Bharat Rakshak

...planning to carry out a suicide attack in Belgium. The leaders of the European Union's 27 member states are meeting in Brussels Thursday and Friday. It is not clear that the heads of state and government themselves were the target of the planned attack.

The federal prosecutor's office in Belgium identified one of the suspects as Malika El-Aroud, the widow of one of the men who assassinated a key opponent of the Taliban in Afghanistan two days before September 11, 2001.

El-Aroud's late husband was one of two men who killed Ahmed Shah Massoud, a leader of the Northern Alliance, in a suicide mission ordered by Osama Bin Laden. "Most of those arrested" Thursday had Belgian passports, the police source said. All 14 are of Moroccan descent.

Three of the suspects had traveled to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region to participate in fighting or training camps, and were in contact with an unnamed suspect who had direct links to important al-Qaeda figures, police said.

Two of those three returned to Belgium several months ago and started surveillance operations, and the third returned to Belgium a week ago, police said. Intelligence showed that third person was ready to carry out a suicide attack, police said.

Information showed the suspect who was to carry out the attack had received the green light to execute the operation, police said. Investigators noted the suspect had said goodbye to his family "because he wanted to go to paradise with a clear conscience," police said.

Authorities also found a video meant for the suspect's family, which police said was probably a farewell tape. They did not find any explosives, the police said in a statement.

The 14 suspects were arrested after police carried out 16 search warrants in Brussels and one in the western Belgian city of Liege. During those searches, police seized computer equipment and documents and the 14 people, including the three who traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and 11 others suspected of having given them logistical and material support.

Police said their investigation has been under way intensively since the end of 2007.

narayanan wrote:Jo Lahore mein gandoo woh Brussels mein bhi gandoo.

Germany to Pakistan: Banning terror groups not enough


IANS

National
Fri, 12 Dec 2008:

New Delhi, Dec 12 (IANS) Germany Friday offered India assistance in combating terrorism and underlined that Pakistan needs to do much more than banning militant outfits to wipe out the scourge originating from that country.

'Banning is not enough to forbid others from committing terrorist attacks. Maybe 's not sufficient.

They need to do more,' visiting German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble told reporters here when asked whether banning front outfits like Jamaat-ud-Dawah, a public front for Lashkar-e-Taiba suspected of masterminiding the Mumbai massacre, by Pakistan was enough to stop terrorism flowing from that country.

Schäuble, who was on a day-long visit to India, held talks with his Indian counterpart P. Chidambaram and National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan on strengthening counter-terror cooperation between India and Germany in the wake of the Nov 26 Mumbai terror strikes that killed 179 people, including three Germans. He also called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and conveyed Germany's full support to India in the fight against terrorism.

'We are ready to send experts and special forces to India to deal with terrorism,' he said when asked about discussions with his Indian interlocutors. The German minister underlined the need for creating a federal agency that brings together police, intelligence and coastal authorities - and for new communication technologies to intercept sensitive messages.

'In some states, the government is not in full control of parts of its intelligence services, even in mature democracies,' Schäuble replied when asked whether he suspected the involvement of Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in planning the Mumabi terror attacks, which India believes were masterminded and executed by elements from Pakistan.

The German minister, however, chose to be circumspect when asked whether he thought the terrorists targeting Mumbai came from Pakistan. 'It's an ongoing investigation. It's a matter for Indian authorities to decide who are the attackers,' he said.

However, Schäuble said that on the face of it 'appeared an Islamic terrorist network that originated in Pakistan'.

'We have to support the Pakistan government in the fight against terrorism,' he said

Q Thank you. Admiral, after your meetings in Pakistan, what can you say to concerns, especially in India, that members of ISI may have played a role in the Mumbai attacks?

ADM. MULLEN: That goes back to answering her -- Jim's question, to some extent.

There's a rich history here of ISI fomenting challenges, particularly in Kashmir, and everybody is aware of that. We're aware of that. The Indians are aware of that. The Pakistanis are aware of that, as is the international community writ large. And it's literally that piece of the previous strategy in Pakistan which I believe's got to shift for the future, and without getting into the specifics of what was causal, certainly in a classified way, or what happened here.

Q Admiral, what further steps would you like to see the Pakistanis take now?

ADM. MULLEN: I've addressed those privately with the leadership, and we'll just leave it at that at this particular point in time.

Pakistan had historic ties with Lashkar: Rice

By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON, Dec 8: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that the Pakistani establishment has had historic ties with Lashkar-e-Taiba although now it’s committed to fighting them.

In an interview to CNN on Sunday evening, Ms Rice read out a charge-sheet against the Lashkar, spelling out the reasons for taking action against the group which, she said, was not only involved in the Mumbai attacks but also moved in “the same circles” as Al Qaeda.

Commenting on the interview, diplomatic observers in Washington said it made it obvious that the United States had left no option for Pakistan but to crack-down on the group already declared a terrorist outfit by Washington.

“Well, there have been historic ties. There’s no doubt about that,” said Ms Rice when asked if LeT leaders were trained and supported by Pakistani intelligence agencies.

But she quickly added that she believed Pakistan was no more involved with the group. “Pakistan is a different place now with a civilian government and an army leadership that is working in concert to try to bring an end to extremism within Pakistan,” she said.

“We have to remember that Pakistan itself has been suffering at the hands of extremism. So whatever the history here – and there is a history – the important thing is that Pakistan act against those who used Pakistani soil to perpetrate attacks.”

Even while clearing the Pakistani government of any involvement, Ms Rice used words that raised some doubts, as interviewer Wolf Blitzer also noticed and reminded her.

“I think there’s no doubt that Pakistani territory was used by probably non-state actors. I don’t think that there is compelling evidence of involvement of Pakistani officials,” she said.

“But I do think that Pakistan has a responsibility to act, and it doesn’t matter that they’re non-state actors. There were problems with this from Pakistani territory. There are historic problems from Pakistani territory in this regard.”

Secretary Rice also said that when she visited Islamabad last week she “emphasised to the Pakistani government” that Americans were also killed in this attack and the US government had “a special interest” in this matter because of that.

There’s, however, one issue on which Ms Rice was very positive: that there will be no war between India and Pakistan.

“The relationship between the countries is better (now than before). Our relationship with each of them is better,” she said while explaining why she believed the Mumbai attacks would not lead to a war between South Asia’s two nuclear-armed nations.

“But in fact, the key here is that this investigation needs to go forward. It needs to be transparent. Pakistan needs to act. India and Pakistan need to cooperate,” she said.

Asked if she believed the Pakistani government was going to deal with the terrorists, Ms Rice said: “Well, they are certainly, I believe, committed to doing so. But we are awaiting action, and that action needs to take place soon.”

Secretary Rice also stressed the need for Pakistan to change its entire military strategy, reminding Pakistanis that their “principal problem … is not India.”

She said that the Pakistani army not only realised the importance of this change but was already going through a restructuring process to transform itself into “a kind of army … that is principally (focused on) counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency.”

Ms Rice dismissed a suggestion that President Asif Ali Zardari might not have complete control over all elements of his military and intelligence services.

“We treat the Pakistani government as an integrated and unified government, and I heard nothing in Pakistan that suggested that there were divisions in this regard between the army and the government,” she said.

“This is an elected civilian government; it has a kind of legitimacy that a Pakistani government has not had since 1999. And I believe that it is in actually a stronger position because of that to act.”

US hopes for Pakistani 'shift' on Lashkar
1 day ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States said Wednesday that it hoped Pakistan would adopt a tougher stance towards Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the group considered the prime suspect in the Mumbai attacks.

"What we are looking to see is if there's going to be a shift in Pakistan in how they deal with LeT," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

"If it proves out, over time, that there is that shift, then that would be a good one, and something that we would welcome. But it's just too early for us to say," she told reporters.

The top US military chief applauded Islamabad's response so far, which has included arrests of key militants.

"They've moved pretty quickly with respect to these arrests, with respect to shutting down some of the camps, and all that, I think, is very positive," said chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, who visited India and Pakistan last week.

"These are great steps. I certainly hope and expect there will be more such steps taken by Pakistani authorities in the near future," Mullen told reporters.

The comments came after Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said authorities there had arrested two senior LeT members in the wake of the bloody militant siege of Mumbai that left 172 dead.

Gilani said that Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah -- both named by Indian media as suspected planners of the Mumbai attacks -- were in detention and an investigation is under way.

Perino treated the "preliminary" reports from the region with caution.

"I couldn't tell you definitely that all that's been reported is accurate," she said.

"We continue to urge the Pakistanis and Indians to work together to get to the bottom of who was responsible for these attacks -- and most importantly to try to prevent follow-on attacks."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack welcomed the arrests but said more efforts are needed.

"We want to make sure that those responsible are brought to justice, and that, in taking any steps, any actions, that you use those as a way to help prevent any future attacks," he said in a press conference.

