Pakistan - Bman Called It...... We All Thunk It!

[Fictious Actor]

I must admit.......... I have been way down on Saudi Arabia....... but due in large part to some serious threadin' by Bman - who doesn't sign his threads anymore :mad_01: - I will have to agree that Pakistan is another tree that needs some serious shaking.............

I say post anything that you have on Pakistan here and we shall decide....

***********

London Terrorism Investigation Heading Towards Pakistani Terrorist Camps - Just Like the Lodi Case - hmmm...
Several articles about the London attacks on the Sky News website remind me of the Lodi, CA terrorism case. Of particular interest to me is the biography of 22-year-old Shehzad Tanweer, son of a native Pakistani. Sky quotes "a neighbor and friend" as saying Tanweer told him that he went to Afghanistan for a couple of months and Pakistan for 4 months with several friends as recently as 6 months ago. But one of Tanweer's uncles told Sky News that Tanweer didn't go to Afghanistan. "There is no way, I have seen his passport." Recall that Hamid Hayat of Lodi, age 23, admitted that he attended a Pakistani terrorist training camp for 6 months in 2003-4 (Daveed Gartenstein-Ross's post, quoting the FBI affidavit). Recall also that Evan Kohlmann noted here that "Since 2002, several suspected terrorist training camps affiliated with Al-Qaida have surfaced along the Pakistani-Afghan border in Waziristan."

Gee, you don't think Tanweer and Hayat might have trained together, do you...

Posted by Andrew Cochran at 03:28 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (1)
http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/

[sidthereal]

ive been posting so for some time now!

[Fictious Actor]

ive been posting so for some time now!

Sorry Sid...........
I cannot change the thread title....... but will do so here......

Bman and Sid called it....... we all thunk it......
By the way..... feel free to share your most damning Pakistani piece of info....

[sidthereal]

a link up on british islamic terrorism and pakistan can be the murder of daniel pearl.
pearls murderer, was based in britain.
he worked for the ISI..pakistans intelligence agency.
he was released in 2000 in the air india hijacking case along with two other dreaded terrorists.
all this implicity points pakistan having a roleplay, to hide it, it used the taliban to negotiate with the hijackers of the plane.
i can only wonder what daniel pearl was about to uncover.

[Bman]

I must admit.......... I have been way down on Saudi Arabia....... but due in large part to some serious threadin' by Bman - who doesn't sign his threads anymore :mad_01: - I will have to agree that Pakistan is another tree that needs some serious shaking.............

I say post anything that you have on Pakistan here and we shall decide....

***********



FA,

We've had our difference.. My fault as much as anyone...

Thanks for this thread....

Pakistan is a very serious problem that should be addressed in SOME manner..

They're the reason why we're dealing with nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran, as well as the OPERATIONAL base for Al Qaeda.

Bman

[Bman]

Pakistan appears to be in the process of recreating a Taliban "province" in its Northwest Frontier Province..

That's apparently where the new Al Qaeda terrorist camps are located, as well




Copyright 2005 Associated Press

July 11, 2005 Monday

Proposed law in Pakistani province derided as Taliban-style

RIAZ KHAN; Associated Press Writer

PESHAWAR, Pakistan


Pakistan's opposition party on Monday angrily denounced a proposed law to ensure Islamic correctness, comparing it to the draconian rule of the former Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.

Opposition lawmakers chanted "unacceptable," tearing up or throwing copies of the proposed "Hisbah Act," or "Accountability Act," immediately after Law Minister Malik Zafar Azam introduced it for debate in the North West Frontier Province's legislature.

The proposed law calls for setting up a department to ensure adherence to "Islamic values at public places," and to discourage entertainment businesses and some others from operating during weekly Friday prayers, according to a draft copy seen Sunday by The Associated Press in the province's capital, Peshawar.

Violators could be jailed for up to six months or fined under the proposed law.

Opposition lawmaker Nighat Orakzai said Sunday that the ruling coalition wants to push the province toward "extremism."

"They want to implement the Taliban's system here," said Orakzai, from Pakistan Muslim League-Q party, referring to the strict Islamic laws imposed by the former regime in Afghanistan. Orakzai's party is in the opposition in the North West Frontier province, but controls Pakistan's central government.

Mufti Kifayatullah, a spokesman for the six-party alliance, said on Sunday that the law aims to "eliminate social evils."

It was not clear when the proposal would be put to a vote.

The province's government has already banned the music on public buses, prohibited male doctors from treating female patients and restricted men from watching or coaching female athletes - acts it deems as against Islam.

The six-party Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, or MMA, made unexpected gains in 2002 parliamentary elections in 2002, mainly on a platform of support for the Taliban and opposition to the U.S.-led war on terrorism, which ousted the Taliban from power in late 2001 for harboring al-Qaida.

[pilobolus]

Everyone must remember Bush saying either you are with us or you are with the terrorists; and although this was touted as the rationale that we had a sudden alliance with them then, where does this leave Pakistan today I wonder?

[sidthereal]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshowbnews/1170962.cms

LONDON: The uncle of one of the four suspected suicide bombers of Pakistan origin, who rocked London on Thursday afternoon, has said that some radical groups in Pakistan might have brainwashed their ward to take to terror acts
According to the family sources, Shehzad Tanweer, who blew off the underground train at Aldgate, had gone to his home country last year to learn the Quran, and might have been indoctrinated into extremism by different groups.

Bashir Ahmed (65), Shehzad's uncle, said that if he had known that his nephew was involved with any fanatical group, he would have put a stop to it.

"He went to Pakistan but it was to learn about his religion. It was not a terror camp. But he would have been in an environment where different political views would be discussed and pressure is put on young people to get involved in various groups. He was just a good British boy when he was growing up, a young sports fan from a good family. It is hard to accept what must have happened to him," the Daily Mail quoted the uncle as saying.

