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

Posted by admin in ISI on March 8th, 2013

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 Porter, Truthout | 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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J-10: The New Cornerstone of Sino-Pakistani Defense Cooperation

Posted by admin in Defense, Pakistan Air Force on March 4th, 2013

 

J-10: The New Cornerstone of Sino-Pakistani Defense Cooperation

Chengdu J-10 fighter

The J-10 multi-role fighter approaches Western fighters in terms of performance and capabilities
China and Pakistan have forged a formidable partnership in high-tech defense production. This partnership is born of their ever-deepening military and strategic cooperation that is also reflective of the burgeoning capacity of China’s defense industries and the budding Sino-Pakistani defense relationship. The epitome of this bilateralism is the recent revelation that the Chinese have agreed to the sale of 36 J-10B fighter jets to Pakistan (Financial Times, November 10). The J-10 aircrafts are known to be one of the most advanced weapon systems in China’s arsenal, of which Pakistan will be the first recipient. With the delivery of 36 fighter jets, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) will raise two fighting squadrons that will further sharpen its combativeness. The J-10 deal was reportedly sealed for a whopping $1.4 billion, which accounts for 70 percent of Chinese average arms sales of $2 billion a year (China Brief, July 9). 

The J-10 Sale Epitomizes Strategic Alliance

The deal marks the depth of a strategic alliance between Beijing and Islamabad. Some reports suggest that Pakistan is actually seeking 150 J-10 fighter jets, which go by Chengdu Jian-10 in China and F-10 in Pakistan, for a sum of $6 billion (The Hindu, November 11). The Pakistani government, however, dismisses such reports as inflated (Financial Times, November 10). Although Pakistan has not yet made the deal public, its prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, on November 23, confirmed that “his country is in talks with China for securing the J-10s” [1]. Pakistan turned to China for these aircraft in 2006 after it failed to secure the F-16s from the United States (Dawn, May 1, 2006). General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former military ruler, who negotiated the deal during his visit to China in 2006, is the real architect of this grand sale (The Hindu, November 11). 

The J-10s are China’s third generation fighter aircraft that it has indigenously developed (The Hindu, November 11) and manufactured at the Chengdu Aircraft Industry (CAI). Some observers, however, believe that J-10s are China’s fourth generation aircraft. “This aircraft is a cousin to the Israeli Lavi (upon which it is based) and roughly equivalent in capabilities to the U.S. F-16C flown by several air forces around the world” (See “China’s Re-emergence as an Arms Dealer: The Return of the King?” China Brief, July 9). The J-10s started development in the mid-1980s and finally entered production for the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) about three or four years ago. Aviation experts rank them below the F-16s, the Swedish Gripen and other smaller combat aircraft (China Brief, July 9). According to a report in The Hindu (November 11), China is working on developing its fourth generation fighter jets as well. The United States, The Hindu report further claims, is the only country that possesses a fourth generation combat aircraft—the F-22s. Yet aviation experts believe the F-22s are fifth generation fighter jets. Chinese Deputy Commander of the PLAAF General He Weirong claimed that “China would operationalize its very own fourth generation aircraft in the next eight or ten years” (The Hindu, November 11). The Chinese official further claimed that the fourth generation planes would “match or exceed the capacity of similar jets in existence today” (The Hindu, November 11). 

In anticipation, China is also training Pakistani fighter pilots for flying the fourth generation combat aircraft. On January 16, it delivered eight Karakoram K-8P trainer jets to Pakistan for this purpose. According to an official statement, the K-8P jets had enhanced the basic training of PAF pilots and provided a “potent platform for their smooth transition to more challenging fourth generation fighter aircraft” (The Asian Defence, January 16). The K-8P is an advanced trainer jet that has been jointly developed by China and Pakistan. It is already in service at the PAF Academy. At the handing-over ceremony for the K-8Ps, a visiting Chinese delegation as well as high-ranking PAF officers were in attendance.   

China’s sale of the J-10 fighters to Pakistan, however, signals the depth of its strategic alliance with Pakistan. Pakistan will be the first country to receive the most advanced Chinese aircraft, which speaks volumes to Chinese faith in its strategic partnership with Pakistan. Defense analysts, however, believe that the sale sends an important message to the world that China’s “defense capability is growing rapidly” (Financial Times, November 10). China-Pakistan military relations spanned over 43 years, starting in 1966 when China provided Pakistan with F-6s, which were followed by the successive supply of such aircraft as FT5, A5, F-7P, F-7PG and K-8 (Jang, November 22).  

These relations continue to grow with high-level exchanges in the defense sector. As recently as October of this year, Chinese Vice-Minister Chen Qiufa, administrator of China’s State Administration for Science, Technology & Industry for National Defense (SASTIND), led a delegation of Chinese defense-companies to Pakistan. He called on Prime Minister Gilani and discussed cooperation in the JF-17 Thunder Project, Al Khalid tank, F-22 frigates, Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), and aircraft and naval ships (APP, October 17). The Chinese delegation included representatives from China’s missile technology firm Poly Technologies as well as Aviation Industries Corp. of China, China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, China Electronics Technology Group and China North Industry Corporation.

Although there is a proliferation of joint defense projects between China and Pakistan, their collaboration in aviation industry has peaked at the turn of the millennium. The mainstay of their joint defense production is the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) in Kamra (Punjab), which services, assembles and manufactures fighter and trainer aircraft. The PAC is rated as the world’s third largest assembly plant. Initially, it was founded with Chinese assistance to rebuild Chinese aircraft in the PAF fleet, which included Shenyang F-6 (now retired), Nanchang A-5, F-7 combat aircraft, Shenyang FT-5 and FT-6 Jet trainer aircraft. The PAC also houses the Kamra Radar and Avionics Factory (KARF), which is meant to assemble and overhaul airborne as well as ground-based radar systems, electronics, and avionics. The KARF, which is ISO-9002 certified, has upgraded the PAF Chengdu F-7P interceptor fleet. Over time, the PAC has expanded its operation into aircraft manufacturing, and built a specialized manufacturing unit in the 1980s: The Aircraft Manufacturing Factory (AMF). The AMF got noticed in the region when it partnered with the Hongdu Aviation Industry Group of China to design, develop and coproduce the K-8 Karakoram (Hongdu JL-8), which is an advanced jet trainer. The AMF’s flagship project, however, is the Sino-Pakistani joint production and manufacture of the JF-17 Thunder aircraft, which it is producing with the Chengdu Aircraft Industry (CAI).   