"And one important aspect of that is information flow; as you gather information, that that information is shared in a way that is useful and effective."

Admiral Mullen said the US government was "working with the Indians" to provide them with intelligence in support of the investigation into the Mumbai attacks.

Under intense international pressure, Pakistan launched a major operation over the weekend against militant organizations in the country, raiding a camp in Kashmir run by a charity linked to LeT and arresting 15 people.

Among those arrested was Maulana Masood Azhar, head of the Jaish-e-Mohammed rebel group. Azhar was captured in Indian Kashmir in 1995 but freed by New Delhi in 1999 in return for the safe release of passengers on a hijacked Air India jet.

He is reported to be on a list of people that India last week requested Pakistan extradite in the wake of the Mumbai bloodbath.

More top arrests were needed, a State Department official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

"The problem that they have is deeper and more widespread than that couple of people," he said.

Friday, 12 December , 2008, 15:00
Last Updated: Friday, 12 December , 2008, 16:04

Brussels: Police detained 14 suspected al Qaeda-linked extremists on Thursday in raids in Brussels and eastern Belgium, including one terrorist who allegedly was plotting a suicide attack.

The terror sweep came only hours before a European Union summit brought together the heads of 27 countries in Brussels, though the site of the purported attack was unclear. Nearly 250 police officers raided 16 locations in the capital and one in the eastern city of Liege overnight, confiscating computers, data storage equipment and a pistol.

"There was no other choice than to intervene today," federal prosecutor Johan Delmulle told reporters. He said one suspect had recorded what looked like a martyrdom video, including a farewell message.

Images: The men who attacked Mumbai

"It is clear that we have to take the terror threat seriously," Prime Minister Yves Leterme said as he entered the EU summit building. Helicopters flew overhead and police guarded dozens of motorcades traveling to the summit cordon.

Delmulle said it was unclear where the attack had been planned to take place. The suspects had traveled to both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and it was possible the suicide bombing might have been drawn up there.

Thursday's raids were linked to a similar pre-Christmas sweep last year and Delmulle said the investigation showed at the time "a group of people were in Brussels with the task of committing an attack."

Investigators waited a year before moving in — opting to ferret out the entire cell rather a single part. "It is now clear to all that we were dealing with a real risk," the justice and interior ministers said in a statement. "It is more than likely that an attack in Brussels has been prevented."

JuD, Hafiz Saeed added to UN terror list

The investigation centered on people linked to Nizar Trabelsi, a 37-year-old Tunisian sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2003 for planning to a drive a car bomb into the cafeteria of a Belgian air base where about 100 American military personnel are stationed.

Security services in several European nations suspect Trabelsi, who trained with al Qaeda in Afghanistan, had links with extremists in Britain, France and elsewhere in Europe.

At the time of last year's arrests, authorities tightened security, warning of a heightened threat of attacks despite the arrests. Police stepped up patrols at Brussels airport, subway stations and the downtown Christmas market, which traditionally draws large crowds of holiday shoppers.

Leterme told reporters that the investigation justified the extreme security measures that were taken over the past year. Authorities did not give a rundown of all the people under detention.

Mumbai terror attack special

But Claude Moniquet, the president of the Brussels-based think tank European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, and national media said they included Moroccan-born Malika El Aroud, a 48-year-old Belgian who writes online in French under the name of Oum Obeyda.

"She is extremely active as a Jihadist who motivates" terrorists, Moniquet said in an interview. "She was writing online as recently as three weeks ago. She is very dangerous." He did not elaborate on how he knew she had been detained.

El Aroud, who moved to Belgium from Morocco when she was very young, began writing online after her first husband died in the suicide attack in Afghanistan that killed anti-Taliban warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud.

By ERIC SCHMITT
Published: December 12, 2008

KATI, Mali — Thousands of miles from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, another side of America’s fight against terrorism is unfolding in this remote corner of West Africa. American Green Berets are training African armies to guard their borders and patrol vast desolate expanses against infiltration by Al Qaeda’s militants, so the United States does not have to.

A recent exercise by the United States military here was part of a wide-ranging plan, developed after the Sept. 11 attacks, to take counterterrorism training and assistance to places outside the Middle East, like the Philippines and Indonesia. In Africa, a five-year, $500 million partnership between the State and Defense Departments includes Algeria, Chad, Mauritania, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia, and Libya is on the verge of joining.

American efforts to fight terrorism in the region also include nonmilitary programs, like instruction for teachers and job training for young Muslim men who could be singled out by militants’ recruiting campaigns.

One goal of the program is to act quickly in these countries before terrorism becomes as entrenched as it is in Somalia, an East African nation where there is a heightened militant threat. And unlike Somalia, Mali is willing and able to have dozens of American and European military trainers conduct exercises here, and its leaders are plainly worried about militants who have taken refuge in its vast Saharan north.

“Mali does not have the means to control its borders without the cooperation of the United States,” Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, a former prime minister, said in an interview.

Mali, a landlocked former French colony that is nearly twice the size of Texas with roughly half the population, has a relatively stable, though still fragile, democracy. But it borders Algeria, whose well-equipped military has chased Qaeda militants into northern Mali, where they have adopted a nomadic lifestyle, making them even more difficult to track.

With only 10,000 people in its military and other security forces, and just two working helicopters and a few airplanes, Mali acknowledges how daunting a task it is to try to drive out the militants.

The biggest potential threat comes from as many as 200 fighters from an offshoot of Al Qaeda called Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which uses the northern Malian desert as a staging area and support base, American and Malian officials say.

About three months ago, the Qaeda affiliate threatened to attack American forces that operated north of Timbuktu (or Tombouctou) in Mali’s desert, three Defense Department officials said. One military official said the threat contributed to a decision to shift part of the recent training exercise out of that area.

The government of neighboring Mauritania said 12 of its soldiers were killed in an attack there by militants in September. By some accounts, the soldiers were beheaded and their bodies were booby-trapped with explosives.

Two Defense Department officials expressed fear that a main leader of the Qaeda affiliate in Mali, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, was under growing pressure to carry out a large-scale attack, possibly in Algeria or Mauritania, to establish his leadership credentials within the organization.

Members of the Qaeda affiliate have not attacked Malian forces, and American and Malian officials privately acknowledge that military officials here have adopted a live-and-let-live approach to the Qaeda threat, focusing instead on rebellious Tuareg tribesmen, who also live in the sparsely populated north.

To finance their operations, the militants exact tolls from smugglers whose routes traverse the Qaeda sanctuary, and collect ransoms in kidnappings. In late October, two Austrians were released after a ransom of more than $2 million was reportedly paid. They had been held in northern Mali after being seized in southern Tunisia in February.

Because of the militants’ activities, American officials eye the largely ungoverned spaces of Mali’s northern desert with concern.

This year, the United States Agency for International Development is spending about $9 million on counterterrorism measures here. Some of the money will expand an existing job training program for women to provide young Malian men in the north with the basic skills to set up businesses like tiny flour mills or cattle enterprises. Some aid will train teachers in Muslim parochial schools in an effort to prevent them from becoming incubators of anti-American vitriol.

The agency is also building 12 FM radio stations in the north to link far-flung villages to an early-warning network that sends bulletins on bandits and other threats. Financing from the Pentagon will produce, in four national languages, radio soap operas promoting peace and tolerance.

“Young men in the north are looking for jobs or something to do with their lives,” said Alexander D. Newton, the director of A.I.D.’s mission in Mali. “These are the same people who could be susceptible to other messages of economic security.”

Concern about Mali’s vulnerability also brought a dozen Army Green Berets from the 10th Special Forces Group in Germany, as well as several Dutch and German military instructors, to Mali for the two-week training exercise that ended last month.

Just before noon on a recent sunny, breezy day, Malian troops swept onto a training range here on the savannah north of Bamako, the capital, aboard two CV-22 Ospreys, rotor-blade transport aircraft flown by Air Force Special Operations crews from Hurlburt Field, Fla.

As the dull-gray aircraft landed in a swirling cloud of dust, rotors whomp-whomping, the Malians disembarked single file from the rear ramp in dark-green camouflage uniforms and helmets, M-4 assault rifles at the ready. (The Malians normally use AK-47s, but used American-issue M-4’s for this exercise.)

After a mile-long march through savannah grass, the troops walked down a hill into a small valley. Their target — the mock hide-out of the insurgents — was in sight. But what the Malians did not know was that their American instructors were lying in wait, and suddenly attacked the troops with a sharp staccato of small-arms fire (plastic paint bullets), with red flares soaring high overhead.

The make-believe skirmish lasted just a few minutes. The Malians, shouting to one another and firing at their attackers, retreated from the ambush rather than try to fight through it.

