Terror Attacks in Mumbai - IV

[arun]

Looks like many reporters have exposed the ISI's clumsy cover up attempt.

The Guardian and the Sunday Observer are as credible as they come

Revealed: home of Mumbai's gunman in Pakistan village

Rangudu,

The Guardian has run one more story with the same dateline, with the same author and on the same story. Am X Posting the same below.

Am also taking the liberty of X Posting the article posted by you in the Pakistani Connections to Global terrorism thread :

Mumbai terrorist came from Pakistan, local villagers confirm

Saeed Shah in Faridkot, near Depalpur
The Observer, Sunday December 7 2008

An Observer investigation has established that the lone surviving gunman caught by Indian police during last week's terrorist attacks on Mumbai came from a village in the Okara district of the Pakistani Punjab.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, interrogated in custody after last month's attacks, which killed 163 people, reportedly told Indian security officials that he came from a place called Faridkot in the Punjab province. His father was named as Mohammed Amir, married to a woman named Noor. During the past week, Pakistani sources have cast doubt on the authenticity of the leaked information, which has had a predictably explosive impact on relations between the two countries.

The Observer has obtained electoral lists for Faridkot showing 478 registered voters, including a Mohammed Amir, married to Noor Elahi. Amir's and Noor's national identity card numbers have also been obtained. At the address identified in the list, a man identifying himself as Sultan said he was the father-in-law of Mohammed Amir.

A villager, who cannot be named for his own protection, said the village was an active recruiting ground for the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. 'We know that boy [caught in Mumbai] is from Faridkot,' he said. 'We knew from the first night [of the attack]. They brainwash our youth about jihad, there are people who do it in this village. It is so wrong,' he added.

According to the villager and other locals, Ajmal has not lived in Faridkot for about four years but would return to see his family once a year and frequently talked of freeing Kashmir from Indian rule.

The truth about Ajmal's origins are key to the ongoing investigation of where the attackers came from and will have a profound impact on relations between India and Pakistan. Islamabad has repeatedly said that no proof has been provided to back Indian accusations that all the gunmen came from Pakistan. The terrorist outrage has pushed the two nuclear-armed countries to the brink of confrontation but, until now, there had been no solid evidence that any of the militants were from Pakistan.

On Friday, police arrested two Indian men accused of illegally buying mobile phone cards used by the gunmen in the Mumbai attacks, in the first known arrests since the bloody siege ended. Security officials demanded the release of one of them, Mukhtar Ahmed, yesterday, claiming he was a counter-insurgency police officer who may have been on an undercover mission.

Police said another Indian citizen, Faheem Ansari, who was arrested in February in northern India carrying sketches of hotels, the train terminus and other sites that were later attacked, was being brought to Mumbai for renewed questioning.

Rakesh Maria, a senior Mumbai police officer, said he believed there was a connection between Ansari and the Mumbai attacks. 'Ansari was trained by Lashkar and sent to do reconnaissance,' Maria said.

One of the arrested men, Tauseef Rahman, allegedly bought Sim cards by providing fake documents, including identification cards of dead people, senior police official Rajeev Kumar said yesterday in the eastern city of Calcutta. Rahman, of West Bengal state, later sold them to Ahmed, Kumar said. Both men were arrested on Friday and charged with fraud and conspiracy.

Police said they were still investigating how the 10 gunmen obtained the Sim cards. Most large Indian cities, including Calcutta, where the Sim cards were purchased, have thriving black markets for Sim cards and cheap phones.

Ahmed was from the Indian portion of Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan region at the root of much of the tension between India and Pakistan, Kumar said. According to an unnamed police official in Srinagar, Kashmir's biggest city, Ahmed was a local police officer.

The Guardian

[Gagan]

This choice of Hamid Gul in the list of wanted men is quite interesting!

Hamid Gul traditionally known as the Grand-daddy of Jihadism was the intelligence officer who personally handled Osama Bin Laden. He was ISI chief when the US was driving out the soviets from Afghanistan.
Now retired, he was last in the headlines when Benazir Bhutto named him amongst the few people who wanted to assassinate her, in her letter to Pervez Musharraf and also sent to the media.

Hamid Gul making it to the list here has a lot to do with US's eagerness to have access to him, for he hold the key to OBL and Al Quaida - with OBL not involved in the day to day activities of Al Quaida, this operation is possibly run by active support of Big former ISI Bosses like Hamid.

Pakistan will never hand over this guy, he is probably more powerful than Osama Himself.

[Rangudu]

x-post. See this about H.Gul.

http://thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=150979

Secret document confirms Hameed Gul wanted by US

Claims ex-ISI chief provided financial assistance to criminal groups, involved in recruiting, training seminaries’ students

Sunday, December 07, 2008
By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: A secret US document, marked as releasable to the Government of Pakistan, has linked former Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt-Gen (retd) Hamid Gul to the Taliban and al-Qaeda networks.

The two-page unsigned document had already been provided to the government, a knowledgeable source revealed to The News here on Saturday on condition of anonymity.

He said Gul had been charged in the paper with providing financial assistance to Kabul-based criminal groups and involvement in spotting, assessing, recruiting and training young men from seminaries.

The recruits are reportedly trained for attacks on the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan. The ex-general, according to the source, has been accused of assisting the Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in developing high-tech weapons.

In Washington, the State Departmentís Deputy Spokesman Robert Wood had declined to comment on earlier reports that such a list had been sent to the UN. “If we decide to send names, we will let the media know,” he responded to a question on the subject on Thursday.

But the document seen by The News reveals the US had sent the name of Lt-Gen Hameed Gul to the Government of Pakistan.

Gul is one of the five erstwhile ISI officials whose names Washington has recommended to the UN Security Council for inclusion in the list of international terrorists. When contacted by this scribe, Gul laughed off the charges which, according to him, are simply hilarious. He promised to come up with a para-wise response to the charges levelled against him on Sunday or Monday.

As per the paper, his name is spelled as Lieutenant General (retired) Hamid Gul, Hameed Gul and Haimid Gul. He was born on March 14, 1937 in Sargodha, reads the document, which says his address is Defence Colony in Peshawar, though he lives in Rawalpindi.

His passport number, according to the document, is BA479001. “Lieutenant General (retired) Hamid Gul was Director-General of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from 1987-1989.