Indicating that his nephew might have been influenced by some terror groups in Pakistan, he said: "We believe radical groups must have secretly been coming round importing extreme ideas into the community. Shehzad would not have been capable of this bombing unless his mind had been poisoned."

Ahmed further said that his nephew was cool and calm and that the family had been left "shattered" by the news that the 22-year-old was a suicide bomber.

"The family is shattered. This is a terrible thing. It wasn't him. It must have been forces behind him. He was a very kind and calm person. He was respected by everyone. His parents were very proud of him and very pleased he... ...was taking his religious studies seriously when many parents are worried about their children going to the pub," he said
Denying reports that Shehzad travelled to Afghanistan to take part in terrorist training camps, Ahmed said, "There is no way, I have seen his passport."

Meanwhile, a report in The Sun said, that like his fellow bomber Hasib Hussain, Tanweer too had a brush with the law last year when he was cautioned for disorderly conduct.

The report also said that people who knew him were shocked at his involvement in the bombings. One of his former school friends said, "Nobody can believe it. When he was at school, his hero was Mike Tyson, not Osama Bin Laden. He was quite religious but had little interest in politics. He loved sport. He was cricket mad and a good fast bowler. He loved boxing and American wrestling. He played football for the school and was brilliant at the triple jump and long jump."

Another ex-pupil from Wortley High School in Leeds said, "He would have been the last person you would say would get involved in something like this. He was kind, polite and respectful at school. He was super-intelligent. We used to struggle to get good grades but he seemed to find it all easy. His family was very strict about him doing his homework. He was a really quiet lad but also had a great sense of humour and was always smiling. He was a teacher's dream. He always got on with any work he was set and was always extremely polite."

[sidthereal]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshowbnews/1170975.cms
ISLAMABAD: A UK team would be arriving in Pakistan to investigate the links of the four suspected suicide bombers of Pakistani origin who carried out the 7/7 serial bomb blasts in London, killing more than 50 people.
The Pakistan administration is learnt to have assured all possible help to the British investigating team, which is expected to reach Islamabad sometime next week.

The News quoted British High Commissioner in Pakistan Mark J Lyall Grant as saying, that Islamabad has been fully cooperative with the UK in dealing with the investigations of acts of terror, that rocked London on Thursday.

Grant, however, expressed ignorance about any investigating team reaching Islamabad. "I had no specific information about it till the afternoon when I returned from my office," he added.

Meanwhile, the paper said that British diplomatic sources are being careful before directly blaming Pakistan for the blasts, and are presently focussing only on the four Britons of Pakistan's origin. "We are very careful in expressing our view and we are not prepared to jump to the conclusions in haste on any count," the paper quoted them as saying.

[Bman]

Sorry Sid...........
I cannot change the thread title....... but will do so here......

Bman and Sid called it....... we all thunk it......
By the way..... feel free to share your most damning Pakistani piece of info....


candypreet too


she's posted alot of very good articles about the links between Pakistan and terrorism

[stewey]

didn't KSM kill Daniel Pearl?

[sidthereal]

no it was omar shiekh

http://www.kashmirherald.com/profiles/omarsheikh.html

[sidthereal]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1835065.stm

[stewey]

Ok, thanks for the info. :)

[sidthereal]

no problemo, stewey..

lol..peters son :-D

[sidthereal]

Bump

[Fictious Actor]

Okay...... I admit it....... I used Google...... I typed in "Pakistan" and "Terrorism"......... and the first hit was a pretty scary site with tons of info........

http://terrorism.reallybites.com/


*********

This is also a pretty interesting site:

http://www.pakistan-facts.com/

Wednesday, July 13 2005 @ 10:33 PM Central Daylight Time
Zahid Hussain, The Times's correspondent in Pakistan, explains how religious zeal is used by extremists to lure credulous teenagers visiting from Britain
"A lot of Pakistani families living in Britain still have roots in Pakistan, particularly in the Punjab region, and visiting relatives are seen as an important part of maintaining those family links. "When children complete their formal education in Britain there is also an inclination among Pakistani families to send them to complete their schooling at a religious institution. "They send them to the mosques, often in Britain but also sometimes away from home, and as well as receiving religious instruction they will inevitably come into contact with more hardline elements. "For quite some time, there has been a network of contacts between British extremists and the Jihadi organisations based in Pakistan. Once contact has been made with these young people, they become influenced by them and are encouraged to visit the training camps.

[Jack Griffin]

Pakistan is a hotbead of terrorism. The whole damn country is full of madrasses which do nothing but teach anti-western hatred.

"No madrasses, no 9/11" ~ Chuck Schumer

[Bman]

Clinton knew Pakistan was a hotbed of terrorism..

Too bad Bush doesn't :(

of course Bush's dad and the Paki ISI go way back.. so I'm sure that plays into it


Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
The New York Times

January 28, 2000, Friday, Late Edition - Final


U.S. Warns Pakistan It May Be Branded a Sponsor of Terrorism

By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27


The Clinton administration issued a public warning to Pakistan today that it could be branded a state sponsor of terrorism -- ending any hope for a resumption of large-scale American aid -- if the Pakistani Army continued to support terrorists blamed for the hijacking of an Indian Airlines jet last month.

The administration also denounced the decision by Pakistan's new leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to require all higher court judges to swear an oath that would bar them from challenging the army. The country's chief justice refused to take the pledge earlier this week and was immediately replaced.

The State Department's chief spokesman, James P. Rubin, said that a possible connection between Pakistan's military and the group tied to the hijacking, Harkat ul-Mujahedeen, "is a matter of extreme concern to us -- this is an organization that we have declared a terrorist organization."

Asked at a news conference to explain the implications of a link, Mr. Rubin said that "if the secretary of state determines that a government has repeatedly provided support of international terrorism directly, then she would be prepared to designate that country as a state sponsor of terrorism."