“We’re still learning,” said Capt. Yossouf Traore, a 28-year-old commander, speaking in English that he learned in Texas and at Fort Benning, Ga., as a visiting officer. “We’re getting a lot of experience in leadership skills and making decisions on the spot.”

Even more significant, Captain Traore said, was that the exercise gave his troops an unusual opportunity to train with soldiers from neighboring Senegal. Soon after the Ospreys returned to whisk the Malian soldiers from the training range, two planeloads of Senegalese troops arrived to carry out the same maneuvers.

Still, worrisome indicators are giving some Malian government and religious leaders, as well as American officials, pause about the country’s ability to deal with security risks.

Mali is the world’s fifth-poorest country and, according to some statistics from the United Nations and the State Department, is getting poorer. One in five Malian children dies before age 5. The average Malian does not live to celebrate a 50th birthday. The country’s population, now at 12 million, is doubling nearly every 20 years. Literacy rates hover around 30 percent and are much lower in rural areas.

There are also small signs that radical clerics are beginning to make inroads into the tolerant form of Islam practiced here for centuries by Sunni Muslims. The number of Malian women wearing all-enveloping burqas is still small, but the increase in the past few years is noticeable, religious leaders say.

New mosques are springing up, financed by conservative religious organizations in Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iran, and scholarships offered to young Malian men to study in those countries are on the rise, Malian officials say.

In Imam Mahamadou Diallo’s neighborhood in Bamako, a congested, fume-choked city on the Niger River, a simmering debate is under way. Imam Diallo, 48, said that two new mosques had been built in his area with financing from Wahhabi extremist groups in Saudi Arabia, and that they were drawing away some members of his mosque.

“Many people here are poor and don’t have work,” Imam Diallo said through an interpreter in Bambara, one of the local languages. “They’re potentially vulnerable to these Wahhabi people coming in with money.”

Just down a bumpy, reddish dirt road, however, the leader of one of these newer mosques, Al Nour, quarreled with Imam Diallo’s characterization. Ali Abdourohmome Cisse, the imam since Al Nour opened in 2002, said he did not know who had financed its construction. He added that no one on his staff, including an Egyptian assistant who helps conduct Friday Prayer in Arabic, advocated any form of extremism.

At El Mouhamadiya, an Islamic school in the neighborhood, more than 700 students, ages 4 to 25, take classes including math, physics and Arabic. “But we don’t train them in terrorism,” said Broulaye Sylla, 25, an administrator. “We don’t talk about jihad.”

Mahmoud Dicko, president of the High Council of Islam in Bamako, acknowledged over soft drinks in his second-story office that the influence of conservative Sunni and even Shiite groups had become more visible, but he said they did not pose a serious threat to Malian society.

“Their influence has limits because of the importance of cultural ties here in Mali,” he said. “We have a tolerant Islam here, a pacifist Islam.”

American and African diplomats here said Mali was one of the few countries in the region that had good relations with most neighbors, making it a likely catalyst for the broader regional security cooperation the United States is trying to foster. American commanders expressed confidence that by training together, the African forces might work together against transnational threats like Al Qaeda. While Mali has no effective helicopter fleet, for instance, it could team up its soldiers with better-equipped neighboring armies, like Algeria’s, to combat a common threat.

“If we don’t help these countries work together, it becomes a much more difficult problem,” said Lt. Col. Jay Connors, the senior American Special Forces officer on the ground here during the exercise.

American and Malian officials acknowledged that there were other hurdles to overcome. The Pentagon needs to better explain the role of its new Africa Command, created in October to oversee military activities on the continent, and to dispel fears that the United States is militarizing its foreign policy, Malian officials said.

American officials say their strategy is to contain the Qaeda threat and train the African armies, a process that will take years. The nonmilitary counterterrorism programs are just starting, and it is too early to gauge results.

“This is a long-term effort,” said Colonel Connors, 45, an Africa specialist from Burlington, Vt., who speaks French and Portuguese. “This is crawl, walk, run, and right now, we’re still in the crawl phase.”

Eric Schmitt reported from Mali in November, and did additional reporting from Washington.

A former leader of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency has been implicated as serving on the board of a proscribed non-governmental organization that advised al Qaeda and the Taliban on the development of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.

Lieutenant General (Retired) Hamid Gul served on the board of the Umma Tameer-E-Nau, an organization founded by Pakistani nuclear scientists and industrialists, according to a secret dossier that the United States has put together to present to the United Nations Security Council, The News reported. Gul has also been implicated in supporting the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, the Haqqani Network, al Qaeda, and other extremist groups.

Gul served as the chief of the ISI from 1987 to 1989. Gul is known as the Godfather of the Taliban for his efforts to organize the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, and the helping to facilitate the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s. Gul supports the terrorist insurgency in India-occupied Kashmir and opposes the US-led effort to defeat Islamic extremism.

The Umma Tameer-E-Nau "was founded by Pakistani nuclear scientists with close ties to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban," theUS government stated in December 2001 after blocking the group's finances under Executive Order 13224. Three of the group's directors - two Pakistani nuclear scientists and an industrialist - were also proscribed under the executive order.

The group has been directly linked to the WAFA Humanitarian Organization and Al Rashid Trust, "two other non-governmental organizations with ties to al Qaeda that were designated on September 23, 2001 as supporters of terrorism under Executive Order 13224."

WAFA, a charitable front funded by a Saudi businessman, had offices in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. The group is run by al Qaeda and used to funnel money to the terror group. Al Rashid operates 21 offices in Pakistan and openly supports the Taliban and calls for jihad against the West.

The Umma Tameer-E-Nau's founders have "close ties to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban," the US government stated. "During repeated UTN visits to Afghanistan, UTN directors and members have met with Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda leaders, and Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, and discussed the development of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons."

Bashir-ud-Din Mahmood, the group's founder, served as Pakistan's Director for Nuclear Power at the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission. He also directed the Khushab nuclear plant which produces plutonium for Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. Abdul Majeed, a board member, was a senior official at the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission.

US charges against Gul

The US government claims Gul "maintained extensive contacts over the years with Taliban and al Qaeda operatives located in Pakistan, providing financial support and encouragement to these groups," The News reported. He has provided "general, over-arching guidance to the Taliban leadership on operational activities in Afghanistan."

Gul has maintained direct contact with the Pakistani Taliban and Baitullah Mehsud, the group’s leader, as well as with Siraj Haqqani, the powerful warlord in North Waziristan and eastern Afghanistan.

According to the report, Gul has helped with "spotting, assessing, and recruiting young men from various Pakistani Madrassas for training in eventual attacks against US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan." He also helped establish terror training camps and appointed the leader of one of the camps.

Gul also is involved with financing a "Kabul-based criminal group" that kidnapped foreigners and "sold weapons and explosives to the Taliban and acted as travel facilitators for Taliban members in Afghanistan." The criminal group is the notorious D-Company, the mafia-terror outfit run by wanted South Asian don Dawood Ibrahim, a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal.

US targets Pakistan's shadow command

In the wake of the Nov. 26 Mumbai, India terror siege, the US has stepped up the pressure on the Pakistani government to purge the military and intelligence services of al Qaeda and Taliban supporters and sympathizers. The Indian government and US officials have directly implicated the ISI and military-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba as being behind the 62 hour-long-assault by a team of trained terrorists that shut down India's financial hub.

Late last week, news that the US is planning to approach the United Nations Security Council to have several senior ISI and military leaders added to the UN list of terrorists. The move would block their internationals finances as well as add them to INTERPOL's list of wanted individuals.

Included on the list of former Pakistani intelligence officers being submitted to the UNSC are former ISI officials Hamid Gul, Javid Nasir, and Zahirul Islam Abbasi, as well as Aslam Beg, a senior Army officer. The US is also considering adding Khalid Khawaja, a former Squadron Commander in the Air Force, and Brigadier Ijaz Shah, the former Director of Intelligence Bureau. Khawaja has aided al Qaeda members that sheltered in Pakistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2002, while Shah has been implicated in the death of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.


For more on the ISI's involvement with Pakistani terror groups, see
Pakistan's Jihad

December 14, 2008

Pakistan 'linked to 75% of all UK terror plots', warns Gordon Brown

Sam Coates, Chief Political Correspondent, in Islamabad

Three quarters of all terror plots in the UK under investigation by British police have links to Pakistan, Gordon Brown revealed today.

Mr Brown warned that President Asif Ali Zardari must help “break the chain of terror” which link jihadist fighters in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan with attempted terrorist attacks in Britain.

British military officials believe there are a “handful” of British militants fighting alongside the Taleban in Afghanistan, often entering the country through Pakistan.

“Three quarters of the most serious plots investigated by the British authorities have links to al-Qaeda in Pakistan ,” said Mr Brown in a press conference alongside Mr Zardari in the Presidential palace in Islamabad.

Officials believe there are currently around 30 major terrorist plots and 2000 suspects being watched by police and the intelligence services.