“Hamid Gul has maintained extensive contacts over the years with Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives located in Pakistan, providing financial support and encouragement to these groups.”

It claimed: “In 2005, Hamid Gul provided general, over-arching guidance to the Taliban leadership on operational activities in Afghanistan. In 2008, Hamid Gul was in contact with the militant group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its leadership, including Baitullah Mahsud, and provided the TTP leadership and operatives with guidance on the conduct of militant operations in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.”

Since at least 2005, the paper says, Hameed Gul has also provided financial and material support to the Taliban and has supported militant training camps in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. As of late 2006, Gul allegedly directed a Taliban operative to head a militant training camp.

“Hamid Gul was a regular contact for Sirajuddin Haqqani and regularly apprised Sirajuddin of Pakistan government activity in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA),”the document continues.

Haqqani is a top Taliban commander, added to the UN 1,267 Committee’s consolidated list of individuals and entities associated with al-Qaeda or the Taliban on September 13, 2007. He was named specially designated global terrorist pursuant to EO 13224 on March 11, 2008.

“As of early 2007, Gul was involved in spotting, assessing, and recruiting young men from various Pakistani Madrassas for training in eventual attacks against US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan. The training consisted of techniques for laying mines, arson and suicide bombings. As of late 2006, Gul was also involved in the training camps.

“In late 2006, Gul provided money to a Kabul-based criminal group for every International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) member that the group kidnapped and turned over to the Taliban.

“In addition to these kidnapping-for-ransom activities, this criminal group sold weapons and explosives to the Taliban and acted as travel facilitators for Taliban members in Afghanistan.”

Gul was on the board of directors of Umman Tameer-e-Nau (UTN), a non-governmental organisation formed to help the Taliban and al-Qaeda networks develop high-tech weapons, the paper charges.

The UN 1,267 Committee added the UTN to its consolidated list of individuals and entities associated with al-Qaeda or the Taliban on December 24, 2001.

The UTN was named a specially designated global terrorist pursuant to EO 13,224 on December 20, 2001. “As of mid-2008, Gul has knowledge of the resettlement of al-Qaeda members from Iraq to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.”

[Victor]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Non- ... 803483.cms

Girly Boy wants meat every day and Big B movies ! And that bugger eats a lot !

Very weird that the guy wants to wear his own clothes and washes them himself. We should be paranoid about everything and just give him what every other prisoner wears. I would not count out anything from these sicko minds--razor blade in seam, cyanide in buttons etc..

[Gagan]

He is probably being kept in his Birthday suit for all we know. Don't go by all the dal and papad he supposed to be getting. He is getting "the treatment" mumbaiya istyle.

[Bade]

Hamid Gul making the list can mean only one thing since he cannot be handed over to India. Probably an Indian retaliation is inevitable. The list is made so as to not make it acceptable for Pakistan and satisfy Indian request in its entirety.

[arun]

Genome map could fix terrorists’ nationality

DNA India

Not a good idea when dealing with entity devoid of any identity besides not being Indian.

If the genome markers show Sindhi, Punjabi or Kashmi, Pakistan will claim the attackers were Indian.

If the genome markers show Pathan, Pakistan will claim the attackers were Afghan.

If the genome markers show Baloch, Pakistan will claim the attackers were Iranian.

[milindj]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Non- ... 803483.cms

Girly Boy wants meat every day and Big B movies ! And that bugger eats a lot !

Very weird that the guy wants to wear his own clothes and washes them himself. We should be paranoid about everything and just give him what every other prisoner wears. I would not count out anything from these sicko minds--razor blade in seam, cyanide in buttons etc..

Wasn't he restricted to wearing just undies?

[Gagan]

So what will be GOI's response? Air strikes? Naval Blockade?

Personally I don't think that the Markaz at Muridke will be targetted. It is well withing artillary range from the Amritsar border. Problem is, that muridke is a big closely packed slum town, there will be massive collateral damage. Although this won't necessarily be a bad thing - all living beings there are enmeshed in the terrorist economy that is centered in Muridke - all the way from tea stall owners to the goats there provide the daily needs of the Terror masters.

I think the following could be possible:
1. The US declares Pakistan an Terrorist State (Heaven help us all the unthinkable might even happen!)
2. IAF does some mud house busting in POK
3. Special Forces go in and clean out the already empty training camps within an area of about 5 km or so from the LOC in POK.
4. Indian Navy blockades Pakistan, maybe takes out a missile boat or two in the event of a skirmish. IN would LOVE to get its hands on one of those atlantiques or the P3c's or the New Agosta 90s but Pakistan will likely keep them strictly on shore.
Wouldn't it be great if IN / IAF bombs Karachi and takes out a few of them agostas?
5. The US - UK - India step up the ante on pakistan's western borders, FATA and Baloch movements gather momentum, Sindh is made to burn all over again.

What I think needs to be done now by RAW is to mobilize the leadership in Balochistan and Sindh for a full fledged separatist movement from Pakistan - the time has come. If we don't keep Pakistan busy within its borders, it will keep being a pain for the whole democratic world - we sharing thousands of kilometers of borders with it will feel the pain the most. There will be many many more mumbais if we don't act. If we do there might be a few more mumbai's but the problem WILL be solved - Permanently.

[gandharva]

I appolozise if already posted.
*****************************

Dear Friends,

I recently posted the following on the RISA-List. I post it here in
case it is of interest to people on this board.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

Following the horrific events in Mumbai, many suggestions and ideas
are floating around about the identity of the terrorists, their
motives, their nationalities and the cause(s) of the attack. In some
senses, these ideas and explanations fall within the limits of
predictable parameters: the Hindu-Muslim conflict in India, the issue
of Kashmir, links with international terrorist units, the resentment
among the Indian Muslims, and so on. While some such speculations
could be true, there is something else that needs to be taken into
account.

Let me begin with the fact that no known group has claimed
responsibility for the multiple attacks in Mumbai. In fact, one of
the suspect groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba has explicitly denied authorship
even though some e-mails have been received from Deccan Mujahedeen, a
hitherto unknown entity. As a result of this, the `aim' of these
attacks is also unknown. Specifically focussed acts, like the Mumbai
attacks, do not have the propagation of general issues like the
`plight of the Kashmiri Muslims', `the support of India for the US
foreign policy' or anything analogous as their aim. Of course, both
commonsense and newspaper pundits will sooner or later bring such
issues and link them to the goal of these attacks, but I think they
are wrong: the Mumbai attacks were far too focussed to be commensurate
with a vague and general goal.

