Civil War is being Incited in Pakistan - a new murderous phase begins

[bigron]

Taliban kill Pakistan militia leader: officials

by Lehaz Ali Lehaz Ali
Wed Jul 29, 8:16 am ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090729/wl_sthasia_afp/pakistanunrestnorthwest


A Pakistani soldier stands on the rubble of a Taliban hideout in Sultanwas village, Buner on July 9. Taliban stormed the home of a pro-government Pakistani militia leader and killed him Wednesday as clashes between troops and Islamists flared in the Swat valley, officials said.  (AFP/File/Sajjad Qayyum)


PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Taliban stormed the home of a pro-government Pakistani militia leader and killed him Wednesday as clashes between troops and Islamists flared in the Swat valley, officials said.

More than 50 Taliban raided the residence of Khalilur Rehman and shot him dead in Shangla, which borders the region where the army three months ago launched an operation to crush militants, police and a local lawmaker said.

Rehman, 60, formed a private tribal militia known as lashkar and used to provide logistic support to groups fighting the Taliban, residents said.

"He was shot dead soon after he entered the meeting hall of his house," senior police officer Gul Wali said. Rehman's servant was wounded, he added.

Security forces retaliated and killed two militants, Wali said.

The Pakistani army launched an offensive to dislodge Taliban guerrillas from the northwestern districts Buner, Lower Dir and Swat after rebels flouted a peace deal and thrust further south towards the capital Islamabad in April.

The military said troops killed four militants in Swat over the last 24 hours, 21 suspects were arrested and hideouts and militant houses demolished.

Pakistan says more than 1,800 militants and 166 soldiers have been killed in the operations around Swat, but none of the death tolls are possible to confirm because the areas have been largely cut off from independent media coverage.

Hundreds of Islamist fighters are believed to have fled Afghanistan into Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal areas to carve out safe havens after the US-led invasion in late 2001 toppled the hardline Taliban regime in Kabul.

Gun battles killed three militants and wounded three paramilitary soldiers when Taliban attacked a military post in the tribal North Waziristan area, security and a local administration official said.

Elsewhere in the northwest, police said a Shiite lawyer was wounded and his guard killed when a remote-controlled bomb exploded near his car in the town of Dera Ismail Khan, a notorious flashpoint for sectarian violence.

The blast ripped through the local court car park, police officer Salahuddin Khan said. "It was a targeted attack involving sectarian militants," he said.

The bomb went off as lawyer Mastan Zaidi parked his car, the officer said. Zaidi and his two guards were rushed to the hospital where one guard died of his injuries, Khan said.

Local hospital doctor Ashiq Saleem said the lawyer's condition was stable.

Earlier this month, the government shored up a peace agreement reached by Sunni and Shiite leaders in Dera Ismail Khan, which neighbours the tribal belt.

Pakistan can ill afford to fan the flames of sectarian violence as it strains to contain Islamist militants -- largely Sunnis -- during offensives against the Taliban in the tribal belt and pockets of the northwest.

Shiites account for about 20 percent of Pakistan's mostly Sunni Muslim population of 167 million. More than 4,000 people have died in outbreaks of sectarian violence since the late 1980s.

[bigron]

US Warned Pakistan on Helmand Spillover

Gen. McChrystal in 'Fairly Regular' Contact With Pakistan

Posted By Jason Ditz On July 29, 2009 @ 6:59 pm

US envoy Richard Holbrooke says that since the US launched its massive offensive in the Helmand River Valley, US officials including top commander in Afghnaistan General Stanley McChrystal have “fairly regularly” consulted with Pakistani officials about what is going on.

The hope is that the coordination will prevent the clash, near the Pakistani border, from spilling into the Balochistan Province, in which Pakistan is already contending with a growing separatist movement.

Since the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan, considerable numbers of Taliban have relocated into the regions on the Pakistani side of the border, destabilizing and plunging the area into open revolt against the US-allied Pakistani government.

Pakistani officials have criticized the Helmand offensive, fearing that it will do to Balochistan what the war has already done to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the North-West Frontier Province. The US has dismissed the concerns, saying the attack was “necessary” and that they were comfortable Pakistan would be able to handle the consequences.

Related Stories
July 22, 2009 -- Pakistan Fears US Afghan Offensive Will Spill Into Balochistan
July 26, 2009 -- Panic in North Waziristan Over ‘Huge’ US Build-up Along Border
July 17, 2009 -- NATO Fuel Tankers Attacked in Pakistan


Article printed from News From Antiwar.com: http://news.antiwar.com

URL to article: http://news.antiwar.com/2009/07/29/us-warned-pakistan-on-helmand-spillover/

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July 30, 2009

Pakistan Injects Precision Into Air War on Taliban

By ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/world/asia/30pstan.html?ref=world


Pakistanis in May at a temporary camp for internally displaced people. Millions of civilians have been moved from conflict areas.


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s Air Force is improving its ability to pinpoint and attack militant targets with precision weapons, adding a new dimension to the country’s fight against violent extremism, according to Pakistani military officials and independent analysts.

The Pakistani military has moved away from the scorched-earth artillery and air tactics used last year against insurgents in the Bajaur tribal agency. In recent months, the air force has shifted from using Google Earth to sophisticated images from spy planes and other surveillance aircraft, and has increased its use of laser-guided bombs.

The changes reflect an effort by the Pakistani military to conduct its operations in a way that will not further alienate the population by increasing civilian casualties and destroying property. But they are also dictated by necessity as the military takes its campaign into areas where it is reluctant to commit ground troops, particularly in the rugged terrain of Waziristan, where it had suffered heavy losses.

Military analysts say the airstrikes alone cannot ultimately substitute for ground forces or for better counterinsurgency training. But they say the airstrikes have become a valuable tool for Pakistan in fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in sometimes inaccessible terrain.

Since May, F-16 multirole fighter jets have flown more than 300 combat missions against militants in the Swat Valley and more than 100 missions in South Waziristan, attacking mountain hide-outs, training centers and ammunition depots, Pakistani military officials said.

In conjunction with infantry fire, artillery barrages and helicopter gunship attacks, military officials say, the air combat missions reinvigorated the military campaign in Swat and have put increasing pressure on the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, in South Waziristan.

Interviews with Pakistani fighter pilots and senior commanders offered a rare window into this other air war — a much larger but less heralded campaign that runs parallel to the three dozen secret missile strikes carried out this year by Central Intelligence Agency drones in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas.

The air force’s new tools and tactics have several sources. The air force has without fanfare accepted some American assistance, like sophisticated surveillance equipment and high-grade images.

But sensitive to anti-American fervor in the country, Pakistani officials have refused most outside aid, developing a small corps of ground spotters largely on their own, and occasionally tapping the Internet for online assistance.

Pakistani officials are urging the Obama administration to lease Pakistan upgraded F-16s, until its own new fighters are delivered in the next year or two. This would allow Pakistani pilots to fly night missions, impossible with their current aircraft.

Pakistan has argued that it needs the more advanced versions of the F-16 to more effectively battle the Taliban insurgency. In the past, American officials raised concerns that Pakistan’s arms purchases and troop deployments were geared mainly to bolstering its ability to fight its traditional enemy to the east, India. “Of course, there is a real threat from India,” Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman, Pakistan’s air force chief of staff, said in an interview at his headquarters here. “But right now we have to tackle the threat from the militants.”

Nearly every day in the past few months, Pakistani warplanes have pummeled militant targets in the contested Swat Valley and South Waziristan. The campaigns are a big change from operations in Bajaur last fall.

“The biggest handicap we had in Bajaur was that we didn’t have good imagery,” Air Chief Marshal Qamar said. “We didn’t have good target descriptions. We did not know the area. We were forced to use Google Earth.

“I didn’t want to face a similar situation in Swat,” he said.

In advance of the Swat campaign, the air force equipped about 10 F-16s with high-resolution, infrared sensors, provided by the United States, to conduct detailed reconnaissance of the entire valley.

The United States has also resumed secret drone flights performing military surveillance in the tribal areas, to provide Pakistani commanders with a wide array of videos and other information on militants, according to American officials.

In most cases, officials said, the Pakistani Army provides target information to the air force, which confirms the locations on newly detailed maps. Identifying high-value targets through the use of army spotters or, in some cases, a new, small group of specially trained air force spotters, the air force was able to increase its use of laser-guided bombs to 80 percent of munitions used in Swat, from about 40 percent in Bajaur, Air Chief Marshal Qamar said.

Another change was the mass evacuation of civilians. About two million people were displaced, sometimes with only a few hours’ notice, as part of an effort to get civilians out of conflict areas to reduce their casualties.

Some American officials voice skepticism about Pakistani claims of success. “We don’t have access to battle-damage assessment or the information on the actual strike execution, so we cannot make a qualitative comparison of what the intended effect was versus the actual effect,” said an American adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity, to avoid jeopardizing his job.

Officials of human rights organizations say the military has not been able to eliminate all civilian casualties from airstrikes and ground fire, but they agree that the numbers are down.

“Certainly, the level of civilian casualties in this phase of the conflict has been lower than in previous operations in the tribal areas,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, senior South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, based in Lahore, Pakistan.

The air force still operates under limitations. Because the F-16s are equipped to fly only by day, the militants move and conduct operations at night. Indeed, not one of the 21 main militant leaders in Swat has been killed or captured, Pakistani officials acknowledge. In addition, the Pakistani jets cannot be refueled in midair, as American fighters can, limiting how long they can remain over a target area.

In South Waziristan, as the army mulls a ground war, the air force continues to attack militants’ hide-outs and training camps as well as storage caves and tunnels with 500-pound and 2,000-pound bombs.

“We’re still developing our plans for South Waziristan,” Air Chief Marshal Qamar said. “We are preparing to ramp up. I think Baitullah Mehsud is getting the message, and the message is, if he keeps doing these things, we’ll hit him.”

[Satyagraha]

Christians’ homes burnt over ‘desecration’
By Tariq Saeed
Saturday, 01 Aug, 2009 | 09:50 AM PST
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/provinces/14-christians-homes-burnt-over-desecration-zj-05

TOBA TEK SINGH: A mob burnt 75 houses of Christians over the alleged desecration of the Holy Quran in Azafi Abadi at Chak 95-JB on Gojra-Faisalabad Road, 32 kilometres from here, late on Thursday, Christian leaders said.
 
Christian leaders Atif Jamil Pagaan and Ashfaq Fateh told a press conference that 75 houses were burnt and two churches ransacked by the residents of a neighboring village over reports that Mukhtar Maseeh, Talib Maseeh and his son Imran Maseeh had desecrated the papers inscribed with Holy Quran verses at a wedding ceremony.

(This smells like a provocateur at work...)

Dawn learnt from sources that 50 houses were damaged when the mob in a frenzy of rage held a jury where Talib Maseeh was asked to offer apology over the incident.

Talib, however, denied the incident and refused to offer apology. In the ensuing developments, hundreds of the people attacked Azafi Basti.

Before the arrival of the mob, the residents had fled which gave a walkover to the mob which put on fire 50 houses. The ablaze also burnt a few cattle.

District Police Officer (DPO) Inkisar Khan fielded MPA Bilal Asghar Warraich and Maulana Noor Ahmad to calm down the mob. The DPO also suspended the Gojra Sadar station house officer at the demand of the mob.

The mob blocked Gojra-Faisalabad Road to block the entrance of fire brigades to the village. Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti and Punjab Minorities and Human Rights Minister Kamran Michael visited the locality on Friday and urged both sides to remain peaceful.

They said the Christians would be compensated for their loss. Minority MPAs Rafiq Pervaiz and Khalil Tahir Sandhu also visited the village.

DPO Inkisar Khan said a case has been registered under section 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code against Mukhtar Maseeh, Talib Maseeh and Imran Maseeh without any arrest.

Local ulema and traders demanded the arrest of the accused and announced a complete strike on Saturday (today). Former MNA M Hamza condemned the violence against Christians as well as the alleged desecration act. In a press statement, he demanded a judicial probe into the incident.

Labour Party leader Tariq Mahmood, National Workers’ Party Punjab Secretary Rana Azam, Labour Qaumi Movement’s Shabbir Ahmad and Kissan Committee President Chaudhry Fateh Muhammad condemned the violence.

Interfaith League

Expressing his anguish over the violence perpetrated by communal forces against Christian minorities, Interfaith League chairman Sajid Ishaq says it is condemnable to make religion a basis for committing violent acts against humanity.

He said that nation was trying to build a peaceful and stable society in Pakistan and such attacks hindered any progress in this regard.

He demanded that the thugs who carried out the attacks be strictly punished so that no one could dare again to commit such a crime.

[bigron]

August 3, 2009

Trying to Heal, Pakistan Valley Fears New Battles

By JANE PERLEZ and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/world/asia/03swat.html?_r=1&ref=world


A dead body that was left on the ground in Mingora, Pakistan, is believed to be a warning from the military to the Taliban.


MINGORA, Pakistan — Schools have officially reopened. Soldiers stand guard at checkpoints and have established a semblance of order. Many thousands have returned here to a town that is mostly intact, if still under a military presence.

But Mingora, a battle-scarred city in the Swat Valley, remains tense. Pakistan’s efforts to restore normalcy — a vital test of the government’s resolve to stand up to the Taliban — waver between fear and hope, leaving an enduring victory over the militants a distant goal.

Beneath the surface of relative calm, there is the sense that a new and more insidious conflict may be afoot, one that could take many months to play out before the fate of this once-prosperous region is ultimately decided.

On Sunday morning, a body, hands bound with rope and shot in the back of the head, lay on the sidewalk of a main road. A note pinned to the shirt and written in Urdu gave the victim’s name, Gul Khitab, and said he was from Matta, one of the remaining Taliban strongholds. “Enemy of Swat,” it read.

Rumors abound of other bodies being dumped in the last two weeks, a signal that the army may be prepared to use extrajudicial killings to settle scores. A government employee, Murad Ali, who peered at the body, said he had seen three bodies, shot in the head, lying in similar fashion in the past six days.

Asked about the identity of the man, an army commander who stopped to look, and then moved on, said with a grin, “Maybe a bad guy.” A military spokesman, Maj. Nasir Khan, said the army was unaware of the death and did not condone extrajudicial killing.

If no one knew precisely what to make of the body, it was a clear enough sign that the conflict in Swat was not over.

To the fear and frustration of those who suffered at their hands, the top Taliban leaders remain on the loose. Taliban fighters have melted away to the periphery of Swat or to neighboring areas, like Dir, leaving soldiers and civilians alike filled with dread of when — and how — the insurgents would return.

On Friday, warning shots could be heard, as jittery soldiers, worried about suicide bombers, patrolled on with hair triggers.

Three months after the Pakistani military began its offensive, many among the more than one million displaced have returned, expecting calm but still uncertain whether the military can guarantee it.

The failure to kill or capture Taliban leaders has left many here suspicious that the military is not serious about taking on the Taliban. To allay fears, the military has publicly presented four teenage boys who it says were captured by the Taliban and placed in a training camp with more than 100 other boys, all of them hostages.

The boys said they were lectured by a trainer on how the army was an “infidel” organization filled with “apostates.” The four boys said they escaped in less than two weeks.

For the moment, the military’s presence is tolerated. But the fact that soldiers are holed up in schools — the prestigious Sarosh Academy is being used as a prison for Taliban militants — does not make people happy, either.

The western part of the city remains barricaded. The many requirements to secure the peace — functioning courts and other government services — seem months away.

“One year — we’ll be lucky if we get this under control,” Atif ur-Rehman, the district coordinating officer who is one of the senior government officials in Swat, said in the garden of his residence on a hill above the town.

Mr. Rehman, the point man for foreign donors who are beginning to line up with plans for reconstructing Swat, said the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank were assessing needs based on the damage to buildings, roads and bridges after two years of periodic fighting between the militants and the army, and the three-month offensive.

The United Nations planned to help restore health and education services. The United States Agency for International Development had also offered to help.

“Their mode of working is slower than the government of Pakistan,” Mr. Rehman said of his meeting with officials at the American agency.

Whether these foreign aid programs can be done fast enough to satisfy the people who are most vulnerable to the lure of the militants is a pressing concern.

At Takhtaband, an impoverished area on the edge of Mingora, Rahim Khan described two aerial strikes by the Pakistani military around 5 p.m. on May 15, at a playground where children were playing cricket.

The strikes killed 27 people, including his mother, father and eight children, Mr. Khan said. The second raid came as relatives picked up the wounded and the dead from the first attack, Mr. Khan said.

Nearby, as he spoke, a skull was lodged in a crevice among the broken bricks, and from the smell it seemed likely that bodies were still strewn beneath them.

The strike was apparently intended for an adjacent farm that was used by the Taliban, Mr. Khan said. The farm was untouched by the attack, though six or seven Taliban were also killed in the strikes, he said.