The Prime Minister offered an additional £6 million of assistance for additional security equipment for Pakistan, which has seen 50 suicide attacks this year compared to 7 in the previous year.

“The aim must be to work together to do everything in our power to cut off terrorism.”
Speaking in Islamabad at the end of his two day tour of the region, the Prime Minister put huge pressure on Mr Zardari to take tougher action on militants in Pakistan following the deadly attacks in Mumbai which killed left at least 170 people, including three Britons.

Mr Brown was on an urgent diplomatic mission to improve relations between India and Pakistan following the bombings on November 26, meeting Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister in Delhi before flying to Islamabad.

Mr Singh presented Mr Brown with a private list of “confidence building measures” which they wanted Pakistan to agree to.

Tensions between the two countries rose on Saturday night after Indian jets flew into Pakistan airspace, causing delays on Mr Brown’s flight from Kabul to Delhi.

Mr Brown also secured permission for British police to interview the only surviving suspect from the deadly attacks in Mumbai to investigate whether he has British connections.

During talks in Delhi earlier, Mr Singh gave to gave the go-ahead for police and intelligence officials to speak to Mohammed Ajmal Amir Qasal, who has been undergoing “sustained interrogation” in a Mumbai jail since opening fire on a train station killing 50 people last month.

The Prime Minister’s meeting with his Indian counterpart was “sober” and dominated by the aftermath of the attacks, according to officials.

Afterwards Mr Brown offered his sympathies to the Indian people for the attacks. “I wanted to come to India to give my condolences and the whole Indian people at the terrible terrorist outrage in Mumbai that has shocked the world,” he said.

Mr Brown heaped public pressure on Pakistan's civilian government by formally declaring Britain believed a Pakistani militant group was behind the multiple attacks. He has been assured by British intelligence that the group Lashkar E Taiba were behind the attacks, despite claims by the Pakistan authorities that they have no evidence that they are responsible. Western intelligence services are believed to have intercepted phone calls from the bombers in Mumbai to militants in Pakistan.

Landing in Islamabad, Mr Brown made clear he was in no doubt the group were responsible for the attacks, adding "they have a great deal to answer for."

However he was rebuffed by President Zardari who refused to acknowledge Pakistan was involved.

“They have still not completed their investigation. I’m hoping once the Indian government shares the information with us we will find whether there will be any culprits and will take action,” the President said.

Mr Brown believes that interviewing Mr Qasal will send a signal that the terrorist attack was a crime against the international community as well as India.

Mr Qasal, the sole remaining suspect from the attacks on Mumbai, is currently in Indian custody until December 24 facing charges including murder, attempted murder, waging war against a country and criminal conspiracy. He has said he is from Pakistan and has written to the Pakistani authorities asking for legal assistance. Pakistan say that they have no evidence they are involved.

British police and intelligence services have been gathering evidence about the attacks in Mumbai for the last fortnight. They can interview Mr Qasal even if they have no intention of bringing British charges because one British citizen and two people with duel nationality were killed in the attacks.

Intelligence services do not have evidence of specific British links of Mr Qasal, but believe he may be able to shed light on terror networks with links in Britain because the vast majority of UK terrorism has origins in Pakistan.

Times Online

It was a fool's errand to believe that Pakistan, a nation built exclusively on religious identity and which has regularly lost wars to its stronger, reviled Hindu (read polytheist) neighbor, would not become an Islamist-friendly society. From the beginning one of Pakistan's most influential figures was the great Islamist Sayyid Abu al-Ala Mawdudi (1903-79), who firmly established on the Indian subcontinent a very modern conception of spiritual renewal through holy war...Mawdudi laid the intellectual groundwork that allowed others to see slaughter as divinely sanctioned.

Pakistani intellectuals, but especially Pakistani scientists and engineers, may be more susceptible to Islamist organizations than their Arab counterparts because their national identity is so soft and is challenged by a strong and successfully politicized religious identity. This is exaggerated by the continued defeats at the hands of Indians, who increasingly resemble Westerners (the ultimate Islamist enemy). Hindu India is by the decade becoming exponentially richer and more powerful while Islamic Pakistan continues its long slide into irrelevance. Pakistanis, especially the many educated in the West, have the brain power to turn al Qaeda and its allies into much more lethal organizations. Can al Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Taiba develop an appeal to highly educated men who have so far, elsewhere remained resistant to the call?

It's a good bet that Lashkar and other Pakistani holy-warrior organizations will in the not too distant future operationally reach beyond the Indian subcontinent. With al Qaeda now permanently headquartered in Pakistan, it's not hard to imagine the organization and its Arab Sunni core being absorbed by a group like Lashkar. Britain's domestic intelligence service, MI5, which is America's best frontline defense against Pakistani jihadists who carry British passports--and tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis, at home and abroad, carry such passports, which make travel to the United States easy--gives the impression that we may have already reached the absorption point. These Pakistani jihadist groups are larger than al Qaeda ever was...

... European and American intelligence and security services ought to be increasingly attentive to the possibility that the Pakistani jihadist call will have more appeal and try to monitor those Pakistanis who could make all the difference in the acquisition of nuclear and chemical weapons.

Tilak wrote:X-Posted :

Former ISI chief linked to banned al Qaeda WMD advisory group
By Bill Roggio
December 8, 2008 2:06 AM

. . .
Lieutenant General (Retired) Hamid Gul served on the board of the Umma Tameer-E-Nau, an organization founded by Pakistani nuclear scientists and industrialists, according to a secret dossier that the United States has put together to present to the United Nations Security Council, The News reported.

Tackle terror here at home

BIRMINGHAM is fast becoming an international epicentre for Islamic extremism.

As the security threat grows ever more global, our city is increasingly seen as a haven for terrorists.

Two weeks ago Rashid Rauf, a baker's son from Ward End killed in a US missile strike last month, was named as the possible mastermind behind the Mumbai terror attacks.

Now we can reveal that fellow suspect Raheel Shaikh could be sheltering within our own Kashmiri community.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned last night of a "chain of terror" stretching from the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the streets of Britain.

Our city appears to be a link in that chain.

And the real fear is that this "chain of terror" runs both ways.
Youths are returning from extremist schools in Pakistan full of hate and anger aimed squarely at Britain.

It could just be a matter of time before that anger boils over right here in Birmingham.

Our only hope is to work with the Mosques and community leaders to fight for the souls of these young men as a matter of urgency.

If we don't, the consequences could be catastrophic.

INDIAN police believe a suspect in the Mumbai terror attacks could be hiding out in Birmingham, it emerged last night.

Raheel Shaikh, 31, has been on Interpol's most wanted list since a string of train bombings killed more than 200 people in the city in 2006.

Now investigators want to quiz him over his financial links to Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Islamist militant group suspected of carrying out last month's Mumbai atrocity which left 173 people dead.

Shaikh is understood to have been traced to Birmingham by India's Central Bureau of Intelligence.

Detectives in Mumbai are probing cash sent to the 10 Pakistani militants who stormed the city on November 26 - with the former computer software engineer emerging as a central figure in the financing of the plot.

A spokesman for the Indian intelligence service said they had traced the suspect to Birmingham through Interpol.

"We have been asked to furnish evidence regarding Raheel's involvement in the July 2006 blasts, which we have already sent across," he said.

Shaikh is subject to an Interpol "Red Notice", the highest level of international arrest warrant, and is listed on its website as among their most wanted fugitives.

The Metropolitan Police has also been alerted to the manhunt.
Shaikh is suspected of being one of the key money men behind the Mumbai bloodbath.

The brutal siege saw gun-toting extremists open fire in a crowded train station before taking hostages and slaughtering innocent holidaymakers at the five-star Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels.

Shaikh is believed to have moved to Britain two years ago, just months before his two younger brothers are said to have carried out a bombing raid on rush hour trains in Mumbai in July 2006.

Indian police believe he could now be hiding among the large Kashmiri community in Birmingham as he has strong links to Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), a terror group based in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

The group is intent on causing mayhem inside the borders of their Indian neighbours, in order to promote an Islamist state in the disputed Kashmir region.

House arrest Their spiritual leader, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, is currently being held under house arrest in Pakistan as investigators probe links between LeT and the Mumbai murders.

Lashkar-e-Toiba, which translates as The Army of the Righteous, has trained hundreds of Jihadi fighters in the remote tribal regions of Pakistan.

The Kashmiri separatists have previously carried out dozens of terror attacks across India.

Indian Police have issued warrants for Raheel Shaikh's arrest based on evidence that he was the key financier behind the July 2006 bomb attacks on seven commuter trains in Mumbai.

A total of 209 people were killed in the carefully co-ordinated blasts which ripped through carriages as they left the city's major stations. Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Indian Mujahidin, a terror outfit funded and trained by LeT.

