Pakistan - victim of secret NATO/Mossad (ISI?) war

[Disco_Destroyer]

The West Creating Terror in Pakistan

WASHINGTON STIRS A WITCH’S BREW IN PAKISTAN
2007 Eric Margolis

November 12, 2007
WASHINGTON STIRS A WITCH’S BREW IN PAKISTAN

Plans by President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to attack Iran have been at least temporarily derailed by the mounting crisis in Pakistan. Not only is this important South Asia nation a key US ally in its conflict with anti-western Muslim groups (aka ..the war of terror’), the US also planned to use three Pakistani air bases it now controls to launch air attacks against Iran.

I’ve been in regular contact with former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. She calls the situation ..grim.’ On Friday, she was temporarily put under house arrest, preventing her from leading a mass demonstration in Islamabad. On Tuesday, she plans to lead a mass protest march from Lahore, to which she flew over the weekend, to Islamabad, mobilizing her party faithful and challenging the Musharraf regime.

Another important Pakistani party, Jamiat Islami, is also threatening mass demonstrations. Bhutto and other opposition leaders are calling on Musharraf to resign as military chief and run in fair, internationally supervised elections.

Bhutto tells me she may face another attempt to kill her. She accuses allies of President-General Pervez Musharraf of trying to assassinate her in the October 18th bombing in Karachi that killed or wounded hundreds.


Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party commands broad popular support, particularly among the poor and illiterate. But her attempt to unleash mass demonstrations has so far been thwarted by violent police repression against her supporters and the arrest of her political allies.

Musharraf’s imposition of martial law, arrest of Supreme Court justices who were going to rule illegal his continued role as commander-in-chief and president, arrest of other opposition figures and muzzling the formerly feisty media have proven most embarrassing to the Bush Administration which claims to be an apostle of democracy. Bush, who claims to have invaded Afghanistan and Iraq in order to bring them the light of democracy, must continue supporting Pakistan’s military dictator or see his war in Afghanistan collapse.

So, under heavy pressure from Washington, Musharraf agreed to hold elections on 15 January and release some jailed opponents. Washington hailed Musharraf. In reality, however, it was another cynical ploy. Every election Musharraf has held since seizing power in 1999 has been rigged. Does anyone really believe there will be fair elections in Pakistan under martial law or with the media gagged?

Musharraf, who commands less than 8% popular support, and is widely hated as an American stooge, knows he would lose any honest election. What he plans are the same kind of farcical ..democratic elections’ held by the US-backed military dictatorships of Egypt and Algeria.

My Pakistani sources report growing unrest in the 619,000-man armed forces. Senior commanders, recently promoted by Musharraf after pre-approval by Washington, still support him. But they are increasingly dismayed by the threat of a clash with civilians. Many senior officers fear their continued support of Musharraf is turning the public against the armed forces and injuring its good name.

Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the newly named vice chief of staff, could be Pakistan’s next strongman. If Musharraf is overthrown, killed or driven from office, Washington has chosen Gen. Kiyani as its Plan B, either with or without Benazir Bhutto. Kiyani has close links to the US and received part of his military training there.

If Musharraf does finally resign his command, Kiyani will control the military. Musharraf will be left without a power base – or perhaps even army protection.

Benazir Bhutto tells me pro-Taliban tribesmen and Uzbek allies in Northwest Frontier Province on the Afghan border are rapidly taking over cities and towns. Army troops ordered to attack them have surrendered or refused to fire. The Swat Valley, which is well inside Pakistan, fell to Islamists two weeks ago.

This could mark the beginning of a rebellion in the ranks. The loyalty of the army’s senior officers has been rented by billions of dollars of secret aid CIA has funneled through Musharraf. Those who could not be bought were ousted, including Pakistan’s most capable military men.

Official post-9/11 US aid to Pakistan is $10.6 billion, but ..black’ payments are many times higher. Some reports put them at $1 billion monthly. These mammoth payoffs have not trickled down to the mid and lower ranks. They have vanished into the pockets of the military brass and senior officials. Pakistan’s armed forces are still woefully deficient in modern arms.

Gen. Hamid Gul, former director general of Pakistan’s intelligence service, ISI, and an old friend from the 1980’s Afghan War, has also been arrested. He kept accusing Musharraf of selling out Pakistan’s national interests in return for cash and US support for his dictatorship- and of dishonoring the military. Gen. Gul still has many friends in the army and ISI. He shouted what many officers whisper.


In lauding Musharraf, President Bush made no mention of the dictator’s disgraceful firing of Supreme Court justices who were about to declare Mush’s ongoing rule violated the constitution. Nor has Bush or the US Congress issued any demands that the exiled former PM Nawaz Sharif, leader of Pakistan’s other major political party, the Muslim League, be allowed to return to contest elections.

So much for supporting democracy. In the name of fighting extremism, Musharraf has jailed or intimidated nearly all of Pakistan’s political moderates.

In Washington’s wrongheaded view, it’s either Mush or the mullahs. Or if Musharraf falters, then it’s Bhutto or Gen. Kiyani.

As of this writing, Bhutto still has not decided whether to collaborate with Musharraf or try to force a bloody confrontation with him, though she suggests talks are off. Many of her friends and supporters are appalled she would make a shady, backroom deal with the military dictator. Gen. Kiyani remains an unknown.

Anyone who still wonders why so many people in the Muslim World hate the west needs look no further than Pakistan, where, in the name of ..democracy’ and ..counter-terrorism’ Washington and London are stirring a witches brew of dictatorship, intrigue and violence.


copyright Eric S. Margolis 2007

[kookomula]

The Independent (UK) 07/01/08

(Hidden) on p2 in Bush in Israel story.