The most bitter experience, he said, was dragging 12 of the most seriously wounded on a harrowing two-day walk to a hospital in Malakand. Some were carried on the backs of men, and others were put in wheelbarrows, he said. Six of the 12 later died, he said.

The May 15 date described by Mr. Khan corresponds to official army reports, made May 18, that heavy fighting was under way in the Takhtaband area, and that two Taliban commanders had been killed.

For most of the 20th century, Swat was a place apart in Pakistan. It was run until 1969 by a hereditary ruler, and its natural beauty of cascading rivers, towering mountains and pristine forests drew wealthy Pakistanis.

The Pakistan Tourist Development Corporation hotel reopened two weeks ago. It still serves tea in pots covered by cozies and poured into flower-patterned china cups, one of the few genteel touches to survive the traumas of the last two years.

The owner of a copy shop, Jehangir Khan, said his customers now were mostly those applying for government compensation for damaged property. “Business is equal to nothing,” he said.

Would Swat ever be the same? “It’s difficult to see,” he said. “The government never takes care of its promises.”

[bigron]

Wednesday, August 05, 2009
12:26 Mecca time, 09:26 GMT 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/08/20098562524196219.html
 
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Pakistan raid 'kills Mehsud's wife' 


Pakistan's military has been targeting Mehsud ahead of a planned offensive [Gallo/Getty] 
 
The wife and father-in-law of the leader of the Pakistani Taliban have reportedly been killed in an air raid in Pakistan's South Waziristan region.

A missile, suspected to have been fired from a US drone, reportedly destroyed the home of Akramud Din, the father-in-law of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of Tehrik-e-Taliban, early on Wednesday.

"I confirm that the female that was killed in the strike was the wife of Baitullah Mehsud," a relative told the Reuters news agency by telephone on Wednesday.

The woman was reported to be Mehsud's second wife.

Four children were also injured in the overnight raid, local officials said.

Pakistan offensive

The missiles struck Akramud's high-walled compound in Makeen, a virtually inaccessible village in the heart of the Mehsud tribal lands, shortly before 1.00 a.m. (1900 GMT) on Tuesday.

In depth :

 Profile: Baitullah Mehsud:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/03/2009331171735191991

 Profile: Pakistan Taliban :
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/04/2009428174712413825

 Witness: Pakistan in crisis :
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/witness/2009/05/20095268590483906

 Inside Story: Pakistan's military :
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2009/05/2009514855248795

 Riz Khan: The battle for the soul of Pakistan :
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/rizkhan/2009/05/200951281757493843
 

Two missiles were fired, according to a senior government official in South Waziristan. Mehsud's whereabouts were not known at the time of the attack.

Pakistan's military has repeatedly targeted Mehsud in recent months, saying it is preparing to launch an offensive against his fighters in the tribal region close to the border with Afghanistan.

The US has also apparently carried out a number of missile attacks in North and South Waziristan, which officials say have killed a number of Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives.

Washington does not confirm such attacks, but the US military and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are the only people operating the unmanned aircraft in the region.

Mehsud targeted

Islamabad continues to officially oppose such raids, despite the fact that both the US and Pakistan appear to be focused on targeting Mehsud and his followers.

About 50 people are believed to have been killed in US air raids in Pakistan since August 2008.

The US has offered a bounty of $5m for Mehsud, while Pakistan has offered $615,000.

The Pakistani Taliban has been accused of the bombing and shooting that killed Benzair Bhutto, the former prime minister, in 2007, as well as a string of other attacks, including suicide bombings, across the country.
 
 Source: Agencies 
 
 
 
 
 

[bigron]

US Officials Protect Pak Military on Aid to Taliban

Posted By Gareth Porter On August 4, 2009 @ 9:19 pm

Despite evidence implicating the current Pakistani army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, in a major military assistance program for the Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan over the past few years, senior officials of the Barack Obama administration persuaded Congress to extend military assistance to Pakistan for five years without any assurance that the Pakistani assistance to the Taliban had ended.

Those officials, led by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, have been arguing that Kayani is committed to ending support the Taliban and other radical Islamic movements receive from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate, but that he is not yet able to control ISI operatives.

Late last year, U.S. officials were reportedly pressing Kayani for far-reaching changes in the ISI that would end its role in support of insurgents in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) demanded that the ISI be put under civilian control and threatened to introduce legislation making military assistance to Pakistan conditional on evidence that the Pakistani military had ended such support to the Taliban.

But Kerry dropped his proposal for conditioning U.S. military assistance to Pakistan on ending the ISI-Taliban program. In February Kerry said conversations with Mullen and "other players" had persuaded him that Kayani and his choice for new ISI chief, Ahmad Shuja Pasha, had "a willingness to engage in transformation" of the ISI.

The Kerry-Lugar legislation passed by the Senate in June provides $2 billion in military aid as well as $4 billion in economic assistance to Pakistan over five years and makes no mention of evidence of military aid to the Taliban. It merely requires the secretary of state to certify that the "security forces of Pakistan" are making concerted efforts to prevent the Taliban and associated militant groups from using the territory of Pakistan as a sanctuary from which to launch attacks within Afghanistan."

Obama’s national security team established a critical basis for its argument to Congress by leaking a story to the New York Times asserting that Kayani would not be able to control the activities of ISI in the short run.

The story, published March 26, acknowledged "direct support from operatives" of the ISI for the Afghan Taliban insurgency, but it quoted anonymous U.S. officials saying it is "unlikely that top officials in Islamabad are directly coordinating the clandestine efforts" – a carefully chosen formula that does not deny that they are presiding over a policy of aiding the Taliban.

The story said unnamed U.S. officials "have also said that mid-level ISI operatives occasionally cultivate relationships that are not approved by their bosses." That statement diverted attention away from whether the Pakistani military leadership has approved military assistance to the Taliban.

Mullen has been suggesting that Kayani has demonstrated good faith by purging the ISI. He told Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer in early April that the new head was "handpicked" to change the ISI.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee May 21, Mullen emphasized that Gen. Kayani had changed "almost the entire leadership of ISI" over the previous six months.

After a conversation with Mullen, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius quoted him in a June 29 article as saying that Kayani and his choice for ISI chief "have committed very specifically to change the culture of ISI," but that "that’s not going to happen overnight."

Mullen has carefully avoided saying that Kayani has given assurances he intends to halt the military assistance to the Taliban, however.

The historical evidence on Kayani’s past relationship to the issue suggests that he has no intention of changing Pakistani policy toward the Taliban.

Kayani himself served as head of ISI from late 2004 to late 2007 and presided over the development of a major logistical and training program for the Taliban forces operating out of Pakistan’s Baluchistan province.

The ISI military assistance program was first revealed in a NATO report of a two-week battle by NATO forces against a determined Taliban offensive in Kandahar province in September 2006.

During the battle, NATO forces captured a number of Pakistani fighters who detailed the ISI role in supporting the Taliban offensive. The NATO account, reported in the Telegraph by Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid on Oct. 6, 2006, described two ISI training camps for the Taliban near Quetta in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. It also documented the provision by the ISI of 2,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 400,000 rounds of ammunition – just for that one Taliban campaign.

The size and scope of the program of support described in the report were hardly consistent with the idea that assistance to the Taliban is a rogue operation by ISI operatives.

Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates presumably know about Kayani’s past support for the Taliban assistance program. Evidence of continuing ISI assistance to, and safe have for, Taliban forces after Kayani replaced Musharraf as the top Army general was compiled in an intelligence assessment circulated to the top national security officials of the George W. Bush administration in mid-2008, according by David Sanger’s book The Inheritance.

Kayani was also overheard in a conversation intercepted by U.S. intelligence referring to a high-ranking Taliban leader, Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, as a "strategic asset," according to Sanger’s account. Haqqani was a Taliban minister during that organization’s brief period in power during the late 1990s, and his network has been a key target for the U.S. campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan during 2008 and 2009.

Kayani is not the first Pakistani military leader to assure the U.S. that he is purging the ISI of pro-Taliban elements. President Pervez Musharraf did the same thing to ease pressure from Washington to toe the line on Afghanistan in early October 2001.

Musharraf claimed he had made far-reaching changes in the ISI by removing its director, Mahmood Ahmad – who he said had been affiliated with Islamic extremists. But Musharraf never changed his pro-Taliban policy; despite his pledge to do so immediately after the 9/11 terror attacks.

The March 26 Times story reported Pakistani officials as portraying their Taliban policy as "part of a strategy to maintain influence in Afghanistan for the day when American forces would withdraw" leaving "a power vacuum to be filled by India."

After the Times story, Gates began arguing that the U.S. must convince Pakistani leaders that it will not abandon the war in Afghanistan.

In a March 29 interview with Fox News, Gates said the Pakistanis had ties with the Taliban "partly as a hedge against what might happen in Afghanistan if we were to walk away or whatever." The U.S. has to convince the Pakistanis that "they can count on us and that they don’t need that hedge," Gates said.

Mullen and other U.S. military leaders have an interest other than Afghanistan – which appears to driving their willingness to overlook Kayani’s past and present support for the Taliban. They once had close ties with the Pakistani military, which they touted for decades as a basis for U.S. influence in the country, despite persistent and sharp divergences in U.S. and Pakistani strategic interests.

Those ties were cut off in the 1990s because of legislation requiring an end to military cooperation over Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Mullen and other military leaders now argue that close relations must be a top U.S. priority.

As Mullen told the Inquirer’s Rubin, "One of my strategic objectives is to close this gap in the relationship with the Pakistani military."


(Inter Press Service)

Read more by Gareth Porter
Child Rapist Police Return Behind US, UK Troops – July 29th, 2009
US Uses False Taliban Aid Charge to Pressure Iran – July 2nd, 2009
Freeh Became ‘Defense Lawyer’ for Saudis on Khobar Attack – June 26th, 2009
Afghan Air Strike Report Belies ‘Blame Taliban’ Line – June 25th, 2009
FBI Ignored Evidence of bin Laden Role in Khobar Attack – June 25th, 2009


Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com

URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2009/08/04/us-officials-protect-pak-military-on-aid-to-taliban/

[menace]

Free Balochistan in the works.

The Politicians – Zardari, Gilani, Rehman, Nawaz – Refuse To Condemn The Terrorism Of Akbar Bugti’s Grandson & His US/Indian Backed Terrorists In Afghanistan

Terrorists claiming to represent Pakistani Balochis are planning to declare ‘independence’ on 11 August 2009, according to BRASSTACKS.  It will not change much on the ground but these terrorists and their supporters in Kabul, New Delhi and within CIA will score a major point against Islamabad.  The pro-US government in Islamabad and even the Pakistani opposition are courting Washington and are silent against this emerging threat to the Pakistani state. 

No Pakistani politician is ready to call Akbar Bugti or Kabul-based Brahamdagh or London-based Harbyar Mari by their real designation as terrorists.  Both President Zardari and Mr. Nawaz Sharif are silent accomplices in what they believe is a good opportunity to weaken the grip of the Pakistani military.  Plans are also underway to create a ‘Pakistani Kurdistan’.  Interior Minister Rehman Malik is yet to accuse Britain of giving safe haven to terrorists.

http://www.daily.pk/terrorists-preparing-to-declare-independent-balochistan-pakistani-politicians-mum-8031/

[menace]

The Destabilization of Pakistan

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7705

http://web.archive.org/web/20070113142149/http://www.globalresearch.ca/images/harita_b.jpeg

[bigron]

Destroying ourselves with a little help from the US


by Shireen M Mazari

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m56685&hd=&size=1&l=e


Wednesday, August 05, 2009


The chaos that is spreading within the country is frightening and a result of bad or lack of governance on the one hand and US intrusions and questionable activities in Pakistan on the other. In the first instance, there is no civilian governance infrastructure to take over and govern the "cleared" areas in Malakand – but then there is no governance even in more central parts of the country. That is why we have had the despicable attack on the poor and marginalised Christians in Gojra – once again under the shameful and protective guise of the Blasphemy Law. Never has a Law been so abused to wreak violence on our minorities' whom the Founder of the Nation, Quaid-i-Azam, declared as equal citizens in the state of Pakistan. Clearly, there is so much hatred, intolerance and violence endemic within us that we do not need any Taliban to kill and harm our less fortunate fellow citizens. And where were the government and the law and order institutions when all this barbarism was being carried out?

As Pakistanis we must hang our heads once again in shame; but the main concern for us should not be simply our image internationally but what we are becoming within our own society. That is what should be of primary concern for the leadership. That is why in many previous columns I have been pointing to the dangers of bringing our marginalised population within the mainstream and delivering justice to the people so that they all have a stake in the system and the state – be they the marginalised Madrassah students or the marginalised minorities'. Otherwise extremism and violence will fester – Taliban or no Taliban – and as a desperate measure sending in the military will only aggravate not resolve the problem. And one has yet to talk of Balochistan where targeted killings continue while politicians continue to talk rather than act despite a seeming political consensus on what needs to be done. Why a beginning towards reconciliation cannot be made by declaring a general amnesty for all political prisoners and exiles only our bizarre ruling elites' mindsets can understand but we are on a precipice here.

However, the other cause for chaos can be resolved more readily – that of the growing intrusiveness and questionable role of the US within Pakistan. For some time now one has been raising questions about the strange US presence in areas around Tarbela and in Peshawar. Then there was the news of the assassination squads controlled by the US Department of Defence rather than the CIA, of which the new US commander in Afghanistan, General McChrystal was a central actor. This information helped to link up differing pieces of a growing puzzle about the increasing US personnel in Pakistan. A cause for concern, given these developments, is the US plan to spend $1 billion to expand its presence in Islamabad – especially, since central to this plan is the importation of almost 400 Marines with hundreds of APCs. There is absolutely no logic to this, but who will tell our rulers who seem hell-bent on kowtowing before Washington? Incidentally already the US contingent in Pakistan is way over the sanctioned strength of 350 but does anyone in the corridors of power in Pakistan care?

Nor is the US Marines presence restricted to Islamabad. As some of us had been writing much earlier, they had been spotted in and around Tarbela also – where our military's Special Operation Task Force is located. It now transpires that there are already 300 plus US military personnel in this area – the so-called "trainers". Of course, given the poor counter insurgency record of the US, heaven knows what training they will impart to our much better trained army! Also, if they were only "trainers" why would the US buy a large plot of land around Tarbela and send twenty large containers there according to an investigative Asia Times Online report (3August 2009).

As if all these US military and undercover officials crawling all over the sensitive parts of the country were not enough, it appears that the US is also using private covert setups to further a dubious and threatening agenda within Pakistan. The centre of these suspicious covert operations is Peshawar, and the central organisation is Creative Associates International Inc. (CAII – as opposed to CIA), which refers to itself as an NGO on its website but on further investigation it transpires that the organisation is registered as a private incorporated company in Washington D.C – not an NGO! A 27 July 2009 report by Sarwar and Yousafzai for Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) reveals that CAII has been terrifying the residents of University Town Peshawar because of its US security guards – ostensibly from that notorious US security contractor Blackwater (now renamed Xe Worldwide) whose employees already face charges of murder, arms smuggling and child prostitution in Iraq.

What is very suspicious is that CAII's website shows no identification of its owners although its staff is identified. Also, although it is supposed to be a private corporation, all its work around the world is totally funded by USAid and the US government and the projects are all in sensitive areas only – Sri Lanka, Gaza, Angola, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. CAII is working supposedly on a strange-sounding project in FATA – FATA Development Programme Government to Community. In reality, its staff goes around escorted by the killer Blackwater guards, meeting militants and other suspect people being sought by the Pakistani authorities in FATA and the Peshawar environs. Of the 30 job openings listed on its website presently, at least half are for Pakistan.

During the latter half of July, a US citizen, Craig Davis, was arrested from the CAII house in Peshawar, his visa cancelled and deported. Interestingly, when a journalist sought to verify this information from the US embassy, its spokesperson first declared that Davis had nothing to do with the US embassy but then stated that the embassy knew nothing about this man. So if they knew nothing of the man's existence, how was it known that he did not work for the US embassy?

The point is, clearly there is a threatening US agenda including seeking out our nuclear sites and assassinating people thereby adding to our chaos and violence. But the question is: who has allowed us to be confronted with such a dubious and large US covert and overt presence in Pakistan? Some believe that during the previous regime, certain segments of certain institutions had orders from the top to allow this dangerous US infiltration into Pakistan but no one else was informed. However, now who is responsible for the continuing presence of these people in sensitive areas where they are also terrorising the local populations?

When we as a society are facing our own problems of violence and terrorism, we can hardly afford to have such a volatile US presence here which will only aggravate our problems of violence and law and order. It is also sad to learn that Blackwater has been able to recruit dozens of retired commandos from the Pakistan army and elite police force through its local subcontractors according to the DPA report. Are Pakistanis so willing to knowingly act against their nation for dollars?