"Any country in the world should know that if we determine that they have provided support to international terrorism on a repeated basis, that they are subject to this designation," he continued.

The remarks make official what senior administration officials have been saying privately -- that Pakistan's ties to the terrorists threaten the already turbulent relationship with the United States, once a close ally, and could produce new American sanctions. General Musharraf took power in a coup last October.

In a meeting last week in Pakistan with a delegation of senior Clinton administration officials, General Musharraf refused their request that he ban Harkat ul-Mujahedeen, a radical group seeking independence for Muslims in the disputed territory of Kashmir, officials said.

A decision by the United States to add Pakistan to its official list of nations that support terrorism -- a list that includes Iran, Iraq and Syria -- would end any lingering hope in Pakistan for the resumption of what had once been a large package of American aid.

The package, which totalled hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the late 1980's, was cut off in 1990 as a result of fears over a Pakistan program to develop nuclear weapons. Washington now provides Pakistan with only about $6 million in aid each year -- half of it for counternarcotics assistance, half for health programs for women and children.

Administration officials have also said that the United States could use its leverage in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to cut off loans to Pakistan, although they said the administration would be reluctant to take any move that might push already impoverished Pakistan into near collapse.

American officials said that without some quick move by Pakistan to clamp down on the terrorists or to push for reform, President Clinton will bypass Pakistan during a trip to the region at the end of March that is scheduled to include India and Bangladesh. It will be the first presidential trip to the Indian subcontinent in more than two decades.

[Bman]

Old Slick did a lot of things wrong

but he was dead nuts on the money, on this one



Copyright 2000 Nationwide News Pty Limited
The Australian

March 27, 2000, Monday


Clinton reads Pakistan the riot act

AP

* A correspondent in Islamabad

AMID extraordinary security of decoy limousines and a last-minute plane switch, US President Bill Clinton at the weekend admonished Pakistan's military ruler for a "tragic squandering of effort, energy and wealth" on nuclear weapons and confrontations with India. But Mr Clinton's appeal for restraint seemed to go unheeded. "Take the right steps now to prevent escalation, avoid miscalculation and reduce the risk of war," the President urged. He prodded General Pervez Musharraf to restore democracy, crack down on terrorism and renew talks with India to ease their angry stand-off over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir.

Mr Clinton was the first US president to visit Pakistan since 1969 and he brought a sobering warning of diplomatic isolation and worsening problems unless Islamabad changes course.

It was a hard message for a nation that stood loyally with the US through a half-century of Cold War crises. The President spelled out his concerns in a meeting at the presidential palace with General Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless coup last October.

Then, Mr Clinton made an address on state-run television, asking citizens to consider whether nuclear rivalry and border tensions with India would make Pakistan safer or improve living conditions.

"The answer to all these questions is no," he declared. Mr Clinton's visit to Pakistan early yesterday concluded a six-day trip to South Asia, a region he has called perhaps the most dangerous in the world. Beginning his journey home, Mr Clinton stopped in Oman for refuelling and then flew to Geneva, Switzerland, to meet Syrian President Hafez Assad in the hope of renewing Middle-East peace talks.

At his own news conference, General Musharraf said he told Mr Clinton he would meet "anywhere, at any time and at any level" with India to begin resolving their disputes. He said "there was no deadlock at all" between him and Mr Clinton -- they even discussed golf.

Security around Mr Clinton was the tightest of any presidential trip in memory.

Streets were eerily empty except for thousands of rifle-toting soldiers and police.

Despite concerted efforts to minimise hopes for a breakthrough, US officials conceded the trip had managed only to "break the ice" in somewhat strained US-Indian relations and keep the lines of communication open between Washington and Pakistan's military government.

[sidthereal]

whats the use? we know where saudi-US relations went after 9-11.
somethings will never change.

[Jack Griffin]

[QUOTE=Fictious Actor]Okay...... I admit it....... I used Google...... I typed in "Pakistan" and "Terrorism"......... and the first hit was a pretty scary site with tons of info........

http://terrorism.reallybites.com/


*********
Hey man, every time I try to get on that website I'm told my computer has performed an unauthorized operation...and when I try to shut the info box, my connection with that url and IH shut down...what's up with that?

[Fictious Actor]

One of the keys....... education.... and these kids are getting the wrong education.........


Wednesday, July 13 2005 @ 10:28 PM Central Daylight Time
Ahmed Rashid reports on the link between Lahore and Leeds that has flourished over two generations but may now have been hijacked by militant Islamic fundamentalists
For the past few days at dinner parties, bazaars and newspaper offices in Lahore there has only been one topic of conversation, the fear and expectancy that the London bombers would turn out to be Pakistani. Most were convinced that that would be the case and when the truth came out they were immediately on their mobiles, spreading the news repeating: "What did I tell you, I told you so, this will really be the last straw." Many were depressed at the thought of being dubbed a nation that could export a handful of terrorists along with T-shirts, Sufi music and mangoes. Until Tuesday the fear of a Right-wing backlash against Pakistanis living in Britain had also dominated the headlines. That is because Pakistanis are deeply sensitive about their own, even though after 58 years they still cannot agree on the nature of their nation - Islamic fundamentalist or democratic.