The second striking thing, I find, is the apparent irrationality of
these attacks, even when looked at from within the framework of the
terrorist rationality. Sending well-trained people armed only with
AK-47 and grenades, knowing that none will make it back (with a chance
of capture as well), while they could have created even more damage
with armed bombs placed at strategic places suggests that this event
was planned to take place exactly the way it unfurled. That is to say,
mayhem was a secondary focus of this whole exercise: there is
something else to the Mumbai attacks than highlighting a `social
issue' or killing people at random or dying for a certain `cause'.

1. I think that the attacks in Mumbai were a response to the rather
inept and amateurish bombings that took place earlier this year in
multiple sites in India: Bangalore, Delhi, Surat, Jaipur and
Hyderabad. Mumbai is a demonstration lesson for the would-be
terrorists in India and abroad: how to make use of the local
resources, exploit the local conditions and work with local elements
in order to achieve the maximum result. This lesson is being taught to
the potential recruits in India and abroad by an influential section
of the international terrorists.

2. Why the need for a lesson, and who is doing the teaching? To
answer this question, we need to understand how the face of terrorism
has changed in the course of the last decades. In the latter part of
the twentieth century, terrorism remained both local and provincial.
It was local in the sense that some or another cell (or an
organization with a pseudo-military structure) undertook (mostly)
small scale attacks against locally known figures. It was provincial
in the sense that the attacks had very little ripple effects outside
the locality (or the nation) where such events took place.

The basic "business model" (it will very soon become clear why I use
an economic metaphor in this case) was also provincial: some or
another country was the place for the would-be terrorists to go to,
get trained in some aspects of warfare, and rely on that country for
supplies and guidelines.

The terrorists were also locally organized: they functioned mostly in
the form of cells that were relatively isolated from each other, and
they were dependent on well-wishers and sympathizers to keep them
active and alive. As a consequence, at the maximum, they were mostly
annexes and appendices to the foreign policy of some or another nation
and were also used in this fashion.

Given this, the association of terrorists, both nationally and
internationally, took the form of networks: loosely connected at the
outer rims of their organizations, these networks were something like
fraternity clubs that meet on big occasions or at celebrations. They
were either uncoordinated or only very loosely coordinated by the
sponsoring nation.

3. Beginning with the attacks of 9/11, I believe we see a
metamorphosis in the nature and structure of these terrorist
`networks': they are now being transformed into a multinational
enterprise. Through mergers, takeovers, and the establishing of new
branches, the terrorist networks of yesteryears are transforming
themselves into a true multinational firm. They are `thinking globally
while acting locally': bombs, suicide bombers and rockets in Iraq and
Israel, aeroplanes in the US, grenades and AK-47s in India. They do
not have a single signature or a modus operandi: they are adapting,
changing and transforming their ways of working to suit the conditions
they find themselves in. They effortlessly undertake purely criminal
activities (just think of the drug money in Afghanistan), mix easily
with the local criminal population but yet manage to retain their
identities as `elites'. These are their equivalents of
joint-partnerships with local firms.

4. The war in Afghanistan sounds the death knell of the old business
model of going to a particular place for training, living with other
`comrades' in tents, and learning to make a bomb or blow up an
armoured vehicle. Today, one has to make use of local conditions and
develop strategies for dealing with different places in different
ways. This, I believe, is the biggest lesson of Mumbai: instead of
ineptly trying to copy Iraq and Afghanistan, the terrorists are being
taught the lesson of how to be maximally effective in exploiting local
conditions. This lesson was needed because the Indian terrorists
created no waves despite simultaneous bombings in multiple sites in
India; the international leadership stepped in to teach them how to
act so that the maximum could be achieved. I believe that this is how
the leadership demonstrated how things have to be done, perhaps at the
behest of the terrorists in India, aimed at a very broad group of
would-be terrorists across the globe.

5. This has very important implications for policy makers. One cannot
treat the terrorists anymore in terms of loosely coordinated networks.
Today, we confront a multinational firm with a clear `business model'.
Much the same way the national governments are helpless in controlling
multinational firms, national intelligence agencies will not be able
to do much about this emerging phenomenon. Exchanging `intelligence'
among each other, or coordinating activities on an ad hoc basis are
not sufficient anymore to contain and neutralize this threat. Neither
the removal of a CEO (say, an Osama Bin Laden) nor the destruction of
a training camp (say, in the tribal areas in Afghanistan) will damage
this `business model'. At the very least, we need a multinational
intelligence agency with a clear mandate and the required legal powers
to successfully take on the transformed nature of crime in the era of
globalization, namely, terrorism.

6. If we forget to look at this crucial dimension but instead focus
only on the `Hindu-Muslim' conflict or the possible role of Pakistan
or the religious identities of the terrorists, then, I think, we fail
to learn from Mumbai while most would-be terrorists would have learnt
their lesson.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheHeathe ... ssage/4534

[Rishirishi]

I do not think hard military action will help. It will just strengthen the ISI and the Pak Army. I am asuming that Zardari actually wants to have peaceful relations with India, while ISI is against it.

So the answer could be in cutting off the funding to the Pak army and ISI. The Pak government is desperately short of cash. This should give ample opportunity to cut off funding.

[Gagan]

[shiv]

I appolozise if already posted.
*****************************

Dear Friends,

I recently posted the following on the RISA-List. I post it here in
case it is of interest to people on this board.

** ** ** ** ** ** **


1. I think that the attacks in Mumbai were a response to the rather
inept and amateurish bombings that took place earlier this year in
multiple sites in India: Bangalore, Delhi, Surat, Jaipur and
Hyderabad. Mumbai is a demonstration lesson for the would-be
terrorists in India and abroad: how to make use of the local
resources, exploit the local conditions and work with local elements
in order to achieve the maximum result. This lesson is being taught to
the potential recruits in India and abroad by an influential section
of the international terrorists.