With increasing information about the dangerous US presence in Pakistan, it is not difficult to connect the dots also – with our nuclear assets, the institution of the military and the remaining strands of stability being the targets. Unless someone can stop the rot, it is only a matter of time before the US forces cross over physically on the ground from across Afghanistan. They may not get the triggers they plan on seizing but they can trigger a push towards total anarchy. Our rulers are certainly in self-destruct mode aided and abetted by the US.



The writer is a defence analyst. Email: callstr@hotmail.com





 

[bigron]

Friday, August 07, 2009
12:18 Mecca time, 09:18 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/08/20098762128204741.html
   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Mehsud 'death' speculation grows   


The US has a $5m bounty on Mehsud, who declared himself leader of Pakistan's Taliban in 2007 [Reuters]

 
An increasing number of sources are reporting that Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Taliban in Pakistan, has been killed in a missile attack.

Pakistan television on Friday quoted intelligence officials, Taliban sources and local witnesses as saying Mehsud died in what is believed to have been an attack by a US drone two days ago.

Three Pakistan intelligence officials also told the AP news agency that he was killed and his body buried after the raid in South Waziristan.

One official said he had seen a classified intelligence report stating Mehsud was dead and buried, but agents had not seen the body as the area was under Taliban control.

'No evidence'

Rehman Malik, Pakistani's interior minister, said: "Information is pouring from that area that he is dead.

In depth :


 Profile: Baitullah Mehsud:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/03/2009331171735191991

 Profile: Pakistan Taliban :
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/04/2009428174712413825

 Witness: Pakistan in crisis:
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/witness/2009/05/20095268590483906

 Inside Story: Pakistan's military:
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2009/05/2009514855248795

 Riz Khan: The battle for the soul of Pakistan:
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/rizkhan/2009/05/200951281757493843

+ + +
 
"We have some information, but we don't have material evidence."

Al Jazeera correspondent Kamal Hyder said: "The Pakistan goverment is planing to send a team in to that location to confirm the death or not.

"There are also reports there is an ashura [meeting] under way to pick a successor to Mehsud.

"There is not doubt there will be a swift succession, but Mehsud was a strong leader, so it will be difficult to fill that particular vacuum."

The missile raid reportedly destroyed the home of Akramud Din, Mehsud's father-in-law, on Tuesday morning.

Mehsud's second wife and his bodyguards were confirmed to have died in the air raid in Makeen, a difficult-to-access village in the tribal heartland near the border with Afghanistan.

'Taliban organiser'

Diplomats in Islamabad say Mehsud's death would mark a major coup for Pakistan, but many doubt it will help Western troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan as most of his focus has been on attacking Pakistan's government and security forces.

Mehmood Shah, a retired brigadier former chief of security in the tribal areas, said Mehsud's death would be "quite a setback" for the Taliban.

"He is the one man who really organised the Taliban, kept unity among them and really forwarded the agenda with a lot of ... strategic thinking," Shah said.

Karin von Hippel, a security expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said: "What happens ... is another comes in and takes their place pretty quickly."

Neither the Pakistani nor the US government have confirmed the attack. The US routinely denies operating within Pakistan territory.

Persistent rumours

The US and Pakistan say Mehsud is linked to al-Qaeda and has been involved in dozens of suicide attacks, beheadings and assassinations, including the killing of Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister.

The US has placed a $5m bounty on Mehsud's head and branded him "a key al-Qaeda facilitator" in Pakistan's tribal belt.

A relative of Mehsud's dead wife had initially said the Taliban leader was not present when the missile struck, but rumours that he had either been wounded or killed refused to die down.

Mehsud declared himself leader of the Pakistan Taliban, grouping around 13 factions in the northwest, in late 2007.

His estimated 10,000-20,000 fighters have been blamed for a wave of suicide attacks inside Pakistan and on Western forces across the border in Afghanistan.
 
 Source: Agencies 
 
 
 
 
 

[bigron]

Sunday, August 09, 2009
11:33 Mecca time, 08:33 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/08/20098973616456386.html

   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA   

Deadly shootout at Taliban talks   


Taliban commanders were reportedly meeting to choose a successor to Baitullah Mehsud [EPA]
 
A number of senior Pakistani Taliban figures have been killed and others injured after a gun battle at a meeting in South Waziristan, sources have told Al Jazeera.

The meeting had apparently been called to choose a successor to Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban leader reportedly killed in a US missile attack earlier in the week.

"We can confirm that the clash took place and that would indicate a serious rift in the Pakistani Taliban," Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from the capital, Islamabad, said.

"It is also yet another indicator that Baitullah Mehsud may have been killed in that attack carried out by US drones."

Reports on Saturday said that both Hakimullah Meshud and Wali ur Rehman, two possible successors to Baitullah Mehsud, had been killed in the shooting, but there was no independent confirmation of their deaths.

Taliban infighting

Hakimullah Mehsud served as a deputy to Baitullah Mehsud and Wali ur Rehman was a senior commander in the umbrella Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) movement.

In depth :

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/08/20098973616456386.html
 Profile: Baitullah Mehsud
 Profile: Pakistan Taliban
 Witness: Pakistan in crisis
 Inside Story: Pakistan's military
 Riz Khan: The battle for the soul of Pakistan
 

Rehman Malik, Pakistan's interior minister, said intelligence reports suggested that one of the two men had been killed.

"We have information that one of them has been killed. Who was killed we will be able to say later after confirming," he said.

"The infighting was between Wali ur Rehman and Hakimullah Meshud."

However, a Taliban official in South Waziristan insisted that the government had fabricated reports of fighting between the different factions.

Noor Said, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, said: "There was no fighting in the shura. Both Wali ur Rehman and Hakimullah are safe and sound."

The reports have added to earlier confusion surrounding the reported death of Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban leader who had a US bounty of $5m on his head.

'Dissent and discord'

However, Syer Tariq Pirzada, a strategic affairs analyst in Islamabad, told Al Jazeera that the reported shootout strongly indicated that Baitullah Mehsud was "dead or functionally dead".

"Had he been alive, he was such a strong leader, he would not have allowed this dissent, this discord and this violent confrontation ... to happen," he said.

Earlier on Saturday, Hakimullah Mehsud had told reporters by telephone that Baitullah Mehsud was in good health and would soon appear in the media to prove that he was alive.

Mahmood Shah, a former security chief for the tribal regions, said that Hakimullah Mehsud's claims could have been part of the power struggle within the movement.

"I think that this denial from them ... doesn't appear to be holding much water," he said. "It should have come earlier and ... much stronger."

"There is, I think, a struggle going on for the leadership, and Hakimullah Mehsud is one of the contenders."
 
 Source: Al Jazeera and agencies 
 
 

[bigron]

Pakistan's Taliban Appear in Turmoil After Shootout  
 
09/08/2009 06:54:00 PM GMT   
 
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/articles/34/Pakistan_s_Taliban_Appear_in_Turmoil_After_Shooto.html
 
Pakistan's Taliban appeared in turmoil Sunday after reports of a deadly shootout between contenders to replace the shadowy movement's leader, who is believed to have been killed in a US drone attack.
Intelligence officials said Friday that Baitullah Mehsud, who had a five-million-dollar bounty on his head, was killed in the US missile attack. Pakistan's government says it is still seeking confirmation.
There were then unconfirmed reports of a deadly shooting at a meeting of top Taliban commanders who convened to discuss the choice of a successor to Mehsud.
 
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the reports from the meeting in the lawless region of South Waziristan were being investigated.
The commanders were reportedly Hakimullah Mehsud, a deputy to Baitullah Mehsud and the warlord's main spokesman, and Waliu Rehman, a senior commander in Mehsud's umbrella Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) movement.
 
"We have reports that there was fighting between Wali-ur Rehman and Hakimullah.... I said earlier that one of them is dead. I will not disclose the name. I am seeking verification," Malik told private Pakistani TV channel Geo.
"The (shooting) incident took place on Friday and I said in the National Assembly the same day that there was internal fighting between Wali-ur Rehman and Hakimullah," he said.
However, someone claiming to be Hakimullah Mehsud called up media outlets on Saturday to claim that Baitullah Mehsud was still alive. The two men are part of the same tribe.
 
Baitullah Mehsud, branded by Washington as "a key Al-Qaeda facilitator", had reportedly narrowly escaped previous attacks.
He was at the top of the Pakistani government's most-wanted list, having been implicated in the 2007 assassination of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, whose husband is now president.
He went on to lead a campaign of suicide bombings, assassinations and insurgent attacks that swept out of the border tribal areas into the Swat valley, threatening Islamabad.
 
At least 11 people have been killed in the latest violence in Taliban hotspots of northwest Pakistan, officials said.
A gunfight late Saturday between militants and supporters of a pro-government tribal elder killed six militants and two tribesmen in the Mohmand tribal region near the Afghan border, they said.
 
Separately, two civilians and a policeman were killed when militants ambushed a police convoy in the northwestern town of Bannu on Sunday.
 
Source: AJP
 

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Pakistan Fears Al Qaeda Installing Chief in Taliban


Monday , August 10, 2009
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,538706,00.html


Pakistan's Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud has been killed in a U.S. missile strike, a militant commander and aide to Mehsud said Friday.


ISLAMABAD —

Pakistan is worried that Al Qaeda is trying to install its own "chief terrorist" as the head of Pakistan's Taliban following the apparent killing of the group's leader in a CIA missile strike, a top official said Monday.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik told BBC radio that all the "credible information" points to Baitullah Mehsud having died in the Wednesday attack, despite claims to the contrary by some Taliban leaders.

The Pakistan Taliban appear in disarray, Malik said, amid unconfirmed reports of deadly infighting over who should replace Mehsud.

"It will take some time for them to regroup," Malik said. "The other thing which is a bit worrying is that Al Qaeda is getting grouped in the same place, and now they are trying to find out somebody to install him as the leader, as the chief terrorist, in that area."

Malik said Pakistan was taking "all those measures which are necessary" to respond to the scenario.

The 30-something Mehsud grew in power largely because of his links to the predominantly Arab terror network, analysts say. Mehsud and his deputies controlled swaths of Pakistan's tribal belt along the Afghan border, a region where Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is rumored to be hiding.

Al Qaeda is believed to have provided guidance and funding to Mehsud, who in turn could provide suicide bombers and other assets to carry out attacks throughout Pakistan.

Malik did not specify which candidate might be Al Qaeda's preference, though it is highly unlikely that Pakistan Taliban fighters would agree to an Arab candidate or anyone not of the Pashtun ethnic group that dominates the tribal belt.

American and Pakistani government and intelligence officials, as well as some Taliban commanders and at least one rival militant, have said Mehsud likely died in Wednesday's drone strike on his father-in-law's house in the South Waziristan tribal area. President Barack Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, said Sunday the U.S. was 90 percent confident Mehsud had been killed.

But three Taliban commanders — Hakimullah, Qari Hussain, and Taliban spokesman Maulvi Umar — have insisted Mehsud is alive.

Neither side has produced any concrete evidence, and the claims were impossible to verify independently.

Conflicting reports of whether a major fight had broken out between rival Taliban factions during a meeting, or shura, to select Mehsud's replacement have also emerged.

Some reports said one or both of the leading contenders — Hakimullah and Waliur Rehman — were killed or wounded. But one Taliban commander, Noor Sayed, denied there had been any disagreement.

Mehsud's Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan is a loose alliance of tribal groups that often have disputes and power struggles, so removing the man who coordinated the factions could lead to intense rivalry over who would succeed him.

It could be in the interests of top commanders to deny their leader was dead until they could agree on who would replace him.

Two intelligence officials and two Taliban sources told an AP reporter a series of shuras were held in various locations in South Waziristan, a rugged, lawless area largely off-limits to journalists.

They said while the meetings were attended mainly by local commanders in the initial days, Sunday's shura also attracted Afghan Taliban representatives and Arab fighters eager to resolve differences over Mehsud's succession.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Two separate incidents Monday underscored that militancy in Pakistan is not dead even if Mehsud may be.

Three suspected militants were killed by troops retaliating after a remote-controlled bomb exploded near a security checkpoint in North Waziristan, two other intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

The army confirmed the clash but said casualties were unconfirmed.

A roadside bomb detonated near a local government official's vehicle in Peshawar, the main city in the northwest. City police chief Safwat Ghayur said the official was safe, but that his guards began shooting after the blast, killing a passer-by and wounding another.

[bigron]

Aug 11, 2009 
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KH11Df03.html 
 
Guessing games over Taliban leader


By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - The ongoing confusion over whether Baitullah Mehsud, head of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), was killed in a US Predator drone attack in the South Waziristan tribal area last Wednesday bears similarity to previous incidents in which al-Qaeda and the Taliban faked a leader's death to buy themselves some time.

Baitullah, who has a US$5 million bounty on his head in connection with numerous acts of terror, has variously been described as "dead and buried", "gravely ill" and "alive and well" following the drone attack on August 5 in which his second wife and more than a dozen militants have been confirmed as dead.

Hakimullah Mehsud, seen as a potential successor to Baitullah, has been reported as killed in a shootout with another leader. Again, this has not been conclusively proved.

In 2005, the Taliban commander of South Waziristan, Abdullah Mehsud, unintentionally committed a blunder which sparked a major military operation that posed a severe threat to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, who were at that time in a phase of regrouping

Abdullah Mehsud abducted two Chinese engineers involved in the construction of the Gomal Zam Dam in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and in the subsequent rescue attempt one of the hostages was killed.

Abdullah Mehsud's al-Qaeda patrons, as well as some top Pakistani militants, were alarmed by the incident. Given Pakistan's friendship with China, they realized Islamabad would have to send the army into the tribal areas.

They quickly agreed that Abdullah Mehsud, who was injured when the security forces tried to rescue the engineers, would be declared dead. His comrades issued statements to the media that he had been buried in Shawal in North Waziristan.

He laid low for several months and the army did not move into the tribal areas. Abdullah Mehsud then continued his activities until he committed suicide last year after being surrounding by the security forces in Balochistan province.

At present, the army is poised to move into Baitullah Mehsud's South Waziristan tribal area on the border with Afghanistan following a 10-week campaign to pacify the Swat area in NWFP. Apart from his other activities to destabilize the Pakistani state, Baitullah is the main contributor of fighters to southwestern Afghanistan in support of the Taliban-led insurgency.

Baitullah's TTP, which since the end of December 2007 has pulled together a number of Taliban groups, has an estimated 5,000 fighters. It is a formidable force, but it could never take on the military head-on.

In one of the world's most difficult terrains at the crossroads of South Waziristan and North Waziristan, where al-Qaeda and Pakistani militant leaders live, the militants keep the army engaged with hit-and-run tactics in an elaborate game of hide-and-seek.

At the same time, they strike at Pakistan's soft underbelly in the cities. This has resulted in numerous peace deals in the tribal areas, which are usually broken when the United States puts pressure on Islamabad to crack down on militants. This cycle went on for several years.

Then came the US's unmanned drones, capable of firing lethal missiles at pin-point targets from high in the sky. They have killed scores of militants, including several high-ranking al-Qaeda members.

They forced Baitullah and other leaders to keep a much lower profile. At the same time, the authorities tried, with some success, to turn lower-ranking Taliban commanders against Baitullah, who, suffering from diabetes, some months ago tried to strike a deal with the security forces.

He wrote letters to army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani, but his messenger, Shah Abdul Aziz, a former member of parliament, was arrested and the offers denied. Close comrades such as Ilyas Kashmiri and Abdul Jabbar, veteran jihadis from the Kashmir struggle, could have told Baitullah as much.

The establishment regularly brands Baitullah as a spy for the US and for Britain. This is par for the course for enemies of the state. But Baitullah was also called an agent for India's Research and Analysis Wing, its leading intelligence outfit. The message being sent was that Baitullah would be given zero tolerance and his termination had been ordered.

In light of this, and with the drones buzzing around and the army almost on the march against him, Baitullah might have decided to simply take the heat out of the situation by disappearing, much as Abdullah Mehsud did.

Al-Qaeda used this tactic with Osama bin Laden when the US invested heavily all around Pakistan and Afghanistan to catch him after he fled Afghanistan in late 2001. By 2005, several special forces operations were close on his trail. At this point, he disappeared off the map, only leaving in his wake speculation about whether he was dead or alive.

Another example involves Rashid Rauf, a dual citizen of Britain and Pakistan who was arrested in Pakistan in connection with the trans-Atlantic aircraft plot in August 2006. He escaped and went to North Waziristan. London was incensed and turned the screws on Islamabad, which in turn rounded up scores of Rauf's family and jihadi colleagues. In November 2008, news was leaked that he had been killed in a drone attack and the pressure was off. Asia Times Online is aware that Rauf is very much alive and kicking in North Waziristan.