JF-17 Thunder Makes Over the PAF

In recent history, China and Pakistan set out for the joint production of JF-17 combat aircraft that both countries consider a substitute for U.S. F-16s. Pakistan’s indigenous manufacture of the first JF-17 (which goes by FC-1 in China) came to fruition on November 23, when Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC), an arm of the Pakistan Air Force, turned it over to the PAF to the chants of “Long Live Pak-China Friendship” (The News International, November 24). 

Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Pakistan Chief of Army Staff and Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan, Lou Zhaohui, were among the dignitaries who attended the handing-over ceremony. Chinese Ambassador Zhaohui, speaking on the occasion, told his audience: “China wants to further broaden the defense cooperation with Pakistan” (Jang, November 23). The PAF already has 10 JF-17s, which were produced in China, in its fleet. The JF-17 project began in 1992, under which China agreed to transfer technology for the aircraft’s joint production. The project was hampered in 1999, when Pakistan came under proliferation sanctions. It gained momentum in 2001. 

On September 3, 2003, its prototype, which was manufactured in China, conducted the first test flight. The PAF claims that the JF-17s, with a glass cockpit and modern avionics, are comparable to any fighter plane (Jang, November 23). It is a lightweight combat jet, fitted with turbofan engine, advanced flight control, and the most advanced weapons delivery system. As a supersonic plane, its speed is 1.6 times the speed of its sound, and its ability to refuel midair makes it a “stand-out” (Jang, November 23). Pakistan intends to raise a squadron of JF-17s by 2010. The Chief of Air Staff of the PAF told a newspaper that JF-17s would help “replace the existing fleet of the PAF comprising F-7s, A-5s and all Mirage aircraft” (The News International, November 8). Eventually, Pakistan will have 350 JF-17s that will completely replace its ageing fleet.

Pakistan also plans to export these aircraft to developing countries for which, it says, orders have already started pouring in (Jang, November 22). China and Pakistan anticipate an annual export of 40 JF-17s to Asian, African and Middle Eastern nations [2]. At $25 million apiece, the export of 40 aircraft will fetch them $1 billion per year. There are estimates that Asia will purchase 1,000 to 1,500 aircraft over the next 15 years. In this Sino-Pakistani joint venture, Pakistan will have 58 percent of shares, while China will have 42 percent (The News International, November 25). Besides defense aviation, China and Pakistan are closely collaborating on the joint production of naval ships as well.

Chinese Frigates for the Pakistan Navy

China and Pakistan worked out a $750 million loan to help Pakistan build four F-22P frigates (The News International, September 16, 2004). In 2004, Pakistan negotiated this non-commercial (i.e. low-cost) loan with China for the joint manufacture of naval ships. China and Pakistan have since moved fast to begin work on this project. They have now expanded the original deal to build eight F22P frigates respectively at Hudong Zhonghua shipyard in Shanghai, China, and Karachi shipyard and Engineering Works (KSEW), Pakistan. The manufacturing cost of each F22P Frigate, which is an improved version of China’s original Type 053H3 Frigate, is $175 million. At this rate, the cost of eight frigates will run at about $1.4 billion. 

The first Chinese-built F-22 frigate, named PNS Zulfiqar (Arabic for sword), was delivered to Pakistan on July 30 (The Nation, July 31). A month later, the ship was formally commissioned in the Pakistan Navy fleet in September. Soon after its arrival in July, the ship participated in the Pakistan Navy’s SeaSpark exercises. Of the original four frigates, three were to be built in China and one in Pakistan (Asia Times, July 11, 2007). After the delivery of PNS Zulfiqar, the remaining two ships that are being built in China are expected to be commissioned in the Pakistan Navy fleet by 2010. The fourth ship being built in Pakistan’s Karachi shipyard will be ready by 2013 (Asia Times, July 11, 2007). 

The Pakistan Navy describes the F-22P frigate as a Sword Class ship that is equipped with long-range surface-to-surface missiles (SSM) and surface-to-air missiles (SAM), depth charges, torpedoes, the latest 76mm guns, a close-in-weapons system (CIWS), sensors, electronic warfare and an advanced command and control system (The Nation, July 31). The ship has a displacement of 3,000 tons and carries anti-submarine Z9EC helicopters. China has already delivered the first batch of two such helicopters to Pakistan. Although the Pakistan Navy has Sea-King helicopters for anti-submarine operations, it is now acquiring Chinese Z9ECs to enhance its operational capabilities (The Nation, July 31). In addition to building eight frigates, the Sino-Pakistan defense deal includes the upgrading of the Karachi dockyard for indigenous production of a modern surface fleet. The frigates deal is the first of its kind between China and Pakistan, which forges their two navies into a high-level collaboration for boosting their surface fleet.  

Conclusion

At the turn of the millennium, China and Pakistan have diversified their defense trade into joint defense production. They have since been collaborating on the production of most advanced weapons systems, such as the JF-17s combat aircraft and F-22P Frigates. Pakistan will receive the transfer of technology for the J-10s as well. China recognizes that Pakistan is rich with human capital in the high-tech defense industry, which serves as a magnet for its investment. Both China and Pakistan look to capture wider defense export markets in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. At the same time, their growing cooperation in aviation and naval defense systems signals an important shift in Pakistan’s military doctrine that traditionally favored Army (especially ground forces) over its sister services—Navy and Air Force. In the region’s changing strategic environment, in which China has growing stakes, Pakistan has come to recognize the critical importance of air and naval defense. The China-Pakistan collaboration in aviation and naval defense amply embodies this recognition.   