Those who have lived in Bradford and Leeds for two generations still come home to marry, party, holiday and celebrate religious festivals such as Eid, or Ramadan, the month of fasting. Flights to and from London are packed in the summer. Youngsters in sneakers, the latest jeans and speaking English in broad Yorkshire accents can be heard in Lahore's shopping malls during any holiday period. However more conservative parents in Yorkshire take leave of absence for their teenage sons from their British schools and send them home to study for a couple of terms. They either join madrassas - Islamic schools - or secular schools, learning Urdu, the Koran and making friends. Those boys who join madrassa boarding schools are often indoctrinated with fundamentalist views and return home to Yorkshire changed people - urging their sisters to cover their heads and their friends to pray regularly. In the winter of 2002 Maulana Akram Awan, a fundamentalist religious leader and politician from Chakwal in central Punjab, set up camp outside Islamabad with thousands of followers. He threatened to march on the capital to force the military regime to enforce Islamic law.
Among those camping out in the fields with him were dozens of madrassa students from Yorkshire. The elite's fear of a backlash against British Pakistanis is heightened by the fact that London is their second home, the favourite holiday destination to escape the summer heat, shop till they drop and still the best place to send their children to university. Now, during the summer sales, a visiting Pakistani can hardly walk down a street in Knightsbridge or Kensington without bumping into a Pakistani he knows from home. On Tuesday night the first thought for many of them was how suspiciously they would be viewed when they showed their passports at Heathrow. But when they sit down to reflect as more emerges about the London bombers, they are likely to become even more depressed. It is already clear that one or two of the bombers visited Pakistan recently, possibly to train with an extremist group. For the past two decades a small number of militants have killed and maimed their fellow citizens in the name of Islam, various Islamic sects or self-created concepts of male honour. These killing fields in the name of Islam, abhorred by the majority of their fellow citizens, were then exported abroad where Pakistani militant groups supported fellow extremists in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Chechnya and the former Yugoslavia. Pakistani extremists have been closely linked to the army which saw in them a cheap and non-attributable opportunity to keep India at bay, maintain the country's Islamic influence abroad and undermine any chance of civilian democracy at home.

This "military-mullah" alliance is widely assumed to have been born in 1977 after the army coup that bought General Zia Ul Haq to power. However in a new book called Pakistan - between Mosque and Military, scholar-diplomat Hussain Haqqani shows how the alliance goes back as far as 1951. Many Pakistanis hoped that September 11 2001 would give the army a chance to change its disastrous policies and end its alliance with the mullahs. General Pervez Musharraf's military regime could make peace with Afghanistan and India, crack down hard on militant groups and turn its back on extremism. Gen Musharraf promised a policy of enlightened moderation but little has been done. Thousands of religious schools still spew out hate against non-Muslims and leaders of militant groups still wander the country giving sermons. Gen Musharraf has squandered the lavish aid and support given to him by the US and Britain after September 11. Extremism continues to flourish and democracy is further away than ever.
This month the widely circulated magazine Herald reports that a dozen training camps for militants, which closed down after September 11, were revived in May with official blessing. Last month several Pakistani-Americans arrested on terrorism charges in California, admitted to training in such camps. The London bombers were probably in touch with a local Pakistani group rather than al-Qa'eda. Pakistanis are fed up with being in the eye of the storm and just want to lead a normal life. They want to see an end to violence at home and a bad image abroad. When that will happen is anybody's guess.

[Fictious Actor]

[QUOTE=Fictious Actor]Okay...... I admit it....... I used Google...... I typed in "Pakistan" and "Terrorism"......... and the first hit was a pretty scary site with tons of info........

http://terrorism.reallybites.com/


*********
Hey man, every time I try to get on that website I'm told my computer has performed an unauthorized operation...and when I try to shut the info box, my connection with that url and IH shut down...what's up with that?


JG, I was going to say that it takes a while for the site to load....... but other than that....... I dunno........

[Fictious Actor]

This is old......... but it is the genesis of the "International Jihad Movement" and it happened in P-stan.......


http://newsstuff.0catch.com/article5.htm

It is the piece by Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair:

It was a few miles from here, at the border post in Torkham, at the head of the Khyber Pass, that my old friend Ahmed Rashid, Pakistans best and bravest reporter, actually witnessed the birth moment of our current world crisis. He had just been covering the Soviet, withdrawal from Afghanistan in April 1989 and was lying on a patch of grass waiting for the border post to open when suddenly, along the road behind me, a truck full of Mujaheddin roared up and stopped. But those on board were not Afghans.... The group was made up of Filipino Moros, Uzbeks from Soviet Central Asia, Arabs from Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Uighurs from Yinjiang in China.... Under training at a camp near the border they were going on weekend leave to Peshawar.... They had come to fight the jihad with the Mujaheddin and to train in weapons, bomb-making and military tactics so they could take the jihad back home.

That evening, Ahmed met Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, then head of Pakistan's now notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and a dedicated Islamic ideologue. "I asked him if he was not playing with fire by inviting Muslim radicals from Islamic countries, who were ostensibly allies of Pakistan. Would these radicals not create dissension in their own countries, endangering Pakistaws foreign policy?" Gul's reply is worth giving: "We are fighting a jihad and this is the first Islamic international brigade in the modem era. The communists have their international brigades, the West has NATO, why caet the Muslims unite and form a common front?"

[sidthereal]

http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/jul/14ukblast.htm
Nadim Fiaz is the fourth bomber: The Times

July 14, 2005 22:05 IST
Last Updated: July 14, 2005 22:07 IST


The fourth bomber who caused maximum damage in the King's Cross station was identified by neighbours in Leeds as Ejaz or Nadim Fiaz, a man in his early 30s.

Fiaz, known to his friends as Jacksy, is believed to have travelled separately to Luton where he met the three other bombers, The Times daily reported on Thursday.

Multiple blasts rock London
Police had on Wednesday identified three bombers as Hasib Hussain (19), Shehzad Tanweer (22), and Mohammed Saddique Khan (30), all from West Yorkshire in northern England.

A house in the Beeston area of Leeds, where Fiaz's family used to live, was cloaked from view on Wednesday by a blue tarpaulin behind which police were conducting a search.

The call that broke the case
Neighbours said the house, which has been empty for several years since Fiaz's parents separated, was a scene of regular, late night visits.

"Young men would turn up at the house at 2 am and 3 am and hold meetings that would last for hours," a neighbour said, adding that these meetings were going on for a long time.