Baitullah, too, could be alive and kicking, and he may have decided to lie low for a while. If this is true - there is no evidence at this stage that this is the case - he has taken something of a gamble.

He is a highly charismatic and ruthless man who through his drive and commitment has made the TTP a major thorn in the side of the Pakistani state while also lending invaluable support to the Taliban's struggle in Afghanistan.

This vital network could begin to unravel, and in the Tank and Dera Ismail Khan areas the rival Bhitini tribe is already targeting his Mehsud tribesmen, killing more than a dozen in the past few days.

On the other hand, his absence will take the heat out of the crackdown on militancy - the Interior Ministry has already declared that this struggle is "over". The military will also have good reason to further delay the ground offensive in South Waziristan that it is reluctant to undertake; it would be a very tough campaign and domestically highly unpopular.

Baitullah could simply be dead, although the same results would likely flow from his demise.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

 
 
 

[bigron]

The End of Al Qaeda?


Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud was the terrorist group's main patron.
This week, he was reportedly killed.



By Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai | Newsweek Web Exclusive 

Aug 7, 2009 | Updated: 10:23 a.m. ET Aug 7, 2009

If Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban's most dangerous and powerful leader, was indeed killed by a U.S. Predator drone strike earlier this week, the biggest loser of all may be Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda. For the past eight years, the group had depended on Mehsud, his close allies, and other sympathetic tribals to protect it in South Waziristan after its previous host, Mullah Mohammed Omar, was chased from Afghanistan by American bombs in late 2001. With Mehsud gone, Al Qaeda could be in trouble. "Mehsud's death means the tent sheltering Al Qaeda has collapsed," an Afghan Taliban intelligence officer who had met Mehsud many times tells NEWSWEEK. "Without a doubt he was Al Qaeda's No. 1 guy in Pakistan," adds Mahmood Shah, a retired Pakistani Army brigadier and a former chief of the Federally Administered Tribal Area, or FATA, Mehsud's base.

Mehsud, whom Shah describes as being a short, slightly overweight Type-A diabetic in his late 30s, proved to be an even better host for Al Qaeda than Omar. When Omar was clearly controlling the Taliban before September 11, 2001, he was believed to have been surprised by bin Laden's attack on New York and Washington. Mehsud, by contrast, didn't just let bin Laden operate in his domain; he cultivated a symbiotic relationship with Al Qaeda. Bin Laden provided Mehsud and his allies with funds, Al Qaeda's operational planners, and ideological and military experts (some of them veterans of the first Iraq War). Bin Laden's operatives quickly became key players in Mehsud's deadly insurgent operation on both sides of the border. In Afghanistan, they furnished fighters and suicide bombers to attack U.S., NATO, and Afghan troops. In Pakistan, gunmen and suicide bombers were sent to hit Pakistani security forces, military, police, and civilian targets. Mehsud got so caught up in Al Qaeda's rhetoric that the normally quiet commander threatened in a statement last March, which few took seriously, to extend his operations to include "an attack in Washington that would amaze everyone."

 
Al Qaeda's expertise was crucial to Mehsud's extensive network of tribal area training camps that teach raw recruits guerrilla tactics and form hundreds of young men, some barely teenagers, into suicide bombers. Thanks partly to Al Qaeda's assistance, Mehsud ran a "suicide-bomber-on-demand" operation, providing them to allies for use in Afghanistan. Pakistani officials estimate that 90 percent of the scores of suicide and terrorist attacks inside Pakistan over the past two years can be traced back to Mehsud's South Waziristan stronghold. They blame Mehsud for the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007.

While both Mehsud and bin Laden have fed off of each other, Al Qaeda has become much more dependent on Mehsud. The group had come to trust Mehsud completely. After the post 9/11 U.S. bombing campaign began in Afghanistan, Mehsud, who was not then an important tribal leader, took fleeing Al Qaeda members under his wing in Pakistan. Al Qaeda reciprocated by helping to build Mehsud up as a military force. Mehsud proved to be the perfect, levelheaded Al Qaeda ally. Rather than challenging other tribal leaders, he slowly built alliances and eventually forged a loose but important alliance of tribal commanders in 2007 throughout the tribal belt and beyond, cementing the deal at a secret meeting of 40 commanders who formed the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or the Pakistan Taliban Movement.

Six months earlier, Mehsud and other commanders had declared war on the Pakistani state as a result of then-president Pervez Musharraf's commando operation against the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad. In the ill-advised attack, the mosque was badly damaged and more than 100 of its militant defenders were killed. Almost immediately, Mehsud's forces began carrying out suicide bombings and ambushes against the security forces, expanding the Taliban's theater from Afghanistan to Pakistan.

Feeling threatened by Mehsud's increasingly bold attacks in Pakistani cities, Islamabad privately urged Washington to target Mehsud. The clever, calculating, and cautious Mehsud had kept a low profile inside the rugged, hilly badlands of his South Waziristan tribal homeland, shunning photographers, rarely meeting the local media or boasting over the phone of his many brutal attacks—unlike other Taliban commanders whose braggadocio had cost them their lives. Feeling heat, he had become even more secretive of late and was maintaining complete electronic silence, communicating with his lieutenants largely by hand-delivered, hand-written messages. But suddenly dropping his usual caution, he visited his second wife, whom he had only married last November, at the mud-brick compound of her father in a remote village of South Waziristan late last Tuesday night. At 1 a.m., a U.S. Predator drone's precision-guided Hellfire missile destroyed one of the house's rooms, killing Mehsud and his wife and injuring several others. One of his commanders, who declined to be named, confirmed that he was dead and described his death to NEWSWEEK in a phone call from his Waziristan base. He said Mehsud had made this rare visit to the house, which he knew was under surveillance, because he had been gravely ill with diabetes. (Mehsud reportedly died with an IV drip in his arm.) "There is reason to believe that reports of his death may be true," said a U.S. counterterrorism official.

His death is a major victory for the U.S.'s war on Islamic extremists, and seriously damages the  Pakistani Taliban movement, which Mehsud headed and which had vowed to destabilize the Pakistani government, and to install a Taliban-style Islamic regime in its place. The Afghan Taliban, which had relied on Mehsud-trained and -recruited suicide bombers will also miss their ally. "Mehsud brought different tribal groups together under his banner of extremism . . . It wouldn't mean the end of the Pakistani Taliban, but it would be a true setback for them," said the counterterrorism official.

Mehsud's top commanders will meet in South Waziristan's Spin Raghzi area this week to choose a new tribal leader, according to one of the participants. Whomever they pick, Al Qaeda is in trouble: none of the other tribal leaders commands the clout, coupled with a commitment to the group, to offer it the blanket protection and support that Mehsud did. His most likely successor is his equally ruthless deputy, Hakimullah Mehsud, who is reportedly 10 years younger. Another potential candidate is Wali u Rahman, Mehsud's top financial aide and former schoolteacher who is not as close to Al Qaeda. Another top lieutenant, Qari Hussain (Hakimullah's cousin) could also be a contender; he is close to Al Qaeda and heads the Taliban's suicide-bombing operation.

In any case, Al Qaeda's fortunes will have sunk. If any of the new candidates decide that Afghan foreigners have worn out their welcome in Pakistan, they could have bin Laden's men scrambling for cover. For instance, Maulvi Nasir, another TTP commander in South Waziristan, has turned on Al Qaeda in the past, killing some 250 Al Qaeda–affiliated Uzbeks and expelling hundreds of others from his territory in 2007. His complaints about the outsiders could gain support if support for them appears to hinder the militants' other goals.

What's more, any disunity affords Islamabad the chance to launch a much-advertised military offensive into South Waziristan. Until now, the army had held off, being preoccupied by Mehsud-allied forces in the Swat Valley. But if cracks appear, the army could capitalize on the region's new vulnerability. "If you can knock out the problem's center of gravity, Mehsud, then you may not have to go against the other tribal forces that may fall into line," said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the Pakistani Army spokesman, just before reports surfaced that Mehsud was dead.

Some 10 days ago, Mehsud met with some of his commanders and a troop of male Pashtun singers. He embraced them all and told them that this may be "our last meeting." One participant, an Afghan Taliban commander, told NEWSWEEK that Mehsud's comment frightened him. "South Waziristan is our heart," he said. "Losing it would kill us." It may not kill the Taliban, but it just might finish off Al Qaeda's South Waziristan operation.

With Mark Hosenball

Find this article at
http://www.newsweek.com/id/210970

[bigron]

US drone attack kills 10 in Pakistan  
 
11/08/2009 10:33:00 AM GMT 
 http://www.aljazeera.com/news/articles/34/US_drone_attack_kills_10_in_Pakistan.html

 
At least 10 people have been killed and five others injured in a major US drone attack that rocked a tribal area in northwestern Pakistan.

According to reports on Tuesday, a US drone aircraft fired missiles at what Pakistani intelligence officials believe to be a pro-Taliban stronghold in South Waziristan province, near the Afghan border.

"Two missiles were fired by a US drone. It was a militant compound," a Pakistani government official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"We have reports that more than 10 people were killed in the attack. It was a drone attack," another official said, adding that the attack has left five injured.

The incident comes one week after a similar attack on a civilian home in South Waziristan. Pakistani officials believe the so-called Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, his second wife and bodyguards were killed in the attack -- a claim that has been denied by militant commanders.

US drone attacks on Pakistan have caused heavy civilian casualties since 2006.

The air strikes allegedly target militants, but Pakistani media outlets say only 10 out of the 60 raids have managed to target militant hideouts.

The Islamabad government has repeatedly called for an end to US missile attacks on Pakistani soil. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani said last week that the incessant US strikes were undermining attempts at isolating the TTP leadership from the various tribes in the effected area.

This is while some reports indicate US drone take off form Pakistani soil.
Source: Press TV
 

[luckee1]

Isn't this what the movie Eagle Eye was about?

[Satyagraha]

Isn't this what the movie Eagle Eye was about?

Yes, Eagle Eye opened with the US making a drone attack and bombing a group of innocent civilians gathered at a funeral.  Then we did it in 'real' reality.
The Pak tv news showed the clip from Eagle Eye on the evening news the day after. They 'get' predictive programming.

Way to win hearts and minds yes? Thank you McCrystal, the new architect of genocide in Pakistan.

[Optimus]

Militant clashes kill at least 70 in NW Pakistan
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkiMxbHNH0BqgpWA2ZG6VD6wVTmAD9A1CT1O0
By ISHTIAQ MAHSUD (AP) – 17 minutes ago

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — Clashes between Taliban militants and a pro-government group in northwestern Pakistan's tribal belt on Wednesday have left at least 70 fighters dead, two intelligence officials and a militant commander said.

Turkistan Bitani, a tribal warlord allied with the government, claimed Taliban militants attacked his men in the Jandola area, just outside the stronghold of Taliban leader Baitulah Mehsid in South Waziristan.

Two Pakistani intelligence officials said they used rockets, mortars and anti-aircraft guns against Bitani's village of Sura Ghar. They confirmed at least 70 people were killed. The officials, who cited wireless intercepts from the site, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

Bitani told The Associated Press that 90 fighters were killed and said more than 40 houses had been destroyed. There was no way to independently confirm the death toll, as the fighting was taking place in a remote, mountainous area that is off-limits to journalists.

The clash comes one week after a U.S. missile strike in South Waziristan reportedly killed Mehsud. The U.S. and Pakistani officials say they are almost certain last Wednesday's strike killed the Taliban leader, but several Taliban fighters have disputed that, insisting Mehsud is alive.

Neither side has produced any evidence to back up their assertions, and since the claims of Mehsud's death, both the Taliban and the Pakistani government have been waging competing propaganda campaigns over the state of the Taliban's leadership.

Days after the strike, Interior Minister Rehman Malik claimed a Taliban meeting to chose Mehsud's successor degenerated into a gunbattle between leading contenders to replace Mehsud — Waliur Rehman and Hakimullah Mehsud — and that one of the two was dead.

Bitani made similar claims, saying there had been a gunfight at the meeting, known as a shura — although he had said both Rehman and Hakimullah Mehsud were dead.

The two militant commanders both later phoned international media organizations to prove they were alive.

Mehsud and his followers have been the target of both U.S. and Pakistani operations aimed at ridding the country's northwest of militants.

Washington has increased its focus on Pakistan's rugged tribal regions because they provide safe haven for insurgents fighting international forces across the border in Afghanistan. The U.S. is also concerned the militants could undermine of the stability of the government in Islamabad, especially after Taliban insurgents briefly captured areas some 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the capital. That bold takeover stoked fears Pakistan's nuclear weapons could fall into the wrong hands.

A recent report written by a U.K.-based security expert said that militants had attacked nuclear facilities three times in two years, but a military spokesman denied that on Wednesday.

Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said there is "absolutely no chance" the country's atomic weapons could fall into terrorist hands

Shaun Gregory, a professor at Bradford University's Pakistan Security Research Unit, wrote that several militant attacks have already hit military bases where nuclear components are secretly stored. The article appeared in the July newsletter of the Combating Terrorism Center of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Abbas said Wednesday that none of the military bases named was used to store atomic weapons.

[bigron]

Aug 13, 2009 

 Pakistan, US look across the border


By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's ongoing cooperation in the "war on terror" in the past few months has played a part in it being granted an additional loan of US$3.2 billion from the International Monetary Fund, raising the total loan to $11.3 billion, or 6.3% of the country's gross domestic product. [1]

At the same time, the United States special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, is due to visit Pakistan from August 15-18 to press for Islamabad's further cooperation in tackling the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the main Taliban militant umbrella group in Pakistan primarily in conflict with the central government. Its leader Baitullah Mehsud is reported to have been killed in a US Predator drone attack last week, and many other militants have died in subsequent such raids.

The US wants Pakistan to help bring the conflict in Pakistan and Afghanistan to an end through mediation by soliciting the Taliban for talks with the aim of incorporating them into the Afghan political mainstream.

"The real plan is not the elimination of any individual, rather it is to root out al-Qaeda's headquarters, situated at the crossroads of the South Waziristan and North Waziristan [tribal areas in Pakistan], which is causing massive instability in the whole region of Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Iraq," an Islamabad-based senior Pakistani security official told Asia Times Online on the condition of anonymity.

The officer showed ATol highly secret documents which reveal how al-Qaeda-linked groups have been involved in several high-profile robberies, assassinations and other activities in a network that has been broadened from North Waziristan all the way to Mumbai in India, where a massive attack was launched on that city last year by 10 Pakistani-linked militants. More than 150 people were killed.

Pakistan is not believed to have given the US specific information on Baitullah, who has a $5 million bounty on his head, but they have shared detailed maps of the region where the drone attack took place in South Waziristan last week.

An active network based in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, comprising several senior Pakistan police officials, intelligence officials with a military background and members of the American intelligence community, now meet daily to discuss targets and to asses the results of strikes.

On Tuesday, drones acting on information supplied by Pakistan targeted Maaskar, a militant training facility in the Kaniguram area of South Waziristan, run by Arab militants. Several people were killed.

That morning, militants carried out an intense rocket attack on Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Almost a dozen rockets were fired, killing two civilians. The attack appeared random and without a specific target, indicating a touch of desperation on the part of the militants in the face of the bombardment they are taking from drones.

Also on Tuesday, militants destroyed 10 schools and a health center in Buner, in Malakand Division. This came as the government claimed that everything had returned to normal in Dir and Swat in NWFP and also in Buner.

Despite Tuesday's militant attacks, the security forces do appear to have stabilized the situation that a few months ago saw the Taliban seemingly on the march to Islamabad.

The Pakistani security official added, "This is the ideal situation [for the government] as the so-called Taliban emirates in Bajaur [Agency] and Mohmand [Agency] and Swat have been abandoned and they [Taliban] are on the run in North Waziristan and South Waziristan. The situation would be even better if things were back to normal in Afghanistan as this [militancy in Pakistan] is a spillover of the Afghan war."

Top US commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McCrystal on Tuesday vowed that coalition forces would prevail in the war, but re-affirmed he was open to reconciling with rank-and-file insurgents.

"I would absolutely be comfortable with fighters and lower-level commanders making the decision to re-integrate into the Afghan political process under the Afghan constitution," McCrystal said. As for reconciling with higher-level insurgent leaders, McCrystal said, "That's clearly up to [Afghan President Hamid Karzai]."

Karzai made his intentions public Tuesday by saying he would double the size of Afghanistan's security forces and push for peace talks with the Taliban if he is elected for a second term in polls due this month.

Meanwhile, Taliban leader Mullah Omar has urged the Afghan Taliban shura (council), believed to operate from around Quetta in southwestern Pakistan, to intervene to protect vital South Waziristan militant assets. This it could do by installing a new chief of the Taliban in the Mehsud area in South Waziristan. This is regardless of whether Baitullah is alive or dead, the aim being to prevent any internecine conflict between various factions.