His (Bush) decision to enlist Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf as a stalwart ally after the attacks of 11 September 2001 has badly backfired. Yesterday it emerged that so concerned is the Bush administration about the prospect of al-Qa'ida gaining access to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal in the wake of Benazir Bhutto's assassination that it wants to authorise the CIA to carry out covert operations inside Pakistan. The resurgence of the Taliban on the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan is yet another concern.

Vice-President Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice, the Secretary of State, met Mr Bush's senior security advisers last Friday to consider authorising CIA operatives to undertake covert operations inside Pakistan's tribal areas where the army has agreed a truce with the Taliban, while bogged down in combat with al-Qa'ida rebels. The Bush administration apparently believes Mr Musharraf is so vulnerable, that he and the new head of the Pakistani armed forces will allow CIA operations of Pakistani territory, despite Musharraf publicly ruling them out.

Long, sorry,

For those of you who have 'The New Pearl Harbor (Updated Edition)'

Chapter 8, Did US Officials Block Captures and Investigations after 9-11 P105-114

For those of you who don't

Ahmed and Thompson provide considerable evidence that although the war in Afghanistan was supposedly to root out al-Qaeda and bin-Laden-taking him, in President Bush's language, "dead or alive"- the actual objective must have been something else, since there were several instances in which the government and its military commanders seemed at pains to allow bin-Laden and al-Qaeda to escape.

For example, according to many residents of Kabul, a convoy of al-Qaeda forces, thought to include its top leaders, made a remarkable escape during one night in early November of 2001. A local businessman said:

We don't understand how they weren't all killed last night before because they came in a convoy of at least 1,000 cars and trucks. It was a very dark night, but it must have been easy for the American pilots to see the headlights. The main road was jammed from eight in the evening until three in the morning.

Thompson comments: "With all the satellite imagery and intense focus on the Kabul area at the time, how could such a force have escaped the city unobserved by the US?"

Also early in November, US intelligence agencies, having watched al-Qaeda fighters and leaders move into the area of Jalalabad, reported that bin-Laden himself had arrived. According to Knight-Ridder newspapers, this is what happened next:

American intelligence analysts concluded that bin-Laden and his retreating fighters were preparing to flee across the border. But the US Central Command, which was running the war, made no move to block their escape. "It was obvious from at least early November that this area was going to be the base for an exodus into Pakistan," said one intelligence official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity. "All of this was known, and frankly we were amazed that nothing was done to prepare for it."

Shortly thereafter, on November 14, the Northern Alliance captured Jalalabad. That night a convoy of "several hundred cars" holding 1,000 or more al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters, evidently including bin-Laden, escaped from Jalalabad and reached the fortress of Tora Bora. US forces bombed the nearby Jalalabad airport, but apparently not the convoy.

On November 16, approximately 600 al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters, including many senior leaders, reportedly escaped from Afghanistan, by taking a long trek to escape the bombing in the Tora Bora region. Although there are two main routes from the Tora Bora region to Pakistan, US planes bombed only one of these routes, so that 600 men were able to escape unharmed by using the other one. Hundreds more reportedly continued to use this escape route over the next weeks, generally not bothered by US bombing or Pakistani border guards. One Afghan intelligence officer reportedly said that he was astounded that the Americans did not station troops to block the most obvious exit routes. The Telegraph later said: "In retrospect, and with the benefit of dozens of accounts from the participants, the battle for Tora Bora looks more like a grand charade.".... An Intelligence Chief in Afghanistan's new government was quoted as saying "The border to Pakistan was key but nobody paid any attention to it."

A Special Forces soldier stationed in Fayetteville, North Carolina, later stated that on November 28, US forces had bin-Laden pinned in a Tora Bora cave but failed to act. While Special Forces soldiers were waiting for orders, he said, they watched two helicopters fly into the area were bin-Laden was believed to be, load up passengers, and fly toward Pakistan. This statement, made on condition of anonymity, is given more credibility, Thompson points out, by the fact that Newsweek separately reported that many Tora Bora locals claimed that "mysterious black helicopters swept in, flying low over the mountains at night, and scooped up al-Qaeda's top leaders." "Perhaps just coincidentally," Thompson adds the same day that this story was reported there was also a story reporting that five soldiers at Fayetteville-at least three of whom were Special Forces soldiers who had recently returned from Afghanistan-and their wives died since June in apparent murder-suicides.

Concealing the Role of Pakistan's ISI

As we saw earlier, the CIA and its counterpart in Pakistan, the ISI, worked together in the late 1990's to create the Taliban and ensure its victory. This point is reinforced by Chossudovsky, who says: "Without US support channelled through the Pakistani ISI, the Taliban would not have been able to form a government in 1996. Furthermore, he says just as without the ISI there would have been no Taliban government in Kabul, "Without the unbending support of the US government, there would be no powerful military-intelligence apparatus in Pakistan."

The close relationship between the CIA and the ISI goes back to the 1980's, during which the ISI was the local agency through which the CIA conducted its covert operations in Afghanistan, which began in 1979. The CIA and ISI recruited radical Muslims from around the world to form the Mujaheddin to fight against Soviet forces. Osama bin-Laden was originally brought to Pakistan to help with this effort. Although he was under contract to the CIA, "the CIA gave Usama free rein in Afghanistan, as did Pakistan's intelligence generals".....In the late 1980's, Pakistan's President Benazir Bhutto, seeing how strong the Mujaheddin movement was becoming told President Bush: "You are creating a Frankenstein." Then in the late 1990s after the CIA had worked with the ISI to create the Taliban, South East Asia specialist Selig Harrison, who knew CIA agents, reports that he warned them they "were creating a monster."

And if both al-Qaeda and the Taliban were reportedly becoming monstrous, the same was said of the ISI itself. After the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, the ISI, which had at the instigation of the CIA begun producing heroin in order to turn Soviet soldiers into addicts, began smuggling its heroin into Western countries, using the huge profits to build itself up. As a result, said one analyst, the ISI became a "parallel structure wielding enormous power over all aspects of government." Time magazine later confirmed this analysis, saying that the "notorious" ISI "is commonly branded 'a state within the state,' or Pakistan's 'invisible government," and a story in the New Yorker called the ISI "a parallel government of its own."