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheHeathe ... ssage/4534

Who is the author of this crap? Have you, Gandharva actually read the article critically yourself to approve its spread on here?

[Nikhil T]

Hamid Gul making the list can mean only one thing since he cannot be handed over to India. Probably an Indian retaliation is inevitable. The list is made so as to not make it acceptable for Pakistan and satisfy Indian request in its entirety.

Possible. Equally possible, that India wants to drive down a bargain on Pakistan's throats by asking for Gul, a former Govt. official, someone who Pakistan wouldnt hand over ever. Maybe India foresees a deal on a sub-section of the 20 people publicly asked for and included Gul's name just to extract more 'actual' terrorists in exchange for keeping him inaccessible. Mind you, Unkil has been gunning for long for Hamid Gul and Indians would be taking advantage of this.

[Gagan]

Rishirishi,

Zardari just wants to stay on in power. Just as sonia gandhi just wants to stay on in power, their respective nations be damned. In zardari's case, weak as he is, he will bend the way the wind blows in pakistan - and the wind always blows the way the Army wants to there.
The Pakistani Army IS THE DEFACTO GOVERNMENT AND THE ALL IN ALL within Pakistan.
When Condelizza Rice went to pakistan I was looking for who all she's met. The first persons whom she met was Gen. A P Kiyani - unfortunately there was no official statement of that most important meeting, except that Kiyani had threatened that India attacking Pakistan will mean the end of Pakistani cooperation in Afghanistan.
In Pakistan, as in a human body, the nourishment will go the the Nerve Center first and with priority - the Pakistan Army, even to the detriment to the rest of the nation. When the nation goes down the drain, the Senior officers will simply fly off to their love nests in the UAE / Europe or the US of A and leave the Junior ranks holding the buck.

[gandharva]

Who is the author of this crap? Have you, Gandharva actually read the article critically yourself to approve its spread on here?

Shiv Ji i posted the article exactly for the part you have referred to. Although i have high regard for the guy about his writings on many things Indic looked through colonial lense. I was disappointed when i read that. Author is SN Balgangadhara.

http://balagangadhara.org/

[Nikhil T]

Arrested cop was deputed to sneak into Lashkar

^^ Wonder why did they release this story to the press? is this not compromising national security?

This Government is behaving very cheaply. How in the world anyone will work as undercover after this and Malegaon fiasco? You send someone as undercover and then arrest them as criminals. What a day the folks are seeing in India.

Its shocking that intelligence isnt shared at all by the agencies. What happened in all probability was that the name of the cop cropped up and because no one knew about the undercover operation, it was released or leaked to the media. Just for damage control later on, the clarification that the cop was working with Govt. authorization on a secret mission was necessary (or deemed so) to be put out for all, in the process - clearing the air on an operation that shouldn't have been public in the first place.

[VikramS]

The SIM-card cop issue has exposed serious process weaknesses, especially when it comes to information and media management. It seems every agency wants their day of glory in front of the cameras and has no problems throwing caution to the wind.

Once these suspects were arrested, they should have been questioned aggressively, their contacts and collaborators exposed, and their background checked out. Their arrests should be made public only when it is clear that the Police not only have the right people, but also have learned enough, and had the time to act upon the information acquired. There is absolutely no point in warning the prisoners partners to bolt.

I also have concern that the ousted police-officer's family will be in danger. It seems he lost a brother to LeT five years ago, which also led to his change of heart. The cop's identity has to be kept secret so it was no surprise that he was arrested. But after he was caught and revealed his true identity, the Calcutta Police should have verified his background instead of tom-toming with the media.

I am reminded of the ISO certification where the operational processes are certified to meet some measurable standard. India needs to develop an ISO type certification to put proper processes in place. There does not seem to be any competent form of processes and procedures in place when it comes to handling communication with the rest of the world. Hopefully it is just inexperience in a dramatically different media world, and not a representative of the other aspects of the organizations.

Whether it is the controversy about the name of the girly-boy, the total number of terrorists, the number of terrorists caught alive, the Police have made one communication gaffe after another. Communication needs to be managed keeping in mind the broader objective; some information is to be delayed, other never released. In this crisis, anybody who had anything to do with the operation, was chattering with little regards to the accuracy or the implications of their statements.

[neerajb]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 276283.ece

Outgunned Mumbai police hampered by First World War weapons

Indian police who bore the brunt of last week’s attacks on Mumbai had defective bulletproof vests, First World War-era firearms and insufficient weapons training, police sources have told The Times.

Many wore plastic helmets and body protectors designed for sticks and stones, rather than bullets, as they fought highly trained militants armed with AK47 rifles, pistols, grenades and explosives.

The contrast between them was vividly illustrated yesterday by CCTV footage of two militants attacking Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus, Mumbai’s main railway station, last Wednesday.

It shows the gunmen spraying automatic fire while two constables cower behind pillars, one armed with a .303 rifle similar to the Lee-Enfield weapons used by British troops in the First World War.

Similar scenes were played out at other targets in the first seven hours of the attacks, in which 16 policemen died, including three of India’s top officers.

“That’s 16 too many,” Maxwell Pereira, a former joint commissioner of Delhi police, said. “These casualties could have been prevented if they’d been properly equipped.” The abysmal state of police equipment helps to explain how ten gunmen managed to paralyse a metropolis of 18 million people for more than 60 hours.

It also illustrates how ill-prepared India’s 2.2 million-strong police force is to tackle another such attack.

“We’d react exactly the same way tomorrow,” Ajay Sahni, of the Institute for Conflict Management, said.

He described India as one of the “least policed” places in the world, with 126 officers per 100,000 people, compared with 225-550 per 100,000 in most Western countries.

Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, has one of India’s better police forces, but even it is woefully ill-equipped because of a centralised and highly corrupt procurement system.

Y. P. Singh, who retired after 20 years in the Maharashtra police in 2005, said that he knew of two batches of body armour that had failed tests in 2001 and 2004. “They couldn’t take rounds from AK47 or AK56,” he said. “The bullets pierced the jackets.”

He now believes that the Maharashtra police purchased the defective vests and issued them to officers last week.

On Wednesday, television stations showed Hemant Karkare, the head of the AntiTerrorist Squad, donning a bulletproof vest and a battered tin helmet as he arrived at the scene in Mumbai.

