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LETTER TO EDITOR: Gen Zaheer’s “Coup” Attempt and the Reaction.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This a series of correspondence.We are publishing as received,We do not know know who Naeem Ahmed or Naseem Ahmed is,but their name appears on this correpondence.Forwarded to Editor Adnan Khan.
 
Biggest question, is Army taking care of corrupts? 
Perhaps this jurisdiction has been taken away and key is with thief to catch a thief when both are friends.
No it will never, its a farce that we have created around us.
We know nothing about mind set who matters, but for sure at the end of the day people of Pakistan would be highly disappointed.

 
Gen Zaheer’s “Coup” Attempt and the Reaction.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Brig Qadir’s  essential point seems to be spot on i.e  corruption in high places is nothing new. But what seems to be new is the level of frustration, disappointment and the anger it is engendering–and eventually a feeling of pure helplessness and hopelessness among a majority of us.
 
The following seems to be increasingly happening in Pakistan.
a. Anti-corruption sentiment seems to have graduated from strong disapproval to outright loathing and hatred for those who are selling our interests and our national assets. There is something personal about this now, which did not seem to be quite so, earlier.
 
b.When the partisans of the government insist on calling the present system a democracy, more and more people react as if their intelligence is being deliberately insulted by those making this claim. And because this claim is made by the thugs themselves or by their side kicks, the reaction to it has a virulence about it which was not there some time ago.
 
c. The Constitution was supposed to be that supreme law which was to hold the government in check and accountable. However its spirit is clearly seen to have been undermined in a way that it has now become a shield to protect and aid the government and give it immunity as it undermines the core interests of the state. With the police, bureaucracy, and the judiciary already made instruments of crime furtherance by the government, instead of crime prevention, and the Constitution being subverted to the same cause, is it any wonder then that whenever the Constitution is cited in support of the government, it elicits sneers from increasing numbers of people!
 
d. Apart from unchecked theft by people in power, the present era is defined by either mis-governance, or no governance whatever. You can take your pick depending on your experience.
 
e. It is a combination of all of the above, and utter terror of what tomorrow will bring if the perpetrators of our misfortune are not immediately restrained with the same ruthlessness, as the ruthlessness with which they are daily selling us down the drain, which is making people cry out for a  redeemer.
 
It is my very strong feeling, that though we have suffered all this in the past, but the sheer scale of the horror to which Pakistan is being subjected today, and the expectation of consequences that must unfold from this have become so unacceptable, that ANY redeemer will be acceptable. 
Thus would most readers agree with me in that, though Pakistan has suffered much in the past, what is unique about today is actually the scale of the effort which is undermining the state. And thus as a reaction to this is the scale of anxieties and fears unleashed.
 

From: Mehboob Qadir <clay.potter@hotmail.com>

    One can not agree more with Naeem Ahmad.His is a cry of frustration, disappointment and anger on what is going around in the country behind the democracy smoke screen.However plunder of national resources, pocketing kick backs and commissions is not new here, particularly is no big issue with the  NS clan.They are used to it since long. Any modicum of propriety detected in thereabouts should be taken as alarming .
   Their hero and business partner Mr Ardugan is reported to have  got a huge (800 rooms)  palace constructed to go with the grandeur of the Turkish President, of which about 200 rooms are under use by his clansmen and kin.He is  planning to subvert the Turkish constitution from a Parliamentry form to Presidential form, so that he could continue to be the President for as long as he wants.In Turkey one can not be a Prime Minister more than two times.He has nearly demoilshed his opposition; the Kamalist Republican Party and the field is set for ‘democratic’  semi theocratic dictatorship.It is common knowledge that no major government contract can be sanctioned without his poersonal approval.As a result he and his children( quite like NS and family) have become billionnaires.This briuef introduction must show why these profiteering men dash off to Istanbul so often and why these monsterous metros.Detect any similarities?

    Has anyone noticed the pathetic sight of an awfully under-capacity and small metrobus plying on the huge fly over track in Rawalpindi like a snail on your staircase.That disgust is not about the size of the bus but the utter disproportion of the expense on a trivial travel help which could best be served by a modern fleet of a hundred buses on properly metalled Rawalpindi- Islamabad roads.But that was neither glamorous nor provided opportunity to pocket billions of rupees.This track keeps dripping after rains even after days and there is no guarantee of workmanship of a project whose chief was a politician involved in huge Ephedrine scam.His engineering skills are unknown and more than that his personal integrity is completely suspect.But that is the way NS clan operates.Put a thief incharge of the treasury and pliage with both hands.
     One is not sure of Gen(r) Zaheer’s alleged attempt , but one thing is certain ,these men and their buglers would soon have their feet in their mouths and would be made to suck.What goes around comes around.

   Mehboob Qadir



Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2015 17:36:24 -0700
Subject: Fwd: Gen Zaheer’s “Coup” Attempt and the Reaction.
From: pindori47@gmail.com
To:

fwd as rcvd.

Gen Zaheer’s “Coup” Attempt and the Reaction. Nasim Ahmed.

Recently, Khawaja Asif accused Gen Zaheer, ex-D.G of ISI, of goading Imran Khan into the Dharna to make grounds for a coup against Nawaz Govt. This should never have been discussed on T.V. Least of all by the Defense Minister.
Najm Sethi, being Najam Sethi with his famous “Chirya” put addition spin on this. He said the “coup” was aimed at pulling down Nawaz Sharif, and pusing out Gen Raheel Sharif!
This added masala was expected to sensationalize the issue. Sethi’s spin was designed to put Nawaz Sharif and the General on the same plank, and hence on the same side.
It was indeed sensationalized and it became a talk of the town, but precisely for two days. After its 15 minutes of fame it died out.
It did not get any further traction. The effect was quite the opposite of the intended. No one believed the Sethi spin, and saw it for the crude propaganda which it was.
Instead of condemning Zaheer more and more people stated to rue the fact that he did not succeed. 
 
It started being said in private conversations that if Zaheer tried to do what he was being accused of, he needs to be praised for the effort.
They said Pakistan was in the claws of vultures, and any one who gets the country out of these claws will be a hero.
 
It is said that as chief of ISI he knew the cirmes of rulers much better than any one else. Any patriot would act the way he is alleged to have done.
People are willing to bear anything. But they cannot bear to be plundered by their “leaders”. This is just not acceptable any more. They want to see these leader hanged.
See the link to Dr Farrukh Saleem’s article below. This is a researched article. See what Pakistan has paid for its Metro. Then compare this with the next highest costing metro in the world has cost. And see the cost of gas imported from Qatar, and what India is paying for it.
Who is pocketing the difference? No one needs to take a second guess to know where the plunder is going.
If election commission had done its job, none of these leaders should have been allowed to even contest the elections because of corruption. But Ch Iftikhar the one eyed man. The thief. The hypocrite wanted take the country to hell with himself. 
 
How did Zardari become president when he was found guilty in the Swiss court? Having been found guilty of money laundering the prosecutor enhanced the charge to “aggravated” money laundering. Zardari and Queen Benazir refused to attend the hearings. But the original guilty remained. 
 
Ishaq Dar has given a confession for money laundering. Nawaz Sharif cannot justify their assets with their stated income which is reflected by the taxes they paid. This is the simplest formula to establish white collar crime in most civilized countries. They are all criminals if investigated. But every institution which could have brought them to book has been destroyed and works FOR the criminals they are supposed to work.
 