Raheel Shaikh is the elder brother of Faisal and Muzzamil Shaikh, who have already been charged in connection with the train attacks.

Brought up in the Nagpada region of Southern Mumbai, Raheel worked as a software engineer in Bangalore before moving to Dubai in early 2006.

He joined a company in the UK later that same year and is believed to have taken shelter inside Birmingham's vast Kashmiri community in the wake of the latest Mumbai terror outrage.

Shaikh is accused of sending funds of around pounds 20,000 to brother Faisal, the alleged field commander of the train attack and to terrorists involved in last month's Mumbai killings through "hawala" channels.

Hawala, an ancient system of paperless money transfers between family members and tribal leaders, is used by many communities in the UK to send cash over to the subcontinent.

In recent years the unregulated banking system has come under scrutiny from security services amid fears terrorist funds are being transferred across borders, mostly through gulf states, and in particular Dubai.

Shaikh, who spent time working in Dubai, is believed to have used Hawala to transfer cash to LeT from abroad and Indian Police are keen to question him over the funding of last month's attack in Mumbai.

He is also suspected of involvement in terrorist blasts in Delhi in October 2005.

Indian intelligence operatives have been tracking him ever since and were able to trace a loan sent from Raheel to his brother Faisal shortly before the Mumbai train bombings in 2006.

Anyone with information about his whereabouts should contact Interpol through their website www.interpol.int.

Terrorists in Pakistan planning over 20 attacks on Britain, says Gordon Brown

More than twenty serious terrorist plots to stage attacks in Britain are being planned in Pakistan, Gordon Brown said.

By James Kirkup in Islamabad
Last Updated: 9:49AM GMT 14 Dec 2008

The Prime Minister named Pakistan as a haven for terrorists planning attacks in Britain, revealing that around three quarters of the most advanced plots monitored by MI5 are have Pakistani links.

Officials say that the Security Service is aware of around 30 serious plots at any given moment, suggesting that at least 21 of them are tied to Pakistani groups.

On a visit to Islamabad, the Prime Minister delived a blunt demand to President Ali Asif Zardari to improve his goverment's work to prevent al-Qaeda and other groups operating in the lawless area that borders Afghanistan.

"The time has come for action not words," Mr Brown told Mr Zardari.

At a press conference, Mr Brown revealed that he had told Mr Zardari that "three quarters of the most serious plots investigated by the British authorities have links to al-Qaeda in Pakistan".

Many known terrorists including Mohammed Siddique Khan, ringleader of the 7/7 bombings, are known to have trained at al-Qaeda inspired camps in the Pakistani border areas.

In a private meeting Mr Brown told Mr Zardari he must do more to close those camps.
Mr Brown told reporters: "We must break the chain of terrorism that links the mountains of Afghanistan to the streets of Britain."

Mr Brown also announced increased British support for Pakistani counter-terrorism work, including greater support for Pakistani police work on detecting and defusing bombs.

The UK will also fund more scanning equipment at Pakistani airports

British police will also work with their Pakistani counterparts providing help with forensic science and contingency planning for major terrorist incidents.

There will also be a £6 million British fund to help Pakistan counter the radicalization of young Muslims.

The Prime Minister said his aim was to form "the most comprehensive anti-terror programme Britain has with any country".

Mr Brown said: "I want to help Pakistan root out terrorism. It is right that we help Pakistan root out terrorism."

He added: "People know that what can happen in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan can affect directly what happens on the streets of our towns. I want to remove the chain of terror."

Mr Brown also demanded Pakistan do more to stop miliants moving over the border into Afghanistan to attack British troops.

He said: "We have talked about how we can do more to ensure there is more security at the border. It is in all our interests to root out the problem where there are people who practice terror who are moving with ease."

The Telegraph

Times Online
December 14, 2008

Blacklist terror charity still open in Pakistan

The Markaz-e-Taiba complex of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa organisation remains open in Muridke, Pakistan, despite being terror blacklisted by UN

Jeremy Page, in Muridke, Pakistan

The main complex of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), the Pakistani charity linked to last month's attack on Mumbai, is still open four days after the U.N. Security Council placed the group on a terrorist list, the Times has learned.

Pakistani officials say they ordered the closure of JuD's facilities on Thursday under pressure from India and the United States, which see it is a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) – the militant group blamed for the Mumbai attack.

But when The Times visited the Markaz-e-Taiba complex in the town of Muridke, 30 miles from the eastern city of Lahore, this afternoon it was functioning as normal and there was no sign of any police presence.

Most of the 1,600 students at the complex were away for last week's Eid holidays, but a dozen or so staff members and about 40 others were moving freely around the buildings, none of which was sealed.

"We have not had any official communication about closing," Mohammed Abbas (also known as Abu Ahsan), the 34-year-old administrator of the complex, told The Times.
"A lot of parents have been calling, afraid that it will be closed or there could be some violence, but we are telling them to send their children back."

He said that about 80 armed police had visited the complex on Wednesday night, but they left after half an hour when the guards told them that the students were away for the holidays.

"If I had been there, I'm sure they would have taken me," said Mr Abbas, who was in Lahore when the police visited. He said he spoke to the local police chief at the time.

The half-hearted police raid is certain to feed Indian -- and Western -- skepticism about the Pakistani government's crackdown on JuD, which is led by Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the founder of LeT.

Pakistani police placed him under house arrest on Thursday after he and four colleagues were added to the U.N. terrorist list. His house was surrounded by police, who barred entry when The Times visited.

They have shut down JuD's offices in Lahore, which The Times also verified, and in several other cities, and conducted a high profile raid on one of its complexes in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

However, Pakistani authorities fear they could spark a public backlash by closing down JuD's network of educational and healthcare facilities, which support tens of thousands of people around Pakistan.

JuD and its allies are already stoking public resentment about the U.N. decision to add it to the terrorist list before India has presented Pakistan with evidence of its role in the Mumbai attacks.

"The whole international community is acting very hurriedly," said Abdullah Muntazir, a JuD spokesman, who said he had not been arrested, but dozens of other JuD leaders had been.

"Justice hurried is justice denied," he told The Times.

Mr Saeed founded JuD in 1986, with Saudi money, as a charity designed to spread the ultra-conservative Wahabi school of Islam by providing poor Pakistanis with education, healthcare and disaster relief.

He also founded LeT in 1989 with the explicit goal of fighting Indian rule in Kashmir and forged close ties with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

When Let was banned in 2002, after its militants attacked the Indian parliament the year before, it continued to function under the banner of JuD, according to Indian and Western officials.

But JuD also continued with its social work, establishing a network of 153 healthcare centres, eight hospitals, 160 schools and 50 madressahs. It now claims to treat 6,000 patients a day, to teach more than 35,000 students, and to run one of Pakistan's biggest ambulance services.

Markaz-e-Taiba is its showcase centre, featuring a boys' school, a girls' school, an Islamic University, a large mosque, a farm and a well-equipped hospital with three full-time doctors. It even has a swimming pool and 20 well groomed horses for student's physical education.

Mr Abbas said it was inspired by a tour of Lahore's Aitchison College, Pakistan's most elite private school whose alumni include Imran Khan, the former Pakistan cricket captain.

"If Aitchison College was collaborating with us at that time, then how come we now face this problem now?" he said.

JuD now denies any link to LeT and any involvement in the Mumbai attacks, and has pledged to fight the decision to close it down through Pakistani and international courts.

Mr Abbas, however, warned the government that closing Markaz-e-Taiba could provoke a backlash from locals, many of whom donate money, attend the mosque and send their children there for education.

"You can't record a single incident where we have blocked roads or burned tyres, but if this complex is closed, parents of our students may well come on the roads and do such things," he said.

"We don't know what will happen when the students return on Monday."

Pakistani officials are especially concerned about a backlash in the province of Punjab, where Markaz-e-Taiba is situated, as the densely populated region has been relatively stable until now, analysts say.

Local officials contacted by The Times declined to comment on why the complex, next to the Grand Trunk road between Lahore and Islamabad, had not been closed.

Times Online

arun wrote:

Terrorists in Pakistan planning over 20 attacks on Britain, says Gordon Brown
The Telegraph

Page last updated at 10:46 GMT, Sunday, 14 December 2008

Three quarters of the most serious terror plots being investigated by UK authorities have links to Pakistan, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said.

He was unveiling a £6m ($8.9m) deal with Pakistan he called "the most comprehensive anti-terrorist programme" between the UK and another country.

The "pact against terror" funding will go towards anti-car bomb equipment and material to educate people out of becoming extremists, he said.

"The time has come for action and not words, and I want to help Pakistan and other countries root out terrorism.

"In return for this action we will continue to expand our counter-terrorist assistance programme with Pakistan, and it will be more than ever, the most comprehensive anti-terrorist programme Britain has signed with any country."