He was shot in the chest three times soon afterwards and died.

Two other senior officers who were travelling in the same car as Mr Karkare and were also wearing body armour were shot dead at the same time.

“If they’d been properly equipped they might have only been injured,” Mr Singh said. “Their vital organs would have been protected.” Other officers were only issued 5mm-thick plastic body protectors designed for riot control.

That is because India has only 100,000 bulletproof vests for police and paramilitary forces, according to Anurag Gupta, the managing director of MKU, which supplies the vests to the Government.

“The helmets used last week were World War Two-era, not designed for combat,” he said.

Most of the police involved were carrying .303s or self-loading rifles like those adopted by the British Army in the 1950s.

Some officers said that they were not given enough weapons training because of a shortage of ammunition and shooting ranges. In theory, all officers shoot 50 rounds a year in training. In practice, senior officers get their full quota with small arms.

“The rest is all bunkum,” Mr Pereira said. “It’s target practice with a .303 rifle. I wouldn’t call it suitable knowledge of weapons and their uses in urban policing.”

All those interviewed said that the issue was not money: the Government allocated £154 million for modernising the police in 2007-08 alone. The problem, they said, lay with the Home Ministry’s procurement system, which is dominated by corrupt bureaucrats and politicians rather than technical experts.

“It’s a cartel,” Mr Singh said. “The Government is spending millions, but the police isn’t getting the equipment it needs.”

[Raj Malhotra]

It is utter non-nonsense that the issue of equipping Police with modern arms is afflicted with Corruption or is too costly (i.e. budget issues). The equipment like weapons, ammo and BPJ will come from OFB or PSUs, so no corruption issues. While the center subsidizes the cost of such equipement from 50-80%, which means Bombay Police or the whole nation Police can re-armed by spending just 1% to 5% of their annual budget. The real reason is INDIFFERENCE-RED TAPE-DISINTEREST-CHALTA HAI

[renukb]

Is America Partly Responsible for the Mumbai Massacre?
December 4, 2008 | From theTrumpet.com
America’s efforts to stabilize Pakistan have failed. Just ask India.
http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=5729.4080.0.0

India was brought to a gut-wrenching standstill last week. On Wednesday, 10 Islamic terrorists armed with guns, grenades, explosives, and a lot of determination went on a 59-hour rampage through Mumbai’s bustling financial district.

We still do not know exactly who was responsible for the complex attacks, which killed nearly 200 people and injured more than 300, paralyzed a city with fear, and set off a geopolitical firestorm. But teary-eyed Indians are casting a vengeful gaze westward—toward Pakistan.

Who can blame them?

Pakistan is a giant hatchery of global Islamic terrorism. Few doubt that Pakistan, to one degree or another, had a role in the Mumbai massacre. “Evidence and logic suggest that radical Pakistani Islamists carried out the attack,” Stratfor chief George Friedman wrote.

Others, such as columnist Ralph Peters, believe it isn’t even an issue of whether Pakistan bears guilt, “but how direct the guilt may be” (emphasis mine throughout). It’s unlikely the relatively new and grossly impotent civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari is complicit, says Peters, but that doesn’t mean the military and intelligence branches of the Pakistani government are not. Both have deep ties to Islamic terrorist groups.

Pakistan’s sprawling intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (isi), might indeed be complicit in the attack. In August, the New York Times, citing U.S. government officials, wrote, “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.” This conclusion was based on intercepted communications between the isi and Islamic terrorists.

Whatever the details, the Mumbai massacre is covered with Pakistani fingerprints.

This isn’t surprising. Pakistan is virtually a failed state. It’s barely a country, says Peters—more like “chaos with a parliament.”

“Today no other country on Earth is arguably more dangerous than Pakistan,” wrote Ron Moreau and Michael Hirsh in Newsweek last year. “It has everything Osama bin Laden could ask for:

political instability, a trusted network of radical Islamists, an abundance of angry young anti-Western recruits, secluded training areas, access to state-of-the-art electronic technology, regular air service to the West and security services that don’t always do what they’re supposed to do. … Then there’s the country’s large and growing nuclear program.

Pakistan is clearly a basket case. The question is, how did this happen?

Since 9/11, Washington has attempted to forge the strategically situated nation of Pakistan into a stable American ally. The Bush administration has spent countless hours of diplomacy and statecraft toward this end, not to mention the $11 billion of aid Washington funneled into Musharraf’s government and military in an effort to secure his assistance in curbing the rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda and their supporters. Islamabad has received state-of-the-art weaponry, including F-16 fighter jets.

To what end?

“After Mumbai,” wrote Robert Kagan this week, America’s strategy in Pakistan “has to be judged a failure.”

He’s right: In spite of America’s best efforts, Pakistan still has an inept and fractured civilian government, insolvent economy, intractable military, rogue intelligence agency and alarming penchant for Islamic terrorism.

America’s post-9/11 relationship with Pakistan got off to a great start. Giddy with promises of billions of dollars in aid and caches of weapons, then-president Pervez Musharraf signed himself over as a staunch ally of America, promising Washington that he wouldn’t merely allow the U.S. military to conduct operations and air strikes against terrorist targets in Pakistan, but that his country would also provide intelligence and assistance, would sever ties with the Taliban and other terrorist groups, and would itself crack down hard on the extremists operating inside its borders.

Musharraf stuck to his word—for a short while.

The problem with his efforts, observed Newsweek, was that they were always “somewhat halfhearted, constrained by the deep sympathies that many of his countrymen have for jihadists” (Oct. 29, 2007). It wasn’t that he lacked the means to track and destroy terrorists (tellingly, on more than once occasion Musharraf captured a terrorist or waged a successful battle just prior to the arrival of a high-ranking American official), but that he lacked the willpower and determination to go after them.

By 2005 and 2006, the Musharraf government was cutting deals with clans in North and South Waziristan—deals which, as Newsweek showed, invariably favored the burgeoning of Islamic terrorism in western Pakistan:

The ceasefire agreements were publicly announced as treaties with tribal elders. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The deals were made directly with the militant leaders, their frontmen or terrified tribal elders who did the militants’ bidding. As a result they were worthless: The militants had no intention of keeping their promise to stop the passage of arms and fighters across the Afghan border. While the Army halted offensive operations and dismantled checkpoints, the militants helped the Taliban and al Qaeda regroup and reinfiltrate back into Afghanistan.