In the public mind the constitution has become  irrelevant. In most minds it has become a dirty word. 
After  eighteenth amendment it has become dirt itself, because it allows dirt of the nation to settle on top of it. It permits this to happen without challenge.
No one can help Pakistan and pull it out from this dirt.
Army is the only institution left which can do this.
Army has to choose between Pakistan and constitution.
It is fault of thief politicians that this situation has come about.
So long live Gen Zaheer if he thought of his country and tried to save it.
And long live Gen Raheel and all his other generals who seem to be thinking only of Pakistan.
For the first time it seems our army is working on behalf of the people of Pakistan. It is fighting heroically in trenches in the north. It is cleaning out the south. We hope it will now move to the middle and clean it of the filth which has been accumulating there for decades.
 
If Pakistan has democracy, and this is what democracy means i.e no governance, no accountability of leaders, and total plunder by them, most people do not want democracy. The want security. A little justice. And some decency in public life.
And they do not want to be plundered by these thieves sitting in the assemblies.
Naeem Ahmed.
 

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HUM TUMEH KABHI NAHIN BHULEN GAYE : A VIDEO TRIBUTE TO SONS OF PAKISTAN WHO WERE MARTYRED IN WAR ON TERROR

 

 

  

 

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Just give me my Aircraft
If I die in battle zone
Box me up & send me home
Put my medals on my chest
Tell my Mom I did my Best
Tell my nation not to cry
I was soldier born to die  … Officer Pakistan Air Force
 
 
..SENTIMENTS OF PAKISTANIS NEAR & FAR: DIL DIL PAKISTAN, JAAN, JAAN, PAKISTAN
 
Comments of  Retired Soldiers
 
I am sharing these pictures of our young Army, Navy, and Air Force Officers and Men who embraced Shahadat while safe guarding our beloved country,
fighting against terrorism.You will find a couple of views of my course mates including mine as well.
 
 
Thank you so much for sharing the photographs of Shaheed ‘s with me. I am truly shocked to see these many photographs. 
Being located so far away, I did not realize that so many young officers have already lost their lives for the defense of Pakistan.
I am sure that there must be many many more soldier/jawans who also lost their lives with these officers. 
 
May Almighty God give these shaheeds a place in heaven and their families strength to bear this loss. 
 
 
 

 

 

This is not the first time that we have lost wonderful young men defending Pakistan.On every call to duty our young and the spirited rose to the occasion and wrote chapters in bravery, leadership and comradeship under fire.

 

A Retired Soldier’s Thoughts

 
Since the day , I received this e-mail of yours, I have seen the pictures of our national heroes But something somewhere in my heart was boiling and all the time I tried to name it out but could not neither I could diagnose it that what is it all going there in my heart. At least it revealed to me that no doubt that I am a old man BUT not with a Dead Heart. There are mixed feeling of sadness , sorrow , grief but above all there was anger too .But unable to express my true feelings to convey. I am grateful to our dear friend Brig.Mehboob Qadir who has spoken my mind and I endorse the same. These heroes shall ever remain there in my heart and in my laptop till my eye sight fade out and my hands stop working to operate the lap top.

 

                        

Salute them – They gave their life for us..

  

 

 

 
 
 Captain Junaid Khan (Shaheed) of SSG . “Tamgha-e-Basalat”
 
 
TWO SHAHEEDS TOGETHER.. CAPT MUNEEB SHAHEED , CAPT. AMJAD SHAHEED. — 

 

 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qoxLbZW9io
 
 
Captain Najam Riaz (SSG) Shaheed

 
Major Umair Khan Bangash TAMGHA-i-BASALAT’ shaheed
 
Captain Bilal Zafar Shaheed..
 
Squadron Leader Masood Rizvi Shaheed. 

 
 
 
Captain Fasih Babar Shaheed Presented Guard of Honor. He got commissioned in Pakistan army in October 2007. He had a wife and a son whose age was just about one and a half year. His funeral prayers were being offered in pindi.

 
 
 
 
 
 
RECIEVING ROCKET ON CHEST IS NOT AN EASY JOB.THERE ARE ONLY FEW WHO GET THIS HONOUR. AND THEY ARE THOSE CHOSEN ONE WHO ALWAYS KEEP THEIR HONOUR AND DIGNITY SUPREME.THEY ARE THE REAL HEROES AND HEROES DIE YOUNG.BILLAL YOUR HEROIC ACT WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED. AND WILL REMAIN A SOURCE OF MOTIVATION FOR US..
 
 
 
 
 
MAJOR SHAOIB
Who survived the Mi 17 crash in jan  before dying on 14 july 2012 crash. 

 

After the crash he pulled out 2 men who have both survived and walked to the ambulance before collapsing unconscious. Unable to open his eyes, he told his wife to take care of his mother and 2 daughters before he was evacuated to Kharian Army burn hospital. He asked about Amir, his co pilot and coursemate who didnt survive the crash. Multiple heart attacks, swellings and infections finaly took him from us. His heroic act of valor in saving his crew while he himself burned will be not be forgotten. ALlah bless him the highest place in jannat. 

 
 
 
LT Wajeeh Bangash Shaheed after getting rid of 7 militants got a sniper shot on his head and embraced Shahadat! 

 

 
 
 
 
Capt. Raja Farhan Ali Shaheed…

 
 
 
 
Capt. Mannan Shaheed with His Mother…
 
 
 
Lt Colonel Amir abbas Shaheed With his 2 cute angels Syed Khariq Abbas n Syeda Areeza Abbas…

 

 
capt zubair shaheed.(left)

 

 
capt babar shaheed

 

 
Captain Doctor Muhammad Ali khan (Shaheed)
 
Capt. Abdul Qadir Khan who embrace shahadat on 20th October.He was born in 1983.He joined Pakistan Army in 2003.

 
Capt. tariq,survived a IED attack in march 2009,died in feb 11 in ops bar
Lt. Taimoor Shah , S/O Ashfaq Hussain Shah
A valiant Son of 71 Baloch Regiment Belongs to Haider 118 ..Taimoor was born on 14 Aug 1986
He Embraced shahdat Near Kashmoor On Sep 23, 2009…

 
Capt Tariq Jamal Shaheed……

 

 
Lieutenant Yasir (Shaheed) 
 
Capt Mannan Shaheed
 
Captain Dr. Sharjeel has just embraced Shahadat in waana Waziristan.
 
LT. Ammad (Shaheed) 
 
Captain Hassan Abid Shaheed.
 
Captain Haider Nawaz Murawat 
 
Lieutenant Faiz Sultan Awan Shaheed 

 
Lt Atta Ur Rehman Shaheed

 
Amjad Razaq Shaheed SSG(N)

 
Capt. Rahman.SSG, Shaheed

Memorable pic of Ft. Lt. Ali Raza Tarar Shaheed.
Muhammad Bin Hassan, son of Captain Hassan Shaheed.
Born of June 10,2011. 4 months after Capt. Hassan embrace Shahadat.

 
Major Zia ul Haq Shaheed. Embrace Shahadat on 30th July ,

 
 
 
 
Cute Son of Captain Rashid Hakeem (Shaheed) 
Mohammad Rashid… 

Squadron Leader Muhammad Hussain shaheed… 
Got Martyred on 14 of november in the incident of JF thunder crashed at a hill near the garrison town of Attock, 65 kilometres northwest of Islamabad..
May his Soul Rest In Peace ..