Notes

1. “NRO beneficiaries will be held to account.” Daily Intekhab, dailydailyintekhab.com.pk/news/news10.gif.
2. Tarique Niazi, “China-Pakistan Relations: Past, Present and Future,” A presentation made at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on January 29, 2009.

 
 

Publication: China Brief Volume: 9 Issue: 25
 

Chengdu J-10

Multi-role fighter

 
Entered service 2004
Crew 1 men
Dimensions and weight
Length 15.5 m
Wing span 9.7 m
Height ?
Weight (empty) 8.3 t
Weight (maximum take off) 18 t
Engines and performance
Engines 1 x Lyulka-Saturn AL-31FN turbofan
Traction (dry / with afterburning) 1 x 79.43 / 122.58 kN
Maximum speed Mach 2.2
Service ceiling ?
Ferry range ?
Combat radius ?
Armament
Cannon 23-mm cannon
Missiles PL-12 and PL-8 air-to-air missiles
Bombs 500-kg laser-guided bombs, free-fall bombs
Other 90-mm unoperated rockets

 

   The J-10 multi-role fighter is the first Chinese-developed combat aircraft that approaches Western fighters in terms of performance and capabilities.

   Development of the J-10 began in 1988. It was intended to counter threat posed by the Soviet forth-generation fighters – the MiG-29 and Su-27. The J-10 was initially planned as an air-superiority fighter, however collapse of the Soviet Union and changing requirements shifted the development towards a multi-role fighter. Aircraft made it’s maiden flight in 1998. The whole project was kept under high secrecy. It is worth mentioning, that the first photos of the J-10 came out only 3-4 years after the first flight. Some sources claim that it was influenced by the IAI Lavi. The J-10 multi-role fighter entered service with Chinese air force in 2004, however it was first publicly revealed only in 2006. Currently around 240 of these aircraft are in service. It is estimated that 300 fighter of this type will be required for Chinese air force and possibly naval aviation too. A number of countries, including Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan and Thailand shown interest in purchasing this aircraft.

   The J-10 has a single engine. The first batch of about 50 aircraft is powered by Russian AL-31FN turbofan engines. This batch was delivered to Chinese air force between 2004 and 2006. An indigenous Taihang turbofan is under development.

   The J-10 has beyond visual range air combat and surface attack capabilities. Aircraft has 11 external hardpoints for a range of weapons. Alternatively it can carry target acquisition, navigation pods or auxiliary fuel tanks. It is worth mentioning that the J-10 has an in-flight refueling capability.

   The main armament on the air-superiority missions are the PL-12 medium-range active radar-homing air-to-air missiles. For close ranges it carries the PL-8 infrared-homing missiles. For surface attack role the J-10 carries up to six 500-kg laser-guided bombs, free-fall bombs or 90-mm unoperated rocket pods. Aircraft is also completed with a single-barrel 23-mm cannon.

   The J-10 is fitted with an indigenously designed pulse-doppler fire control radar. It is capable of tracking 10 targets simultaneously and attacking 4 of them. Estimated maximum detection range is 100 km. Aircraft is fitted with a fly-by-wire system.

   A two-seat variant, the J-10S fighter-trainer, is available. It is identical to the single-seat variant, but has a stretched fuselage to accommodate second pilot seat. The J-10S can be used for pilot training or as a standard fighter. This aircraft maid it’s maiden flight in 2003.

 

Variants

 

   J-10B multi-role fighter, with improved airframe and avionics. It is likely to become a standard production model.

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Iqbal Baig, Partner of Terrorists Taliban & Pakistan’s Biggest Heroin Smuggler to US, Building a Shopping Arcade on Hall Road, Lahore.

Posted by admin in "Jihadi" Outfits of Terrorism, Asif Zardari Crook Par Excellance, BOOT THE SCOUNDRELS OR SHOWDAZ, Corruption, Defense, Domestic Policy, Foreign Policy, Looters and Scam Artists, Pakistan's Ruling Elite Feudals Industrialists, Pakistan-US Relations, PML (N) CORRUPTION on March 2nd, 2013

 Aamir Latif and Kate Willson, ICIJ : Iqbal Baig, Partner of Terrorists Taliban, PML(N) & Pakistan’s Biggest Heroin Smuggler to US & Britain Building a Shopping Arcade on Hall Road Lahore

 

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19950403&slug=2113791

 

 

Iqbal Baig, the biggest heroin smuggler to US is building a Shopping Arcade on Hall Road in Lahore. He has torn down historic and architecturally unique flats built in 1920s and 30s, which were part of Pre-Partition Lakhshmi Mansion. Therefore, another, beautiful landmark of Lahore has been victim of corruption and malfeasance of the Sharif brothers dynasty.

 

How did Iqbal Baig manage to get approval for destruction of a historic landmark? Simply, by bribing the Punjab Government, whereby he was able to get a permit to destroy these historical buildings. This is another example of Punjab Government’s expedient cooperation with crooked builders like Malik Riaz and Iqbal Baig.

 

Hall Road shopkeepers have watched helplessly as this drug lord rolls over their property rights and create clouds of dust and debris in one of the biggest electronics market in Asia.  The Punjab Government is in cahoots with this drug smuggler, who finances his activities by money laundering and uses mules to smuggle drugs to the West.

 

Why is the West silent on the rapid growth of the Empire of Drug Baron, Iqbal Baig in Lahore, Pakistan? What is the nature of relationship, between Shahbaz Sharif & the Sharif Family with this known drug kingpin? These are the questions, which have caused considerable distress in the minds of Hall roads business community. But, these concerns may be short lived, as Iqbal Baig can use strong-arm tactics and considerable financial clout to silence his most vocal critics.