Radical Islam was burgeoning in Pakistan, and Musharraf responded by cutting deals with the terrorists!

Still, America overlooked Musharraf’s treachery, and continued to shower his regime with weapons, billions of dollars’ worth of aid, and political credibility. It never held Musharraf accountable for making good on his commitments. It was too willing and too quick to turn a blind eye to Musharraf’s evil doings.

Islamic terrorism thrived under Musharraf, despite his being an ally of America and enjoying the full backing of the United States.

Last week’s carnage in India was a result of radical Islam’s relatively unimpeded growth in Pakistan under Musharraf, whose primary ally was in Washington!

It gets worse. Toward the end of 2007, it became evident that both the Pakistanis and the American government were growing tired of Pervez Musharraf. It wasn’t long before America began demanding Musharraf’s resignation, and a democratic election for a new president. Notice what Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in January about this dangerous thinking:

[T]he president and the Democrat-controlled Congress are threatening to cut off financial and military aid if Musharraf doesn’t hold elections …. President Musharraf pleaded with them not to cut off U.S. aid. American leaders are telling Musharraf to take off his military uniform and give real freedom to that country. However, the military is the only institution that gives stability to that extremely divided country!

Mr. Flurry compared what was happening in Pakistan to the American-sponsored overthrow of the shah of Iran in 1979, which created the terrorist-sponsoring government of Iran we see today. “America’s ignorance and weakness helped to push Iran into the arms of radical Islam,” he wrote. “It could very well do the same to Pakistan—unless we learn from our history with Iran.”

He was right.

Musharraf resigned in August, and on September 9, Asif Ali Zardari was sworn is as the new, democratically elected, civilian president of Pakistan. That might have a nice ring to it, but under its new “democratically elected, civilian president,” Pakistan only descended into greater chaos. The post-Musharraf government is a convoluted web of competing politicians, judges and military men. Zardari is an impotent leader with massively restricted powers: The population is disaffected; the military and the isi are rogue; federal control over the outlying provinces, where terrorist organizations run the show, is all but non-existent; and the economy borders on collapse.

Pakistan is more dangerous than it ever has been. Just ask India!

Mr. Flurry wrote another prescient statement in that Trumpet article. “America’s problem is even worse than a weak will,” he said. “We even help push our allies into the hands of radical Islam. That is a dangerous kind of ignorance.”

In a very real sense, last week’s carnage in India gives us a picture of just how dangerous that ignorance truly is. America’s weak-willed foreign policy in Pakistan is partly responsible for the chaos it has descended into. And that failure set the stage for the Mumbai attack.

Biblical prophecy explains the reason behind the shrinking potency of America’s foreign policy. You can read about it in our article “America Has Won Its Last War.” It is also clear in describing the dangerous ramifications of this loss of American leadership in today’s world. Sadly, we can expect to see America’s global influence continue to wane, and many more such shocks as the one in Mumbai to follow.

If you’re interested in gaining regular in-depth analysis of events such as the Mumbai massacre, and in learning about the prophetic significance of these events, request your free subscription to the Trumpet in print. There isn’t a magazine on Earth that explains this chaotic world, which borders on total breakdown—or the wonderful world beyond—like the Philadelphia Trumpet. •

Brad Macdonald’s column appears every Thursday.
To e-mail Brad Macdonald, click here.
Please note that, unless you request otherwise, your comment may appear on our feedback page.

[harbans]

And look who's crapping now..

"I want to say to the Indian public and the Indian leadership please don't fall into their trap, look at what they have done to us, they are deceitful and they will use you for their own purpose," he said.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/07m ... eports.htm

[Pranay]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/weeki ... ml?_r=1&hp

South Asian dominos?

[Pranay]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7769758.stm

Militants torch American supplies in Pakistan... it's all related...

[jimmyray]

Hamid Gul looked scared:

I have seen Hamid Gul giving interviews many times, but today in his interview with Fareed Zakaria, he looked scared. He was still talking the usual bull s... but he looked like a man who knows that his days are numbered. He knows very well that he is a marked man. He is still very dangerous but a fear of death has crept deep in his heart. If anyone has experience in deciphering facial expressions just watch him and look at his eyes

[Rahul Shukla]

jimmyray, is that interview available online? I checked the Farid Zakaria GPS website and it is not there. Please provide link (if available).

[sum]

X-post from psy-ops thread. Was wondering as to where the assorted Human right luminaries had disappeared. Didn't take long for them to crawl out of the woodwork.
Link

Why Mumbai?

DARRYL D’MONTE

Everyone in today’s globalised world will continue to pay a heavy price as long as imbalances and injustices continue to exist in places like Palestine.

I am writing this from a walled mediaeval Italian town, Viterbo, not far from Rome. It is disarmingly sunny and bright, in the crisp cold of early winter and one feels safe and secure, far from the mayhem in Mumbai. And yet, one is immediately drawn into it, when the world is saturated with it by the media. No one can any longer be isolated from global events in any part of the world.

Why was Mumbai chosen? Was it because the terrorists wanted to strike at the heart of a once-resurgent Indian economy, which is why the two most opulent hotels were targeted? Was it because the metropolis is the destination for businessmen, mainly from the West and more particularly from the U.S. and U.K.? Was it specifically to target foreign tourists, which is why Leopold cafe in Colaba was selected — it is the favourite watering hole for budget travellers, and figures prominently in David Gregory Roberts’ best-seller Shantaram? Was it a soft target, a far cry from the cloistered and tighter security of the political capital?

Strike at identity

It is all these and much more. Mumbai is by far the most cosmopolitan of our cities, in the truest sense of the word. It is the only city where five languages can be heard as part of the daily discourse, without anyone batting an eyelid. Mumbai was once the industrial capital, in addition to the commercial hub, and that has always endowed it with a vibrancy lacking elsewhere. It is important for urban India that Mumbai succeeds as a multicultural entity, and the strikes may seek to discredit that.