The shura includes Mullah Bradar, the Taliban's supreme commander in Afghanistan; Mullah Hasan Rahmani, a close aide of Mullah Omar and a governor of Kandahar province in Afghanistan during the Taliban regime in the late 1990s; and other prominent figures of the Afghan Taliban from the Kandahari clans.

Should it be decided to install a low-profile Taliban chief - as opposed to the aggressive and uncompromising Baitullah - the road towards an end game in the region would be made considerably smoother.

Note
1. See Pakistan piles on IMF debt
Asia Times Online, August 11, 2009.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KH11Df02.html

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

 
 
 

[bigron]

Ex-ISI Chief Says Purpose of New Afghan Intelligence Agency RAMA Is ‘to destabilize Pakistan’

Posted By Jeremy R. Hammond On August 12, 2009



Then Maj. Gen. Hamid Gul, Director General of the ISI (far left), with William Webster, Director of Central Intelligence, Clair George, Deputy Director for Operations, and Milt Bearden, CIA station chief, at a training camp for the mujahedeen in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province in 1987 (RAWA.org)

In an exclusive interview with Foreign Policy Journal, retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul responds to charges that he supports terrorism, discusses 9/11 and ulterior motives for the war on Afghanistan, claims that the U.S., Israel, and India are behind efforts to destabilize Pakistan, and charges the U.S. and its allies with responsibility for the lucrative Afghan drug trade.

Retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul was the Director General of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from 1987 to 1989, during which time he worked closely with the CIA to provide support for the mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Though once deemed a close ally of the United States, in more recent years his name has been the subject of considerable controversy. He has been outspoken with the claim that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were an “inside job”. He has been called “the most dangerous man in Pakistan”, and the U.S. government has accused him of supporting the Taliban, even recommending him to the United Nations Security Council for inclusion on the list of international terrorists.

In an exclusive interview with Foreign Policy Journal, I asked the former ISI chief what his response was to these allegations. He replied, “Well, it’s laughable I would say, because I’ve worked with the CIA and I know they were never so bad as they are now.” He said this was “a pity for the American people” since the CIA is supposed to act “as the eyes and ears” of the country. As for the charge of him supporting the Taliban, “it is utterly baseless. I have no contact with the Taliban, nor with Osama bin Laden and his colleagues.” He added, “I have no means, I have no way that I could support them, that I could help them.”

After the Clinton administration’s failed attempt to assassinate Osama bin Laden in 1998, some U.S. officials alleged that bin Laden had been tipped off by someone in Pakistan to the fact that the U.S. was able to track his movements through his satellite phone. Counter-terrorism advisor to the National Security Council Richard Clarke said, “I have reason to believe that a retired head of the ISI was able to pass information along to Al Qaeda that the attack was coming.” And some have speculated that this “retired head of the ISI” was none other than Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul.

When I put this charge to him, General Gul pointed out to me that he had retired from the ISI on June 1, 1989, and from the army in January, 1992. “Did you share this information with the ISI?” he asked. “And why haven’t you taken the ISI to task for parting this information to its ex-head?” The U.S. had not informed the Pakistan army chief, Jehangir Karamat, of its intentions, he said. So how could he have learned of the plan to be able to warn bin Laden? “Do I have a mole in the CIA? If that is the case, then they should look into the CIA to carry out a probe, find out the mole, rather than trying to charge me. I think these are all baseless charges, and there’s no truth in it…. And if they feel that their failures are to be rubbed off on somebody else, then I think they’re the ones who are guilty, not me.”

General Gul turned our conversation to the subject of 9/11 and the war on Afghanistan. “You know, my position is very clear,” he said. “It’s a moral position that I have taken. And I say that America has launched this aggression without sufficient reasons. They haven’t even proved the case that 9/11 was done by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.” He argued that “There are many unanswered questions about 9/11,” citing examples such as the failure to intercept any of the four planes after it had become clear that they had been hijacked. He questioned how Mohammed Atta, “who had had training on a light aircraft in Miami for six months” could have maneuvered a jumbo jet “so accurately” to hit his target (Atta was reportedly the hijacker in control of American Airlines Flight 11, which was the first plane to hit its target, striking the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 am). And he made reference to the flight that hit the Pentagon and the maneuver its pilot had performed, dropping thousands of feet while doing a near 360 degree turn before plowing into its target. “And then, above all,” he added, “why have no heads been rolled? The FBI, the CIA, the air traffic control — why have they not been put to question, put to task?” Describing the 9/11 Commission as a “cover up”, the general added, “I think the American people have been made fools of. I have my sympathies with them. I like Americans. I like America. I appreciate them. I’ve gone there several times.”

At this point in our discussion, General Gul explained how both the U.S. and United Kingdom stopped granting him an entry visa. He said after he was banned from the U.K., “I wrote a letter to the British government, through the High Commissioner here in Islamabad, asking ‘Why do you think that — if I’m a security risk, then it is paradoxical that you should exclude me from your jurisdiction. You should rather nab me, interrogate me, haul me up, take me to the court, whatever you like. I mean, why are you excluding me from the U.K., it’s not understandable.’ I did not receive a reply to that.” He says he sent a second letter inviting the U.K. to send someone to question him in Pakistan, if they had questions about him they wanted to know. If the U.S. wants to include him on the list of international terrorists, Gul reasons, “I am still prepared to let them grant me the visa. And I will go…. If they think that there is something very seriously wrong with me, why don’t you give me the visa and catch me then?”

‘They lack character’

I turned to the war in Afghanistan, observing that the ostensible purpose for the war was to bring the accused mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, to justice. And yet there were plans to overthrow the Taliban regime that predated 9/11. The FBI does not include the 9/11 attacks among the crimes for which bin Laden is wanted. After the war began, General Tommy Franks responded to a question about capturing him by saying, “We have not said that Osama bin Laden is a target of this effort.” The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, similarly said afterward, “Our goal has never been to get bin Laden.” And President George W. Bush himself said, “I truly am not that concerned about him.” These are self-serving statements, obviously, considering the failure to capture bin Laden. But what, I asked General Gul, in his view, were the true reasons for the invasion of Afghanistan, and why the U.S. is still there?

“A very good question,” he responded. “I think you have reached the point precisely.” It is a “principle of war,” he said, “that you never mix objectives. Because when you mix objectives then you end up with egg on your face. You face defeat. And here was a case where the objectives were mixed up. Ostensibly, it was to disperse al Qaeda, to get Osama bin Laden. But latently, the reasons for the offensive, for the attack on Afghanistan, were quite different.”

First, he says, the U.S. wanted to “reach out to the Central Asian oilfields” and “open the door there”, which “was a requirement of corporate America, because the Taliban had not complied with their desire to allow an oil and gas pipeline to pass through Afghanistan. UNOCAL is a case in point. They wanted to keep the Chinese out. They wanted to give a wider security shield to the state of Israel, and they wanted to include this region into that shield. And that’s why they were talking at that time very hotly about ‘greater Middle East’. They were redrawing the map.”

Second, the war “was to undo the Taliban regime because they had enforced Shariah”, or Islamic law, which, “in the spirit of that system, if it is implemented anywhere, would mean an alternative socio-monetary system. And that they would never approve.”

Third, it was “to go for Pakistan’s nuclear capability”, something that used to be talked about “under their lip”, “but now they are openly talking about”. This was the reason the U.S. “signed this strategic deal with India, and this was brokered by Israel. So there is a nexus now between Washington, Tel Aviv, and New Delhi.”

While achieving some of these aims, “there are many things which are still left undone,” he continued, “because they are not winning on the battlefield. And no matter what maps you draw in your mind, no matter what plans you make, if you cannot win on the battlefield, then it comes to naught. And that is what is happening to America.”

“Besides, the American generals, I have a professional cudgel with them,” Gul added. “They lack character. They know that a job cannot be done, because they know —I cannot believe that they didn’t realize that the objectives are being mixed up here — they could not stand up to men like Rumsfeld and to Dick Cheney. They could not tell them. I think they cheated the American nation, the American people. This is where I have a problem with the American generals, because a general must show character. He must say that his job cannot be done. He must stand up to the politicians. But these generals did not stand up to them.”

As a further example of the lack of character in the U.S. military leadership, the General Gul cited the “victory” in Iraq. “George Bush said that it was a victory. That means the generals must have told him ‘We have won!’ They had never won. This was all bunkum, this was all bullshit.”

Segueing back to Afghanistan, he continued: “And if they are now saying that with 17,000 more troops they can win in Afghanistan — or even double that figure if you like — they cannot. Now this is a professional opinion I am giving. And I will give this sound opinion for the good of the American people, because I am a friend of the American people and that is why I always say that your policies are flawed. This is not the way to go.” Furthermore, the war is “widely perceived as a war against Islam. And George Bush even used the word ‘Crusade.’” This is an incorrect view, he insisted. “You talk about clash of civilizations. We say the civilizations should meet.”

Alluding once more to the U.S. charges against him, he added, “And if they think that my criticism is tantamount to opposition to America, this is totally wrong, because there are lots of Americans themselves who are not in line with the American policies.” He had warned early on, he informed me, including in an interview with Rod Nordland in Newsweek immediately following the 9/11 attacks, that the U.S. would be making a mistake to go to war. “So, if you tell somebody, ‘Don’t jump into the well!’ and that somebody thinks you are his enemy, then what is it that you can say about him?”

‘This state of anger is being fueled’

I turned the conversation towards the consequences of the war in Afghanistan on Pakistan, and the increased extremist militant activities within his own country’s borders, where the Pakistani government has been at war with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, or Pakistan Taliban). I observed that the TTP seemed well funded and supplied and asked Gul how the group obtains financing and arms.

He responded without hesitation. “Yeah, of course they are getting it from across the Durand line, from Afghanistan. And the Mossad is sitting there, RAW is sitting there — the Indian intelligence agency — they have the umbrella of the U.S. And now they have created another organization which is called RAMA. It may be news to you that very soon this intelligence agency — of course, they have decided to keep it covert — but it is Research and Analysis Milli Afghanistan. That’s the name. The Indians have helped create this organization, and its job is mainly to destabilize Pakistan.”

General Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, former Deputy Minister of Defense of the Northern Alliance under Ahmad Shah Massoud and the Chief of Staff of the Afghan National Army since 2002 — “whom I know very well”, General Gul told me — “had gone to India a few days back, and he has offered bases to India, five of them: three on the border, the eastern border with Pakistan, from Asadabad, Jalalabad, and Kandhar; one in Shindand, which is near Heart; and the fifth one is near Mazar-e Sharif. So these bases are being offered for a new game unfolding there.” This is why, he asserted, the Indians, despite a shrinking economy, have continued to raise their defense budget, by 20 percent last year and an additional 34 percent this year.

He also cited as evidence of these designs to destabilize Pakistan the U.S. Predator drone attacks in Waziristan, which have “angered the Pathan people of that tribal belt. And this state of anger is being fueled. It is that fire that has been lit, is being fueled, by the Indian intelligence from across the border. Of course, Mossad is right behind them. They have no reason to be sitting there, and there’s a lot of evidence. I hope the Pakistan government will soon be providing some of the evidence against the Indians.”

Several days after I had first spoken with General Gul, the news hit the headlines that the leader of the TTP, Baitullah Mehsud, had been killed by a CIA drone strike. So I followed up with him and asked him to comment about this development. “When Baitullah Mehsud and his suicide bombers were attacking Pakistan armed forces and various institutions,” he said, “at that time, Pakistan intelligence were telling the Americans that Baitullah Mehsud was here, there. Three times, it has been written by the Western press, by the American press — three times the Pakistan intelligence tipped off America, but they did not attack him. Why have they now announced — they had money on him — and now attacked and killed him, supposedly? Because there were some secret talks going on between Baitullah Mehsud and the Pakistani military establishment. They wanted to reach a peace agreement, and if you recall there is a long history of our tribal areas, whenever a tribal militant has reached a peace agreement with the government of Pakistan, Americans have without any hesitation struck that target.” Among other examples, the former ISI chief said “an agreement in Bajaur was about to take place” when, on October 30, 2006, a drone struck a madrassa in the area, an attack “in which 82 children were killed”.

“So in my opinion,” General Gul continued, “there was some kind of a deal which was about to be arrived at — they may have already cut a deal. I don’t know. I don’t have enough information on that. But this is my hunch, that Baitullah was killed because now he was trying to reach an agreement with the Pakistan army. And that’s why there were no suicide attacks inside Pakistan for the past six or seven months.”

‘Very, very disturbing indeed’

Turning the focus of our discussion to the Afghan drug problem, I noted that the U.S. mainstream corporate media routinely suggest that the Taliban is in control of the opium trade. However, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Anti-Government Elements (or AGEs), which include but are not limited to the Taliban, account for a relatively small percentage of the profits from the drug trade. Two of the U.S.’s own intelligence agencies, the CIA and the DIA, estimate that the Taliban receives about $70 million a year from the drugs trade. That may seem at first glance like a significant amount of money, but it’s only about two percent of the total estimated profits from the drug trade, a figure placed at $3.4 billion by the UNODC last year.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has just announced its new strategy for combating the drug problem: placing drug traffickers with ties to insurgents —and only drug lords with ties to insurgents — on a list to be eliminated. The vast majority of drug lords, in other words, are explicitly excluded as targets under the new strategy. Or, to put it yet another way, the U.S. will be assisting to eliminate the competition for drug lords allied with occupying forces or the Afghan government and helping them to further corner the market.

I pointed out to the former ISI chief that Afghan opium finds its way into Europe via Pakistan, via Iran and Turkey, and via the former Soviet republics. According to the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, convoys under General Rashid Dostum — who was reappointed last month to his government position as Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Afghan National Army by President Hamid Karzai — would truck the drugs over the border. And President Karzai’s own brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, has been accused of being a major drug lord. So I asked General Gul who was really responsible for the Afghan drug trade.

“Now, let me give you the history of the drug trade in Afghanistan,” his answer began. “Before the Taliban stepped into it, in 1994 — in fact, before they captured Kabul in September 1996 — the drugs, the opium production volume was 4,500 tons a year. Then gradually the Taliban came down hard upon the poppy growing. It was reduced to around 50 tons in the last year of the Taliban. That was the year 2001. Nearly 50 tons of opium produced. 50. Five-zero tons. Now last year the volume was at 6,200 tons. That means it has really gone one and a half times more than it used to be before the Taliban era.” He pointed out, correctly, that the U.S. had actually awarded the Taliban for its effective reduction of the drug trade. On top of $125 million the U.S. gave to the Taliban ostensibly as humanitarian aid, the State Department awarded the Taliban $43 million for its anti-drug efforts. “Of course, they made their mistakes,” General Gul continued. “But on the whole, they were doing fairly good. If they had been engaged in meaningful, fruitful, constructive talks, I think it would have been very good for Afghanistan.”

Referring to the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, General Gul told me in a later conversation that Taliban leader “Mullah Omar was all the time telling that, look, I am prepared to hand over Osama bin Laden to a third country for a trial under Shariah. Now that is where — he said [it] twice — and they rejected this. Because the Taliban ambassador here in Islamabad, he came to me, and I asked him, ‘Why don’t you study this issue, because America is threatening to attack you. So you should do something.’ He said, ‘We have done everything possible.’ He said, ‘I was summoned by the American ambassador in Islamabad’ — I think Milam was the ambassador at that time — and he told me that ‘I said, “Look, produce the evidence.” But he did not show me anything other than cuttings from the newspapers.’ He said, ‘Look, we can’t accept this as evidence, because it has to stand in a court of law. You are prepared to put him on trial. You can try him in the United Nations compound in Kabul, but it has to be a Shariah court because he’s a citizen under Shariah law. Therefore, we will not accept that he should be immediately handed over to America, because George Bush has already said that he wants him “dead or alive”, so he’s passed the punishment, literally, against him.” Referring to the U.S. rejection of the Taliban offer to try bin Laden in Afghanistan or hand him over to a third country, General Gul added, “I think this is a great opportunity that they missed.”

Returning to the drug trade, General Gul named the brother of President Karzai, Abdul Wali Karzai. “Abdul Wali Karzai is the biggest drug baron of Afghanistan,” he stated bluntly. He added that the drug lords are also involved in arms trafficking, which is “a flourishing trade” in Afghanistan. “But what is most disturbing from my point of view is that the military aircraft, American military aircraft are also being used. You said very rightly that the drug routes are northward through the Central Asia republics and through some of the Russian territory, and then into Europe and beyond. But some of it is going directly. That is by the military aircraft. I have so many times in my interviews said, ‘Please listen to this information, because I am an aware person.’ We have Afghans still in Pakistan, and they sometimes contact and pass on the stories to me. And some of them are very authentic. I can judge that. So they are saying that the American military aircraft are being used for this purpose. So, if that is true, it is very, very disturbing indeed.”