 

Many businessmen on Hall Road are appalled at the blatant criminal activities of a known heroin smuggler. It seems the US DEA has all but forgotten about Iqbal Baig’s narcotic empire and his partnership with Al Qaeda and Taliban? However, this criminal is more dangerous than ever, because now he is acquiring a cover of legitimacy. Although, convicted in a US court, this criminal will try to beat the system through use of couriers, instead of getting himself involved in heroin smuggling. Nowadays, due to a weak and corrupt government, Pakistan is awash with narcotics. Iqbal Baig will continue to indulge in his drug smuggling activities, and finance them with money earned through of legitimate business enterprise, like the Hall Road Project. This also provides a conduit to launder drug money and stash it in Middle Eastern Banks. In the process people like Iqbal Baig destroy not only young peoples lives in the West, but also in Pakistan.  They buy greedy politicians like the Nawaz Sharif by “donating,” to their electioneering. It is a creative form of indirect bribery, where the “obligated” politician looks the other way at the illegal activities of their benefactors.

 

It is imperative that US Ambassador pressure the Punjab Government to crack down on such criminals turned legitimate entrepreneurs. Otherwise, they will come to bite back by destroying the lives of people in East and West in the garb of their worst terrorist nightmares. Heroin smuggling, legitimate business, and terrorism are an explosive mix, which the global community should help Pakistan, nip in the bud. However, Pakistani politicians are always drooling for illegal gratifications in the form of bank deposits in Dubai, Cayman Islands, and Isle of Wight made by the likes of Iqbal Baig, Tapi, and Malik Riaz.

 

Iqbal Baig is well known to most of Lahorites, who often wonder, why US, which has waged a War on Terror, does not protest to the Punjab government, about the money laundering, property acquisition, and funneling of drug money into legitimate businesses. In Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Mexico, US has used its DEA agents to stop drug kingpins from infiltrating legitimate commercial enterprises.  But, in Pakistan, heroin smugglers and money launderers are roaming around scott- free. Almost every person in Lahore knows about this drug kingpin and are surprised that the US Embassy or the Lahore Consulate or DEA have not raised Malik Iqbal’s burgeoning empires issue with the Pakistan or at least the Punjab Government.  It is non-productive for DEA to chase small time drug mules, and leaving the barracudas among heroin.  Smugglers untouched. It also earns the ill will of a nation, where US is spending considerable amount of money to build its image.  US government should proactively, coaxing the Punjab Government to cut off money laundering activities of the Iqbal Baig Empire.  This will go a long way in improving the image of US in Lahore, a city, which is the political capital of Pakistan. At the same time it will also earn the considerable goodwill from the people of Lahore, where the image of US suffered during the Raymond Davis Affair. And it will also go a long way in restoring good relations with the people of Pakistan. Otherwise, the question, as to why people of Pakistan, will remain unanswered.  

 

 

 

 

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=896&dat=19950403&id=1y8OAAAAIBAJ&sjid=kH0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5678,274928

 

 

The Taliban and tobacco

By Aamir Latif and Kate Willson June 29, 2009, 10:15 am

 

http://www.icij.org/project/tobacco-underground/taliban-and-tobacco

 

 

Tumman Khan is a poor, aging farmer who tills another man’s land in the restive northern tribal belt of Pakistan. For him and others in the Khyber Agency region, Sahib Ayub Afridi is considered an angel. The illiterate 70-year-old tribal leader finances construction of water pumps, streets and lighting, builds mosques and madrasahs, and supports the penniless and widowed.

But there’s another side to Afridi.

A one-time notorious drug kingpin who in the 1980s armed the Afghan Mujahidin at the CIA’s behest, Afridi churns out millions of counterfeit cigarettes to smuggle across central Asia, China, and Africa, and splits the proceeds with the pro-Taliban militants who control the swath of mountainous borderland, according to Pakistani intelligence and customs officials. The leaders of some of these militant groups are on the U.S. most-wanted list in the region — among them, Baitullah Mehsud, who has claimed responsibility for bloody attacks in Pakistan and has sworn to strike Washington, D.C. U.S. officials have responded by putting a $5 million price on Mehsud’s head.

A tax for terrorism

As government sanctions restrict traditional sources of terrorist financing, Pakistani militant groups increasingly rely on proceeds from counterfeit cigarette production and smuggling, intelligence sources say. Although income figures are rough estimates at best, profits from the illicit cigarette trade account for as much as 20 percent of funding for these militant groups, second only to heroin production, according to terrorism experts in Pakistan. “Taliban and other militant groups do not have to do much,” says Ikram Sehgal, a senior defense and security analyst who heads SMS Security, Pakistan’s leading private security company. “They simply receive taxes on a regular basis from owners of illegal and legal cigarette factories and later for the safe passage they provide to the convoys.”

 

Sahib Ayub Afridi: top cigarette counterfeiter in Pakistan.

The Afridi case is part of a broader trend of terrorism groups relying on contraband to finance their activities, experts say. Even if efforts to cut the region’s booming heroin production are successful — an unlikely prospect — the lucrative tobacco trade suggests how hard it will be to stanch funding to terrorists and insurgents in areas far from government control. The world’s longest-running civil wars are fueled by contraband according to a 2002 study by Stanford University’s James Fearon. Cocaine smuggling has largely propelled FARC’s 40-year insurgency in Colombia. Diamonds have funded civil wars in Sierra Leone and Angola. Opium has led to drawn-out conflicts in Afghanistan and Burma.

In the badlands of the Afghan-Pakistan border, the challenges are particularly daunting. U.S. President Barack Obama recently deemed the region “the most dangerous place in the world” for Americans. The growing power of the Taliban and other militant groups, combined with new waves of terrorism, has put Pakistan’s weak government on the defensive. The risks are indeed high: as much as two-thirds of the nuclear-armed country is ruled not by a central government but by insurgents, militants, tribal leaders, or warlords.

Overlooked in the Pakistani Taliban’s growing power is the role of tobacco smuggling.