In the early 1990s, Mumbai faced the first riots in recent years over The Satanic Verses, in which a few lost their lives when the police opened fire on protesters. Mumbaikars were surprised that they had joined the rest of the country in being singled out for such conflagrations. It faced the worst communal violence after the destruction of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 and the serial bomb blasts in March 1993, which paradoxically capped the protracted and bloody conflict. The Shiv Sena, on its own admission, played a major role in stoking the fires of those two riots.

The current attacks are on an altogether new plane. Mumbai has now faced the brunt of post-9/11 global terror. If Anglo-Saxons have been specifically targeted, the inference is obvious. These mujahideen aren’t wreaking only vengeance against Hindu militants or the Indian State but attempting to strike back at “The War on Terror”. It is a message for President Bush and his erstwhile partner in arms, Tony Blair. They are sending an unequivocal signal to the U.S. President-elect that they are making a statement against the continuance of old interventionist policies.

While the exact timing of these attacks may have to do with Barack Obama’s elevation in two months, the prelude may well be India’s entry into the nuclear deal with the U.S., which will clearly be seen as the country opting to align itself, for better or worse, with America. In all the euphoria over the end of India’s isolated status among the haves of the nuclear world, the foreign policy shift cannot have been lost on the terrorists. One can state, with some degree of certainty, that India should gird its loins for far more terrorist attacks in the months and years to come. Alliance of this dubious nature will extract its own, terrible costs.

Mumbai should guard against any knee-jerk reactions in these trying times. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has already been waging its own strong-armed vendetta against north Indians, aided and abetted by an unscrupulous Congress-led coalition in the State. There will be a temptation for all parties, led by the Shiv Sena, to demonise all Islamic communities and countries. The best response, in the immediate future, is to emphasise that the city is proud of its multi-cultural character and that diversity is its strongest answer to attempts to divide citizens on the basis of community and language.

But the attacks are also a time too delve into history and examine why most — but by no means all — terrorists are Muslims (though Hindu terrorists have now sprouted up too). This is true not only in this country but throughout the world. One has to remember that these countries are located either where there are major oil reserves, or — in the case of Afghanistan — where geopolitical strategies are vital for Western powers, now and in previous centuries. As the renowned British journalist Robert Fisk says, if Iraq’s main produce was broccoli, you can bet your last dollar that Bush wouldn’t have invaded it.

Long-standing grievances

The fact remains that till there is occupation of Islamic countries, even while the West turns a blind eye to the blatant occupation of Palestine by Israel and, indeed, arms this rogue nuclear State, there is not an iota of hope of an end to terrorism and counter-terrorism throughout the world. On the contrary, President Bush was hell-bent on targeting Iran, on the flimsiest of pretexts, citing Iran’s nuclear arms capabilities. This is of a piece with the now-widely discredited pretext for the invasion of Iraq, the much-vaunted Weapons of Mass Destruction.

If one excludes immediate bordering territories, no Islamic country is occupying another nation in today’s world. By contrast, Palestine has witnessed bloody conflict for over half a century and the U.N. and other bodies refuses to deliver justice to the embattled region there. Unless one attends to these long-festering wounds, one will live with terrorism for decades to come.

Elites in India will also do well not to fall into the trap of so much demonisation of Islamic societies, with Iraq only one rung better than Afghanistan. We forget that it is not only one of the cradles of civilisation, along with Iran, but that these are also regions with which India shares a much longer history. As a secular country with the second largest Muslim population in the world, India owes it to itself to take a long view of this tragedy, one of the scenes of which is just playing out.

The author is Chairperson, Forum of Environmental Journalists of India (FEJI), Mumbai.

I wonder why these kind of people don't get a bullet or two from the "oppressed and misguided" youth? I hope that after receiving such a bullet, he writes a article saying he didn't feel any pain since it was in honor of Palestine!!!!

[Vipul]

What the **** are Russians upto? Seems they are still not out of the of the high price oil intoxication.

Cautioning against a unilateral Indian military strike against Pakistan, Russia on Saturday said New Delhi should seek the support of the international community and present its case to the UN after collecting "concrete evidence" of the complicity of elements in Pakistan in the Mumbai attacks.

Russia and India will hold a meeting of their working group on countering terrorism in New Delhi on December 16 and focus on the situation arising out of the November 26 attacks, Russia's ambassador to India Vyacheslav Trubnikov told reporters hours after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ended his three-day visit to India.

"In case India provides very well substantiated proof, absolutely pucca (concrete) evidence, the UN Security Council could discuss the issue," Trubnikov replied when asked what kind of action India can take to deal with terrorism flowing from Pakistan.

"There are enough international fora to discuss the issue," he added. "With the assistance of the international community, we might come to concrete conclusions about organisations involved in these attacks," he said.

He, however, rued that there was no consensus on a definition of terrorism at the UN and pressed for a ratification of the Comprehensive Convention on Combating Terrorism.

The Russian envoy cautioned India against a unilateral military strike, as such an action would jeopardise peace and stability in the region. "In case any state takes the law into its hands, it will wreak havoc," the envoy stressed.

"A forceful imposition of solutions on both sides would aggravate the issue," he said while underlining that India and Pakistan should not allow terrorists to derail their peace process. "Any risky step will lead to domino or snowball effect," he warned.

"This was the handiwork of those who were trying to blow up the process. The process of melting the ice between India and Pakistan should be irrevocable," he said.

Virtually giving a clean chit to the civilian government in Pakistan, the Russian envoy said it was trying to "cut down the ISI to size" and should be strengthened in these efforts.

"I would not like to jump to conclusions. The stronger the government, the stronger its ability to deal with terrorism," said Trubnikov, who has represented Russia in several inter-governmental panels dealing with counter-terrorism.

The envoy also advised Indian law-enforcement agencies and take tougher measures to prevent terror attacks.

Alluding to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's remarks at a joint press interaction with the Russian president Friday, the envoy said the Indian prime minister was seeking support of the international community and wanted to involve major powers in any step New Delhi takes against Islamabad.

With the Mumbai terror attack underlining the global nature of terrorism, the two leaders called upon all states to cooperate actively with and provide support and assistance to the Indian authorities in their efforts to find and bring the perpetrators, organisers, sponsors, patrons or those in any way connected to these barbaric acts to justice in India.