Article printed from Foreign Policy Journal: http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com

URL to article: http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/08/12/ex-isi-chief-says-purpose-of-new-afghan-intelligence-agency-rama-is-%e2%80%98to-destabilize-pakistan%e2%80%99/

URLs in this post:

[1] Image: http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.comjavascript:window.location=

[bigron]

Thursday, August 13, 2009
20:28 Mecca time, 17:28 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/08/200981317638988457.html
   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Pakistani tribal leaders killed

 
Pakistan's northwest tribal belt has become a stronghold for groups who flee Afghanistan [EPA]
 
Three prominent anti-Taliban tribal elders are among at least six people killed in suicide and gun attacks in northwest Pakistan, officials have said.

A bomber strapped with explosives and riding a motorbike killed Malik Khadeen, one of his relatives and two passers-by after ramming the tribesman's vehicle in South Waziristan on Thusday, a local security official said.

The prominent leader Khadeen, who had survived two previous attacks, was a key anti-Taliban facilitator in Wana, the main town in the wild tribal region that is considered a stronghold of Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, presumed killed in a US missile attack last week.

An intelligence official confirmed the bomb attack in Wana,  saying Khadeen's vehicle was badly damaged.

Gun attack

Separately, two pro-government Pakistani militia leaders were killed and their bullet-ridden bodies recovered in the tribal area Bajaur, which borders Afghanistan, local officials said.

"Both the tribal elders were shot dead by gunmen. We think Taliban are involved in the incident as they have no other enmity,"  Saad Ullah, a local government official said.

Hundreds of people were killed in a six-month Pakistan operation against armed groups in Bajaur, which the military claimed in February to have "secured".

Pakistan's semi-autonomous northwest tribal belt has become a stronghold for hundreds of groups who fled Afghanistan after the US-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan in late 2001.
 
 Source: Agencies 
 
 
 
 
 

[Satyagraha]

Balochistan unrest spiralling out of control: report
Sunday, 16 Aug, 2009 | 04:33 PM PST
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/provinces/04-balochistan-unrest-spiralling-out-of-control-qs-16

KARACHI: Unrest in Balochistan could seriously dent the government’s operation against the Taliban and its economy as well, a report in the Financial Times said.

According to the report, the insurgency in Balochistan could distract security forces from tackling the Taliban along the lawless Afghan border and in Swat.

Separatists are targeting important buildings and other strategic installations in the region and have asked outsiders to leave as soon as possible, FT says.

‘They are openly telling the Punjabis, ‘leave while you can.’ While everyone is worried about Swat, Balochistan is getting out of control,’ a senior provincial security official said.

Balochis has long been demanding a share in the revenue earned by the government from selling natural gas obtained from gas reserves situated in the province.

‘We are the richest in terms of mineral resources and the poorest in terms of economic well-being,’ said Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani.

Political leaders are also of the view that Balochistan should be given its due share in the revenue.

‘All the proceeds from the gas have to come to Balochistan,’ said Balochistan National Party chief Abdul Malik Baloch.

Malik said the government must withdraw armed forces from the region to earn support and trust of the local people.

‘Military should be withdrawn from the province as part of a necessary reconciliation process that must begin to address ways of overcoming the anger in Balochistan,’ he said. 

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Friday, August 21, 2009
08:55 Mecca time, 05:55 GMT
 http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/08/20098214356339905.html
 
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Deadly 'US drone raid' in Pakistan  
 
 
 
At least 10 people have been killed after a suspected US drone fired missiles into Pakistan's North Waziristan region, Pakistani intelligence agency officials have said.

The raid on Friday on Darpa Kheil village was the third such attack this month in Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun tribal areas by what are believed to be CIA-operated pilotless aircraft.

"The attack caused a huge explosion," said a Reuters reporter in Miranshah, about 2km from the scene of the raid.

Drones were seen flying over the area after the blast, he said.

Madrassa attacked

Darpa Kheil village is home to a large madrassa, or religious school, set up by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a former veteran Afghan fighter commander who is also a senior Taliban leader.

US drone aircraft attacked the complex in September last year, killing 23 people, most of them members of Haqqani's family.

Pakistani and US officials believe Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban chief, was killed in a similar strike in neighbouring South Waziristan on August 5.

Pakistan, an ally of the US, which is fighting al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the region, officially objects to US drone attacks on its soil, saying they violate its sovereignty.
 
 Source: Agencies 
 
 
 
 
 

[Satyagraha]

The US funds the Taliban.

The US Created Al-Qaeda.

The US is fighting BOTH SIDES of this 'war on terror'.

The US is killing innocent women and children with their war machines.

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Al-Zawahiri Says Pakistani Offensive Will Fail

Friday , August 28, 2009
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,543944,00.html?test=latestnews


Ayman al-Zawahiri (AP)

  CAIRO — Al Qaeda's deputy leader says the Pakistani military sweep against the Taliban in the Swat Valley is doomed to failure and urges Pakistanis to support the militants.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a video posted on Islamic militant Web sites late Thursday, says a Pakistani offensive last spring -- code named "Path of Salvation" -- is "turning into the Path of Doom for the apostates."

He warns that anyone helping the military is against Islam and urges Pakistanis to "back the jihad (holy war) and mujahedeen" with fighters, money and support.

The Pakistani military says it regained control of Swat and surrounding areas, although fighting persists. The head of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed this month in a CIA missile strike.

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Pakistan: 21 cops killed


Posted Fri, 28 Aug 2009
http://news.iafrica.com/content_feeds/telkom_world/1890146.htm


An injured victim following  bomb blast. AFP


A suicide bomber killed at least 21 policemen in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region on Thursday, after a US strike from a drone aircraft killed eight Taliban militants, officials said.

The suicide attack took place in the Khyber tribal region near the Afghan border just as the policemen were gathering to break their Ramadan fast.

"It was a suicide attack, which killed at least 21 policemen and wounded 15 others," top local administration official Tariq Hayat told AFP.

He said the attacker blew himself up in the police barracks in the border town of Torkham.

A senior administration official, Rehan Gul Khattak, told AFP: "The authorities have found the head of the bomber at the site."

A local administration official, Naeem Afridi, said he feared the death toll would rise. "Vehicles of the local administration are shifting the injured and dead bodies to a local hospital," he added.

The attack came hours after a US missile strike in the South Waziristan tribal region killed eight militants.

The US strike "targeted a Taliban compound in Kaniguram village of South Waziristan, killing eight militants and wounding six others," a senior security official told AFP.

Another official confirmed the casualties and said that the drone fired two missiles.

"Militants were using the compound of local tribesman Azam Khan Mehsud for their activities in the area," he said.

"Nationalities of all the militants killed... were not immediately known but some were Uzbek nationals."

He added that the village contained hideouts belonging to fighters loyal to slain Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a US drone attack on 5 August. His death was confirmed by Taliban commanders on Tuesday.

The US military does not, as a rule, confirm drone attacks, but its armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency are the only forces that deploy drones in the region.

More than 2000 people have been killed in a series of bomb blasts and suicide attacks in the country during the past two years.

Pakistan's northwest and tribal areas have been wracked by violence since hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters sought refuge there after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Pakistan in April launched a military offensive against the Taliban in the northwest, targeting the rebels in the districts of Swat, Buner and Lower Dir after militants advanced closer to the capital Islamabad.

Pakistan says more than 1930 militants and over 170 security personnel have been killed in the offensive, but the death tolls are impossible to verify independently.

The military last month claimed to have cleared the Swat area of Taliban and has now turned to the tribal belt, heartland of Pakistani umbrella organisation Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is allegedly linked to al-Qaeda.

But skirmishes still continue in Swat and Buner, raising fears that the Taliban are regrouping in the mountains.

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US Irked as Pakistan Stalls South Waziristan Offensive

Officials 'Alarmed' by Reports Govt May Seek Peace Deal With Some Factions


Posted By Jason Ditz On August 28, 2009 @ 6:09 pm




The apparent killing of Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Baitullah Mehsud earlier this month in a US drone attack has left the group seeking to stabilize its new leadership and the Pakistani government wondering if perhaps its massive military offensive in South Waziristan, promised for months, might not be necessary after all.

The prospect has irked the US government, which has been pushing Pakistan to expand its offensive in Waziristan in tandem with their assorted military offensives in Southern Afghanistan. At the same time, Pakistani officials are considering making deals with parts of the TTP in an attempt to split the organization, which is “alarming” US officials.

The US has a long history of public opposition to Pakistan making peace deals with the assorted militant factions in its restive hinterlands. Most recently they came out angrily against the Swat Valley peace deal, and praised the Pakistani military when the deal broke down and an offensive drove millions of civilians from their homes.

At the same time the fact that the US is hoping to use a similar strategy of reconciliation with some factions in the Afghan Taliban can’t be lost on the Pakistani government, and will likely ensure that they take the complaints with a grain of salt. The Zardari government has been hawkish of late, promising massive offensives against the TTP, but the prospect of averting a full scale war across the increasingly unstable will likely be too tantalizing to reject out of hand.

Related Stories
August 27, 2009 -- US Drone Strike Kills Ten in South Waziristan
August 20, 2009 -- US Drone Strike Kills 12 in North Waziristan
August 18, 2009 -- Pakistan Again Insists Hakimullah Mehsud Is Dead


Article printed from News From Antiwar.com: http://news.antiwar.com

URL to article: http://news.antiwar.com/2009/08/28/us-irked-as-pakistan-stalls-south-waziristan-offensive/

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The U.S. Invades and Occupies Pakistan


By Talha Mujaddidi. Axis of Logic

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m57452&hd=&size=1&l=e

August 29, 2009

We are watching it happen in the streets. The recurring nightmare has become a grim, new reality for the people of Pakistan. After watching the horrors of the U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq and neighboring Afhanistan for 8 years, the "war on terror" has finally arrived in The Land of the Pure. Obama is fulfilling his campaign promise to Pakistan. The sudden arrival of U.S. marines, U.S. military Hummers, the hired killers of Blackwater, houses barricaded for U.S. personnel in Islamabad and the construction of the world's largest U.S. "Embassy" are terrorizing this nation of 180 million people. The U.S. slaughter and destruction in Iraq and neighboring Afghanistan for the last 8 years warn them of what may lie in store for them, their families, their land.

The U.S. Marines


 
On 9/21/08 a bomb ripped through the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad killing scores of people and injuring hundreds. Prior to the bombing, U.S. marines off-loaded steel boxes from a truck, by-passed security and took them to the 4th floor of the building. US officials refused to cooperate with the government's attempts to investigate their activities. One year later, U.S. Marines are leading the occupation of Pakistan.


Until this landing of U.S. forces, the nation's spokesman for Foreign Affairs had been denying that 1000 U.S. marines were on their way to Islamabad. The thousand marines are now in the capital city of Islamabad. Some of them may be quietly slipping into Balochistan where the presence of JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) have been reported by foreign journalists. But most are here to defend what will be the largest U.S. embassy/fortress in the world, now under construction and to spearhead the invasion and occupation.

Costs to the U.S. Taxpayer

 
US Ambassador in Pakistan Anne W. Patterson
 

The total cost for housing and and general support for the marines alone will be US$112.5 million. US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson said the money is allocated as follows: "$5 million was for Marine quarters, $53.5 for housing infrastructure, $18 million for improvement of general services office area, and $36 million for temporary duty quarters and community support facilities."

In Patterson's explanation of the massive expansion of the U.S. Embassy she talked about 4 Billion (that's with a "B") dollars:

"The embassy expansion, she said, was a reflection of the long-term commitment that the US intended to have with Pakistan. Moreover, she said, quadrupling of the social, economic and military assistance that would touch $4 billion a year over the next 18 months, necessitated staff increase."

Ambassador Patterson did not clarify whether the $4 Billion covers the construction which will make this embassy the largest in the world. When this construction is seen in context and coordination with the new level of U.S. occupation of Pakistan, it looks more like a permanent military base than an embassy for running military and covert operations not only in Pakistan but also in the region.

Weapons and Hummers

Eye witnesses and informed journalists have been reporting sightings of U.S. personnel in Islamabad for the past week or so, but now they are seen moving freely throughout the capital. The law (Section 144) provides that Pakistanis who own guns are not permitted to carry them in Islamabad. But U.S. personnel are showing Pakistanis that they are above the law as they openly brandish their weapons. It has also been confirmed that 3,000 U.S. military Hummers, locked and loaded are awaiting dispatch in Karachi's Port Qasim. For millions of Pakistanis news of these Hummers conjures up images of U.S. troops charging through the streets of Iraqi cities, armed to the teeth, terrifying and often killing unarmed civilians.


 
On Feb. 23, 2009 the Pentagon revealed that over 70 U.S. military advisers had been secretly working in Pakistan. 


Blackwater and the CIA

Pakistanis have known about the 300 U.S. military "advisers" lodged in Tarbela. But news of the arrival of the notorious Blackwater mercenaries in addition to the thousand U.S. marines are riveting their attention. In Pakistan, Blackwater is trading its tainted name for a telling name "Xe Worldwide", - the name behind which these paid killers are now hiding.

Also, last week, Creative Associates International Inc (CAII), a CIA front, has been operating in Peshawar. They have now sealed off a road and set up shop near the houses of senior Pakistani officials in Islamabad, directly across from a school.

 
Dr. Shireen Mazari
 

Dr. Shireen M. Mazari is a scholar and commentator on Strategic Studies and Political Science from Pakistan. She has a Ph.D. from Colombia University and was Director General of Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad, Pakistan and former Chairperson of Department of Defense and Strategic Studies at the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. She is critical of the relationship the Pakistan government has with the United States and India. Speaking for an opposition political party (Tehreek-e-Insaaf), Dr. Shireen Mazari speaks about the new arrival of U.S. forces in Pakistan:


 

"Will some of these go to the Pentagon's assassination squads, who may take up residence in some of the barricaded Islamabad houses and with whom the present US commander in Afghanistan was directly associated? Ordinary officials at Pakistani airports have also been muttering their concerns over chartered flights flying in Americans whose entry is not recorded – even the flight crews are not checked for visas and so there is now no record-keeping of exactly how many Americans are coming into or going out of Pakistan. Incidentally the CAII's (CIA/Blackwater) Craig Davis who was deported has now returned to Peshawar! And let us not be fooled by the cry that numbers reflect friendship since we know what numbers meant to Soviet satellites."

 
The Pearl Continental, a luxury hotel in Peshawar was bombed on June 9, 2009. The U.S. routinely blames these attacks on Muslim terrorists. The U.S. has also routinely sabotaged peace agreements between the Pakistan government and various resistance groups in Pakistan. Attacks like this are used to justify the current invasion and occupation by the United States.


Given little attention in the corporate media, Peshawar's Pearl Continental Hotel was bombed on June 9, 2009. At the time of the bombing, Pakistani media reported officially that it was housing U.S. personnel at the time but did not mention Blackwater. However, Blackwater's name began to surface in rumours and unofficial reports after the Peshawar bombing.


Ahmed Quraishi
 
On August 5, 2009, Ahmed Quraishi, political analyst, columnist and independent owner of a news website reported on the insertion of U.S. Marines, Blackwater, the CIA and military hardware into Pakistan:

"Pakistanis ask, 'Who rules our streets, the Pakistani government or the Americans? And who let them in?'

"Three weeks ago a group of concerned Pakistani citizens in Peshawar wrote to the federal interior ministry to complain about the suspicious activities of a group of shadowy Americans in a rented house in their neighborhood, the upscale University Town area of Peshawar. A NGO calling itself Creative Associates International, Inc. leased the house". According to its Website, CAII describes itself as 'a privately-owned non-governmental organization that addresses urgent challenges facing societies today ... Creative views change as an opportunity to improve, transform and renew …' The description makes no sense. It is more or less a perfect cover for the American NGO's real work: espionage...

"In Peshawar, CAII, opened an office to work on projects in the nearby tribal agencies of Pakistan. All of these projects, interestingly, are linked to the US government. CAII's other projects outside Pakistan are also linked to the US government. In short, this NGO is not an NGO. It is closely linked to the US government.

Meanwhile, when asked about the expansion of the embassy, U.S. Ambassador Anne W. Patterson was "visibly shaken" and replied, "I’m speechless. To spy on Pakistan we don’t need a big US embassy." Quickly recovering, she added, "And we don’t need to spy either." Patterson went on to say that Pakistan could turn into a "family station" - whatever that means to a U.S. colonial bureaucrat.