[Mark Gobell]

The west has not just repressed democracy. It has aided terror

Pakistan has as many paradigms as pundits. What is clear, however, is that meddling will only ever foment disorder

Simon Jenkins in Lahore
Wednesday January 9, 2008
The Guardian

The Pakistani senator gazed at the headline in despair. It read: "US weighs new covert push in Pakistan". Washington was authorising "enhanced CIA activity" in the country while US Democratic candidates declared they were all ready "to launch unilateral military strikes in [Pakistan] if they detected an imminent threat". Hillary Clinton wanted "joint US-UK oversight" of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. In a country where anti-Americanism is almost a religion, said the senator, this is "an answer to a Taliban prayer".

I am convinced that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first curse with foreign policy. For the third time in 20 years, the west is meddling with the world's sixth most populous state. It did so to promote the Afghan mujahideen against the Russians in the 1980s, then to attack al-Qaida after 9/11, and now to "guard" Pakistan's bombs against a fantastical al-Qaida seizure. Needless to say, the sole beneficiaries are the Taliban and the forces of disorder.

That said, few other conclusions can be drawn from a country that, more than any I know, is Churchill's riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Pakistan has as many paradigms as pundits. You can take your choice. Thesis A is that President Pervez Musharraf is a well-meaning dictator who sought rapprochement with Benazir Bhutto to "transit" to democracy, and who still remains the best hope for guiding his country to civilian rule. Thesis B depicts him as a popinjay dictator who kills people, locks up judges, censors the media and runs a brutal fascist party, the MQM. He had no intention of working with Bhutto, whom he detested, and has so much blood on his hands as to be easily capable of consenting to her death.

Thesis C has Bhutto herself as a perfidious and corrupt hereditary monarch in thrall to a monster husband whose base was limited to Sindh province and London's media drawing-rooms. She indulged Washington's John Negroponte in his ham-fisted attempt to prop up Musharraf last year, but only so as to escape corruption charges and enjoy a modest taste of power. Thesis D says this is outrageous. Bhutto was the one Pakistani politician with experience and stature at home and abroad. She knew she could rule only with army permission but could have faced down the military, negotiated with the Taliban districts and steered Pakistan to democracy. Her going is a catastrophe.

Forget that, says thesis E. The US-backed Pakistan army, responsible for almost a quarter of the country's economy, will never cede power. It is the sole embodiment of central control in this 60-year-old federal state, and its guarantor against another partition like Bangladesh in 1971. It cannot afford to trust unruly politicians such as Bhutto and her ilk and must be trusted by Pakistan's allies abroad.

Rubbish, says thesis F. Pakistan's army makes Saddam's Republican Guard seem a bunch of pansies. Its Punjabi oligarchs and their agencies kill at will and feud even with their Taliban allies, as in last year's slaughter at Islamabad's Red Mosque. It has failed to curb the Taliban and nobody, not even Musharraf, is safe from it.

As for Pakistan in general, thesis G has it teetering on the brink of breaking apart, as the army readies itself to nullify next month's election with rigging and corruption. A bloodbath will follow, in which Sindh province breaks away and the north-west becomes an al-Qaida enclave, lowering over Kabul. No it will not, says thesis H. Pakistan is made of rubber, bouncing back from every reverse. It has a mature "civil society" of lawyers, businessmen, politicians and even some generals, sensitive to their image abroad and deeply ashamed of their dictatorship. The elections may be a mess but they will somehow move Pakistan, stumbling and trembling, to eventual civilian rule. Religious parties are supported by barely 10% of the electorate, and even the army is overwhelmingly secular. An Islamist state is inconceivable.

Since there are grains of plausibility in all these theses, much turns on the fate of next month's elections. Musharraf, weakened by his November 3 coup, still has 60 top judges imprisoned, including the nation's chief justice, locked up with his disabled son. With the charismatic Bhutto dead and the Negroponte intervention shattered, he is in a tight spot. He may yet cancel the vote and invite mayhem on to the streets.

There is certainly an openness to Pakistan's dictatorship compared with other Islamic states, and some westerners have appeased Musharraf as "our" dictator, operating a "doctrine of necessity". But there is nothing in this man's track record to suggest that he is not a paid-up member of the dictatoring classes. His agents treat democrats with contempt and he funnels huge sums into his pockets and those of his generals. About 80% of US aid to Pakistan since Musharraf came to power has gone on military assistance, less than a quarter of it used even remotely against the Taliban. The virtual collapse of the state school system has followed a fall in education spending from 4% to 1.8% of GDP, one of the lowest in Asia. In its place have mushroomed the free madrasas, from a few hundred to over 10,000, financed by Wahhabist Saudi money and formerly in league with American-financed mujahideen training camps. Intended to fight the Russians in Afghanistan, they have since become a network of "faith training" for the poor, teaching little but the Qur'an. This is Musharraf's (and America's) most lethal bequest to Pakistan's political economy.

America's clodhopping sponsorship of Musharraf drove him to renege on the treaties with the tribal states, fomenting a Pashtun insurgency. The Afghan frontier has duly proved al-Qaida's juiciest hunting ground, aided by every American bombing raid and every Pakistan army atrocity. The Pashtun mujahideen (whose American backers are well-documented in the film Charlie Wilson's War) is a Frankenstein monster that has turned its vengeance on Musharraf, Afghanistan and Washington alike.