As U.S. and NATO forces attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan, the predominantly Pashtun fighters increasingly sought sanctuary along the ungoverned border of Pakistan. The Khyber Agency — a border province boasting the most-traveled trade route between the two countries — is also the hotbed of cigarette counterfeiting in Pakistan. And its renegade factories have become the region’s largest employer, according to Pakistani intelligence sources.

Fateh Mohammed, a senior Pakistani tax official, said counterfeit cigarette production is on the rise, costing the government an estimated $88 million annually in lost taxes. He said the excise department does what it can, but the factories are “out of reach.”

“It’s hard for us to curb the sale and production of counterfeit cigarettes as we neither have the manpower and other resources to do that,” Mohammed said. “Nor do we have any reach to the tribal belt where this business is flourishing.”

Illicit cigarette production in the strife-torn tribal belt, a semiautonomous region of Pashtun tribes bordering Afghanistan, accounts for an estimated 22 percent of all consumption in Pakistan, a country with cigarette taxes among the highest in the world — accounting for 87 percent of the cost per pack. Mohammad Khosa, who heads the anti-counterfeiting efforts for British American Tobacco in the region, estimated that the region’s factories pump out some 15 billion cigarettes a year, a large portion of which end up smuggled to neighboring Afghanistan.

 

Click to enlarge

“Smuggling has long existed because of physical proximity to land routes going into Central Asia and beyond,” said Sumit Ganguly, professor and Pakistan expert at Indiana University. “On top of that, there are very poor people. The two dovetail very neatly.”

Trade routes between Afghanistan and Pakistan developed over thousands of years with no governmental controls. It wasn’t until the British drew a 1600-mile border between the two countries, in 1893, that a culture of illicit trade flourished. Today, Pashtuns pay little attention to the poorly marked borders that separate the rugged terrain between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Following the October 2001, U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, smuggling contraband goods across to Pakistan provided the Taliban with a major source of financing. In his final story published in The Wall Street Journal before his January 2002 abduction, Daniel Pearl reported on how the group “taxed” goods being smuggled across the border. The militants skimmed between $35 million and $75 million off exports of Marlboro cigarettes, Sony TVs, and Gillette shaving cream, Pearl wrote.

Today, no figure is more deeply mired in the region’s contraband trade than Haji Ayub Afridi, a tribal leader of the region-ruling Afridi clan, which has long controlled trade routes into Afghanistan and whose name is synonymous with trade and transport throughout Pakistan.

Who’s Who of militants

Afridi’s sweeping luxury estate near the Afghan border is enclosed by 20-foot high walls topped with concertina wire, guarded by a private army and protected by an anti-aircraft battery. Authorities point to a pair of lucrative, yet nameless, cigarette factories that Afridi owns, known locally as “One More Cigarette,” and to a number of cigarette-filled warehouses he is said to own near Peshawar — the region’s largest city, 25 miles east of his home. Because most of his business is in the names of associates, the full extent of Afridi’s assets is unknown, but officials believe he operates as many as six factories.

Afridi churns out copies of an array of Western brands — Marlboros, Camels, Benson & Hedges, and 555s, among them, officials say. The Marlboros and Camels are smuggled into Afghanistan and the central Asian countries of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Benson & Hedges is favored for shipment to South Africa, while counterfeit 555s are moved through the Khunjarab pass into China. Afridi also produces low-quality local brands One-Touch and Datchi, which are popular in Afghanistan.

 

Tobacco counterfeiter Afridi lives in a heavily guarded compound near the Afghan border.

Afridi pays protection money to a Who’s Who of the region’s militant leaders, according to Pakistani intelligence. In exchange for operating his factories in the Khyber Agency, sources say, Afridi pays $36,000 a month — the average combined annual income of 47 Pakistanis — to Mangal Bagh, leader of the area’s ruling pro-Taliban militia.

A former bus token taker and fellow member of the Afridi clan, warlord Bagh commands thousands of heavily-armed Islamist militants through his group Lashkar-i-Islam (Army of Islam). In addition to collecting taxes from the likes of Afridi, the pro-Taliban group specializes in kidnapping for ransom. Early in his smuggling racket, Afridi refused to cut Bagh a percentage of his proceeds, instead paying protection taxes to a rival Taliban group, officials say. The two groups clashed in 2008, leaving 19 dead. Following the battle, Afridi agreed to pay Bagh.

Bagh may be the most moderate militant leader on Afridi’s payoff list. Afridi also pays a pair of rival Taliban factions in the neighboring tribal region of Waziristan, along the Afghan border to the south, who are actively fighting U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. One of the men, Mullah Nazir, opposes fighting against Pakistan security forces. But his rival, Baitullah Mehsud — leader of Pakistan’s Taliban movement — has advocated attacks against the Pakistani government and is blamed by Islamabad for ordering the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Mehsud’s troops also provide a safe haven for al-Qaeda forces fighting in Afghanistan, and his militancy has made him a prime target for the Americans. But that has not deterred the Taliban leader; he recently joined forces with Nazir and a third warlord who, together, now control much of the region. The rival groups agreed to “fight the U.S. together, because we are concerned over the surge in American troops in Afghanistan,” Nazir told local tribal chiefs, according to the Daily Times, an English-language newspaper in the region.

Afridi isn’t the only counterfeit cigarette producer in the tribal belt. Smugglers also transport cigarettes from illegal factories in neighboring provinces of Kohat and Bannu into Afghanistan through the border town of Miramshah. The area is in the grip of an al-Qaeda militia of ethnic Uzbeks loyal to Mehsud. Pakistani intelligence sources say cigarette smugglers pay the militant groups up to 20 percent commission for each convoy. American and Japanese model trucks leave the sprawling, high-walls cigarette factories almost daily, while bigger convoys of five to seven trucks leave twice a week, local residents say.

On the lam

Afridi is no stranger to the black market. During the 1960s he drove truckloads of smuggled gold through the Khyber Pass. His partner was a slightly older gold smuggler named Iqbal Baig. The two prominent tribal members would remain close business partners as they expanded into currency, hashish, and heroin smuggling.