 
 


Ahmed further explains the CIA's cover for the Blackwater mercenaries:

"In Peshawar, CAII told Pakistani authorities it needed to hire security guards for protection. The security guards, it turns out, were none other than Blackwater's military-trained hired guns. They were used the CAII cover to conduct a range of covert activities in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. The infamous Blackwater private security firm operates as an extension of the US military and CIA, taking care of dirty jobs that the US government cannot associate itself with in faraway strategic places. Blackwater is anything but a security firm. It is a mercenary army of several thousand hired soldiers.

"Pakistani security officials apparently became alarmed by reports that Blackwater was operating from the office of CAII on Chinar Road, University Town in Peshawar. The man in charge of the office, allegedly an American by the name of Craig Davis according to a report in Jang, Pakistan's largest Urdu language daily, was arrested and accused of establishing contacts with 'the enemies of Pakistan' in areas adjoining Afghanistan. His visa has been cancelled, the office sealed, and Mr. Davis reportedly expelled back to the United States.

"It is not clear when Mr. Davis was deported and whether there are other members of the staff expelled along with him. When I contacted the US Embassy over the weekend, spokesman Richard Snelsire's first reaction was, 'No embassy official has been deported'."

Keep in mind that Dr. Shireen Mazari who is in a position to know, stated flatly, "CAII's Craig Davis who was deported has now returned to Peshawar!"

But Ahmed Quraishi explains the denial by the U.S. embassy:

"This defensive answer is similar to the guilt-induced reactions of US embassy staffers in Baghdad and Kabul at the presence of mercenaries working for US military and CIA. I said to Mr. Snelsire that I did not ask about an embassy official being expelled. He said he heard these reports and 'checked around' with the embassy officials but no one knew about this. 'It's baseless' [he said]. So I asked him, "Is Blackwater operating in Pakistan, in Peshawar?" 'Not to my knowledge'. [he answered].

"Fair enough. The US embassies in Baghdad and Kabul never acknowledged Blackwater's operations in Iraq and Afghanistan either. This is part of low-level frictions between the diplomats at the US Department of State and those in Pentagon and CIA. The people at State have reportedly made it clear they will not acknowledge or accept responsibility for the activities of special operations agents operating in friendly countries without the knowledge of those countries and in violation of their sovereignty. Reports have suggested that sometimes even the US ambassador is unaware of what his government's mercenaries do in a target country."

Finally, Ahmed discusses a U.S. diplomat met secretly with an Indian diplomat inside Pakistan, knowing full well that India is considered to be an enemy state of Pakistan:

"In May, a US woman diplomat was caught arranging a quiet [read 'secret'] meeting between a low-level Indian diplomat and several senior Pakistani government officials. An address in Islamabad – 152 Margalla Road – was identified as a venue where the secret meeting took place. The American diplomat in question knew there was no chance the Indian would get to meet the Pakistanis in normal circumstances. Nor was it possible to do this during a high visibility event. After the incident, Pakistan Foreign Office issued a terse statement warning all government officials to refrain from such direct contact with foreign diplomats in unofficial settings without prior intimation to their departments".

NGOs that are not NGOs

In addition, many U.S. sponsored NGO’s are working to create news reports in mainstream media which are pro-U.S. For this purpose, many Pakistani analysts, retired generals, businessmen, journalists, and academics are being recruited. As Ahmed Quraishi said, "this NGO is not an NGO", i.e. some Non Governmental Organizations operate under the control and direction of governments who use them for covert operations in foreign countries and fund them surreptitiously.

Conclusion

It’s clear that the current government has given full privileges to the US. They neither know how, nor want to draw a line against U.S. interference in Pakistani affairs. To put it bluntly, they are surrendering the sovereignty of Pakistan to a foreign power. Dr. Shireen Mazari says, "Whatever the US embassy gives out ... the terrified Pakistani leadership echoes." The objectives of the U.S. are clear: Deeper U.S. penetration will result in the destabilisation of Pakistan, leading to destabilization of the entire region. These U.S. military installations also strengthening their encirclement of Iran. The Pakistani political opposition parties are lip stuck at all these developments. The main reason for their silence is that they are as corrupt as the ruling PPP. No political party in Pakistan is in the mood to resist US hegemony. The Pakistan Army no longer shows any interest in directly interfering with political decisions. After the disastrous eight years under the military dictatorship of Musharraf, the people are also not ready for the Pakistan military to intervene in the political life of the country. The TTP terrorists have just been brought under control - barely. Now millions of Pakistanis are terrified by their new, unwelcome guests from the west - the U.S. terrorists. We will now have to learn to tolerate and survive under this growing and increasingly dangerous U.S. colonization of Pakistan.

(edited by Axis of Logic)

READ HIS BIO AND MORE REPORTS FROM INSIDE PAKISTAN
BY AXIS OF LOGIC COLUMNIST, TALHA MUJADDIDI

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Talha.shtml

© Copyright 2009 by AxisofLogic.com

This material is available for republication as long as reprints include verbatim copy of the article in its entirety, respecting its integrity. Reprints must cite the author and Axis of Logic as the original source including a "live link" to the article. Thank you!

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_56799.shtml
 

[bigron]

Attack on Pakistan police center kills 15 officers

Story Highlights:

The Pakistani military are fighting Taliban militants for control of the Swat Valley

Mingora, location of the attack, is the largest city in the North West Frontier Province

Attack happened as newly-recruited officers were training at a compound


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- At least 15 officers were killed Sunday in a suicide attack at a police training center in Mingora in Pakistan's northwest, officials said.

The attack also wounded 12 others, said military spokesman Major Pir Mushtaq.

The attacker jumped over a wall at the compound and blew himself up as about 50 to 75 newly-recruited officers were training, said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister of the North West Frontier Province.

Mingora is the largest city and the gateway into the province's Swat Valley, where Pakistani military are fighting Taliban militants for control.

On Saturday, security officials said the army killed six militants and wounded several others in an operation to destroy the militants' base of attacks.

The army launched the operation after intelligence information and reports from locals about the presence of suicide attackers and terrorism masterminds close to the Valley town of Charbagh.

Militants had been using a safe area there to launch attacks in other Valley towns, including Mingora.

CNN's Samson Desta contributed to this report.

All AboutTaliban Movement of Pakistan • Swat Valley • Pakistan
 

 
 
 
Links referenced within this article

Valley
http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/Swat_Valley
Taliban Movement of Pakistan
http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/Taliban_Movement_of_Pakistan
Swat Valley
http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/Swat_Valley
Pakistan
http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/Pakistan

 

 
Find this article at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/08/30/pakistan.attack/index.html 
 

[bigron]

Top officer says US bungling Muslim outreach

Joint Chiefs chairman says US squandering Muslim good will

ANNE GEARAN
AP News

http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/08/28/top-officer-says-us-bungling-muslim-outreach-2/

Aug 28, 2009 18:30 EST

The U.S. military is bungling its outreach to the Muslim world and squandering good will by failing to live up to its promises, the nation's highest-ranking military officer wrote Friday.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there is too much emphasis on telling the U.S. story and not enough on building trust and credibility.

"We hurt ourselves and the message we are trying to send when it appears we are doing something merely for the credit," Mullen wrote in an essay published in a military journal. "We hurt ourselves more when our words don't align with our actions."

Mullen said he dislikes the military's focus on "strategic communications," which he said has become a cottage industry where the shaping of a message eclipses what that message says.

"Most strategic communication problems are not communicatons problems at all," Mullen wrote. "They are policy and execution problems."

Efforts to reach out to the Middle East and elsewhere in the Muslim world is a main priority of the vast communications and public relations machinery of the Defense Department. Mullen suggested that much of the effort is wasted, or at least misdirected.

Public opinion in the Muslim world would seem to bear him out.

A survey of two dozen nations conducted this spring found that positive public attitudes toward the United States have surged in many parts of the world since President Barack Obama's election, but not in most of the Arab and Muslim world.

The poll registered continuing levels of profound distrust about U.S. influence and motives among Muslims, particularly in Turkey, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories. There, the report from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center said, animosity toward the United States "continues to run deep and unabated."

U.S. intelligence considers Pakistan, a nuclear-armed Muslim country that Mullen has made a priority with nearly a dozen visits over the past 18 months, among the most profoundly anti-American places on Earth.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates frequently remarks that the United States has let itself be "out-communicated by men living in caves," a wry reference to the skill with which al-Qaida uses the Internet to distribute its messages and capitalize on U.S. failings.

Mullen noted one of those failings, the abuse of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison, but he said the problem isn't the skill of the communicators.

"Our biggest problem isn't caves, it's credibility," Mullen wrote in the Joint Force Quarterly. "Our messages lack credibility because we haven't invested enough in building trust and relationships, and we haven't always delivered on promises."

On the Net:

http://www.ndu.edu/inss/Press/NDUPress(underscore)JFQ(underscore)List.htm

Source: AP News

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Raw Video: Fuel Trucks Attacked at Afghan Border

AP
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m57512&hd=&size=1&l=e


August 31, 2009

WATCH:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhhVVYVKgF0&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Euruknet%2Einfo%2F%3Fp%3Dm57512%26hd%3D%26size%3D1%26l%3De&feature=player_embedded



At least one driver was killed and 16 NATO fuel trucks destroyed on the Pakistani side of the Chaman crossing with Afghanistan late on Sunday, Pakistani police said. (Aug. 31)







Suspected Taliban Torch NATO Supplies In SW Pakistan

CHAMAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Suspected Taliban militants set fire to 18 container trucks carrying supplies for Western forces in neighboring Afghanistan in the Pakistani border town of Chaman, police said on Monday.

Some 300 trucks were parked near the border crossing in the country's southwest, as the border had been closed by Pakistani authorities since Friday in a row with their Afghan counterparts over the checking of trucks coming from landlocked Afghanistan.

"The attackers probably had planted explosives under one of the oil tankers which went off, setting others on fire," Abdul Rauf, a senior border police official, told Reuters. "Eighteen trucks have completely been destroyed."

Witnesses, however, said the militants lobbed a grenade onto the trucks, setting them on fire.

"They came on motorcycles. They first opened fire with guns, then threw a rocket-propelled grenade toward our vehicles and ran away," Akhtar Mohammad Niazi, a driver, told Reuters.

Rauf said the authorities had reopened the border crossing after the incident, which took place late on Sunday.

"There's a constant threat to NATO supplies so we have decided to reopen the border after the last night attack," he added.

Chaman is one of the two Pakistani border crossings used for the transport of food and fuel supplies to Western nations battling a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.

The U.S. military sends 75 percent of supplies for the Afghan war through or over Pakistan, including 40 percent of the fuel for its troops, the U.S. Defense Department says.

Most of these supplies are trucked through the Khyber Pass, to the northwest, to eastern Afghanistan, but that route has been plagued by militant attacks since last year.

In the past, the route through Chaman, in Baluchistan province, has been largely free of attacks, at least on the Pakistani side.

The attacks, especially in the Khyber region have forced NATO to look for alternative routes, including through Central Asia into northern Afghanistan.

(Reporting by Saeed Ali Achakzai and Gul Yousafzai; Writing by Kamran Haider; Editing by Zeeshan Haider and Alex Richardson)





 

[Satyagraha]

Rehman terms attack on Kazmi ‘target killing bid’
'Pakistan Times' Federal Bureau
http://www.pakistantimes.net/pt/detail.php?newsId=3912

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Interior Rehman Malik Wednesday termed the life attempt on Minister for Religious Affairs Hamid Saeed Kazmi a ‘target killing’ bid, saying that the minister sustained a bullet injury in left leg.

Talking to the journalists here at Federal Government Services Hospital (FGSH), the minister informed that Kazmi was operated upon and his condition was “stable”.
 
“The driver of the minister has embraced Shahadat in the attack while the gun man is injured and is being operated upon. He is under observation,” he added. 

Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervaiz Ashraf also termed the attack on Religious Minister as a targeted attack, saying that the minister was being hurled threats for some time.

“This (attack) is a result of Malakand Operation (against the miscreants), however, such acts of cowardice cannot deter the resolve of the nation against terrorism,” he added.

Minister for Health Aijaz Jakhrani said that Hamid Saeed Kazmi was given the best possible treatment and he was now stable and conscious.
“The entire nation is united against the terrorists. The  fight against terrorists would continue till the last terrorist is tracked down,” he added.

Jakhrani termed the incident a ‘targeted killing’ bid, however, ruled out the notion of a security lapse. “We would reinforce the security for ministers,” he added.
 
Fight against Terrorism

Meanwhile, according to another report, Federal Minister for Interior Rehman Malik has said Pakistan would never allow anyone to use its territory against any country, adding India could have averted the Mumbai attacks by sharing information with Pakistan.

In an interview with the Arab News, he said, “Pakistan is prepared to work together with India on this issue”. Answering a question about Indian dossiers, the minister said evidence provided in three dossiers is, in our considered view, not sufficient to link Hafiz Saeed to the attack and to punish those who are guilty.
 
“We appeal to India to share information with us, and also to keep faith in our legal system and judiciary. I also urge India to provide dossiers regarding the Samjhota Express tragedy, which is as significant as the Mumbai attacks”.

Rehman Malik said India could have prevented the terror attacks in Mumbai if they had shared intelligence with us after the arrest of two terrorists Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin.

Replying to question , he said,” We make friends not enemies and believe in politics of reconciliation and not in political vendetta or vengeance”. He said as far as prosecuting Musharraf is concerned, the matter is in the Parliament and if the House adopts a resolution in this regard  we will have to go ahead but, otherwise, there will be no trial of the former president unless Parliament adopts the resolution.

Talking about Taliban , he said Taliban are in disarray and will be soon defeated conclusively.” We are the only country which is waging a full-fledged war against terrorism”.

[Satyagraha]

Two terrorists killed, 15 apprehended, 9 surrender: ISPR
'Pakistan Times' Federal Bureau
http://www.pakistantimes.net/pt/detail.php?newsId=3913

ISLAMABAD: Two more terrorists were killed, 15 others apprehended and 9 surrendered before the security forces in parts of Swat and Malakand Division in sequel to operation Rah-e-Raast.

According to details revealed by ISPR here on Wednesday, security forces conducted search operation at Jambil, Kachche Kor near Mingora and killed 2 terrorists.

In a search operation, security forces at Sakhra apprehended 2 terrorists while 6 others from Panr and Barama.
 
Security forces conducted search operation at Sangota and Manglour and apprehended 5 suspects while two others from Zorah.
 
During search operation at Derai near Kanju the security forces recovered 3 IEDs from a terrorist house.

Eight terrorists surrendered themselves to security forces at Bar Shaur and one surrendered at Mingora.

So far, 281,220 cash cards have been distributed amongst the IDPs of Malakand.

[Satyagraha]

Firing Injures Pakistan Minister, Gunman; Driver Dies
'Pakistan Times' Federal Bureau
http://www.pakistantimes.net/pt/detail.php?newsId=3911

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Religious Affairs Hamid Saeed Kazmi on Wednesday was injured when some assailants opened fire on his official vehicle near Melody market, just few yards away from the Aabpara police station.

However, the minister’s driver identified as Muhammad Yunus lost his life in the incident and the his gunman Arshad received critical injuries.

The police spokesman said that Minister had just left his office and traveled a few yards on his official vehicle (GB-270) when assailants opened fire on him. The assailants sped away on motorbike.

Soon after the incident, Federal Minister for Railways Haji Ghulam Ahmed Bilour and Minister for Health Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani reached the hospital.

Three bullets hit the wind screen while a volley of bullets hit the rear screen. The blood was visible on the front seats of the car.

Doctors claimed that the minister was in a stable condition. A bullet also hit the gate of nearby house, however the house inmates remained safe.
 
Senior Superintendent of Police (Operations) Tahir Alam Khan has said that assailants had ambushed the official vehicle of Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Hamid Saeed Kazmi, leaving his driver dead on the spot and injuring the minister and his gunman.

The SSP said that assailants were not outsiders as they might be local and insiders. “It is not the incident committed by some outsiders. There is some group inside here,” he maintained.

However, the eye witnesses opined that the assailants had chased the vehicle of the minister and later opened indiscriminate firing at the vehicle. Later, they fled away on motorbike.

Kazmi, also a renowned religious scholar, belongs to a respected religious family of Multan and his father an eminent religious scholar  had a huge following across the country. Kazmi was elected as MNA on PPPP ticket from Rahim Yar Khan district.

Talking to media-men, Minister for Health Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani said that minister is being operated upon at Federal Government Services Hospital (Poly Clinic) while efforts are being made to save the life of the gunman who received three bullet injuries. The minister received a bullet injury in knee. 

Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Ashraf also reached the hospital and condemned the incident. He said that government would not bow before the terrorists and they will be eliminated at every cost.

Suspects Arrested

Meanwhile, the police spokesman has said that Islamabad Police have arrested few suspects soon after the attack on the minister for religious affairs Hamid Saeed Kazmi.