Whatever the defects of democracy, and in Asia they are legion, it remains the least worst way of curbing authoritarian power. There is no alternative. America's handling of Musharraf since 9/11 - essentially to capture one man, Osama bin Laden - has rendered swaths of his country, from Baluchistan in the south to Swat in the north, wholly insecure. Even the Grand Trunk Road from Islamabad to Peshawar is patrolled by the Taliban. The idea that Musharraf's troops, let alone the CIA or the US airforce, might suppress a people who have worsted every empire from the Mughals to the British is ludicrous. Modern armies are no agents of pacification. Civilian negotiation in a context of democratic assent is at very least worth a try.

Backing Musharraf has always seemed "a good idea at the time". The next person to be cursed with Washington's favour appears to be Musharraf's successor as army chief, General Ashfaq Kiyani. However, by opting for the realpolitik of dictatorship the west has not just repressed democracy but aided insurgency and terror. It has yielded no security benefit to anyone. If Pakistan becomes a "failed state", the failure will, in large part, be one of democratic imagination in Washington and London. We simply refuse to practise what we preach.

simon.jenkins@guardian.co.uk

You can read some well informed comments and add your own here

[TonyGosling]

bump

Musharraf names 9/11 suspect as possible British asset
Fails to mention links to 9/11, ISI, CIA
By Devlin Buckley

[TonyGosling]

Officials: Bush OK'd US raids inside ally Pakistan

By PAMELA HESS and MATTHEW LEE – 2 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush has secretly approved U.S. military raids inside anti-terror ally Pakistan, according to current and former U.S. officials. The high-risk gambit prizes the death or capture of al-Qaida and Taliban extremists over the sensitivities of a shaky U.S.-backed civilian government that does not want to seem like Washington's lapdog.

Bush acted in July to give U.S. forces greater leeway to cross from outposts in Afghanistan into the rugged area along the Pakistan border. Pakistan's central government has little control in this area, where extremists have found what U.S. officials say is a comfortable safe haven.

Already frustrated with what the U.S. perceived as a balky and incomplete commitment to hunting militants seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said the last straw came when it appeared Pakistani authorities were passing tips to militants.

One official familiar with South Asia policy said the new rules were adopted in response to increasing problems with U.S.-Pakistani counterterrorism cooperation.....

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h1aBshjF1CnfJ4noaEXA_Vb8dm-gD934P35 0D

[TonyGosling]

Protest For Pakistan In New York City Times Square
Saturday, 13 September 2008 12:29 www.daily.pk

Please join us in protest against US military action in Pakistan

When: Saturday, September 13 from 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Where: Times Square Recruiting Center, New York

Basically, I, as a Pakistani student here in the US, took the initiative. Other City University of New York (CUNY) Law students are on board, as well as students from other schools in the NY area. We are asking peace activists from all different backgrounds to join us.

The signs would read something like 'Stop US military action in Pakistan', 'Military action will not solve the problem', 'Pakistan is a sovereign state', 'US troops out of Pakistan' as well as universal peace symbols.

We would really appreciate your support

Thank you,

Contact: (857) 383-8047
Times Square Recruiting Center
Directions:

#1, 2, 3, 7, S, N, Q, R to Times Sq..-42d St.; D, F to 42d St.-Bryant Park; A, C, E to 42d St.-Port Authority; no weekend B, V or W service; M6, M7 BUSES, both via 6th & 7th Aves.; M10, M20, M104 all via Broadway; M27 crosstown via 49th & Broadway; M42 or M104 both crosstown via 42d St.; M10, M16, M20 via 8th Ave.; NYC suggests BIKING Broadway, 8th, 11th Aves, 39th, 40th, 48th Sts.; Hudson Rvr Greenway.

BACKGROUNDER

* September 3, 2008 - Helicopter-borne American Special Operations Forces land and open fire on the Pakistani village of Jalal Khel killing 20 people including women and children. No high value targets killed.


* September 4, 2008 - American missile strike on the village of Mohammad Khel. Officials say all five people killed were low-level militants of Arab origin. No high value targets killed.


* September 5, 2008 - American unmanned aircraft fire three missiles at houses in Kurvek in North Waziristan. Local TV channels report women and children among the dead. No high value targets killed.


* September 8, 2008 - Five missiles fired from American pilotless aircraft hit Sirajuddin Haqqani compound in North Waziristan killing 23 people, including 8 children. High-value targets Sirajuddin and his father Jalaluddin Haqqani are not present at the compound at the time of the strikes although two other mid-level operatives were killed. No high-value targets killed .

There is now a clear pattern of unilateral U.S. military action in Pakistan resulting in disproportionate and unacceptably high levels of civilian casualties without any commensurate success in terminating high-value targets. It is in the interest of U.S. national security and for the security and stability in the region that these actions be halted immediately.

For People In NYC, Boston & Surrounding Regions
http://www.daily.pk/politics/politicalnews/7288-protest-for-pakistan-i n-new-york-city-times-square.html

[TonyGosling]

Pakistan military fires at US choppers

KABUL (AFP) — Pakistani troops fired at two US helicopters from the NATO-led force in Afghanistan Thursday, causing no damage but accusing them of crossing the border amid escalating tensions in the area.

The Pakistani military said the troops had fired warning shots at two helicopters which were "well within Pakistani territory."

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and US government insisted however that the choppers had not entered Pakistani air space.

"ISAF helicopters received small-arms fire from a Pakistan military checkpoint along the border near Tanai district, Khost, September 25 while conducting routine operations in Afghanistan," ISAF said in a statement.

"There are no reports of any damages to the helicopters or any casualties."

The statement added: "ISAF forces and the Pakistani military are working together to resolve the matter."

The district borders Pakistan's North Waziristan, one of the areas where Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants are said to have bases.

The Pakistani military said the choppers had crossed into Pakistan at the Ghulam Khan area of North Waziristan.

"They passed over our checkpost so our troops fired warning shots," chief Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP.

"The helicopters returned fire but there was no damage on the ground."

A separate military statement said the helicopters were "well within Pakistani territory" when the incident happened.

Abbas said the matter was being taken up with ISAF.