 
PROUD SONS OF MOTHERLAND PAKISTAN. Major Mujahid and Captain Usman — Embrace SHAHADAT together on Salala checkpost defending Pak Sarzameen! 22 other soldiers who Embrace Shahahdat with them

 
 Captain Salman (Shaheed)

 
 
Lt. Atta Shaheed
 
Maj Zaka (shaheed) his daughter widow,  a son was born after he died.

 
 
 
 
 
Shaheeds in PAF Trainer Crash

 

One year Old Son of Major Muddasir Bajwa (Shaheed)
 
 
 
Son of Major Zahid Bari (Shaheed)

MAY GOD BLESS THEM ALL 

 

 
 

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The Express Tribune: May 2 operation: Book claims ISI colonel helped US track OBL down

government_of_pakistanAmerican journalist Richard Miniter has claimed in his latest book that an officer of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) helped the CIA track down Osama Bin Laden and that army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani may have been informed of the Abbottabad raid five months in advance.

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May 2 operation: Book claims ISI colonel helped US track OBL down

 

OBL’s compound was raided by US Navy SEALs. PHOTO: FILE

 

The book titled ‘Leading from Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him’, alleges that the ISI officer had walked into the CIA’s Islamabad station in August 2010 and provided vital help in tracing Bin Laden.

“In a never-before-reported account, Pakistan was more involved in the Bin Laden operation than Obama’s team admitted. When the CIA revealed that an ISI colonel had contacted the CIA in Islamabad and offered information about Bin Laden, a debate followed,” said the book.

“Was this a secret sign that the head of the ISI himself was pointing out Bin Laden’s hiding place or was the colonel actually the patriot who hated extremism that he claimed to be? Whatever the motivation, the CIA found Bin Laden’s hiding place within a month of the colonel’s visit,” the book claims.

According to the book, as the CIA found the Abbottabad compound where Bin Laden lived along with his family and started researching on the property, they found out that the land was “carved out” from the Pakistan Military Academy compound.

“Pakistan Army’s chief of staff may have been briefed in December 2010, five months before the nighttime raid on Bin Laden’s concrete castle,” the Press Trust of India quoted the book as saying. “No concrete facts about the operation were passed on, but an informal approval was sought.”

“Far from taking a risk, there are indications that a cover story had been developed with the Pakistani military and that Obama had their tacit consent for the mission,” claims Miniter, a former reporter with The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

Officials from the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) were not immediately available for comments.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 23rd, 2012.

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THE TRUE STORY OF ZERO DARK THIRTY: ISI TRACKED DOWN BIN LADEN, CIA TOOK THE GLORY

Zero Dark Thirty — Truth or Consequences

 
government_of_pakistan

The Huffington Post

Michael Brenner

 

Zero Dark Thirty is writing our collective history for us — engraving it on the American psyche. The graphic images of who we are and the deeds we have done are intended to inspire confidence and to soothe qualms — now and in the future. We are a Resourceful people. We are a Righteous people. We are a Resolute people who do not shrink from the necessary however hard it may be. We are a Moral people who bravely enter the shadowy precincts where Idealism collides with Realism — and come out enhanced.

 

In truth we are an Immature people — an immature people who demand the nourishment of myth and legend that exalt us. Actual reality intimidates and unsettles us; virtual reality is the comforting substitute. Zero Dark Thirty is fiction — most of it anyway. Yet critics and commentators have taken as given the story line, the highlight events, and the main character portraits as if the film were a documentary. The one big debate is on the question of whether torture works. The film’s paramount message is that it does, that it did lead inexorably to the killing of Osama bin-Laden, and that anyone who gives precedence to ethical considerations had better be prepared to accept the potentially awful consequences. The heroines and heroes make the right judgment after struggling with their consciences.

 

That is a dubious conclusion. Moreover, the question itself is wrongly framed. For the intelligence supposedly extracted was of no value in finding bin-Laden ten years later. Even members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have testified to that. Simple logic should lead any thoughtful person to the same conclusion. After all, if so valuable, how is it possible that it took a full decade for the information to lead anywhere — the indefatigable fictional lady notwithstanding (the lady who does not exist in the real world)? The tale as told assumes a static world in which places, persons and politics don’t change. But they do. In ways that the film narrative cannot and does not take account of.

 

It all comes down to the fabled courier. Without him, the narrative collapses completely. We didn’t have a clue where OBL was between Tora Bora and Abbottabad five years later. His odyssey from one safe house to another in the Tribal Areas, and Northwest Frontier Province (Swat and Bajaur) escaped the CIA with all its ultra-sophisticated high-tech gadgetry. We had next to no human intelligence assets anywhere in the region and did not until the very end. And at the end, it was the Pakistanis who provided us with the critical leads — as acknowledged by President Obama in his announcement of OBL’s killing. That was just a week or so before the White House and the CIA approached Hollywood with promises of cooperation if a film were made that properly hallowed those who brought OBL to “justice” and satisfied the national thirst for vengeance. Both sides kept their side of the bargain.

 

 

What of the courier al-Kuwaiti? The official cum Hollywood line is full of inconsistencies, anomalies and logical flaws. A systematic scrutiny of the evidence available makes that abundantly clear to the unbiased mind. That task has been undertaken by the retired Pakistani Brigadier Shaukat Qadir. His account, and interpreted analysis, draws as well on extensive interviews with intelligence and military officials in Islamabad — and with principals in both Northwest Pakistan and across the Durand Line in Afghanistan. This was an independent investigation by a man with an established reputation for integrity. His appraisal and conclusions have been featured in front page stories inThe New York Times, Le Monde and The Guardian yet never widely circulated — or refuted. (Operation Geronimo: the Betrayal and Execution of Osama bin Laden and its Aftermath by Shaukat Qadir (May 1, 2012) — Kindle eBook)

 

Here is a brief summary of a few key points regarding the official story’s self-contradictory elements.

 

· According to the CIA, Hassan Gul, was a courier for senior Al-Qaida operatives including OBL and Khalid Sheikh Muhammed (KSM). Gul revealed to the CIA under interrogation the name Al-Kuwaiti, the fact that Al-Kuwaiti was still alive, that he was OBL’s most trusted courier. CIA further stated that it was Gul’s statement that provided detailed insight into his working routines which led (four years later) in 2009 to the feeling that al-Kuwaiti lived in Abbottabad! Assuming all this to be true, it seems a little surprising that it should take them almost four years to move.

 

· What is even more improbable is that, despite providing such a wealth of information for the CIA, Gul was released as early as 2006 by the CIA into ISI custody. If Gul had provided all the information on Kuwaiti to the CIA and the CIA did not wish to share this information with the ISI, as asserted, how can their releasing him to ISI custody make any kind of sense?

 

· Is it credible that it took the CIA so long after 2005 to discover Al-Kuwaiti’s identity since Al-Libi, his close collaborator, was also captured by the ISI and handed over to CIA in 2005! Yet, Al-Libi was not questioned regarding Al-Kuwaiti’s real identity — despite Gul’s revelations, despite “enhanced interrogation” techniques? In short, why did it take the CIA from 2004 till 2011 to find “actionable intelligence” to locate and execute OBL?

 

· Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, captured by the ISI in March 2003, was handed over to CIA soon thereafter. KSM not only knew Al-Kuwaiti by his real name, Ibrahim, according to OBL’s wife, Amal, he had also visited al-Kuwaiti’s house outside Kohat when OBL was resident there in 2002. Yet, he too never was questioned as to Kuwaiti’s identity.

