about the divided loyalties of the ISI.

Pakistan’s defense minister, Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, told a Pakistani television network on Wednesday that Mr. Bush asked senior Pakistani officials this week, “ ‘Who is in control of ISI?’ ” and asked about leaked information that tipped militants to surveillance efforts by Western intelligence services.

Pakistan’s new civilian government is wrestling with these very issues, and there is concern in Washington that the civilian leaders will be unable to end a longstanding relationship between members of the ISI and militants associated with Al Qaeda.

Spokesmen for the White House and the C.I.A. declined to comment for this article. Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, did not return a call seeking comment.

Further underscoring the tension between Pakistan and its Western allies, Britain’s senior military officer said in Washington on Thursday that an American and British program to help train Pakistan’s Frontier Corps in the tribal areas had been delayed while Pakistan’s military and civilian officials sorted out details about the program’s goals.

Britain and the United States had each offered to send about two dozen military trainers to Pakistan later this summer to train Pakistani Army officers who in turn would instruct the Frontier Corps paramilitary forces.

But the British officer, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, said the program had been temporarily delayed. “We don’t yet have a firm start date,” he told a small group of reporters. “We’re ready to go.”

The bombing of the Indian Embassy helped to set off a new deterioration in relations between India and Pakistan.

This week, Indian and Pakistani soldiers fired at each other across the Kashmir frontier for more than 12 hours overnight Monday, in what the Indian Army called the most serious violation of a five-year-old cease-fire agreement. The nightlong battle came after one Indian soldier and four Pakistanis were killed along the border between sections of Kashmir that are controlled by India and by Pakistan.

Indian officials say they are equally worried about what is happening on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border because they say the insurgents who are facing off with India in Kashmir and those who target Afghanistan are related and can keep both borders burning at the same time.

India and Afghanistan share close political, cultural and economic ties, and India maintains an active intelligence network in Afghanistan, all of which has drawn suspicion from Pakistani officials.

When asked Thursday about whether the ISI and Pakistani military remained loyal to the country’s civilian government, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sidestepped the question. “That’s probably something the government of Pakistan ought to speak to,” Admiral Mullen told reporters at the Pentagon.

Jalaluddin Haqqani, the militia commander, battled Soviet troops during the 1980s and has had a long and complicated relationship with the C.I.A. He was among a group of fighters who received arms and millions of dollars from the C.I.A. during that period, but his allegiance with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda during the following decade led the United States to sever the relationship.

Mr. Haqqani and his sons now run a network that Western intelligence services say they believe is responsible for a campaign of violence throughout Afghanistan, including the Indian Embassy bombing and an attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul earlier this year.

David Rohde contributed reporting from New York, and Somini Sengupta from New Delhi.

New York Times

[Philip]

Veteran Dawn journalist Irfan Hussein in this very insightful piece shows why Pakistanis/Muslims are under suspicion in the west.

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/mazdak.htm
Muslim alienation in the West

By Irfan Husain

Questions about identity and loyalty among the Muslims who have chosen to live in the West have been recurring themes since 9/11. As the number of suicide bombings and attempted attacks has mounted, so too has suspicion about the large and growing population of immigrants from the Muslim world. Especially among the working class and right-wing sections of the population, Muslims living in their midst are now seen as a fifth column, ready to wreak mayhem at the slightest pretext.

As the only Muslim many of my English friends know socially, I often find myself being addressed as a sort of spokesman for the Islamic world, a role I do not exactly relish. This happens more often late in the evening when several drinks have dissolved notions of political correctness. “Why,” I am asked earnestly. “Do Muslims come here if they hate our laws and lifestyle? Why do the ones living here not return to where they came from if they are not willing to make any attempt to get along with the rest of us? And why do they all stick together all the time?”Patiently, I explain that immigrants, whether Muslim or not, are forced to leave their homes due to political or economic conditions, so it is often not really a matter of choice. Many of them are from a conservative background, and are shocked by the easygoing attitudes and personal choices that have evolved in the West. As to Muslims who have been born and brought up in Europe, they find themselves caught between two cultures: exposed to a traditional home environment, they are expected to conform to a Western lifestyle at school and at work. This produces an identity crisis that leads some of them to choose extremism to resolve and simplify these dilemmas. In short, I mouth a bunch of clichés without being sure how many of them are really valid.