Many seasoned analysts of the Pakistani religious militancy have their doubts more serious measures may follow: “It’s not even as serious an operation as it was in 2002,” says Amir Rana, Director of Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS).

JUSTIFICATION: But many in Pakistan would justify this inaction or half-hearted action, at best citing Islamabad’s support for the US-led war on terror and, despite this, the growing American-Indian nexus, particularly in Afghanistan.

Washington’s apparent reluctance to prevent what they believe is the ongoing Indian involvement in trouble in parts of Pakistan is also cited.

“If the international community regards Pakistan as part of the solution in the war on terror, then it needs to concentrate on removing Pakistan’s sense of insecurity vis-a-vis India,” says author and analyst Zahid Hussain.

The Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), which was labelled a terrorist organization by the UN Security Council for its links to the Mumbai carnage, has been able to transfer money out of most of its public bank accounts, negating the impact of the crackdown by Pakistan, a media report said on Sunday.

The dismantling of the Islamic charity linked to the Mumbai terror attacks is being seriously hampered by Pakistan's difficulties in tracking and seizing millions of dollars the group is believed to have stashed in bank accounts in Pakistan and abroad, the Wall Street Journal said on Sunday.

The public lead-up to the UN action gave the group ample time to transfer money out of most of its public bank accounts, an unidentified Pakistani finance ministry official was quoted by the US Journal as saying.

The official estimated that the group has moved hundreds of thousands of dollars, "maybe millions" in recent days.

"If we don't take away money, it can reopen any time," the official told the paper. "The money in Pakistan is hidden now. We won't find it."

Jamaat officials, who last week invited reporters to tour their complex outside Lahore and see some of their social-service programmes in action, have been unavailable to comment since Thursday's clampdown; many were either detained or being sought by Pakistani authorities, the Journal said.

As of Friday afternoon, the Journal said, at least one Jamaat-ud-Dawa account remained open for supporters to deposit donations, "at least for the moment."

People who wished could still deposit money at a Lahore branch of Bank Alfalah Ltd., a small lender part-owned by investors in Abu Dhabi, said the bank's operations officer, who, the paper said, would give his name only as Ali.

The Pakistani bank official said neither Jamaat nor the government had asked him to shut the account, which was in the name of Markaz Jamat-ud-Dawa. Markaz means the "headquarters of" in Urdu.

Other bank officials, including at its main office in Karachi, didn't respond to requests to comment, the Journal said.

Pakistan's central bank ordered all of Jamaat's assets frozen and accounts closed on Thursday, and Pakistani officials said they believed banks were complying with the order, but wouldn't elaborate or comment directly on the Alfalah account, it added. The account has been open since at least 2005, when fliers urged people to give money to it during the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Adha.

In Pakistan, Europe and the US, Jamaat has asked donors since 2005 to deposit funds at Bank Alfalah in the name of a separate charity, Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq or IKK, which the US State Department identified in 2006 as an alias for Jamaat, the Journal quoted counter-terrorism officials.

US supporters of the Jamaat have been urged to wire dollars to IKK through the Bank of New York, according to a 2006 snapshot of the Web page captured by terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann, an expert on Lashkar who frequently testifies in criminal cases involving the group, the paper said.

A Bank of New York spokesman said no donations were ever transmitted through the account. On the same page, donations in euros were solicited in Europe through a bank in Munich, the US daily said.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Rehman Malik, Pakistan's interior minister, said investigations into Jamaat's assets and funding are now under way.

He said authorities are moving quickly to shut down offices and militant training camps, but added: "The government is not tracking everyone's accounts, frankly speaking."

Fifteen people were arrested in Bahrain on Wednesday for what government officials said was a plot to detonate explosives during a series of Shia Muslim observances.

The group planned to explode canisters filled with flammable liquid and iron balls during Shia observances of a pair of national celebrations this week, national security officials said in a written statement.

Tuesday was National Day, a celebration of the day in 1971 when the British withdrew from Bahrain, making it an independent emirate. Wednesday was Accession Day, the 37th anniversary of when the emirate's king took the throne.

The planned attacks "were meant to disrupt public security and threaten the lives of citizens during the celebrations ...," according to the statement. "The efforts of security personnel, however, succeeded to foil this attack."

The statement said investigation continues and more details will be released to the public later.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/All_ ... 855871.cms

All terrorism roads lead to Pakistan, says Rushdie
18 Dec 2008, 1137 hrs IST, PTI
Print Email Discuss Share Save Comment Text:
NEW YORK: Describing Pakistan as the centre of world terrorism, renowned author Salman Rushdie has slammed Islamabad for its "cynical denial"
that the terrorists involved in Mumbai attacks were not its nationals.

Participating in a panel discussion at the Asia Society, Rushdie said that the terror attacks in Mumbai were marked by brutality by the attackers and incompetence of government and security agencies in responding to them.

During the discussion, panelists agreed that all terrorism roads lead to Pakistan and expressed skepticism that Islamabad would dismantle the terror groups.

They said the world should send clear message to Islamabad that terrorists are becoming a liability to Pakistan and it is in its own interest to dismantle them.

The (George W) Bush administration too came in for strong criticism for considering former President Pervez Musharraf an "ally in fighting terrorism" and giving billions of dollars to it without any condition that the money should be used to fight terrorists.

The panelists recalled that Musharraf was responsible for aiding Lashkar-e-Taiba to fight in Kashmir during his years in army and Rushdie said he put up a western face to the Westerns but was mullah to extremists.

Rushdie as also other participants strongly attacked noted author Arundhiti Roy for linking the Mumbai terrorist attacks to Kashmir, Gujarat riots and demolition of Babri Masjid.

Kathmandu, Dec. 21 (PTI): Nepalese authorities have busted a fake currency network criss-crossing Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Gulf states with the arrest of its alleged Pakistani kingpin, believed to have links with terror outfits in South Asia.

Aslam Ansari, a 58-year-old from Karachi, and his accomplice, Mohammad Jehangir, 25, from Sitamarhi district in Bihar, were arrested along with their Nepalese partner Nasim Ansari, 27, yesterday. The three were nabbed from a hotel in Birgunj, a border town in southern Nepal, according to police inspector Krishna Prasad Sharma.

The police have seized Rs 1.2 lakh in counterfeit currency of Rs 1,000 denomination from the hotel. The arrests were made on the basis of information from Sajid Ansari of Birgunj who was arrested in November with counterfeit Indian currency worth nearly Rs 8 lakh.

sanjaykumar wrote:Removing Pakistan's sense of insecurity?

Let us see now, India needs to improve Pakistani literacy above 15% (for women), needs to instruct its army not to use aircraft to bomb its own civilians, needs to instruct them that an economy based on narcotics and extortion is un-Islamic, needs to tell them that f-----g their cousin-sisters only produces more rat-faced imbeciles resembling the Mumbai ten......

Frankly India does not have the requiste talents to mollify Pakistan.

Time for Truth

Pakistan's civilian leaders must face their country's responsibility for the Mumbai attacks.

Monday, December 22, 2008; A20

BY NOW, the evidence that the terrorist assault on Mumbai was planned and directed from Pakistan is overwhelming. The lone surviving attacker, a Pakistani national, has signed a statement describing how he was recruited and trained by the Lashkar-i-Taiba group. Intelligence officials say cellphone intercepts show that the attackers were communicating with Lashkar commanders in Pakistan during the attacks. During a visit to Islamabad, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke for the West when he openly blamed Lashkar-i-Taiba for the siege and added that "the time has come for action, and not words," from Pakistan.

Stunningly, however, Pakistan's civilian government is refusing to acknowledge the truth. In an interview with the BBC last week, President Asif Ali Zardari claimed that there is still no proof that the attackers came from his country. "There are disputed positions in the press. . . . I would not jump to a conclusion," he said. Several days earlier, he told Lally Weymouth of Newsweek and The Post that "I don't have any specific information" showing that the terrorists were trained in Pakistan. Under heavy pressure from the Bush administration, Mr. Zardari's government has placed the leader of Lashkar-i-Taiba under a loose "house arrest" and rounded up several dozen of its militants, including the man India has identified as the chief planner of the attacks. This unconvincing sweep looks bad in the light of history: After a Lashkar-sponsored assault on India's Parliament in 2002, the government arrested many of the same people and formally banned the group. Later the suspects were quietly released, and the organization reemerged under the name Jamaat-ud-Dawa.

Apologists for Mr. Zardari's civilian and democratically elected government point out that the president's bluster probably covers his lack of authority to crack down on Lashkar-i-Taiba or its allies in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Since Mr. Zardari replaced Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a master of duplicitous dealings with Washington, the army has stepped up attacks on Taliban militants in provinces bordering Afghanistan. The sponsors of the Mumbai attack no doubt wanted to undermine that campaign as well as steps toward peace by Pakistan and India.