 

The Torkham Crossing, a heavily traveled trade route between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In the 1980s, Afridi is credited with orchestrating the heroin trade between eastern Afghanistan, through the Khyber Pass, to the Afridi clan in Pakistan. Pakistani and Belgian authorities first sought his arrest in 1983, after tying the smuggler to 17 tons of hashish in a southwest Pakistan warehouse and another 6.5 tons in Antwerp, Belgium. But when 50 Pakistani police sought to arrest Afridi in 1990, they were met by an armed militia and quickly retreated, according to U.S. court records.

Despite his record as a narcotics trafficker, the CIA had its own uses for Afridi. In the 1980s, he was one of many Pashtun tribal leaders tapped by the agency to help finance and arm the Mujahidin struggle against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, according to The New Dimension of International Terrorism by former Harvard University fellow and U.S. Army Colonel Stefan M. Aubrey. After the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, Afridi turned his attention homeward. He was elected to Parliament in 1990 — reportedly after paying up to $600 per vote to represent the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Through it all, Afridi never stopped dealing drugs, according to U.S. court records. He ordered subordinates to truck hashish to Karachi in Bedford trucks and old tanker trucks. Meanwhile, he and his partners made millions smuggling tons of heroin and hashish across the globe — through India to London, Paris, and Amsterdam, packed amid frozen fish into the Netherlands, through Singapore and Hong Kong, and across the Atlantic to the United States and Canada.

Afridi, through his longstanding contacts in the drug world, became the key supplier to the biggest narcotics ring in Pakistan, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA branded Afridi’s syndicate “the single most prolific heroin and hashish drug trafficking organization in Pakistan.” The amounts were indeed impressive: 57 tons of hashish into the Netherlands in a single shipment; 30 tons of hashish to California; and massive amounts of heroin around the world.

At the center of the operation was the notorious Iqbal Baig–a respected, well-known businessman whose assets included cinemas, textile factories, commercial property, and a pizzeria. And at Baig’s side was Tarik Butt, his brother-in-law. Butt took over a battery manufacturing plant in 1986 after its owner — smuggling heroin into Vienna on Butt’s behalf — died from a drug-filled balloon exploding in his stomach. The factory became “a social club of misfits, thugs, murderers and dope dealers,” said a New Delhi-based agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

By the 1990s, however, Afridi’s criminal past was catching up with him. With authorities threatening prosecution, he went into hiding and was soon splitting his time between Pakistani tribal areas, Afghanistan, and the United Arab Emirates.

It was a trio of hash shipments — 58 tons in all — that finally led to Afridi’s undoing.

 

Children line up with lunch buckets at a refugee camp near Swabi, Pakistan, during spring 2009 fighting in the Swat valley.

Hidden amid fish, tires and sacks of rice, the drugs were sent to Long Island, New York, and Newport News, Virginia, and led to the arrest of one Stewart Newton, Afridi’s U.S. connection. Arrested in 1988, Newton was sentenced to 47 years in prison, but served only eight after agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors in the case against the Pakistani smugglers. Also indicted were Butt and Baig, whom Pakistan extradited to the United States in 1995.

Afridi stayed out of reach, hiding in the tribal zone. But fearful of arrest by Pakistani officials and concerned his now-arrested co-conspirators would turn against him, he negotiated with the DEA for a year before finally turning himself in.

Now-retired DEA agent Gregory D. Lee recalls fielding odd questions from Afridi’s go-between during that time.

“He would ask crazy questions like, ‘how many times a day will I be beaten by the Marshals?’ and ‘will I be able to stay at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan,” Lee said during a recent phone interview. If he wasn’t permitted to serve out his sentence at the four-star hotel, Afridi wanted to know if he could employ a personal cook at the prison. “He had no idea what to expect.”

In 1997, Afridi pleaded guilty to smuggling hashish and was sentenced to five years in prison and a $100,000 fine. But the Pakistani godfather served only two years in U.S. jail, paid just $425, and in 1999 he was deported to Pakistan, where officials promptly arrested him for an earlier smuggling case.

Although sentenced in Pakistan to seven years in prison, Afridi was released without explanation shortly after 9/11. Soon after his release, he traveled to Afghanistan to unite anti-Taliban warlords, according to senior Pakistani intelligence and anti-narcotics officials. His attempts failed, they say, and the aging Afridi returned home.

It is back home, in the Khyber Agency, where Ayub Afridi has refocused his attentions. Gone are the hashish and heroin shipments, officials say. The old smuggler has found an easier racket to ply, with few penalties and easy profits — the untaxed cigarette trade. Reached by telephone, in English and Urdu, an elderly man at Afridi’s home denied he was Afridi and declined to comment further.

Nor will others talk openly about Afridi in his native land. Journalists do not write about the man, and even law enforcement officials speak about him in hushed tones. But the poor of the Khyber Agency are not so reticent. Despite his years in Afghanistan, in jails and throughout his smuggling exploits, Afridi didn’t forget the poor who surrounded him, farmer Tumman Khan told a visiting reporter. Even when Afridi was locked away in an American prison cell, the poor and widowed continued to receive monthly checks on his behalf.

“Haji Sahib is an angel for poor people like us,” Khan said. “We don’t know much about his business, whether legal or illegal. What we know is that he has helped us when no one was there to do that.”

 

 
 

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Pakistan Continues Short-Range Ballistic Missile Tests

Posted by admin in Defense, Pakistan Strategic Nuclear & Missile Forces on February 24th, 2013

Pakistan Continues Short-Range Ballistic Missile Tests

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Feb. 18, 2013 – 05:15PM   |  

 Usman Ansari   |Defense News, USA   

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s recent test of a short-range ballistic missile shows the military’s progress toward developing a response to India’s anti-ballistic missile (ABM) program, officials said.