Pakistan's army is also currently investigating the crash of a suspected unmanned US spy plane 24 hours earlier near the Afghan border. Residents said it was shot down by tribesmen, but the military said it malfunctioned.

And Pakistani troops fired warning shots to repel two US helicopter gunships on Sunday, security officials said.

In New York, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said Pakistan's military was firing "flares" so helicopter pilots "know that they have crossed the border line."

It was not immediately clear if this was an explanation of Thursday's incident, which ISAF said involved gunfire.

With tensions high, the Pentagon quickly called Thursday's events "an unfortunate misunderstanding" and confirmed US helicopters were involved.

"They are confident that they were in Afghan air space the whole time," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.

A State Department spokesman said Washington wanted an explanation from Pakistan, commenting that "the Taliban are not flying helicopters."

"We have been in touch with the Pakistanis about this and we certainly want to have an explanation," the spokesman said.

"These ISAF helicopters were operating inside Afghan territory, and as far as I know, the Taliban are not flying helicopters. So we want to find out what happened and the Pakistanis are trying to give us an explanation."

Tensions across the porous frontier soared after a series of US missile strikes on Islamic militants and an incursion by US soldiers into Pakistani tribal areas adjoining Afghanistan.

The mandate of the NATO force in Afghanistan, where it is helping fight a growing insurgency led by the Al-Qaeda-linked Taliban, ends at the border although it reserves the right to self-defence.

The US-led coalition also operating in Afghanistan also denies carrying out operations across the frontier.

Pakistan's tribal regions have been wracked by violence since thousands of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels fled to the country after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

Afghanistan has long been calling for international troops to pay more attention to militant bases across the border, which it says supply extremists who are staging attacks on Afghan and international forces.

But Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani Wednesday reiterated that his country would not tolerate violations of its sovereignty and territorial integrity "by anyone in the name of combating terrorism."

Under growing pressure to crack down on the militants, the country has stepped up its own offensives.

At least 16 Al-Qaeda-linked militants and two civilians were killed Thursday when Pakistani helicopter gunships shelled rebel hideouts in the tribal Bajaur region, which is north of Waziristan.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jUDRnpnWIoyOeMZsFGxvWanuBSpw

[TonyGosling]

This is a serious step, and one that doesn't bode well for Pakistani-US relations.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/content/us-suspends-consular-services-pa kistan-official#comments

US suspends consular services in Pakistan: official
AFP
Published: Thursday September 25, 2008
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_suspends_consular_services_in_Pa_09252 008.html

The United States on Thursday suspended visa services at consular offices in Pakistan citing deepening concerns over security in the wake of the deadly bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, the State Department said.

"Consular services have been temporarily suspended as of today," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.

"We are very concerned about the security situation. We had the attack on the Marriott Hotel almost a week ago, and it's of great concern," he said.

A suicide bomber rammed a truck packed with more than half a tonne of explosives into the security gates of the Marriott Hotel in the Pakistani capital on Saturday, killing at least 60 people, including two US military personnel assigned to the US embassy and the Czech ambassador to Pakistan.

More than 250 people were wounded in the blast.

Wood stressed that the suspension of consular services was only temporary and would not affect emergency services for US citizens in Pakistan.

US consular offices in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Islamabad were affected by the suspension.

[TonyGosling]

Angry Pakistan tells America: 'Stop launching missile strikes over our territory' as 20 more die
Last updated at 10:59 AM on 29th October 2008


U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson, pictured earlier this year, has been told to put a halt to the missile strikes

Frustrated Pakistani officials have ordered the U.S. to stop firing pilotless missiles over their territory.

Pakistan summoned the U.S. ambassador early this morning to protest the missile strikes, led by pilotless U.S. aircraft on the Pakistani side of its border with Afghanistan.

America has increased the number of strikes into the country in an increasingly desperate attempt to halt the intensifying insurgency in Afghanistan. Hampered by a lack of cooperation and communication with locals, U.S. officials recently decided to resort to more missile attacks in the battle against the Taliban and al Qaeda.

There have been more than a dozen missile strikes and a commando raid since the beginning of September. No senior al Qaeda or Taliban commanders have been reported killed in the attacks.

But with scores of civilians - many of them children - also dying in the attacks, as well as the damage done to property, Pakistan - once the U.S.'s strongest Middle Eastern ally in the war on terror - is demanding a halt.

Pakistan never gave the U.S. permission to carry out the attacks. Two days ago missiles fired by a suspected U.S. drone killed up to 20 militants in the lawless South Waziristan border region. Coming hard on the heels of repeated attacks with civilian casualties, the Pakistani government decided to reassert itself.

"It was underscored to the ambassador that the government of Pakistan strongly condemns the missile attacks which resulted in the loss of precious lives and property," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement.

"It was emphasised that such attacks were violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and should be stopped immediately."
predator

There have been over a dozen missile strikes in Pakistan carried out by unmanned U.S. drones like this Predator drone

U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson had previously been summoned to the Foreign Ministry last month after a cross-border ground assault by U.S. commandos on Sept. 3.

Senior U.S. officials have spoken of respect for Pakistani sovereignty but have declined to rule out more strikes.

Pakistan, an important ally in the U.S.-led war on terror, is also battling militants on its side of the border but it says cross-border U.S. strikes undermine its efforts to isolate the militants and build support for government policy against them.

The upper house Senate adopted a resolution this week condemning cross-border missile attacks by the U.S. drones.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1081476/Angry-Pakist an-tells-America-Stop-launching-missile-strikes-territory-20-die.html

[TonyGosling]

fighting talk from today's Pakistan Daily
This PPP Government Is Committing Treason
Written by www.daily.pk - Thursday, 18 December 2008 01:15
We have information that both Mr. Husain Haqqani and Mr. Husain Haroon, our ambassadors to the U.S. and U.N. respectively, were instructed by the Zardari-Gilani government to coordinate with the British and the American ambassadors to ensure that the name of former ISI chief Hameed Gul, in addition to other Pakistani citizens and organizations, are included in a Security Council resolution. We have a government with shady characters in key places, strongly backed by the Bush administration, acting and behaving as if they were representing a U.S. occupation government in Pakistan.