Yet, if the war on terrorism is to be won, the excuses for Pakistan must end. The incoming administration should quickly act on President-elect Barack Obama's promises to condition aid, especially to the Pakistani military, on fundamental reforms. Officers who support the Taliban or groups such as Lashkar-i-Taiba as a check on India must be purged, once and for all. Mr. Zardari and other civilian leaders should receive strong U.S. support only if they clearly ally themselves with this agenda. The first step is relatively simple: to stop denying the truth.

Defense lawyers argued that the alleged plot was all talk—that the men weren't seriously planning anything and that they were manipulated and goaded by two paid FBI informants.

Faten Shnewer, the mother of defendant Mohamad Shnewer, said the informants should be the ones in jail. "Not my son and his friends. It's not right, it's not justice," she said after the verdict. The government "sent somebody to push him to say something; that's it."

"I don't think they actually mean to do anything," said Mohamed Younes, president of the American Muslim Union. "I think they were acting stupid, like they thought the whole thing was a joke."

Jim Sues, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said: "Many people in the Muslim community will see this as a case of entrapment. From what I saw, there was a significant role played by the government informant."

The yearlong investigation began after a clerk at a Circuit City store told the FBI that some customers had asked him to transfer onto DVD some video footage of them firing assault weapons and screaming about jihad.

The FBI asked two informants—both foreign-born men who entered the U.S. illegally and had criminal records—to befriend the suspects. Both informants were paid and were offered help obtaining legal resident status.

The Pakistan-born owner of a satellite TV company has pleaded guilty to providing material aid to a terrorist organisation by letting customers receive broadcasts from Hezbollah’s television station.

Javed Iqbal entered the plea in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday. He declined comment afterward. As part of the plea, Iqbal agreed to serve a prison term of up to six and a half years. Sentencing was set for March 24. Prosecutors say Iqbal used satellite dishes on his Staten Island home to distribute broadcasts of Al Manar, the television station of the Lebanon-based organisation that has been fighting Israel since the early 1980s. Israel and the US consider Hezbollah a terrorist organisation and accuse it of being behind deadly attacks in Lebanon and abroad. Iqbal, 45, was born in Pakistan but has lived in the US for more than 20 years. He is a permanent resident with five children.

UK joins US pressure chorus

By M. Ziauddin

LONDON, Dec 24: Right on the heels of a stern alert delivered personally by Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullan, an equally stern advice has gone from Britain on the same day to Islamabad emphasising that after the Mumbai carnage the Indians were losing patience with Pakistan and that the UK was worried that lack of cooperation from the Gilani government could provoke some unwanted developments.

Expressing its appreciation of the difficulties facing Pakistan, Britain, however, is said to have made known its no-confidence in the middle-ranking officials of the ISI as it feared that these officers were not carrying out orders from the political leadership faithfully.

Britain is said to have suggested that if Pakistan started working on the prosecution of the arrested persons (of Jamaatud Dawa), it will make a big difference.

It is also said to have urged that some legal process was needed to be initiated against Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed.

Diplomatic circles here said Britain had offered help in the investigation into the Mumbai attacks.

They said Britain had taken the position that evidence concerning terror activities launched from Pakistan in India was already there with Pakistan recalling that in 2005 Pakistan had publicly stopped ISI’s help to the militants in their attacks across the LoC.

However, according to these circles when Britain offered help in the efforts to rein in the jihadists, the ISI reportedly said it would continue to control Lashker-e-Taiba and would only move the LeT’s training camps from the LoC to farther inside Azad Kashmir.

It is claimed by these circles here that Britain believes that the training still continues in those camps as Pakistan does not have a proper and effective control of those training camps which need to be dismantled.

They said that in the opinion of the British government, Pakistan army’s policy of ‘coordination with and control of militant groups’ had not worked and needed to be replaced by a new policy. like what? TSPA wiping the jihadis' rear ends after they do their daily deeds?

Britain has also asked about any mechanism in place in Pakistan to know what the ISI is doing and to influence it. In this connection Britain offered that Pakistan could benefit from Britain’s experience of transparency and accountability of the agencies.

Britain is reported to have said that the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism at the Home Office would very much like to work with Pakistan to develop the counter-terrorism strategy of Pakistan and Britain.

Britain is said to be heavily dependent on inputs from Pakistan in regard to the counter-terrorism part of its own national security strategy.

However, Prime Minister Brown, it is said, was not satisfied with the work on counter-radicalisation and, therefore, coordination with Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior and FIA is being sought to be improved.Britain is also said to have sent an assessment of situation in Mohmand agency, Peshawar and Swat prepared by the British High Commission in Islamabad which has described the situation as ‘quite gloomy’.

Britain, it is said, accepted that Pakistan army’s counter terrorism capacity was limited, but was worried by the emphasis in training at the Staff College Quetta that tells that the enemy is India.

Britain is said to have also offered to help in capacity building but wants to know about Pakistan’s strategy and the entity which is driving the political/ comprehensive strategy in Fata and any single point of contact whom Britain can support financially.

Britain is said to believe that the Friends of Pakistan will want to know this when the Trust Funds are established for NWFP and Balochistan.

Britain is also said to have told Pakistan that it wants to see President Zardari and President Karzai taking strategic ownership of the border areas and that at the moment Pakistan’s strategy on Fata looked ad-hoc.

Britain is said to have also emphasised the need to formalise/institutionalise coordination between Pakistan and Afghanistan at the political/strategic level.

... as a terror threat grows

December 26, 2008

It's a vigilance we have to extend to our dealings with Pakistan, which is supposed to be our ally in the fight against terrorism.

Pakistan said last week that it had placed Hafiz Muhammad Saeed under house arrest. It was an "arrest" loosely defined for Saeed, the leader of a charitable front group accused of plotting the Mumbai attacks. According to The New York Times, Saeed has moved freely throughout his Lahore neighborhood since his arrest. His visitors come and go.

That's not nearly good enough. Despite overwhelming evidence—and the confession of the lone surviving Mumbai gunman—Pakistan's government refuses to admit that the perpetrators were Pakistani.

The U.S. must continue to apply pressure to Pakistan, and make sure it brings Saeed—and his co-conspirators—to justice. How? We have to ensure that Pakistan doesn't follow its usual pattern of high-profile roundups in the face of world attention, followed by quiet releases when everyone looks away. Pakistan should extradite Saeed to India to stand trial in the country where the crimes were committed. And Islamabad must ban and break up the vast infrastructure of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Islamic charitable organization that has served as a cover for terrorist activities.

This isn't just about supporting a U.S. ally—India—hit by terrorism, though that, on its own, is a worthy aim. It's about protecting the U.S.

Because unless we make sure Pakistan deveins and dismembers Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the group will continue to plot destruction from Pakistani soil. And someday we may find that the next major terrorist attack on U.S. soil originated in the Pakistani training centers of this so-called Islamic charity.

According to its Web site, Jamaat-ud-Dawa is "a Pakistan based Islamic relief and welfare organization." That part is true. Jamaat-ud-Dawa did substantial and sustained relief work following the devastating 2005 earthquake in northern Pakistan.

It also functions, however, as a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terrorist organization that was officially banned by the Pakistani government under U.S. pressure in 2002. In the years since, Lashkar-e-Taiba has gone underground, with its leaders, including Saeed, moving into the upper ranks of Jammat-ud-Dawa. But it has continued to plan and perpetrate deadly attacks in India, killing hundreds; train and house Al Qaeda operatives; and attack American military personnel in Afghanistan. Most galling, it continues to draw support from the Inter-Services Intelligence, the spy agency that is deeply intertwined with the Pakistani military.

The civilian government of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has insisted that is had nothing to do with the Mumbai attacks. There's no reason to doubt him. But as the "arrest" of Saeed shows, the government has been hesitant to stand up to militants—and military-intelligence factions who serve as the militants' patrons.

Washington needs to make clear to Pakistan's government and its military—which relies heavily on U.S. funding—that the U.S, no longer will stand by as the Pakistanis tolerate terrorists.

Mr. Riedel is one of a chorus of terrorism experts who see the terrorist network’s base in the mountains of Pakistan as America’s greatest threat, and perhaps the biggest problem facing Mr. Obama’s new team.

He speaks angrily about what he calls a savvy campaign by Pakistan’s government under President Pervez Musharraf to fleece Washington for billions of dollars even as it allowed Al Qaeda to regroup in Pakistan’s tribal lands.

“We had a partner that was double-dealing us,” he said during an interview in his house in a Washington suburb. “Anyone can be snookered and double-dealt. But after six years you have to start to figure it out.”

MR. RIEDEL struggles at times to lay out a path for the president-elect on Pakistan — the foreign policy headache he calls “the hardest part of this whole thing” — that is vastly different from the course the Bush administration has charted in recent months.