UK blast mastermind identified
Detectives are trying to establish who may have attended the meetings and if they were part of the terrorist cell that planned the London bombings which killed 52 people.

Fiaz's brother, Naveed, has been identified locally as the man being questioned by anti-terrorist branch detectives at Paddington Green police station, the report said.

His home, near the former family residence, became the seventh property in West Yorkshire to be sealed off in the widening operation.

According to the report, Naveed, 29, whose English-born wife is expecting their fourth child, handed himself in to police voluntarily for questioning.

[candypreet]

Thanks Bman,

[Bman]

For whatever reason, the "9/11 Commission" has stayed together and regularly meets to discuss things like terrorism, etc

It seems they've come to a STUNNING CONCLUSION!


Pakistan and Saudi Arabia aren't SERIOUS about stopping terrorists!!

Wow.. stunning... Amazing....

I'm so glad we have this body of experts there to tell us something THE WHOLE DAMN WORLD (outside the Bushies and their legion of followers) already knew.


http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13910499

Pak not serious about 'war on terror': US experts


Thursday, 04 August , 2005, 18:13

Washington: US experts have said that Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf was not extending enough help to the US-led global 'war on terror'.


Former US diplomats, Elizabeth Jones and Dennis Ross and a member of the US independent September 11 inquiry commission, Lee Hamilton told delegates at the latest hearing of the commission that Musharraf was doing too little to capture Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden is believed to be hiding in the mountainous Wana region bordering Afghanistan.

They said that Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan were the key grounds for Islamic extremism, adding that despite constant public condemnations, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have refused to take steps to illegitimize radical Islamic groups, reports The Nation.

"Pakistan has not been all that helpful, really, in helping us hunt for Osama bin Laden," the paper quoted Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana as saying.

They however said that Musharraf had the "intellectual firepower" and the "leadership capability" to rein in the madrassas, cited as breeding grounds for extremism and anti-Western militancy.

"That has not worked as well as it should have. It's something that's going to take some time and needs a tremendous amount of work. That's something he should exercise and we should be there with the funding to help him do that," former US Ambassador and erstwhile deputy chief of the US embassy in Pakistan, Elizabeth Jones said.

Former Ambassador Dennis Ross said that the main problem in nabbing bin Laden was that Musharraf was tackling terrorism in an "episodic" manner rather than a "systematic" fashion.

"It isn't to say that it would be easy to get bin Laden- assuming he's there - but we see a kind of episodic effort to do so. President Pervez Musharraf tackles terrorism in an 'episodic' and not 'systematic' fashion," said Ross.

[orrery]

the political boundaries as defined by the league of nations and un are worthless. there is no public school system in these country, no reading ability, to tell these people that the islamic empire is hundreds of years dead.

[Simon666]

the political boundaries as defined by the league of nations and un are worthless. there is no public school system in these country, no reading ability, to tell these people that the islamic empire is hundreds of years dead.
He's back alright.

[Bman]

Newsday (New York)

July 22, 2005 Friday
ALL EDITIONS



Terrorist camps thriving;
Operating under new names and with the implicit approval of the Pakistani military, schools that train jihadists are an open secret

BY JAMES RUPERT. STAFF CORRESPONDENT


PESHAWAR, Pakistan - As President Pervez Musharraf renews his crackdown on Muslim militant factions after this month's terrorist bombings in London, new evidence has emerged that Pakistan has continued to let such groups run military-style camps to train guerrilla fighters.

For years, the camps have been only half a secret.

"Everybody has known they were there, but no one would officially admit it," said a Pakistani official who was interviewed recently and requested anonymity. "And they were kept hidden; no ordinary people could go there."

Inconveniently for the government, the camps have gotten a bit more public in recent weeks, in Pakistan's press and a U.S. courtroom. (There has been no suggestion that the London bombers attended any such camp.)

While the Bush administration has portrayed Musharraf as an essential ally in its global war on terror, the training camps reflect how deeply that role has divided the government and its ruling elite.

The camps are used by Pakistan-based militant groups such as Jaish-e-Muhammad (Army of Muhammad) and Lashkar-e-Toiba (Army of the Pure). For more than a decade, the Pakistan military's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate has sponsored such groups to attack India in the conflict over the territory of Kashmir, much as it nurtured the Taliban movement to pursue Pakistani interests in Afghanistan, Western intelligence sources have said.

While the government has aggressively hunted down Arab and other non-Pakistani militants identified with the al-Qaida movement, and while it formally banned Jaish and Lashkar in 2002, it has never dismantled either the Taliban or the Pakistan-based outfits. The local groups simply renamed themselves and have been spared destruction, even though some are suspected of involvement in assassination attempts against Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

Pakistani and foreign analysts say the Pakistani militant groups and their training camps have survived largely because the government crackdown so far has been half-hearted. Many officers in the army, which is Pakistan's real ruling party, "don't want to eliminate these groups that have fought in Kashmir and Afghanistan, because they think they may want to use them again at some future time," said a foreign intelligence analyst who specializes in Pakistan.

The problem is, there is no clear separation between the Pakistani groups and the Taliban or al-Qaida. They are routinely seen to overlap, as when Jaish and al-Qaida militants were accused in the 2002 murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl.

New evidence of the camps includes this month's cover story in Herald, a Karachi-based news magazine whose reporter toured a training camp hidden up a dirt track in the rugged, wooded hills of Mansehra, a district in north-central Pakistan. Militants carried automatic weapons and wore camouflage uniforms. A dormitory held 60 to 80 sleeping bags laid out on thin mattresses, and another building housed an unknown number of boys taking an "18-day ideological orientation and fitness and arms training."

The Herald article and the government official, who asked not to be named, said that since late 2001, when Musharraf signed on to the U.S.-led campaign against militants, the army has forced camps periodically to reduce their operations or move to more hidden locations.