"It's the obligation of all countries concerned that the perpetrators of this crime are brought to the book," Manmohan Singh replied when asked what India proposed to do about the perpetrators of the Mumbai assault who he said came from the "neighbouring country."

The terrorist attack, which began the night of November 26 and led to a 60-hour hostage crisis, killed 172 people, including 22 foreigners, and injured nearly 250. Indian authorities have maintained the 10 terrorists had come from Pakistan.

[archan]

They are probably pissed at the Indian proximity with the US. No problem. They are entitled to their opinions. Indians should thank them for their "caution" and go ahead with an aggressive plan, if they want to save innocent Indian lives in the future.

[sum]

Actually, the Russians are saying almost what the GoI is muttering from few days about going after big,bad ISI while leaving lilly-white civilian govt alone.

Though i did not understand how a country which invades a country for killing a few of its troops is urging restraint to one which lost 200 of its civilians due to its neighbor?

[NRao]

South Asian dominos?

George Friedman is generating fear that will drive US policy.

The biggest flaw in such Western thinking is that they have given too much importance to things that really do not matter in the longer to the region, and for too long. Now they want to undo all that with themselves in the center - their PoV as the basis. It cannot work.

In the same breath, India has to be faulted - though outside the equation of Pakistan for sure and the Western thinking too in some cases. India HAS to bring up to par her political system (pass a law no crooks allowed in ANY political entities and to pass the law crooks cannot vote on it), upgrade all aspects to meet a viable threat - terrorist, economic, political, technological, etc.

Bottom line is that Obama and his team HAS to understand that Islamic terrorism is not the result of India's existence. That it would rear its ugly head even IF India were to vanish today. That resolving ALL issues between India and Pakistan will NOT get rid of this variety of terrorism. It cannot. Simply because it is religion based. ISI is also religion based. So, is the Pakistani Army.

To come to a viable conclusion, FIRST all of us (countries) have to define what is Pakistan: IF the conclusion is that it is driven by a religious beliefs, there can be no solution.

[enqyoob]

It also illustrates how ill-prepared India’s 2.2 million-strong police force is to tackle another such attack.

“We’d react exactly the same way tomorrow,” Ajay Sahni, of the Institute for Conflict Management, said.

He described India as one of the “least policed” places in the world, with 126 officers per 100,000 people, compared with 225-550 per 100,000 in most Western countries.

And this is a criticism of the nation? I think it is the most wonderful compliment to the Indian people. And that in a nation as diverse as India!

This, ultimately, is the best retort to idiots like that CussBaum woman from Chicago. INDIA REFUSES TO BE A POLICE STATE despite being surrounded by enemies, and infested with the broadest possible spectrum of extremists.

Do ppl here have any idea what it is like to live in a banana or sausage republic where every third person is a uniformed gun-toting "official"?

It would be like posting in a forum with 3 postors and 47 Admins

The solution to terrorism is not to terrify the Indian people. It is very simple:

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE. DESTROY TERRORISTAN

[krishnan]

With 2 out of 3 posters getting banned , all the time

[NRao]

I think Mr. Darryl D'Monte is both right and wrong.

He is right that the world has relied on a prime commodity - oil - that is dominated by Islamic countries. He makes a perfect case for those countries dependent on oil to find alternatives - specially when prices of oil are going down to some $30 a barrel.

But, he is totally wrong to take the Mumbai attack and generalise it to a Islamic vs. the rest issue. This attack has NOTHING to do with Israel and Palestine. God forbid such a generalization.

One last point, on the topic of Islamic countries not occupying a foreign land ................. in today's environment that would be difficult. Note that all occupation (one example he gives is the Israeli-Palestine) are very old ones. No country will be able to do that today - even the mighty US has been asked to leave after 2011. So, the ancient concept of land occupation is nearly over.

However, Mr. D'Monte forgets economic occupation - such as that practiced by Saudi Arabia. They have held many countries hostage - they still do, AND they have routed the wealth gained from such spoils to reroute it spread Islam. That is a modern version of occupation.

[vsudhir]

And this is a criticism of the nation? I think it is the most wonderful compliment to the Indian people. And that in a nation as diverse as India!

This, ultimately, is the best retort to idiots like that CussBaum woman from Chicago. INDIA REFUSES TO BE A POLICE STATE despite being surrounded by enemies, and infested with the broadest possible spectrum of extremists.

Do ppl here have any idea what it is like to live in a banana or sausage republic where every third person is a uniformed gun-toting "official"?

It would be like posting in a forum with 3 postors and 47 Admins

The solution to terrorism is not to terrify the Indian people. It is very simple:

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE. DESTROY TERRORISTAN

From the classic oldie Police

Every breath you take/ every move you make/ every vow you break/ every smile you fake...I'll be watching you.
Well, can't you see/ you belong to me/ .... I'll be watching you

East Germany and now Noko perhaps remain the worst excesses of Police state-ism. And if some CT kooks are to be believed, modern surveillence tech is enabling a return to Orwell's 1984.

[Shreeman]

Actually, the Russians are saying ...

Payback for the Georgia stupidity by India very very recently.

[milindc]

What the **** are Russians upto? Seems they are still not out of the of the high price oil intoxication.

Cautioning against a unilateral Indian military strike against Pakistan, Russia on Saturday said New Delhi should seek the support of the international community and present its case to the UN after collecting "concrete evidence" of the complicity of elements in Pakistan in the Mumbai attacks.

Pakis and the Bear are having conversations.
* Russians were let go during the killing spree
* Russians knows about the US plans

But why save Pakis

[harbans]

I have a feeling there is a Pro-China clique in the Russian setup thats dominationg FP issues. The Gorshkov issue and others is a pointer. Yes indeed letting off the Russians by the pigs was another pointer that seemed quite strange. India has to win it's turf back. Russia has supported India in the past and India cannot abandon it that easily.

[Rye]

The Russians are more intent on causing NATO pain, since they are intruding in Russia's backyard. A war with pakistan will help NATO, and the pakis are looking for their next paying customer. They have calculated that Russia has use for their ability to create chaos within Paki territory. Their ability to foil NATO is an asset to Russia.

[A Arun]

Pakistani AAJ TV is reporting that a Muzzaffarabad based religious organisation was today asked to shut down and some members of the organisation were later arrested in the evening.