There are two fundamental flaws in the official CIA (and Hollywood) account:

 

the CIA seems to have been unaware of the intimate relations between Al-Libi and Al-Kuwaiti despite all those Al-Qaida leaders in their custody (most of whom were arrested by ISI) who knew exactly who and where Al-Kuwaiti was — and, therefore, the CIA actually was unaware of the latter’s identity until early 2011; b) still, they insist that the ISI did not provide the lead that ultimately led them to OBL’s hideout, which looks to be equally untrue.

 

Therefore, the CIA in all probability began tracking OBL only in 2010/11, thanks to the lead provided by ISI.

 

Let us recall President Obama’s words when he announced that OBL had been killed. Even as he stated that the US acted unilaterally on actionable intelligence, he added, “It is important here to note that our counter terrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound he was hiding in.”

 

Against that backdrop, it was logical for the US and Pakistan to launch a joint operation in Abbottabad. Washington decided to reject the idea. Why? Not because we feared a “leak” which made absolutely no sense. But rather because we wanted to make sure that OBL was killed and denied a public legal forum. We also wanted the glory and flourish of a drama with Americans in all the starring roles – we wanted a Hollywood blockbuster.

 

John Brennan, the White House terrorism chief, gave the game away the next day in offering the world a vivid description of the assault featuring a concocted shootout between the Seals and a pistol wielding Osama bin-Laden who held his wife as a shield while firing off shots. Made for Hollywood indeed.

 

After a decade of impulsive vengeance, of brutality, of killing, of deceit, of hypocrisy, of blindness and incompetence — we have an encapsulated myth that expiates all that in a drama worthy of our greatness. We have Closure. The American pageant moves forward.

 

What in fact we have is a rough-spun yarn woven post-hoc to give a semblance of discipline and direction to a fitful, adrenaline driven manhunt that belatedly stumbled upon its objective — only thanks to the critical help of others. Unable to generate any human intelligence, we relied on technology and torture. It didn’t work

 

The claim that the official U.S. version provides an honest, forthright accounting is unsustainable. The version offered by Zero Dark Thirty substitutes pulp fiction — of the mythological kind — for truth. It satisfies a gnawing hunger; it meets a powerfully felt need. It allows us to avoid coming to terms with how America went off the rails after 9/11. It fosters the adolescent in us.

 

Exclusive Investigation: The Truth Behind the Official Story of Finding Bin Laden

Thursday, 03 May 2012 09:07By Gareth PorterTruthout | Report

 

Posters of 22 fugitives, including Osama bin Laden, line a wall at the FBI headquarters in Washington, October 10, 2001.Posters of 22 fugitives, including Osama bin Laden, line a wall at the FBI headquarters in Washington, October 10, 2001. (Photo: Stephen Crowley / The New York Times)A few days after US Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in a raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a “senior intelligence official” briefing reporters on the materials seized from bin Laden’s compound said the materials revealed that bin Laden had, “continued to direct even tactical details of the group’s management.” Bin Laden was, “not just a strategic thinker for the group,” said the official. “He was active in operational planning and in driving tactical decisions.” The official called the bin Laden compound, “an active command and control center.”

The senior intelligence official triumphantly called the discovery of bin Laden’s hideout, “the greatest intelligence success perhaps of a generation,” and administration officials could not resist leaking to reporters that a key element in that success was that the CIA interrogators had gotten the name of bin Laden’s trusted courier from al-Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo. CIA Director Leon Panetta was quite willing to leave the implicationthat some of the information had been obtained from detainees by “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Such was the official line at the time. But none of it was true. It is now clear that CIA officials were blatantly misrepresenting both bin Laden’s role in al-Qaeda when he was killed and how the agency came to focus on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

In fact, during his six years in Abbottabad, bin Laden was not the functioning head of al-Qaeda at all, but an isolated figurehead who had become irrelevant to the actual operations of the organization. The real story, told here for the first time, is that bin Laden was in the compound in Abbottabad because he had been forced into exile by the al-Qaeda leadership.

The CIA’s claim that it found bin Laden on its own is equally false. In fact, the intensive focus on the compound in Abbottabad was the result of crucial intelligence provided by the Pakistani intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Truthout has been able to reconstruct the real story of bin Laden’s exile in Abbottabad, as well as how the CIA found him, thanks in large part to information gathered last year from Pakistani tribal and ISI sources by retired Pakistani Brig. Gen. Shaukat Qadir. But that information was confirmed, in essence, in remarks after the bin Laden raid by the same senior intelligence official cited above – remarks that have been ignored until now.

What the Bin Laden Documents Reveal

The initial claims about what the documents from the Abbottabad compound showed about bin Laden’s role in al-Qaeda were not based on any substantive evidence because the documents had not even been read, much less analyzed by the CIA. That process would take six weeks of intensive work by the analysts, cyber-experts and translators, as the Associated Press reported June 8, 2011. But with roughly 95 percent of the work done, the picture that emerged from the documents was starkly different from what the press had been told when the country was riveted to the story.

Osama bin Laden had indeed come up with plenty of ideas about attacking US and Western targets, but officials now acknowledged to Associated Press that there was, “no evidence in the files that any of the ideas bin Laden proposed led to a specific action that was later carried out.”

A month after the analysis of the bin Laden documents was completed, one official told CNN that they showed bin Laden writing about attacks on aircraft carrying Obama and Petraeus in Afghanistan. Another official familiar with the documents told the network, however, that they reflected bin Laden, “in his brainstorming mode.” One official described a document in which bin Laden expressed interest in having a team plan attacks on the United States on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. But, an official commenting on the entire collection of bin Laden documents told CNN, “[T]hese were ideas, not fully or even partially planned plots.”

Eight months later, in March 2012, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, whose writing invariably reflects what top national security officials want to see in the news media, was given a “small sample” of the documents by a “senior administration official.” The two documents he chose to highlight – bin Laden’s musings on shooting down aircraft with Obama or Petraeus on board and attacks on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 – had already been reported by CNN in July 2011. Acknowledging that al-Qaeda did not even have the military technology to shoot down a US plane, Ignatius observed that bin Laden, “still dreamed of pulling off another spectacular terror attack against the United States.”

So, several months after the Abbottabad documents had been thoroughly analyzed and the results digested by senior administration officials, the administration was unable to cite a single piece of evidence that bin Laden had given orders for – or was even involved in discussing – a real, concrete plan for an al-Qaeda action, much less one that had actually been carried out. Far from depicting bin Laden as the day-to-day decisionmaker or even “master strategist” of al-Qaeda, the documents showed a man dreaming of glorious exploits that were unconnected with reality.

Nobody Listened to His Rantings Anymore”

The reality reflected in the documents from the Abbottabad compound is that bin Laden had been exiled by the leadership of al-Qaeda because he had come to be seen as a loose cannon who was a danger to the organization. The train of events that led to bin Laden’s holing up in the compound in Abbottabad began in August 2003, in a small village in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, near the fabled caves of Tora Bora where he led a battle against US Special Forces in December 2001. It was there that the leadership of al-Qaeda conducted a series of extraordinary meetings on its most pressing problem: how to ease bin Laden out of his leadership role in the organization.

Those deliberations can now be revealed because Qadir, the retired 30-year veteran of the Pakistani Army, had served for years in South Waziristan alongside Mehsud tribesmen, with whom he had stayed in contact over the years. After the bin Laden raid, Qadir went back to his former comrades, and they introduced him to three of their relatives who had been couriers for Mehsud tribal militant leader Baitullah Mehsud in his contacts with al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, during the 2003 meetings.