For two years, militant groups have had to shrink or conceal public activities, such as soliciting donations and running recruiting offices. An estimated 13 camps in Mansehra were forced to suspend training last year, the Herald reported, but were allowed to resume in April and May.

A separate account of a camp emerged in a Sacramento, Calif., courtroom last month when the FBI filed an affidavit citing a young Pakistani arrested as he entered the United States. Hamid Hayat told FBI questioners "he attended a jihadist training camp in Pakistan for approximately six months in 2003-2004," the affidavit said.

He faces a criminal charge of having lied to U.S. authorities by initially denying having been trained. Under questioning, he "described the camp as providing structured paramilitary training, including weapons training, explosives training, interior room tactics, hand to hand combat, and strenuous exercise," the affidavit said.

Hayat said his camp was run by al-Qaida and trainees "were being trained on how to kill Americans," the affidavit said.

Pakistan's interior minister, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, told the Herald its story was "totally baseless." But such blanket denials, repeated by Pakistani officials over the years, were looking a little more tattered after an admission by Yasin Malik, head of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, a Pakistan-backed group.

Talking with reporters June 13, Malik praised Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, saying "few know of his contributions" to the Kashmiri insurgency against India. Malik glowingly explained that, in years past, he and more than 3,000 other men had been trained to fight at a vast farm Rashid owned near Islamabad.

Rashid denied the statement, and the next day Malik said he had been "misquoted by the media." But the news, once out of the closet, wouldn't go back in. A half-dozen high-ranking Pakistanis from the time - including Army chief Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg and interior minister Naseerullah Babar - matter-of-factly confirmed it.

The new reports of the training camps "corroborate what we already have known for years" from interrogations of guerrillas captured in Kashmir, said B. Raman, a former counterterrorism chief at India's main intelligence agency. "The surprise is that they are now publishing it ... in the Pakistani press."

[sidthereal]

western hypocrisy is unbelivable,
even after the kidnapping of 4 westerners in early 90's, the hijacking trauma of IC 814 to kandahar, where there was one american citizen as well,
america continues to kiss paki ass.
heck, even a paki politician admitted, that paki was hoodwinking the west.
till a hundred more are dead in bombings, only then will eyes open???

[Bman]

western hypocrisy is unbelivable,
even after the kidnapping of 4 westerners in early 90's, the hijacking trauma of IC 814 to kandahar, where there was one american citizen as well,
america continues to kiss paki ass.
heck, even a paki politician admitted, that paki was hoodwinking the west.
till a hundred more are dead in bombings, only then will eyes open???



I agree 100%

[sidthereal]

Pakistan is taboo in Copenhagen

LONDON: Pakistan, the name itself seems taboo in Europe post 9/11 what with revelations that three of the London 7/7 bombers visited Pakistan in November 2004.
The Danish capital of Copenhagen, which was, supposed to name one of the city roads as Pakistan is now embroiled in a tussle with the residents, who do not want any part of the city to be associated with the name — Pakistan.


And the only reason, post 7/7 anyone wearing a traditional salwar kameez and sporting a beard is seen with suspicion by the locals.

The mayor of the Copenhagen Municipal Corporation made the decision two years ago during a Pakistani fair held in front of Town Hall. At that time, the city’s Pakistani community and other foreigners gladly accepted the decision, though locals were worried as to which road would be renamed Pakistan.

But now, concern has changed to protests, with the locals vociferously objecting to decision. And the tension has risen to such an extent that quarrels and scuffles are regularly taking place each day between the locals and foreigners.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1199761.cms

[Bman]

I've got a college buddy who lives there (Copenhagen) and works for Maxygen, the pharmaceutical company

He's married to a danish girl and has a couple kids

His parents were immigrants to the US from India.. He was born in the US but is fully Indian

He must be LOVING that, as he always hated Pakistan...

LOL

[sidthereal]

LOL...
glad to hear, he hasnt forgotten his roots.

[ANTI-CHRIST SUPERSTAR]

fuk pakistan...we go find Osama and we cut his head off and we transmite the video feed of his beheading LIVE to the ENTIRE planet...do the same to Zarqawi and any other of those assholes

[sidthereal]

fuk pakistan...we go find Osama and we cut his head off and we transmite the video feed of his beheading LIVE to the ENTIRE planet...do the same to Zarqawi and any other of those assholes
you talk like its a walk in a park

[candypreet]

you talk like its a walk in a park

But actually Bman has been extensive research on this subject. I really fear that it mighht come true. But how many people here really read our posts or think about them

[Ponder]

There were reports last night that Pakistan hit a militant camp, killing 30. I wouldn't know if it's true, though. Journalists aren't formally allowed in North Waziristan, so there's no telling where the story originated. Pakistan military spokesmen say it's true, but who knows.

http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/world/national/2006/03/01/pakistan-raid-militants.html

[candypreet]

There were reports last night that Pakistan hit a militant camp, killing 30. I wouldn't know if it's true, though. Journalists aren't formally allowed in North Waziristan, so there's no telling where the story originated. Pakistan military spokesmen say it's true, but who knows.

http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/world/national/2006/03/01/pakistan-raid-militants.html
yes its in the news

[candypreet]

March 2, 2006 — At least four people, including a United States diplomat, were killed and more than a dozen injured when an extremely powerful bomb went off in the area around the American consulate in Karachi, Pakistan.

"When this happened, I thought this might be an accident, but then I saw the smoke," said one survivor. "And I said, 'Oh, my God, it's a blast.'"

According to a video security tape described to ABC News, a U.S. consulate Toyota Land Cruiser with an American diplomat inside approached the back street to the consulate at 8:58 a.m.

Parked on the street in a spot reserved for Pakistani naval officers, the suicide bomber waited for 18 minutes and then backed into the Land Cruiser. The subsequent blast was so powerful that it blew the fully armored U.S. car, which weighed more than 3 tons, 40 feet into the air and into the Marriott Hotel parking lot.