For us in Pakistan, the real issue was and should be the murder of 69 innocent Pakistanis on Indian soil, killed by three serving Indian military intelligence officers and their accomplices. These were supposed to be our wanted Indian terrorists. 69 dead Pakistanis means almost half the number of innocents who died in Mumbai. The question is: Who turned the tables and led Pakistan to ‘own’ a list of failures that belonged to Indian officials and turned Pakistan from a sympathetic helper to the main culprit?

Fear is fatal. It shows weakness and attracts predators. And that is exactly what the current Pakistani government is guilty of. In less than two weeks and thanks to a comedy of errors, President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani have transformed an Indian problem into a Pakistani one, shifting the debate from India’s massive security failures into a domestic quarrel between Pakistan’s conservatives and seculars. In the past week, Pakistanis saw their own federal ministers on television excitedly defend their government’s diplomatic capitulation without a shred of verifiable evidence or justification. To confuse Pakistanis, one federal minister after another took the false moral high ground of fighting ‘terror’, rebuking critics by accusing previous governments (read: ‘our military’) of supporting terrorism. Who convinced these ministers that someone in Pakistan is involved in planning the Mumbai attacks? The degree of our government’s faith in Indian police findings is stunning considering that Indians themselves don’t trust their police............

http://www.daily.pk/politics/politicalnews/8613-this-ppp-government-is -committing-treason.html

[TonyGosling]

Cheney: Qaeda out of Afghanistan, into Pak
Outgoing US Vice President Dick Cheney says US forces have driven al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan but insurgents have found a safe haven in Pakistan.
"Al-Qaeda, I believe for the most part, has been driven out of Afghanistan. What they have done now is found a safe haven, a refuge... in Pakistan," Cheney told CNN in an interview telecast on Sunday.

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 23:21:24 GMT
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=81839&sectionid=351020401

US intelligence sources maintain that the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 forced Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders to seek refuge in tribal areas on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
The US and its western allies have accused Pakistan of not doing enough to prevent such attacks on supply routes as well as cross-border operations carried out by insurgents against foreign troops in Afghanistan.
Pentagon has used the allegation as a pretext to launched drone attacks on Pakistan's tribal regions - a move that has increased tension between Islamabad and Washington and has triggered anti-American sentiments among the Pakistani people.
Cheney also claimed that al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked insurgents are not as strong as they were once.

[Disco_Destroyer]

The use of Drones another similarity with WW2??
in WW2 Drones mostely looked like this:

[TonyGosling]

Nice to see Pakistran Daily is back up on the web again this evening.

Pakistan was safer under Musharraf: Former CIA official
A former CIA official, who headed its Bin Laden unit, says the Lahore terrorist attack on Sri Lankan cricketers is a direct result of the West's insistence on replacing Pervez Musharraf with a democratically-elected president in Pakistan.

http://www.daily.pk/pakistan/pakistannews/9613-pakistan-was-safer-unde r-musharraf-former-cia-official-.html

Michael Scheuer, who headed the (CIA) Central Intelligence Agency's
counter-terrorism unit dedicated to tracking down al Qaida head Osama bin Laden, also said President Asif Ali Zardari's recent ceasefire deal with the Taliban in parts of the Northwest province was to blame.

He said the state of Pakistan "is approaching failure, and we really have ourselves to blame for this. Much of the problem that Pakistan has had in the last year is the result of our insisting that democracy return to the country.".........

[Thermate911]

I've never been able to ascertain just exactly what Scheuer (pronounced 'Shower'?) is pushing yet sometimes he 'seems' quite plausible in his double-speak but with 22 years in the CIA under his belt, how could he be?

Conundrum.

Quite 'amusing in parts' clip from Sept 2007 with Bill Maher

Link

[TonyGosling]

The moron otherwise known as Michael Scheuer seems to think Bin Laden is still alive. No wonder the CIA sacked him from heading up the Bin Laden unit.

[TonyGosling]

Islamists or the CIA?
Who would want to destabilise Pakistan?

Pakistani troops end Lahore siege
Pakistani troops say they have taken control of a police academy after unidentified attackers had overrun the facility, killing up to 50 people and taking many officers hostage.........

"It is a planned, organised, terrorist attack. This shows the extent to which the enemies of our country can go," Rehman Malik, the interior ministry chief, said.
"The question is - from where they are getting grenades, guns and rocket launchers in such a large number?" he said.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/03/2009330115046679194.htm l

[kbo234]

[item7]

[TonyGosling]

Bomb blast kills 30 Shias in Pakistan

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 11:51:00 GMT
A bomber has struck a religious Shia gathering in Pakistan, leaving at least 30 people killed and hundreds of others injured.



The explosion took place on Sunday as thousands of Shia Muslims had gathered for a religious ceremony in Chakwal -- some 90 km (60 miles) southeast of Islamabad in Punjab province.

Some 2,000 to 2,500 people were attending the religious gathering, when the blast occurred tearing away the bodies of the faithful into pieces. The death toll is expected to rise as most of the injured are said to be in critical condition.

Secretion violence against the Shia population in Pakistan is on the rise. In early February, at least 35 Shias were killed and 50 others were injured after a bomb exploded in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan in the central Punjab province............

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=90513&sectionid=351020401

[TonyGosling]

If America wants to see its war on terror successful, it should try to strengthen Pakistan army and the government of Pakistan. At this critical juncture Pakistan needs a lot of help and support from the international society. Pakistan is facing the worst consequences of supporting the US war on terror. It would be a grievous blunder if Pakistan is ranked as a part of the problem. Such an attitude will generate a feeling of protest in the people of Pakistan. The anti-American forces would try their best to change this protest in reaction which is surely going to generate an aggression. This aggression might become a challenge for the US authority in the region. Is the loss of US authority in the region, the desired end-state of the War against Terror?