Washington must approach Pakistan with a “subtle and deft touch,” he said, and strengthen the civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of Benazir Bhutto, the slain former prime minister, to act as a counterweight to Pakistan’s military and intelligence apparatus, which still dominates Pakistan’s political life.

Winning over the generals, Mr. Riedel said, could require a tough-love approach: overhauling military aid to Pakistan and cutting sales of the big-ticket weapons the country has used to keep pace with its archrival, India. Instead, he argues, the United States should be providing equipment like helicopters and night-vision goggles to help Pakistan’s military navigate the mountain passes where militants have established their base.

It was Washington’s too cozy relationship with Mr. Musharraf’s military government, he argues, that fueled the intense hatred for the United States in Pakistan. He cites polls that more Pakistanis blame the United States than either India or Al Qaeda for the recent surge of violence in the country.

“Anytime in Pakistan where more people blame you than India for the country’s problems, you are in deep, deep trouble,” he said.


...Today, however, he is in lockstep with his former C.I.A. colleagues on at least one matter: the necessity for Pakistan’s pre-eminent spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, to sever its longstanding ties to militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas. These are ties the Bush administration never found a way to break, as the ISI has used the militants as a proxy force there for decades.

And they will not be broken, Mr. Riedel said, until Pakistan’s generals and spy agencies acknowledge what Pakistan’s president learned only through heartbreak — that the struggle against Al Qaeda and its ilk is “their war” as much as it is America’s.

To date, 106 Canadian soldiers have died in what is only the latest conflict to embroil Afghanistan, one of several geographic pieces that has been at play in a centuries-old struggle in south Asia. The Great Game that embroiled the British superpower of the 19th century, then the United States and Soviet Union in the last century, may always have been a struggle between vastly outgunned insurgents and modern armies, but the outcome is no less uncertain now than it was during all the other battles there.

What is without dispute is that no solution to the regional tensions is possible that does not involve Pakistan, the nuclear-armed neighbour to Afghanistan that is the breeding and training ground of so many of those who are now killing Canadian soldiers.
In a four-part series, Canwest News Service looks at Pakistan, its internal fragility and external ferment.
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Terrorists from Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Taiba earned international infamy last month when they carried out audacious multiple attacks on neighbouring Mumbai in India.

The Army of the Righteous, Pure, or Pious, to render Lashkar-e-Taiba's name in English, is one of many Islamic jihadi groups operating in Pakistan. In fact, there are so many jihadis calling themselves Al-Qa'ida, Afghan Taliban, Pakistan Taliban and other names in and near this country's tumultuous tribal belt that retired major-general Jamshed Ayaz, an anti-terrorism expert at the Institute for Regional Studies in Islamabad, confessed that he could not remember all of them.

"Al-Qa'ida is there and they are the main enemy," Ayaz said. "We call many others Afghan Taliban and Pakistan Taliban, but that is not always correct. Some are criminals. Others are Islamic fanatics who oppose photographs and ladies being in public, but even having those beliefs does not always mean that they are really Taliban."

Who these shadowy groups are, what motivates them to fight and where, and to which groups they are allied is of crucial importance to soldiers from Canada who are trying to understand the complex war they are fighting across the border in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Taliban, who are all Pushtuns, are led by Mullah Omar, the charismatic one-eyed preacher who is allied by marriage and theology with Al-Qa'ida's leader, Osama bin Laden, and who shares with him a $10-million (U.S.) bounty on his head. But there are other Afghan Taliban leaders, including Jalaluddin Haqqani, who operate out of Pakistan's North Waziristan district as well as Afghan warlords often based in Pakistan who wrap themselves in jihadi rhetoric but are seldom regarded as men of God.

Both the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qa'ida believe in an extremely conservative interpretation of the Koran and have long used Pakistan's tribal areas as a sanctuary. The so-called Pakistan Taliban sprang up when Mullah Omar and his followers were chased out of Afghanistan and into this country after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. After they settled here, they used thousands of mostly Saudi-funded madrassas to inspire young Pakistanis to share their core beliefs and take up their holy war.

But groups in the border areas have always been more loyal to their tribes and clans than to any one leader. As a result, the Pakistan Taliban quickly developed so many fractious components with shifting alliances that television journalist Talat Hussain, who has spent the past few years seeking them out in their mountain redoubts, described them as "franchises more than anything else. There are very loose networks, but they are unstable structures."
Despite being only a few years old, the Pakistan Taliban as a collective already controls most of this country's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where they have set up a number of Islamic mini-states. More troubling for Pakistan's future as a unified state, they have slowly been expanding their reign of terror into North West Frontier Province with bursts of violence in many other parts of the country.

Although Jamshed Ayaz said this was "absolute rot," U.S. intelligence agencies, Western diplomats and military commanders strongly believe that the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan Taliban have fluid, generally fruitful relations with officers from the Pakistan army's powerful Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate, which nurtured the Afghan Taliban when they started in the 1990s.

But not all of the Pakistan Taliban have ties to the ISI. One of its main leaders, the mysterious 34-year-old Bailtullah Mehsud, is this country's most wanted man. He is blamed for masterminding the assassination of Benazir Bhutto as well as many suicide bombings and the kidnappings of Pakistani soldiers. However, as Mehsud's gang fights only in Pakistan, it has been spared air strikes by unmanned U.S. Predator drones.

Other important Pakistan Taliban factions are led by Mullah Nazir and the warlord Gul Bahadur, who is a direct descendent of the legendary Faqir of Ipi, who fought against British rule in the 1900s. Both of these groups are estranged from Mehsud and have made peace deals with the Pakistani army, but because they have fighters in Afghanistan and provide logistical support to Al-Qa'ida and the Afghan Taliban, they have been targeted by U.S. drones operating over Pakistan.

To fight the Pakistan Taliban, the new government of Asif Ali Zardari has recently sent the army into parts of FATA where it has been involved in several major battles. As a part of a divide and rule policy, the army has also been handing out weapons to local tribal militias known as lashkars. But this can be a tricky business in these remote regions because the lashkars, some of whom may be Taliban by another name, could easily turn their weapons against those who gave them to them.

Lashkar-e-Taiba, which killed 164 people in India last month, is not a traditional lashkar and was not believed to have received any arms from the Pakistani government. But it has long had ties to the Pakistani military intelligence since being established in the late 1980s with the goal of conquering Indian Kashmir and its largely Muslim population. The Mumbai attack, which was directed at Israelis, Britons and Americans, as well as India, represented an ominous broadening of its ambitions.

Over time, Lashkar-e-Taiba has developed a broad following in poor rural areas across Pakistan, from which it draws many recruits. Its operations have been funded by the Dawa Islamic charity, which also has ties to the Taliban.

Opinion had been divided in Pakistan about the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other terrorist groups and what, if anything, should be done by Zardari's government or the army to check their rising power. While many Pakistanis are furious at the mayhem caused by Mehsud and Lashkar-e-Taiba and want them dealt with severely, there has also been admiration for the pluck of some Taliban factions for taking on the might of the U.S. army and air force and for Lashkar-e-Taibi for, among other things, attacking the Indian Parliament in Delhi in 2001.

"The conflict is changing," said Ahsan Iqbal, an MP and information secretary for the Pakistan Muslim League-N, the smaller half of the Pakistani People's Party-led coalition government. "The distance between Washington and Alaska is a lot less than between Islamabad and the tribal areas. The difference is 100 years. Their social structures and traditions are very different. If you do not understand this, there is little chance for success against them."

Notwithstanding the Pakistan Taliban's proven ability to cause bloody harm almost anywhere, Iqbal and others doubted that they would succeed in what has been called "the Talibanization" of the entire country.

"Things are very bad along the frontier, with many different forces pitted against each other," said Syed Jaffer Ahmed of the Pakistan Study Centre in Karachi, "but I would not go so far as to say that this will shatter the nation. I do not think that Talibanization can take place everywhere here."

Afghanistan and some NATO countries such as Canada have favoured opening a dialogue with moderate Taliban. Initial talks sponsored by Saudi Arabia have already taken place.

However, Mullah Omar is a hugely influential figure among most factions of the Pakistan Taliban and, therefore, a key player in any peace deal on both sides of the border - and he can hardly be considered a moderate.

Ayaz Wazir, who was a member of a Pakistani diplomatic mission that met half a dozen times with the Afghan cleric before the 9/11 attacks, favoured including him in any negotiations.

"We have an expression in Pushto that you can fight for 100 years but eventually you will talk," said Wazir, who grew up in a tribal area and speaks the same dialect as Mullah Omar.

To get the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban to stop fighting, Wazir said, each of them has to be killed with kindness.

"If you give the Pathan (Pushtun) affection and love, he'll do what he is asked," he said. "If you force him to do something, he would prefer to die.

"Rather than fight, make the Taliban your friends. It takes time, but follow a political path. Fight the Taliban with an economic war, not a real war."