Mehsud would become the head of the al-Qaeda affiliate organization Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in 2007. But in 2009, Mehsud was killed in a drone strike and the organization was splintering over various issues. All three former couriers broke their ties with Hakimullah Mehsud, Baitullah Mehsud’s successor as head of TTP. The political split in the Mehsud tribal community, followed by the killing of bin Laden, released the former couriers from their oaths of secrecy. In early August 2011, Qadir was able to meet separately with each of the three former Mehsud couriers in three different villages in South Waziristan, on the understanding that their names would not be revealed.

After bin Laden moved from the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan to South Waziristan in northwest Pakistan, his health continued to decline, according to the three former Mehsud couriers. Just what ailments were causing the deterioration was not clear, but he was no longer able to walk, and had to be moved by horseback from one house in South Waziristan to another for security reasons.

But an even greater concern of the al-Qaeda shura (or council), according to the former couriers, was what appeared to bin Laden’s colleagues to be his obsession with the idea that al-Qaeda should attack and capture Pakistan’s nuclear reactor at Kahuta. Zawahiri, the second-ranking al-Qaeda leader, who had the task of meeting personally with bin Laden, along with the rest of the shura tried to tell bin Laden that Kahuta was impenetrable. They pointed to the presence of a regular infantry battalion, air defense, guard dogs, mines and a laser security system guarding the facility. And anyway, as they pointed out to bin Laden, there were no nuclear weapons stored there.

But none of that seemed to matter to bin Laden, who seemed delusional on the issue. “Nobody listened to his rantings anymore,” said one of the couriers in a conversation with Qadir. “He had become a physical liability and was going mad,” another told Qadir a couple of days earlier. “He had become an object of ridicule,” said the second courier, recalling that some of the militants in South Waziristan had become aware of his harangues on the subject and were starting to make jokes at bin Laden’s expense. “You can’t have a leader whose people ridicule him,” he said.

Zawahiri had been running the day-to-day affairs of al-Qaeda, but bin Laden was still insisting on participating in major decisions. That situation led Zawahiri to propose during a series of meetings in August 2003 that bin Laden be forced to retire from active involvement in the organization’s decisions. The other members of the shura supported him, according to all three former Mehsud tribal couriers.

The only question was how to get bin Laden to agree. The shura believed bin Laden would only listen to one man: Abu Ayoub Al Iraqi, who had accompanied bin Laden to Peshawar in the early 1980s and had been a mentor to bin Laden when he founded al-Qaeda, then faded into the background. The problem was, according to the ex-couriers, that only bin Laden knew how to contact him. So, the shura decided to present a plan to bin Laden for the capture of the Kahuta nuclear base on condition that it would be subject to the approval of Iraqi.

Bin Laden agreed with the proposal and a courier was dispatched to Iraqi. But unknown to bin Laden, the courier also carried a letter from Zawahiri detailing bin Laden’s condition and requesting Iraqi’s help in convincing him to retire voluntarily for his own safety. The courier returned from visiting Iraqi in September 2003 with cosmetic modifications of the plan, and with the advice that the shura had requested: bin Laden should be housed in a secure location from which he could issue orders, but Zawahiri should continue to act on bin Laden’s behalf in the day-to-day affairs of the organization.

The plan was to let bin Laden believe that he would still be the leader of al-Qaeda from his new safe haven. In reality, the al-Qaeda leaders were sending him into an urban exile to get him off their backs.

The shura considered various options for permanent housing for bin Laden before deciding that he should live a secluded family life in a city that would not be too far from Pakistan’s tribal areas, according to the Mehsud tribal sources. The third-ranking member of the hierarchy, Mustafa al-Uzayti, a Libyan better known by his alias Abu Faraj al Libi, was tasked with finding the best location for bin Laden and his family to reside, according to Qadir’s Mehsud tribal sources.

Al Libi’s first choice was Mardan, about 30 miles from Peshawar, but bin Laden’s courier, who used the alias Sheikh Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, suggested that it was too dangerous because some pro-al-Qaeda individuals were constantly under surveillance by Pakistani and US intelligence agencies. He suggested Abbottabad instead.

After bin Laden approved the construction of a house within a larger compound in Abbottabad, it was Kuwaiti who purchased the land and oversaw the construction. Investigators from Pakistan’s ISI later learned that Kuwaiti and his younger brother moved in with their own wives, along with bin Laden and his large family of two wives, six children and four grandchildren in May or June 2005.

How Did the CIA Find Bin Laden?

Immediately after the Special Operations forces raids that killed bin Laden, a senior administration official who had an obvious interest in peddling a particular narrative about CIA interrogation techniques told reporters that the CIA interrogation of al-Qaeda detainees held at Guantanamo had been a critical factor in finally tracking down bin Laden. According to one version, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, also known as “KSM,” the mastermind of the 9/11 attack, had identified bin Laden’s trusted courier in 2007; in another version, unidentified detainees had given interrogators the courier’s real name.

The story of bin Laden’s courier was an open invitation for past and present CIA officials who had gone along with the use of torture in interrogating suspects to justify their position. CIA Director Panetta channeled their viewpoint in an interview with NBC, suggesting that, for some of the information that led the agency to bin Laden, interrogators, “used their enhanced interrogation techniques against some of the detainees.” He added, “Whether we would have gotten the same information through other approaches I think is always going to be an open question.” Reutersreported that the story of how the administration learned about the identity of bin Laden’s courier was, “certain to reopen the debate over practices that many have equated with torture.”

That entire story was more disinformation. In fact, none of the detainees had divulged the actual identity of bin Laden’s courier – or even the courier’s alias within the organization, Sheik Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. Had any of them provided the actual name of the courier, it would not have taken another four years to discover where that courier – and bin Laden – were living. Reuters, which originally reported that KSM had given up the name of the courier, later corrected the story, explaining in a note appended to it that KSM had divulged only the, “existence of courier rather than the name of the courier.” None of the other outlets that had published the disinformation published a similar correction.

Another story, leaked by the CIA to Associated Press, claimed the discovery of the Abbottabad compound as the result of an electronic intercept. In August 2010, according to the story, a voice was heard in a phone conversation with someone whose cell phone US intelligence was monitoring, and from the substance of the conversation, intelligence analysts concluded that it was Kuwaiti. That in turn led CIA operatives to the Abbottabad compound, according to the story.

But is doubtful that Kuwaiti used his mobile phone to communicate with anyone who was already under surveillance in 2010. By 2008, al-Qaeda in Iraq had been largely destroyed, in large part by the US Special Forces’ ability to monitor the Iraqi militants’ use of mobile phones, and both the al-Qaeda shura and bin Laden himself were even more acutely aware of the danger of any electronic communications that could expose Kuwaiti. Documents retrieved from bin Laden’s Abbottabad homereminded al-Qaeda officials that all internal communications were to be by letter only and not by phone or the Internet. Three ISI investigators told Qadir in three separate meetings the same thing about al-Qaeda’s caution with respect to the use of cell phones for internal communications.

Furthermore, it was another six months before the CIA initiated an effort to penetrate the Abbottabad compound with a human source. It was only in February 2011 that the CIA enlisted a Pakistani doctor named Shakeel Afridi to try to gain access to the house on the pretense of a fake campaign for testing people’s blood for hepatitis, according to Afridi’s testimony to ISI investigators. That gap in the timeline is only one of several pieces of evidence indicating that the CIA had not, in fact, tracked someone they believed to be bin Laden’s courier to the compound in Abbottabad in July or August 2010. The story of the intercepted phone call appears to be at least another misleading report on the path to Abbottabad.