"The explosion caused this six-foot crater in the cement," said Gretchen Peters, an ABC News producer who was on the scene. "This was a massively powerful explosion, and the results are grisly."


President Will Still Go to Pakistan

The State Department identified the dead American as David Foy, 52, of North Carolina. He had worked at the consulate since September.

In India President Bush promised the attack would not keep him from visiting Pakistan this Saturday.

"The bombing that took place prior to my trip is an indication that the war on terror goes on, and free nations must come together to fight terrorism," he said.


Al Qaeda Operations Based in Karachi

As of now, no group has claimed responsibility, but the city of Karachi — the largest metropolis in Pakistan — is at the center of al Qaeda's operations.

Top al Qaeda commanders have been captured there, and American reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and killed there. As for attacks against the U.S. consulate, which is seen as the No. 1 target, there have been two previous bombings.


"This attack, which was the largest in terms of the bomb size to date, was meant to embarrass the United States the day before the president arrives in Pakistan," said Richard Clarke, a former counterterrorism official and now an ABC News consultant.


ABC News' Maddy Sauer contributed to this report.

[candypreet]

and a bump:add09:

[sidthereal]

and a bump:add09:
Why dont you contribute more articles?
Mere Bumping of threads does not really lead to greater interest. Its like flogging a dead horse.

[sidthereal]

Why dont you contribute more articles?
Mere Bumping of threads does not really lead to greater interest. Its like flogging a dead horse.
Democracy vs terrorism
Vikram Sood (http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/aug/25guest.htm)
Post 9/11 and particularly post-Madrid 2004, events have led to a hardening of positions in Europe among the majority population and, at the same time, there are more second and third generation Muslim youth finding their way to jihad. The stereotype of the jihadi coming from the Arab world is changing. Post-September 11, recruits are just as easily to be found in poly-techniques, high schools and university campuses in Europe.

Hundreds of European youth, mainly second generation immigrants, have found their way to Iraq to fight in the Sunni triangle. There were reports of a two-way traffic between West Asia and Europe of illegals coming in to Europe and legals going to perform jihad in faraway places. Three of the July bombers in London were young second-generation youth of Pakistani parentage. The youth in the UK have been increasingly under the influence of the Deobandi mosques, where al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Tayiba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Hizbut Tehrir activists have been active.

In Europe, intelligence and police officials from the UK, Spain, Germany, France and the Netherlands meet in state-of-the-art environments to exchange information and data, reports and wiretaps that would help follow leads in their anti-terror effort. Cooperation on this scale or even at a much lower scale is unthinkable on the Indian subcontinent, as this would be counterproductive to policies followed by the Pakistani establishment. Indo-Pak talks on curbing terror are more a dialogue of the deaf than a purposeful discussion.

Post-World War II European liberalism, that had tolerated other religions and political beliefs, is today threatened with an immigrant Muslim population that constitutes four to five per cent of the population (European census usually does not ask for religion). This is expected to go up to ten per cent by 2025, and the indigenous population is expected to decline.

So long as multi-culturalism did not affect Europe's way of life, immigration was acceptable, but once it became clear that this being taken advantage of by the immigrant and seen as encouraging terrorism, restrictions have begun to be applied. This push of immigrants from Asia brings its own social problems. This aspect is going to be a major cause for concern in Europe in the years ahead.

The ferment in the entire Muslim world creates the impression of a monolith with one common remedy or a set of common remedies to the problem. The Muslim ummah did get together in the Afghan jihad, and now seems to be getting together again post-Iraq, and even more strongly should there be a post-Iran, but there are continuing differences and Muslims still kill Muslims in defence of the same religion.

It is also assumed that Osama is the symbol of this ferment. He has been glorified into a cult figure, but he is not really the single unifying factor in the Muslim world. There are many who are anti-US and anti-Israel, but who feel that al Qaeda over-reached by attacking the US, which invited massive US military retaliation and the occupation of Muslim lands.

A new ideologue for the Islamists seems to have been active in recent years. Born in Syria and hiding in Pakistan, 48-year old Mustafa Setmariam Nasar turned out volumes on the Net arguing that with the Afghan base having been lost, Islamic radicals would have to revise their approach.

His thesis, in a 1600-page work called The Call for a Global Islamic Renaissance, has been in circulation on the Internet for 18 months, and its thrust is that a truly global conflict should be on several fronts, carried out by small cells or individuals rather than traditional guerrilla warfare. Nasar was arrested in Quetta last October and handed over to US officials, but his creed continues to be assimilated and followed.

The problem is not in the Pakistani madrassas alone. Jihad continues to be taught in mainstream schools even today. Hatred towards other religions and towards India is a common diet. The worry is that while most of the madrassa alumni end up in the caves of Tora Bora or the heights of Parachinar, those from mainstream schools go to mainstream colleges and end up with main line jobs at home or abroad. Assuming that three million school children are added to Pakistan's schools every year, an unknown number of the 70 million young persons have already imbibed jihadi leanings in the last 25 years.

The centre of jihad at the time of September 11 was in Afghanistan, specifically in the Pushtoon belt between Kandahar and Jalalabad. Since then, in the face of the American onslaught, the epicenter for international jihad for the rest of the world (except West Asia) is now in Pakistani Waziristan.

The Taliban, resurgent in Afghanistan from sanctuaries in the turbulent Waziristan of Pakistan, have been sending their volunteers to Iraq for training in suicide terrorism and arms. Waziristan is also a sanctuary for Chechens and Uzbek Islamic insurgents. The recent spectacular comeback of the Taliban in southern and eastern Afghanistan, operating from their sanctuaries in Pakistan where they have declared an Islamic Republic of Waziristan, has been achieved with help from al Qaeda operatives, Gulbuddin Hikmetyar's Hizb-e-Islami and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

It is probably more accurate to say that today, Mullah Omar commands more dedicated battalions than does Osama, whose followers are dispersed in concept, space and even ideology.