THE DESIRED END-STATE OF WAR ON TERROR?
http://www.daily.pk/pakistan/war-on-terror/9681-the-desired-end-state- of-war-on-terror-.html

[Disco_Destroyer]

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C04%5C10%5Cstory_1 0-4-2009_pg7_6

No credible evidence of Al Qaeda presence in Pakistan, says FO

* Spokesman says Pak embassy in London gathering details regarding arrests of certain Pakistani nationals in Britain

By Sajjad Malik

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has not received any credible intelligence report about the presence of Al Qaeda leadership inside its borders, Foreign Office (FO) spokesman Abdul Basit said on Thursday.

“We have not come across any authentic intelligence which would indicate that Al Qaeda leadership is in Pakistan, and we do not attach importance to speculations,” Basit said in a weekly briefing.

He said the United States drone attacks might have achieved certain tactical gains but they were largely counterproductive and in violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. “We cannot condone these attacks,” he said.

Basit said the next Pak-Afghan-US meeting would be held in Washington in May and Pakistan would raise the issue of drone attacks again.

Approach: The FO spokesman said Islamabad had differences with Washington over certain issues, including the drone attacks, but the two sides agreed on a holistic and comprehensive approach to address regional problems.

Gathering details: He said Pakistan’s High Commission in London was gathering details regarding the arrests of certain Pakistani nationals in Britain.

Basist said draft legislation had already been moved in the US Congress and Pakistan hoped that the Congress would pass both the Kerry-Lugar Bill and the reconstruction opportunity zones legislation by June.

He said President Asif Ali Zardari would visit Japan on April 15-17 and would hold meetings with the Japanese leadership on April 16 and chair a Friends of Democratic Pakistan ministerial meeting on April 17, adding that the president would also attend the inaugural session of the Donors’ Conference.

The FO spokesman said Islamabad was closely following developments following a missile launch by North Korea on April 5.

“Pakistan will continue supporting efforts towards peace and stability on the Korean peninsula,” he said.

[TonyGosling]

Some more brave reporting by Pakistan Daily
Time For A Pakistani Putin 7 March 2009
U.S. and U.K.-backed democracy is destroying Pakistan the same way it almost brought Russia to collapse in the 1990s. Pakistan needs a creative and unorthodox solution. This includes curtailing some of the chaotic aspects of democracy in order to help Pakistan heal and stabilize.The current system has a government installed by Washington pursuing the Anglo-American agenda of wiping out Pakistan to pave the way for an Indian role in Afghanistan and Central-West Asia and neutralize China, Russia and Iran. The way to counter this strategy is to extricate Pakistan from the American grip.
Independent judiciary is a noble cause. But as the latest political mess shows, Pakistan’s existential crisis lies in the failure of its elitist politicians and in a flawed political system unable to match the creativity and aspirations of middle and lower class Pakistanis.

The growth of music, fashion, IT, media and other creative industries in Pakistan over the past fifteen years happened with almost no help from a stagnant political class unable to regenerate itself or allow new leaderships to emerge. Without breaking the stranglehold of this monopoly, Pakistan will not be in a position to stop this ruling elite from continuing to use divisive and destructive ethnic, linguistic, sectarian and confrontational politics as diversions from their failure to provide statesmanship.

It is bad enough that the present government in Pakistan is the result of a ‘deal’ hatched at the U.S. Department of State in 2006 and early 2007. The deal allowed the President and some of his key confidants to be brought back from exile to rule the country. What is equally bad is that now we have a senior politician, Mr. Nawaz Sharif, inciting civil disobedience and ‘ethnicizing’ his political problems, portraying them as a battle between a Sindhi President and Punjab, giving himself the right to represent the province. This has evoked retaliatory salvos from politicians in Sindh. Pakistanis are being further divided to suit the interests of expedient politicians......................

http://www.daily.pk/politics/politicalnews/9625-time-for-a-pakistani-p utin-.html

[QuitTheirClogs]

Swat residents 'flee their homes'

BBC - Tuesday, 5 May 2009 18:28 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8033260.stm

Residents of Pakistan's Swat Valley are reported to be fleeing their homes despite authorities rescinding an earlier order for them to leave.

A peace deal between the government and Taleban militants in the region appears close to collapse after the army said militants attacked police checkpoints.

There has also been heavy fighting to the west and east of Swat.

A major army operation against the Taleban appears likely within a few days, says the BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan.

Our Islamabad correspondent says the army seems in an uncompromising mood, with the renewed violence apparently the death knell for the peace deal, which has held since February.

[Thermate911]

[QuitTheirClogs]

Balochistan is the Ultimate Prize

Rebranding the Long War, Part 2
By Pepe Escobar -- May 9, 2009
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KE09Df03.html

It's a classic case of calm before the storm. The AfPak chapter of Obama's brand new OCO ("Overseas Contingency Operations"), formerly GWOT ("global war on terror") does not imply only a surge in the Pashtun Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). A surge in Balochistan as well may be virtually inevitable.

Balochistan is totally under the radar of Western corporate media. But not the Pentagon's. An immense desert comprising almost 48% of Pakistan's area, rich in uranium and copper, potentially very rich in oil, and producing more than one-third of Pakistan's natural gas, it accounts for less than 4% of Pakistan's 173 million citizens.

Strategically, Balochistan is mouth-watering: east of Iran, south of Afghanistan, and boasting three Arabian sea ports, including Gwadar, practically at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz.