The ISI Reveals a Secret

For nearly a year, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, remained silent about how bin Laden had been found. Meanwhile, former CIA director Panetta suggested that the ISI had long known about bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad, two unnamed ISI officials asserted to The Washington Post in an April 27 article that ISI provided the CIA with the cell phone number that belonged to Kuwaiti in November 2010 and told them it was last detected in Abbottabad. But the ISI officials said that their agency did not know at the time that the number was Kuwaiti’s.

A US official denied to the Post that the United States had learned about the number from the ISI. But in the initial briefing of reporters after the bin Laden raid on May 2, 2011, a “senior intelligence official” had actually confirmed, in guarded terms, that Pakistan had provided crucial information that intensified the CIA’s focus on the Abbottabad compound. “The Pakistanis did not know of our interest in the compound,” said the official, “but they did provide us information that helped us develop a clearer focus on this compound over time…. [T]hey provided us information attached to [the compound] to help us complete the robust intelligence case that … eventually carried the day.”

It is now clear that this acknowledgment, which was ignored in media coverage of the briefing, was a reference to ISI’s providing the CIA with both the cell phone number of Arshad Khan and the fact that it belonged to the owner of the compound in Abbottabad. The unnamed official was confirming indirectly that until ISI had given it that information, the CIA had not focused on the Abbottabad compound as the likely location of bin Laden’s courier, or, therefore, of bin Laden himself.

But there was more to the ISI information. Qadir was able to obtain a detailed account from ISI officers involved in the bin Laden investigation showing that ISI also told the CIA that it suspected that Khan might be linked to terrorism.

Qadir is a retired infantry officer who never worked in intelligence, but one of the officers involved in the ISI investigation of the background to the bin Laden killing had been under his command in Kurram Agency many years earlier. That connection enabled him to get access to several other ISI officers who were working on the investigation or were familiar with it. In conversations with Qadir in an ISI safe house in mid-December and over lunch at the Islamabad Club the same month, his initial ISI source told him how the ISI detachment in Abbottabad had launched an investigation of Khan in 2008.

According to Qadir’s initial ISI source, Khan had let it be known locally that he had made some money from business ventures in Dubai, and that his current occupation was dealing in foreign currency exchange and real estate in Peshawar. “It was merely routine,” the ISI officer emphasized. “We had no suspicions at the time.”

That story put out by Kuwaiti and Khan, which was evidently an effort to explain his regular monthly visits to Peshawar, eventually reached the ISI detachment in Abbottabad. The result was a routine request to the detachment in Peshawar to make an inquiry to confirm the information. After months of methodical checking in Peshawar, the ISI unit there reported that none of the half-dozen Arshad Khans who were money changers was a resident of Abbottabad. The inconsistency was conveyed to ISI headquarters in early 2010, with a request for an expanded search in other towns, according to the ISI sources. A request was then sent to all major cities in Pakistan, just in case somebody had gotten the location of the business wrong.

After more months of routine checking, all ISI stations across the country had reported finding no trace of a Pashtun money changer named Arshad residing in Abbottabad. Furthermore, the Peshawar detachment had learned that Khan had been purchasing prescription drugs during his monthly visits to Peshawar, as Qadir learned from two separate ISI officials involved in the post-bin-Laden-raid investigation. The suspicions of ISI officials were now piqued.

It was in July 2010, after the routine investigation indicated that Khan was not telling the truth about his trips to Peshawar, that the ISI official in charge of the investigation decided that the matter was suspicious enough to bring it to the attention of the Counter Terrorism Wing (CTW) of ISI, according to Qadir’s ISI sources. Those sources told Qadir they believed CTW asked the CIA for satellite surveillance of Khan’s residence in Abbottabad. “I thought it was worth getting satellite coverage and forwarded the request to HQ, after consulting with my officers,” the official who made the decision told Qadir. “It could have turned out to be nothing important, but if there was an important person hiding there, I would look like an incompetent fool.”

The CTW had worked closely with the CIA on capturing al-Qaeda leaders and operatives over the years, and that cooperation remained intact in mid-2010, even as tensions between the two intelligence agencies were rising over the rapid increase in the number of spies the CIA had infiltrated into Pakistan that year, partly to keep tabs on ISI’s relations with the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network. So, it would not have been unusual for the CTW to bring the results of the investigation of Khan to the attention of the CIA.

Five different junior and mid-level ISI officers – three in the field and two in ISI headquarters in Rawalpindi – told Qadir in separate meetings in August and September 2011 that they understood CTW had decided to forward a request to the CIA for surveillance of the Abbottabad compound.

More senior officers at headquarters claimed to Qadir, however, that they didn’t know about such a request, and at an even more senior level, they denied that such a request had even been made. The pattern of responses by ISI officials is consistent with a political decision by the military leadership to avoid even the slightest cooperation with the United States linked to the killing of bin Laden, according to Qadir. Given popular Pakistani anger about the unilateral US raid that killed bin Laden, even admitting that it had played a role in triggering the surveillance of the house in Abbottabad would have played into the hands of Pakistani groups who wanted to discredit the Army as stooges of the United States. “The mood in Pakistan was ugly,” Qadir explained, “and the GHQ [Army headquarters] and ISI were in the eye of the storm. They felt they had no choice but to be accused of either complicity with the CIA in the raid or incompetence, and they chose incompetence.”

But since Pakistan openly broke with Washington over the US military attack on two Pakistani border posts last November, the Pakistani military has more self-confidence. Under its new chief, Lt. Gen. Zaheer ul-Islam, the ISI has become more “proactive” in responding to negative press coverage, according to the officials who spoke with the Post. The ISI revelation to the Washington Post that ISI had turned over Khan’s cell phone number to the CIA in November confirms the essence of the story Qadir obtained from his sources.

The information obtained from ISI about the Abbottabad compound explains the otherwise mysterious remark by President Barack Obama on the night of the raid. “It is important here to note,” Obama said, “that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound he was hiding in.”

Obama’s insertion of that acknowledgement of the assistance of Pakistani intelligence into his triumphant announcement of the bin Laden killing further confirms the evidence that Pakistani help in focusing on the Abbottabad compound was crucial, but senior CIA officials, assuming the news media would never catch on, had nevertheless done what officials always do if they don’t believe they will be held accountable: they put out false information that made them look good. The lies surrounding the bin Laden killing are one more example of this primary leitmotif of the US national security state in the era of unaccountable permanent war.

 

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Tony Cartalucci & Mohammad Jamil : US & Saudi funded terrorists sowing chaos in Pakistan:Insidious plan to destabilize Pakistan

 

Insidious plan to destabilize Pakistan

News & Views
 
Mohammad Jamil
 

 

For quite some time, there has been pernicious propaganda campaign by the US, the West and India against Pakistan, accusing it of duplicitous role in war on terror, raising doubts about security of its nuclear weapons, and lately abuse of human rights in Balochistan. Eileen Donahoe, U.S. Representative to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, expressed serious concern over, what she called, Pakistan’s violent response to separatists in Balochistan Province. She alleged: “Security squads in the province, under their kill-and-dispose of policy, have been targeting proponents of civic rights, local activists and their families, journalists, political workers and student leaders, as a result the Baloch society has been alienated and chances of peace there have been shrinking”. There is a widespread perception that America’s CIA, Britain’s MI-6, India’s RAW, Israel’s Mossad and RAAM of Afghanistan are active in Balochistan. Efforts are made to denigrate Pak military with a view to paving the way for implementing their agenda for destabilizing and denuclearizing Pakistan. 