More dangerous than al Qaeda in the Indian context are the activities of the International Islamic Front established by Osama in February 1998. Five Pakistani terrorist organizations are signatories to this IIF � HuM, LeT, Harkat-ul-Jehadi-ul-Islami , JEM and LeJ � all Sunni, all anti-Christian, anti-Jew and anti-Hindu, and all continually exhorting the destruction of India and prophesying victory over Jews and Christians.

Another centre is Bangladesh, where jihadi organizations propagate jihadi terrorism in India and South-east Asia. The location of the continuing jihad against Christians, Jews and Hindus can be anywhere. It will be where the jihadis feel that it would be easier to operate and have the maximum impact. This obviously makes the US and Europe the most likely targets.

Groups like al Qaeda and LeT cannot be controlled by a purely non-military response because they seek the establishment of Caliphates, through violence if necessary, and this is not acceptable in the modern world. It is necessary to militarily weaken these forces, starve them of funds and bases and then to tackle long-term issues by providing them better education, employment and so on.

While discussing the roots of terrorism in his book No End to this War, Walter Laqueur says Muslims have had a problem adjusting as minorities, be it in India, the Philippines or Western Europe. Similarly, they find it difficult to give their own minorities, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, a fair deal in their own countries � the Berbers in Algeria, the Copts in Egypt or the Christians or Shias in Pakistan or Sudan being examples.

This has in turn led to what Olivier Roy calls globalized Islam � militant Islamic resentment at Western domination or anti-Imperialism exalted by revivalism. State sponsorship of terrorism, as an instrument of foreign policy and strategy to negate military and other superiority, has been another facet of this problem.

There is a naive assumption that if local grievances or problems are solved, global terrorism will disappear. The belief or the hope that, if tomorrow, in Palestine, or Kashmir or Chechnya or wherever else, the issues were settled, terrorism will disappear, is a mistaken belief. There is now enough free-floating violence and vested interests that would need this violence to continue. There has been a multifaceted nexus between narcotics, illicit arms smuggling and human trafficking, that seeks the continuance of violence and disorder.

Modern terrorism thrives not on just ideology or politics. The main driver is money, and the new economy of terror and international crime has been calculated to be worth US $1.5 trillion (and growing), which is big enough to challenge Western hegemony. This is higher than the GDP of Britain, and ten times the size of General Motors.

Loretta Napoleoni splits this money into three parts. About one-third constitutes money that has moved illegally from one country to another; another one-third is generated primarily by criminal activities and called the Gross Criminal Product; and the remaining is the money produced by terror organizations, from legal businesses and from narcotics and smuggling. Napoleoni refers to this as the New Economy of Terror.

All the illegal businesses of arms and narcotics trading, oil and diamonds smuggling, charitable organizations that front for illegal businesses, and the black money operations form part of this burgeoning business. Terror has other reasons to thrive. There are vested interests that seek the wages of terrorism and terrorist war.

Narcotics smuggling generates its own separate business lines, globally connected with arms smuggling and human trafficking, and all dealt with in hundred dollar bills. These black dollars have to be laundered, which is yet another distinctive, secretive and complicated transnational occupation closely connected with these illegal activities, and is really a crucial infusion of cash into the Western economies.

The '90s were a far cry from the early days of dependence on the Cold War sponsors of violence and terrorism. In the '70s, terrorists began to rely on legal economic activities for raising funds. The buzzword today is globalization, including in the business of terrorism. Armed groups have linked up internationally and, financially and otherwise, been able to operate across borders, with Pakistani jihadis doing service in Chechnya and Kosovo, or Uzbek insurgents taking shelter in Pakistan.

In today's world of deregulated finance, terrorists have taken full advantage of systems to penetrate legitimate international financial institutions and establish regular business houses. Islamic banks and other charities have helped fund movements, sometimes without the knowledge of the managers of these institutions that the source and destination of the funds is not what has been declared. Both Hamas and the PLO have been flush with funds, with Arafat's secret treasury estimated to be worth US $ 700 million to US 2 billion.

It is not easy, but the civilized world must counter the scourge of terrorism. In a networked world, where communication and action can be in real time, where boundaries need not be crossed and where terrorist action can take place on the Net and through the Net, the task of countering this is increasingly difficult and intricate.

Governments are bound by Geneva Conventions in tackling a terrorist organization, whatever else Bush's aides may have told him, but the terrorist is not bound by such regulations in this asymmetric warfare.

The rest of the world cannot afford to see the US lose the war in Iraq, however ill-conceived it might have been. If the US cuts and runs, then the jihadis will proclaim victory over the sole superpower. If the US stays or extends its theatre of activity, this will only produce more jihadis. That is the dilemma for all of us.

Unfortunately, given the manner in which the US seeks to pursue its objectives, one is fairly certain that the US cannot win. What one is still not certain is whether or not there is a realization of this in Washington, or whether there is still a mood of self-denial and self-delusion.

It has to be accepted that there can be no final victory in any battle against terrorism. Resentments real or imagined, and exploding expectations, will remain. Since the state no longer has monopoly on instruments of violence, recourse to violence is increasingly a weapon of first resort. Terrorism can be contained and its effects minimized, but it cannot be eradicated, anymore than the world can eradicate crime.

An over-militaristic response or repeated use of the armed forces is fraught with long-term risks for a nation and for its forces. Military action to deter or overcome an immediate threat is often necessary, but it cannot ultimately eradicate terrorism. This is as much a political and economic battle, and also a battle to be fought long-term by the intelligence and security agencies, increasingly in cooperation with agencies of other countries.

Ultimately, the battle is between democracy and terrorism. The fear is that in order to defeat the latter, we may be losing some of our democratic values.

Vikram Sood is a former chief of Research and Analy