These conversations usually take place after some terrorist outrage, or an unusually bizarre utterance from an extremist. Just the other day, a survey among Muslim university students in Britain caused a stir among the media. Conducted by YouGov on behalf of the Centre for Social Cohesion, ‘Islam on Campus’ has thrown up some results that have startled observers. As Patrick Sawer writes in the Daily Telegraph of on July 28: “The findings will concern police chiefs, the security services and ministers who are struggling with radicalisation among Muslim communities.”

Among these findings is the figure of 40 per cent of those surveyed who support the introduction of Shariah into UK laws for Muslims; 30 per cent said that killings in the name of religion is justified; 40 per cent did not think it was all right for Muslim men and women to meet freely; 25 per cent were of the view that men and women were not equal in God’s eyes; 25 per cent had little or no respect for gays; 30 per cent supported a worldwide Islamic caliphate; over 50 per cent supported the creation of an Islamic party to represent Muslims in the British Parliament; and a third didn’t know or think that Islam was compatible with Western democracy.”

The authors of the survey, conducted on 12 British campuses, were of the view that many of these extreme views had been planted by Hizb ut-Tahrir, the militant organisation that seeks a global Islamic government. In their opinion, this kind of thinking made it easy for extremists to recruit radicalised young Muslims from university campuses. Although some student bodies have denounced this study as being too narrow, and for having polled only some 600 students, it is especially disturbing as it focuses on university students, a group that had earlier been assumed to be less prone to extremism. Now observers are asking: what about the less educated Muslims?

Thus far, the received wisdom had been that secular education was the antidote to religious extremism. But as we have seen elsewhere, highly educated Muslims have been at the forefront of the global jihad. Many of the 9/11 suicide bombers had degrees from Western universities. Time and again, those providing the intellectual and moral justification for terrorism have been intelligent, educated people adept at distorting the scriptures to justify killing innocent people.

Before the publication of this survey, the Lord Chief Justice had caused a controversy by suggesting that elements of the Shariah relating to personal and financial affairs of Muslims could be incorporated into British law. A firestorm of protest followed. A flavour of the response is captured in this letter to the editor of the Daily Telegraph from E.J. Zuiderwijk of Cambridge:

“Shariah, which originated in medieval, desert societies, is a system invented by men, controlled by men, and executed by men. Centuries of conditioning may have made Shariah acceptable to some, but it is the last thing one would knowingly want to inflict on any woman in Britain. I suggest that the depressingly naïve remarks by the Lord Chief Justice and, earlier, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, can be explained by the fact those positions are not occupied by women.”

And in response to a remark by Shahid Malik, a Labour MP, that British Muslims now felt like “aliens in their own country”, Dominic Kirkham writes to the editor of The Independent from Manchester: “…Just a couple of recent personal examples. When I was handing round a plate of cakes at an introductory session of an adult learning programme to a mixed ethnic and gender group, all were grateful except the Muslims, who, instead of accepting like everybody else, questioned what the cakes were made of as it might be against their religion to accept. In another mixed group learning how to handle and use tools, the informal instruction was challenged by a Muslim woman who warned that it was against her religion for a man to touch a woman.

“And so it goes on. In seemingly every area of cultural contact, however open and welcoming, Muslims choose to distance themselves from the generality on the basis of ‘their religion’. Unless they themselves are prepared to question the arcane prejudices that lie at the root of ‘their religion’ they will continue to feel like aliens in normal society by their own choice.”

Clearly, many Muslims who have chosen to live in the West are not doing themselves any favours by their stand-offish behaviour and their bizarre views.

PS:In another piece in one of our papers some days ago,I think by retd. Lt.Gen.Raghavan,a similar viewpoint has been put forward,that Indian Muslims must do more to distance themselves from the extremists.The earlier stand this year of some Muslim bodies openly condemning terrorism as being anti-Islamic is a good first step.Helping the intelligence agencies with discreet information about extremists and their handlers within their community if known,will go a long way in preventing the entire community from coming under suspicion and alienation.

[SSridhar]

This happens more often late in the evening when several drinks have dissolved notions of political correctness.

Obviously, Irfan Husain is not a Believer. No wonder he has such notions as liberalism, open-mind etc.