The Feb. 15 firing of its Hatf-II/Vengeance-II Abdali missile was the latest test of its short-range ballistic missile arsenal, which can be armed with tactical nuclear warheads.

A press release by the military’s Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) stated the test-firing was “part of the process of validation of land-based ballistic missile systems.” The 180-kilometer-range missile can carry nuclear or conventional warheads and has “varied maneuverability options” providing an “an operational level capability,” the statement said.

Mansoor Ahmed from Quaid-e-Azam University’s Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, who specializes in Pakistan’s national deterrent and delivery program, highlights this latter aspect as the reason for the test in response to arch-rival India’s ABM efforts.

“The recent test of Nasr and now Abdali— both short-range systems designed for counterforce targeting — have assumed added significance with the testing of maneuverable re-entry vehicle [warhead] technology aimed at defeating ballistic missile defenses against short- to medium-range missiles,” he said.

Abdali, and the remainder of Pakistan’s battlefield ballistic missiles, are primarily designed to counter surprise attacks and “forward-deployed forces as envisaged in India’s cold start doctrine and other military targets close to the border,” according to Ahmed.

These would include India’s integrated battle groups or air bases.

Linking the test with Pakistan’s tactical nuclear warhead program, Ahmed says it is “another demonstration of the development of sub-strategic nuclear warheads,” or what the ISPR statement refers to as an “operational level capability.”

He cautions, however, that “these tests should not be seen as a sign that Pakistan is going for a nuclear war-fighting strategy, but rather as a means of consolidating an all-aspect credible deterrent.”


Former Australian defense attaché to Islamabad, Brian Cloughley, is clear where use of tactical nuclear weapons would lead.

“It is the ultimate weapon of last resort. Use of tactical nuclear weapons would lead, without a shadow of doubt, to escalation and employment of longer-range missiles and air-delivered bombs, and probably quite quickly — hours rather than days”, he said.

Despite the efforts and resources being put into it, he does not think India’s ABM program would provide “airtight” protection and give Indian forces immunity from attack.

“The Indians do have a rudimentary ABM system, but it would be absolutely impossible for it to defend all vital points. Possession of tactical nuclear weapons is certainly a deterrent, but if the genie left the bottle, there would be nuclear devastation in the sub-continent,” he said.

an on Monday conducted a successful test fire of nuclear capable short range Surface-to-Surface Missile Hatf IX (NASR).

According to a press release issued by Pakistan Army’s media arm Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), the test fire was conducted with successive launches of two missiles from a state of the art multi tube launcher.

NASR, with a range of 60 km, and inflight maneuver capability can carry nuclear warheads of appropriate yield, with high accuracy. This quick response system, which can fire a four Missile  Salvo  ensures deterrence against threats in view of evolving scenarios. Additionally NASR has been specially designed to defeat all known Anti Tactical Missile Defence Systems.

 

Battlefield Nukes For Pakistan: Why Hatf IX (Nasr) Is Essential For Pakistan’s Deterrence Posture & Doctrine

 

Posted by asif shah at | 9:00 PM Labels: , , , 

 

The American targeting of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and their development continues unabated. The latest attack is on Pakistan’s development of the Nasr missile in the Hatf short range ballistic missile (SRBM) series.
The new attack manifests itself in a provocative report published by Foreign Policy magazine, which is part of the Washington Post Company.
Badly argued and primarily conjectural, American nuclear expert Tom Hundley attacks Pakistan’s plan to develop what is known as tactical battlefield nuclear weapon in a report titled,
“Pakistan’s terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad idea to develop battlefield nukes” (5 September 2012).
Mr. Hundley’s report is alarmist rather than factual. As a follow up, a group of American nuclear experts landed in Islamabad this week, representing two think tanks: Stimson Center and Carnegie, in a visit designed to meet pro-US lobbyists in Pakistan to develop a narrative supportive of American policy goals with regards to Pakistani nuclear capability.
Project For Pakistan In 21st Century, an independent Islamabad-based research group, releases a policy brief titled, Why Hatf IX (Nasr) Is Essential For Pakistan’s Deterrence Posture & Doctrine.
Authored by eminent Pakistani defense and nuclear expert Dr. Shireen M. Mazari, this Policy Brief bolsters Pakistan’s policy position by explaining the rationale behind developing battlefield nuclear weapons. The arguments listed in the brief strike at the alarmism that Washington seeks to create around Pakistani nuclear plans. While attempting to explain the thinking of Pakistani policymakers, Dr. Mazari inadvertently shows the responsible and sophisticated nuclear security thinking of the Pakistani nuclear establishment.
At the same time, the Brief proposes that Pakistan offer India a Strategic Nuclear Dialogue designed to reduce nuclear risk that includes what the author describes as Confidence & Security Building Measures [CSBMs] in the nuclear area. The paper lists Pakistani nuclear risk reduction ideas shared with India over a decade without a positive Indian response, and suggests a way forward for Islamabad and New Delhi.

About the Author: Shireen M. Mazari, PhD, is a Pakistani political scientist and a prominent geostrategist, currently serving as Vice President for foreign and security affairs of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf [Pakistan Movement of Justice]. She is the former director-general of Islamabad Institute of Strategic Studies [IISS]. For information on how to reach reach, use [email protected]

 

Pakistan intercontinental missile underway “Taimur” Intercontinental ballistic missile

Technology to cover range of 7,000 Kms, Pakistan, to increase its defensive capabilities, has started preparing intercontinental missile with a range of 7000 kilometres.
According to sources, the intercontinental missile has a range of 7000 kilometres and is capable of hitting its target falling within its range. The missile can contain nuclear as well as traditional warheads. The missile has been termed a significant milestone for the defence of the country and is believed to strengthen the defence. According to sources, the missile would soon be test fired.

Taimur Intercontinental Ballistic Missile 7000 Km Range

The test was witnessed by Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Khalid Shameem Wynne, Director General Strategic Plans Division Lieutenant General (Retired) Khalid Ahmed Kidwai, Chairman NESCOM Mr Muhammad Irfan Burney, Commander Army Strategic Forces Command Lieutenant General Triq Nadeem Gilani, senior officers from the armed forces and scientists and engineers of strategic organizations.