On 27th July 2011, Human Rights Watch had released 132-page report titled “Enforced Disappearances by Pakistan Security Forces in Balochistan”. A few political leaders and government functionaries are of the opinion that it was done on the behest of those powers that are out to disgrace Pakistan military and ISI in the world eyes and prepare the ground to destabilize Pakistan. It was demanded of Pakistan government to immediately end widespread disappearances of suspected militants and activists by the military, intelligence agencies, and the paramilitary Frontier Corps in Balochistan. The report, however, downplayed target killings of innocent civilians, teachers, professors and security personnel in Balochistan by Baloch Liberation Army and other militant organizations. The question can be asked whether the lives of non-Balochis are any less valuable than the lives of Baloch nationalists for Human Rights Watch and other HR organizations? 

At the present, militants are actively involved in worsening the security situation in Balochistan, and insurgency has hampered the growth and development of the province. Balochistan is indeed in the throes of ethnic, sectarian and tribal schisms. There have been targeted killings of Punjabi settlers in Balochistan. Ethnic and Shia-Sunni fracas has shaken the erstwhile ethnic and sectarian harmony, as criminal gangs are stoking ethnic and sectarian divisions. It is an irrefutable fact that tribalism is firmly rooted in Balochistan, as ethnic and tribal identity is a potent force for both individuals and groups in Balochistan with the result that there exists deep polarization among different groups. Each of these groups is based on different rules of social organization, which has left the province inexorably fragmented. Tribal group-ism has failed to integrate the state and enforce a national identity. But those who have not weaned off the poison of sham nationalism should take a look at the history of the Balkans, and the fate they met. 

In fact, rivaling big powers and even countries of the region eye Balochistan avariciously to push it into their own orbit of influence because it is mineral-rich and strategically-located province. According to political and defence analysts, the US, Russia and India are either directly or indirectly widening the ethnic and sectarian schisms in Balochistan and FATA with a view to advancing their agendas. There are reports that the US and UK are also supporting the centrifugal forces and insurgents in Balochistan. They have double standards; on one hand they punish their traitors, while on the other hand they pressurize Pakistan to be lenient to the separatists and those who challenge the writ of the state. Take the case of Jonathan Pollard, an American citizen, who worked as an American civilian intelligence analyst before being convicted of spying for Israel. He received a life sentence in 1987. Israeli activist groups, as well as high-profile Israeli politicians have since then lobbied for his release, but to no avail.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had voiced particularly strong support for Pollard, and in 2002 visited him in the prison. Pollard was employed in Naval Intelligence Support Center (NISC), but was later transferred at NIC/TF-168. In June 1984, Pollard started passing classified information to Sella and received, in exchange, $10,000 cash and a very expensive diamond and sapphire ring, which Pollard later presented to his girlfriend Anne while proposing her for marriage. He was to receive $1,500 per month for further espionage. Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment on one count of espionage on March 4, 1987. On the contrary, America has been pressurizing Pakistan to show leniency to Shakil Afridi, and is willing to give American citizenship. If America can award life sentence to its traitors, why Pakistan cannot hand out similar sentence to its traitors? America did not show any leniency to its American national caught for spying for Israel – its strategic partner, and he was put in the jail. 

There is much talk about missing persons. Apart from dissident sardars, some media men, analysts, commentariat and chattering classes accuse intelligence agencies of either arresting or killing dissidents. As regards missing persons, there should be high-powered judicial enquiry, which should not only locate missing persons held on various charges but also try to trace them from Ferrari Camps/Detention Centres being run by Baloch Sardars and insurgents. Efforts should be made to identify those militants who were either sent to Afghanistan and India for training. One would not be surprised to find that majority of them would have gone with the consent of Baloch dissidents families. As regards holding negotiations with dissident sardars, the fact of the matter is that whenever efforts were made to hold talks with Sardar Akhtar Mengal, Harbiyar Marri and Brahamdagh Bugti they balked at negotiations on the ground that the elected government is not in a position to address their grievances, as it has no powers. They openly talk about disintegration of Pakistan. Since majority of people of Balochistan are not with the dissident sardars, their efforts to cause harm to Pakistan would fail. 

—The writer is Lahore-based senior journalist.

 

US-Saudi funded terrorists sowing chaos in Pakistan

Pakistani Shia Muslims gather around the coffins of bomb attack victims as they demonstrate in Quetta on February 18, 2013.

 
Pakistani Shia Muslims gather around the coffins of bomb attack victims as they demonstrate in Quetta on February 18, 2013. Pakistani Shia Muslims shout slogans to protest against the bombing which killed 89 people, in Quetta on February 18, 2013.
Pakistani Shia Muslims gather around the coffins of bomb attack victims as they demonstrate in Quetta on February 18, 2013.
 The terrorist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group was in fact created, according to the BBC, to counter Iran’s Islamic Revolution in the 1980’s, and is still active today. Considering the openly admitted US-Israeli-Saudi plot to use Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups across the Middle East to counter Iran’s influence, it begs the question whether these same interests are funding terrorism in Pakistan to not only counter Iranian-sympathetic Pakistani communities, but to undermine and destabilize Pakistan itself.”
Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s southwest Baluchistan province, bordering both US-occupied Afghanistan as well as Iran, was the site of a grisly market bombing that has killed over 80 people.

According to reports, the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for the attack. Billed as a “Sunni extremist group,” it instead fits the pattern of global terrorism sponsored by the US, Israel, and their Arab partners Saudi Arabia and Qatar. 

The terrorist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group was in fact created, according to the BBC, to counter Iran’s Islamic Revolution in the 1980’s, and is still active today. Considering the openly admitted US-Israeli-Saudi plot to use Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups across the Middle East to counter Iran’s influence, it begs the question whether these same interests are funding terrorism in Pakistan to not only counter Iranian-sympathetic Pakistani communities, but to undermine and destabilize Pakistan itself. 

Unknown-18The US-Saudi Global Terror Network 

While the United States is close allies with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, it is well established that the chief financier of extremist militant groups for the past 3 decades, including al-Qaeda, are in fact Saudi Arabia and Qatar. While Qatari state-owned propaganda like Al Jazeera apply a veneer of progressive pro-democracy to its narratives, Qatar itself is involved in arming, funding, and even providing direct military support for sectarian extremists from northern Mali, to Libya, to Syria and beyond. 

France 24’s report “Is Qatar fuelling the crisis in north Mali?” provides a useful vignette of Saudi-Qatari terror sponsorship, stating: 

“The MNLA [secular Tuareg separatists], al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine and MUJAO [movement for unity and Jihad in West Africa] have all received cash from Doha.” 

Unknown-8A month later Sadou Diallo, the mayor of the north Malian city of Gao [which had fallen to the Islamists] told RTL radio: “The French government knows perfectly well who is supporting these terrorists. Qatar, for example, continues to send so-called aid and food every day to the airports of Gao and Timbuktu.” 

The report also stated: 

“Qatar has an established a network of institutions it funds in Mali, including madrassas, schools and charities that it has been funding from the 1980s,” he wrote, adding that Qatar would be expecting a return on this investment. 