He said that raids are being conducted while checking has been enhanced at all the entry and exit points of capital. “Few arrests have been made in this connection while security has been further beefed up,” he added.

Police have been directed to remain vigil and further enhance the security at all public and sensitive places.

Meanwhile, the police sources said that police have started checking of hotels and guest houses and public places in the Federal Capital.

Police patrolling has been enhanced in order to avert any untoward situation. Extra police force has been deployed at the public and sensitive places to further enhance security and to protect the life and property of the citizens, the spokesman maintained.
 
President Shocked

President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday expressed his deep shock over the attack on Minister for Religious Affairs Hamid Saeed Kazmi and directed that every effort be made to arrest the perpetrators.

The Minister for Religious Affairs was injured when unknown gunmen opened fire on his official car as he was leaving the ministry of Religious Affairs. His driver was killed and his gunman was seriously injured.

The President said Pakistan was a frontline state in the war against terror and would spare no effort in confronting the challenges posed by the extremists and terrorists.

He directed best possible treatment for the injured and directed that an initial investigative report be submitted to him.

The President also expressed his grief over the death of Kazmi’s driver and prayed to Almighty Allah to shower his blessings on the departed soul.
 
PM strongly Condemns

And, Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani Wednesday strongly condemned attack by unknown gunmen on Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Hamid Saeed Kazmi and termed the incident deplorable.

The Prime Minister who is currently abroad on an official visit, denounced the attack on Hamid Saeed Kazmi that left him injured.

Gilani issued directives to hold an inquiry into the incident and said the perpetrators of such heinous crime would not be spared.

He expressed the resolve to fight the menace of terrorism and extremism from the country till its complete eradication.

The Prime Minister also expressed sorrow over the killing of Hamid Saeed’s driver who was killed on the spot by assailants.

The incident of firing took place within minutes after the federal minister left his office at the Religious Affairs Ministry.

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Thousands of civilians flee battles in NW Pakistan

By RIAZ KHAN, Associated Press
http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m57680&hd=&size=1&l=e



September 6, 2009

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Thousands of civilians have fled Pakistan's northwest Khyber tribal region where the latest military offensive killed 33 more suspected militants Sunday.

Pakistan is under intense U.S. pressure to crack down on insurgents along its border with Afghanistan, especially the lawless tribal belt where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is suspected to be hiding. The U.S. believes militants use Pakistan's tribal areas as safe havens from which to plan attacks on Western troops across the frontier in Afghanistan.

Khyber is of particular concern because militants frequently attack trucks along the famed Khyber Pass, a main route for supplies destined for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The military destroyed two training centers and 15 militant homes on Sunday, killing 33 alleged insurgents, a statement from paramilitary forces operating in the area said. Nine more were taken into custody and two people kidnapped by militants were recovered.

The region is largely off-limits to journalists, making it difficult to verify the information independently.

Farooq Khan, a government official in Khyber, said hundreds of families fled the region since authorities relaxed a curfew Friday. He said security forces were "keeping a strict eye" out for any militants trying to blend in.

The Taliban-affiliated group Lashkar-e-Islam is a main target in the latest offensive, which authorities say has killed about 120 alleged militants. The operation was launched a week ago after a suicide bombing at a border checkpoint killed 19 police.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Sunday that there were indications an attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore earlier this year was financed from Sri Lanka.

Gilani said he was told this by Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

"He was telling me that, 'We have got some clues, that finances were made from Sri Lanka to Pakistan," Gilani said, referring to a recent meeting with Rajapaksa in Libya.

He said Pakistani officials would travel to Sri Lanka to gather clues, "which could lead us to the attackers of the cricket team."

The attack wounded several players and killed six police officers and a driver. The most prominent suspect is the banned Pakistani Sunni extremist outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an al-Qaida ally.

Elsewhere, three policemen were fatally shot — each by a single bullet to the head — west of Pakistan's capital.

The dead policemen were discovered early Sunday in their guard room along a railway bridge in Hasan Abdal, a town 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Islamabad, police official Arshad Mahmood said. It appeared to be a targeted killing, he said, but he would not say if Taliban militants were suspected.

Pakistani Taliban fighters frequently target police, though usually in the northwest.

___

Associated Press writers Zarar Khan and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad contributed to this report.





 

[bigron]

Posted on Mon, Sep. 07, 2009

Anti-Americanism rises in Pakistan over U.S. motives


Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers
: September 08, 2009 07:54:51 AM
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/74966.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — For weeks now, the Pakistani media have portrayed America, its military and defense contractors in the darkest of lights, all part of an apparent campaign of anti-American vilification that is sweeping the country and, according to some, is putting American lives at risk.

Pakistanis are reacting to what many here see as an "imperial" American presence, echoing Iraq and Afghanistan, with Washington dictating to the Pakistani military and the government. Polls show that Pakistanis regard the U.S., formally a close ally and the country's biggest donor, as a hostile power.

U.S. officials have either denied the allegations or moved to blunt the criticism, but suspicions remain and relations between the two countries are getting more strained.

The lively Pakistani media has been filled with stories of under-cover American agents operating in the country, tales of a huge contingent of U.S. Marines planned to be stationed at the embassy, and reports of Blackwater private security personnel running amuck. Armed Americans have supposedly harassed and terrified residents and police officers in Islamabad and Peshawar, according to local press reports.

Much of the hysteria was based on a near $1 billion plan, revealed by McClatchy in May and confirmed by U.S. officials, to massively increase the size of the American embassy in Islamabad, which brought home to Pakistanis that the United States plans an extensive and long-term presence in the country.

The American mission in Islamabad was forced to put on three briefings for Pakistani journalists in August trying to dampen the highly charged stories, which could undermine US-Pakistani relations just as Washington is preparing to finalize a tripling of civilian aid to Islamabad, to $1.5 billion a year. Over this last weekend, an embassy spokesman had to deny suddenly renewed stories that the U.S. was behind the mysterious death of former military dictator General Zia ul Haq back in 1988.

Pakistan is a key priority for the United States because of its nuclear weapons and its potential usefulness in taking on al Qaida within its borders and ending the safe haven for the Afghan Taliban.

"I think this recent brouhaha over the embassy expansion has been difficult to beat back," said Anne Patterson, the U.S. ambassador, in an interview Thursday. "I can't really understand what's behind this because what we're doing is actually quite straightforward. We've tried to explain it carefully to the press, but it just seems to be taken over by conspiracy theories."

Briefing Pakistani journalists last month, Patterson told them that there were only nine Marines stationed to guard the embassy in Islamabad and that, even after the expansion, their number would be no more than 15 to 20. Press reports had put the figure at 350 to 1,000 Marines. She also stated categorically "Blackwater is not operating in Pakistan". But the stories refused to go away.

Patterson said she wrote last week to the owner of Pakistan's biggest media group, Jang, to protest about the content of two talk shows on its Geo TV channel, hosted by star anchors Hamid Mir and Kamran Khan, and a newspaper column of influential analyst Shireen Mazari in The News, a daily, complaining that they were "wildly incorrect" and had compromised the security of Americans.

There are 250 American citizens posted at the Islamabad mission on longer-term contracts, plus another 200 on shorter assignments, the embassy said. The present embassy compound can accommodate only a fraction of them. According to independent estimates, there are some 200 private houses for U.S. officials, on regular streets located throughout upscale districts of Islamabad.

Pakistani press and bloggers also targeted Craig Davis, an American aid worker, insisting that he's an undercover secret agent. Davis, a contractor to the USAID development arm of the government, is based in the volatile northwestern city of Peshawar, and now appears to be at risk. Last year, another American USAID contractor in Peshawar, Stephen Vance, was gunned down just outside his home.

"In one or two cases these commentators have identified very specific embassy employees as CIA or Blackwater, and that very much puts the employee at danger. In at least one case we're going to have to evacuate the employee," said Patterson, without identifying the individual involved. "What particularly scared us about him is that Stephen Vance, who was the other AID Chief of Party in Peshawar, was of course assassinated a few months ago. So there is a track record here that's sort of alarming."

In recent days, shows on two popular private television channels, Geo and Dunya, which broadcast in the local Urdu language, put up pictures of homes in Islamabad which they claimed were occupied by CIA, FBI, or employees of the controversial Blackwater company of private security contractors, now called Xe Services. Some of the houses were identified with their full address. It is believed that several of the homes weren't occupied by Americans but others were. According to the U.S embassy, bloggers are now calling on people to "kill" the occupants of these houses.

A survey last month for international broadcaster al Jazeera by Gallup Pakistan found that 59 percent of Pakistanis felt the greatest threat to the country was the United States. A separate survey in August by the Pew Research Center, an independent pollster based in Washington, recorded that 64 percent of the Pakistani public regards the U.S. "as an enemy" and only 9 percent believe it to be a partner.

"The Ugly American of the sixties is back in Pakistan and this time with a vengeance," said Mazari, the defense analyst whose newspaper column was the subject of the American complaint. "It's an alliance (U.S.-Pakistan) that's been forced on the country by its corrupt leadership. It's delivering chaos. We should distance ourselves. You can't just hand over the country."

While the anti-US sentiment appears genuine, it is uncertain whether the current storm, and the particular stories that it thrived on, was orchestrated by a pressure group or even an arm of the state. In the past, Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency, part of the military, has very effectively used the press to push its agenda.

The U.S. provided over $11billion in aid to Pakistan since 2001. Yet in recent days, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has complained that too much of the promised new enhanced U.S. aid package would be eaten up in American administrative costs, while President Asif Zardari demanded that multi-billion dollar civilian and military aid money, currently stuck in Congress, be speeded up.

The Pakistani government has repeatedly stated that joining the U.S. "war on terror" has cost the nation an estimated $34 billion and ministers frequently lambast the U.S. for trespassing on Pakistani territory with use of spy planes to target suspected militants — an emotive tacit for the Pakistani population.

Ambassador Patterson said that "the (Pakistani) government could be more helpful" in combating the anti-American controversies, which took on a new fever pitch since the beginning of August.

The weak Islamabad government appears unable to come to the defense of its ally and even tried to score some popularity points by joining the U.S.-baiting.

A widely believed conspiracy contends that America is deliberately destabilizing Pakistan, to bring down a "strong Muslim country", and ultimately seize its nuclear weapons. Pakistanis, especially its military establishment, also are distrustful of U.S. motives in Afghanistan, seeing it as part of a strategy for regional domination. Further Pakistanis are appalled that the regime of Hamid Karzai in Kabul is close to archenemy India.

"Part of the reason why we can't fight terrorism is because the terrorists have adopted what I'd call anti-U.S. imperialist discourse, which makes them more popular," said Ayesha Siddiqa, an analyst and author of Military Inc.

Many also blame the U.S. for "imposing" a president on the country, Zardari, who is deeply disliked and who last year succeeded an unpopular U.S.-backed military dictator. So democrats resent American interference in Pakistani politics, while conservatives distrust American aims in Afghanistan.

"You used to find this anti-Americanism among supporters of religious groups and Right-wing groups," said Ahmed Quraishi, a newspaper columnist and the leading anti-American blogger. "But over the past two to three years, young, educated Pakistanis, people you'd normally expect to be pro-American modernists, and middle class people, are increasingly inclined to anti-Americanism. That's the new phenomenon."

(Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent.)

[bigron]

Tankers supplying fuel to Nato attacked
 
http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=24406
 

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

By Muhammad Ejaz Khan

QUETTA: Four oil tankers, supplying oil to Nato forces across the border in Afghanistan, caught fire in the Akhtarabad area of the provincial capital on Tuesday when they were attacked by unknown armed men.

Confirming the attack, police told The News that the oil tankers were going to Afghanistan for supplying oil to the Nato forces. When the tankers were passing through the Akhtarabad area of Quetta, some unknown armed men, riding a motorcycle, attacked the oil tankers. The armed men opened indiscriminate fire with sophisticated weapons at the tankers. The police said one of the oil tankers caught fire, which engulfed the other three as well. Flames could be seen from miles, eyewitnesses said.

Fire tenders and police reached the spot. After hectic efforts of two hours, the fire fighters extinguished the fire. The police said one of the tankers was completely destroyed, while three others were partially damaged.

SHO Shalkot police station Khalil Ahmed Bugti told media persons that the police had recovered 50 empty rounds of different calibres from the spot. He said efforts were under way to trace the attackers. However, no arrest was made till the filing of this report. Police have started a probe into the matter.

APP adds: Supply of fuel and other items to Nato forces in Afghanistan was once again suspended after the Afghan forces closed the Pak-Afghan border here on Tuesday afternoon.

 

[bigron]

U.S. eyes military equipment in Iraq for Pakistan


By Adam Entous Adam Entous
Wed Sep 9, 10:23 pm ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090910/ts_nm/us_pakistan_usa_equipment


Pakistani police officials inspect the site of suicide bomb attack in Mingora, the capital of troubled Swat valley in August 2009. The Pakistan military said troops killed 15 militants during operations Wednesday in the northwest district of Swat, where a massive summer offensive sought to flush out the Taliban.
(AFP/File/Fayaz Zafar)
 
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon has proposed transferring U.S. military equipment from Iraq to Pakistani security forces to help Islamabad step up its offensive against the Taliban, according to officials and government documents.

The Pentagon request for the authority to "transfer articles no longer needed in Iraq" to the army of Pakistan received a cool reception in the U.S. Congress, where some questioned what safeguards would ensure the arms would not end up being diverted to Pakistan's border with India, a nuclear-armed power like Pakistan.

The inclusion of Pakistan in the request, along with Iraq and Afghanistan, underscored the high priority the Pentagon places on freeing up equipment the Pakistani army says it needs to mount ground operations in South Waziristan and other Taliban strongholds bordering Afghanistan.

But the push-back from Capitol Hill also put a spotlight on deep congressional skepticism about aiding Pakistani security services which some still see as playing both sides in Washington's war with the Taliban.

In addition to the possibility of transfers from Iraq, the Pentagon is considering expanding programs under which Washington procures equipment for Pakistani forces through third governments, or leases them U.S. equipment at nominal rates, sources briefed on the discussions said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The Pentagon declined to comment on Pakistan's inclusion in the proposal, first raised with key congressional committees in June.

Under the proposal, Defense Secretary Robert Gates would have the authority to "transfer both excess and non-excess defense stocks, along with defense services in connection with the transfers," to the three governments. He already has some authority to transfer equipment deemed as "excess."

The Pentagon did not say in its request to Congress what equipment would become eligible for transfer as U.S. forces gradually leave Iraq. U.S. combat troops pulled out of Iraqi cities and towns in June, and all U.S. forces are due to move out by the end of 2011.

Pentagon officials said a review was under way to determine what equipment could be left behind in Iraq and transferred to allies. "The secretary believes we've got to be more flexible, more responsive, more rapid in our dealings with friends and allies around the world, particularly militaries we're trying to develop quickly," said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell.

COAXING PAKISTAN TO ACT

Gates has praised Pakistan's "success" in recent operations against militants in the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad, and the Pentagon has made the procurement of more military equipment a priority, though officials says the effort is going slowly because some of the items are no longer in production.

While favored by Pakistan's military and political leaders, expanding U.S. military assistance is a highly contentious issue in the country due to widespread anti-U.S. sentiment.

One of Washington's concerns is that Pakistan will put off indefinitely a post-Swat push into South Waziristan, the main base for Pakistani Taliban fighters loyal to Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a CIA missile strike last month.

With U.S. troop strength growing in Afghanistan, the United States wants Pakistan to take hold of Waziristan and other Islamist militant enclaves on its side of the border and prevent Taliban fighters from crossing into Afghanistan.

The Pakistani army has been battling militants in parts of the northwest, but it has made clear to Washington that a major Waziristan offensive would likely have to wait months, possibly until spring, because of shortages of Cobra attack helicopters, protective gear, precision weapons and other equipment.

"We're working as quickly as we can," a defense official said when asked when the military equipment sought by Pakistan would arrive. But he said its army can still "keep the battle rhythm up ... We believe they have the ability to do that."

U.S. officials acknowledge that a major offensive in Waziristan would require a far larger commitment from Islamabad than what it made in Swat.

According to U.S. defense officials, Pakistan has moved about one-third of its forces from the border with India toward Swat and other western provinces threatened by the Taliban. The shift in personnel, officials said, would have to increase sharply to accommodate a ground operation in Waziristan.

Daniel Markey, an expert on the region with the Council of Foreign Relations, said a major offensive in Waziristan was unlikely because the Pakistani army would have to be willing to "attack, stay, and take serious casualties".

He said Pakistan was unlikely to change its current strategy of attacking militants largely from the air -- "more divide and conquer than clear, hold, build."

(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell; editing by Mohammad Zargham)