Addressing the scientists, engineers and military officers of Strategic Organizations, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee congratulated them on displaying a high standard of  proficiency in handling and operating the state of the art weapon system. He said that Pakistan’s Armed Forces were fully capable of safeguarding Pakistan’s security against all kinds of aggression.

The successful test has also been appreciated by the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan who have congratulated the scientists and engineers on their outstanding success.

A VIEW FROM A RATTLED INDIA—> INDIA TODAY

Ballistic missile Nasr: A bigger threat from Pakistan

 
In terms of range, Nasr is much like our own Russian-supplied Smerch missile)
 
 
 
a huge burden on the Indian nuclear strategy, especially since the country has adopted an ostrich-like approach towards meshing nuclear weapons into our national security strategy. Our nuclear doctrine and posture seems to be more of a PR statement, rather than a strategic position. Its key principle – “no first use” was announced by Prime Minister Vajpayee within weeks of the nuclear tests in 1998. The rest of it, the idea of massive retaliation, development of a triad of forces and so on, was virtually scissored and pasted into a draft doctrine for the benefit of the world community .

Restraint

Just how inadequate it was became apparent in the post Parliament attack confrontation between India and Pakistan, now called Op Parakram. The doctrine had not catered for the simple contingency-Indian forces being struck by nuclear weapons in Pakistani territory. It was for this reason that after the Op Parakaram was called off, the Cabinet Committee on Security met, and the press release issued thereafter constitutes the public statement of our doctrine as of now: that an attack on India or Indian forces anywhere by chemical, nuclear or biological weapons would involve a massive nuclear retaliation.

In 1993, Mumbai was struck by a series of devastating bomb blasts and, more recently, in 2008, the city faced a murderous commando raid. Not only were these some of the deadliest terrorist strikes anywhere in the world, but in both cases India quickly had detailed evidence of official Pakistani involvement, and yet it chose to do nothing.

Flowing from this, then, is the obvious question. Would India really destroy Lahore and Karachi if two of its divisions that had invaded Pakistan were subjected to tactical nuclear weapon strikes? Something tells me that we would not. Restraint is a much more enduring feature of the Indian strategic culture than our nuclear doctrine assumes.

Instability

Till now there was an assumption that Pakistan would be a nuclear weapons state like India, China, Russia or the United States had been- seeking stability at the strategic level, even while allowing some instability at a lower level. But, as Professor Shaun Gregory pointed out in an important article this March, Pakistan is not your usual nuclear state.

He noted that it differed from other nuclear weapons states in three key ways-first, it is the military and not the civilians who control its nuclear weapons. Second, it is the only such state that backs subnational terrorists and insurgents as a matter of state policy. And third, and most important, Pakistan was “a revisionist and irredentist state”. So, while other states sought nuclear weapons to maintain stability, Pakistan wanted to use them as a tool to generate instability which went against the status quo. So while states have gone out of their way to promote stability after achieving nuclear parity, Pakistan seems to be accumulating nuclear weapons at a rate which bears no relation to the programme of its sole adversary, India. Its weapons holdings have already outpaced India’s and will soon approach the level of France and UK. This, then is the challenge India faces.

Islamabad’s motive in deploying tactical nuclear weapons is not so much the strategic defence of the country, but a means of preventing India from punishing Pakistan for carrying out acts of terrorism. It already has the weapons and the reach to deter any putative use of nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, New Delhi has been strangely negligent in responding to the rapidly changing nuclear dynamics relating to Pakistan. We have been focusing on terrorism and have ignored the steadily increasing danger of Pakistani nuclear adventurism. Terrorism can kill people by the hundreds, but a nuclear strike’s consequences are something else altogether.

manoj. joshi@ mailtoday. in

 

Pakistan successfully test-fires nuclear capable Hatf IX (Nasr) missile
Posted by: Usman Ahmed Posted date: February 11, 2013 

RAWALPINDI: Pakistan on Monday conducted a successful test fire of nuclear capable short range Surface-to-Surface Missile Hatf IX (NASR).

 

According to a press release issued by Pakistan Army’s media arm Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), the test fire was conducted with successive launches of two missiles from a state of the art multi tube launcher.

 

NASR, with a range of 60 km, and inflight maneuver capability can carry nuclear warheads of appropriate yield, with high accuracy. This quick response system, which can fire a four Missile Salvo ensures deterrence against threats in view of evolving scenarios. Additionally NASR has been specially designed to defeat all known Anti Tactical Missile Defence Systems.

 

The test was witnessed by Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Khalid Shameem Wynne, Director General Strategic Plans Division Lieutenant General (Retired) Khalid Ahmed Kidwai, Chairman NESCOM Mr Muhammad Irfan Burney, Commander Army Strategic Forces Command Lieutenant General Triq Nadeem Gilani, senior officers from the armed forces and scientists and engineers of strategic organizations.

 

Addressing the scientists, engineers and military officers of Strategic Organizations, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee congratulated them on displaying a high standard of proficiency in handling and operating the state of the art weapon system. He said that Pakistan’s Armed Forces were fully capable of safeguarding Pakistan’s security against all kinds of aggression.

 

The successful test has also been appreciated by the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan who have congratulated the scientists and engineers on their outstanding success.

 

 

 

 
 

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

Posted by admin in Afghan -Taliban-India Axis, CHINA -PAKISTAN FRIENDSHIP, CHINA SHINING, Defense, ISI, Jahiliya "Jihadis"Illiterate Fanatics, Pakistan Security and Defence: Enemy & Threats (Internal & External), Pakistan's Fights Terrorism, Pakistan-US Relations, SHIA +SUNNI = MUSLIMS=ISLAM=PEACE, THE BATTLE FOR PAKISTAN SERIES on February 24th, 2013

 

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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