“Mali has huge oil and gas potential and it needs help developing its infrastructure,” he said. “Qatar is well placed to help, and could also, on the back of good relations with an Islamist-ruled north Mali, exploit rich gold and uranium deposits in the country.” 

These institutions are present not only in Mali, but around the world, and provide a nearly inexhaustible supply of militants for both the Persian Gulf monarchies and their Western allies to use both as a perpetual casus belli to invade and occupy foreign nations such as Mali and Afghanistan, as well as a sizable, persistent mercenary force, as seen in Libya and Syria. Such institutions jointly run by Western intelligence agencies across Europe and in America, fuel domestic fear-mongering and the resulting security state that allows Western governments to more closely control their populations as they pursue reckless, unpopular policies at home and abroad. 

Since Saudi-Qatari geopolitical interests are entwined with Anglo-American interests, both the “investment” and “return on this investment” are clearly part of a joint venture. France’s involvement in Mali has demonstrably failed to curb such extremists, has instead, predictably left the nation occupied by Western interests while driving terrorists further north into the real target, Algeria. 

Additionally, it should be noted, that France in particular, played a leading role along side Qatar and Saudi Arabia in handing Libya over to these very same extremists. French politicians were in Benghazi shaking hands with militants they would be “fighting” in the near future in northern Mali. 

Unknown-11Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is Part of US-Saudi Terror Network 

In terms of Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, as well as the infamous Lashkar-e-Taiba that carried out the 2008 Mumbai, India attack killing over 160, both are affiliates of Al Qaeda, and both have been linked financially, directly to Saudi Arabia. In the Guardian’s article, “WikiLeaks cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists,” the US State Department even acknowledges that Saudi Arabia is indeed funding terrorism in Pakistan: 

Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest source of funds for Islamist militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba – but the Saudi government is reluctant to stem the flow of money, according to Hillary Clinton. 

“More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups,” says a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of state. Her memo urged US diplomats to redouble their efforts to stop Gulf money reaching extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

“Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide,” she said. 

Three other Arab countries are listed as sources of militant money: Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. 

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has also been financially linked to the Persian Gulf monarchies. Stanford University’s “Mapping Militant Organizations: Lashkar-e-Jhangvi,” states under “External Influences:” 

LeJ has received money from several Persian Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates[25] These countries funded LeJ and other Sunni militant groups primarily to counter the rising influence of Iran’s revolutionary Shiism. 

Astonishingly, despite these admission, the US works politically, financially, economically, and even militarily in tandem with these very same state-sponsors of rampant, global terrorism. In Libya and Syria, the US has even assisted in the funding and arming of Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups, and had conspired with Saudi Arabia since at least 2007 to overthrow both Syria and Iran with these terrorist groups. And while Saudi Arabia funds terrorism in Pakistan, the US is well documented to be funding political subversion in the very areas where the most heinous attacks are being carried out. 

US Political Subversion in Baluchistan, Pakistan 

The US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has been directly funding and supporting the work of the “Balochistan Institute for Development” (BIFD) which claims to be “the leading resource on democracy, development and human rights in Balochistan, Pakistan.” In addition to organizing the annual NED-BFID “Workshop on Media, Democracy & Human Rights” BFID reports that USAID had provided funding for a “media-center” for the Baluchistan Assembly to “provide better facilities to reporters who cover the proceedings of the Balochistan Assembly.” We must assume BFID meant reporters “trained” at NED-BFID workshops. 

There is also Voice of Balochistan whose every top-story is US-funded propaganda drawn from foundation-funded Reporters Without Borders, Soros-funded Human Rights Watch, and even a direct message from the US State Department itself. Like other US State Department funded propaganda outfits around the world – such as Thailand’s Prachatai – funding is generally obfuscated in order to maintain “credibility” even when the front’s constant torrent of obvious propaganda more than exposes them. 

Perhaps the most absurd operations being run to undermine Pakistan through the “Free Baluchistan” movement are the US and London-based organizations. The “Baloch Society of North America” almost appears to be a parody at first, but nonetheless serves as a useful aggregate and bellwether regarding US meddling in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. The group’s founder, Dr. Wahid. Baloch, openly admits he has met with US politicians in regards to Baluchistan independence. This includes Neo-Con warmonger, PNAC signatory, corporate-lobbyist, and National Endowment for Democracy director Zalmay Khalilzad. 

Dr. Wahid Baloch considers Baluchistan province “occupied” by both the Iranian and Pakistani governments – he and his movement’s humanitarian hand-wringing gives Washington the perfect pretext to create an armed conflagration against either Iran or Pakistan, or both, as planned in detail by various US policy think-tanks. 

There is also the Baloch Students Organisation-Azad, or BSO. While it maintains a presence in Pakistan, it has coordinators based in London. London-based BSO members include “information secretaries” that propagate their message via social media, just as US and British-funded youth organizations did during the West’s operations against other targeted nations during the US-engineered “Arab Spring.” 

GuyBilloutAnd while the US does not openly admit to funding and arming terrorists in Pakistan yet, many across established Western policy think-tanks have called for it. 

Selig Harrison, a Pro-Israel Zionist of the convicted criminal, George Soros-funded Center for International Policy, has published two pieces regarding the armed “liberation” of Baluchistan. 

Harrison’s February 2011 piece, “Free Baluchistan,” calls to “aid the 6 million Baluch insurgents fighting for independence from Pakistan in the face of growing ISI repression.” He continues by explaining the various merits of such meddling by stating: 

“Pakistan has given China a base at Gwadar in the heart of Baluch territory. So an independent Baluchistan would serve U.S. strategic interests in addition to the immediate goal of countering Islamist forces.” 

Harrison would follow up his frank call to carve up Pakistan by addressing the issue of Chinese-Pakistani relations in a March 2011 piece titled, “The Chinese Cozy Up to the Pakistanis.” He states: 

“China’s expanding reach is a natural and acceptable accompaniment of its growing power-but only up to a point. ” 

He continues: 

“To counter what China is doing in Pakistan, the United States should play hardball by supporting the movement for an independent Baluchistan along the Arabian Sea and working with Baluch insurgents to oust the Chinese from their budding naval base at Gwadar. Beijing wants its inroads into Gilgit and Baltistan to be the first step on its way to an Arabian Sea outlet at Gwadar.” 

While aspirations of freedom and independence are used to sell Western meddling in Pakistan, the geopolitical interests couched behind this rhetoric is openly admitted to. The prophetic words of Harrison should ring loud in one’s ears today. It is in fact this month, that Pakistan officially hands over the port in Gwadar to China, and Harrison’s armed militants are creating bloodshed and chaos, attempting to trigger a destructive sectarian war that will indeed threaten to “oust the Chinese from their budding naval base at Gwadar.” 

Like in Syria, we have a documented conspiracy years in the making being carried out before our very eyes. The people of Pakistan must not fall into the trap laid by the West who seeks to engulf Baluchistan in sectarian bloodshed with the aid of Saudi and Qatari-laundered cash and weapons. For the rest of the world, we must continue to uncover the corporate-financier special interests driving these insidious plots, boycott and permanently replace them on a local level. 

The US-Saudi terror racket has spilled blood from New York City, across Northern Africa, throughout the Middle East, and as far as Pakistan and beyond. If we do not undermine and ultimately excise these special interests, their plans and double games will only get bolder and the inevitability of their engineered chaos effecting us individually will only grow. 

TC/JR

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