Gwadar - a port built by China - is the absolute key. It is the essential node in the crucial, ongoing, and still virtual Pipelineistan war between IPI and TAPI. IPI is the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, also known as the "peace pipeline", which is planned to cross from Iranian to Pakistani Balochistan - an anathema to Washington. TAPI is the perennially troubled, US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, which is planned to cross western Afghanistan via Herat and branch out to Kandahar and Gwadar.

Now imagine thousands of mobile US troops - backed by supreme air power and hardcore artillery - pouring into this desert across the immense, 800-kilometer-long, empty southern Afghanistan-Balochistan border. These are Obama's surge troops who will be in theory destroying opium crops in Helmand province in Afghanistan. They will also try to establish a meaningful presence in the ultra-remote, southwest Afghanistan, Baloch-majority province of Nimruz. It would take nothing for them to hit Pakistani Balochistan in hot pursuit of Taliban bands. And this would certainly be a prelude for a de facto US invasion of Balochistan.

[QuitTheirClogs]

Is Zadari threatening to spill the beans?

[James C]

[TonyGosling]

[TonyGosling]

Is this now the best newspaper in the English speaking world?

The ‘Taliban’ in Swat Valley
www.daily.pk - Friday, 19 June 2009 17:53

“The Indian spy agency RAW and the Israeli spy agency MOSSAD have created four new agencies to infiltrate Pakistan in order to target important religious and military personalities, journalists, judges, lawyers and bureaucrats. In addition, bombs would be exploded in trains, railway stations, bridges, bus stations, cinemas, hotels and mosques of rival Islamic sects to incite sectarianism…” – Jane Information Group quoted by Masood Khan in ISI in comparison with hooligan agencies CIA, MOSSAD and RAW, Indybay, May 18, 2009.

A Pakistani source (Ahmed Quraishi) reported on June 16, 2009 that Pakistan military has submitted the proof of a large amount of US military weapons recovered from dead terrorists – claimed to be Taliban by the western mainstream media. Pakistan’s western-puppet Asif Zardari regime is reluctant to make the evidence public because the information could lead to CIA, MOSSAD and RAW involvement in the so-called “Islamic millitants”, who want to establish Islamic Shari’ah and are now on a losing battle against Pakistan Army. On June 7, 2009 – Asian Tribune also reported that RAW, MOSSAD and CIA are behind the foreign insurgency in Swat and Malakand.

Like 9/11 for Israel – the US occupation of Afghanistan provided a fantastic opportunity for the two Muslim-hating nuclear states - Hindu India and Zionist Israel – to give practical shape to their common evil agenda of disarming the only Muslim country with a nuclear deterrent. Pakistan’s tragedy is that it has no Ahmadinejad to stand up to USrael bully. Pakistan’s four most powerful individuals: COAS General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani (US Admiral Mike Mullen is proud to call him ‘a personal friend and US ally’), President Asif Zardar is a well known crook with the title “Mr. 10%”, Zardari’s security adviser, Rehman Malik, who reportedly had ties with MOSSAD and MI6 in the past, and Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington, who is very close to America’s pro-Israel neoconservative mafia.

Since the fall of Taliban regime in Afghanistan (2001) – India’s spying/terrorist agency (RAW) has re-established itself in Afghanistan through India’s countless consulates, military advisers and local rich Hindu and Sikh minorities. On the other hand, CIA, MOSSAD and MI6 has easy acess to carry-on their anti-Muslim terrorist agenda through US, British, Canadian and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Retired Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (US National War Academy), a military analyst at the Pentagon, proposed the Balkanization of the Middle East in his article titled Blood Borders - advocated the incorporation of the NWFP into Afghanistan and the creation of a sovereign Free Baluchistan, carved out of Baluch areas of Pakistan and Islamic Iran. Pakistani Baluchistan is estimated to hold 25.1 trillion cubic feet of gas and 6 trillion barrels of oil.........

http://www.daily.pk/pakistan/pakistannews/10484-the-taliban-in-swat-va lley.html

[TonyGosling]

US Hummers Enter Pakistan, Undercover American Soldiers Swarm Islamabad
AHMED QURAISHI
Monday, 31 August 2009.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Undercover armed Americans are swarming the Pakistani capital in the latest sign that the elected government has allowed Washington to dispatch what is believed to be a large number of American special operations agents and contractual security guards, including the infamous Blackwater private militia.

This comes at a time when whistleblowers within the government and the military are reporting the arrival of a large number of US Marines in Pakistan. Some reports put the figure at 1,000 US soldiers, much of whom are thought to be arriving as part of the massive expansion of the US Embassy and four consulates across the country. While the US embassy continues to deny this, new buildings are under construction to house security teams. The expanded US embassy is supposed to become the largest US embassy in the world.

Above is an exclusive picture taken by a source at the entrance of Port Qasim near Karachi, showing US Hummers being transported out of the facility. According to the source, the shipment was not destined for Afghanistan. The picture was taken on Aug. 19, 2009 and being released here for the first time.

The latest evidence of the growing American military presence in the Pakistani capital is the arrest of four Americans carrying automatic weapons in a part of the Pakistani capital that foreigners seldom visit.

The four were arrested in Sector G-9 of Islamabad in the evening of Saturday, Aug. 29.

A police picket stopped two cars carrying the four Americans who refused to explain why they were carrying sophisticated automatic weapons in the capital city. Diplomats are not supposed to carry weapons because their security is the responsibility of the host government, and security guards are not supposed to be carrying weapons outside the embassy except during official assignments. The four were taken to a police station for interrogation but were released when two retired Pakistani army officers showed up and threatened police officers of dire consequences.

The police established that the four Americans carried diplomatic status and were part of the US embassy staff.

http://uruknet.com/?p=m57513&hd=&size=1&l=e

http://www.radio4all.net/files/tony@cultureshop.org.uk/2149-1-second_w orld_war_bbc_pm.mp3

http://www.radio4all.net/files/turntableterrorist@hotmail.com/4042-1-1 6-16-16-dialect_281109.mp3