for BIGe - pakistan -taliban-aq links

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ISI-BIN LADEN LINKS: As Seen by the DIA
by B.Raman

On the eve of the second anniversary of Al Qaeda's terrorist strikes in the USA on September 11, 2001, the US Government has declassified 32 documents relating to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Twenty-six of these documents are of the US State Department and the remaining are of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the Pentagon. This article analyses the contents of three DIA documents only.

2.The first document (15 pages), prepared in September,1999, is based on an analysis of all information received by the DIA till July 1,1999. It is titled "Defence Intelligence Assessment". The subject of the assessment is "Osama bin Laden/Al Qaeda Information Operations". Nearly 90 per cent of the document has been excised before its declassification. Hence, it does not contain anything of value. From a perusal of the unexcised portions, one could guess that the assessment must have been about Al Qaeda's information assets such as its modern communications capability, its use of the internet,. its capability for attacking the information networks of others etc and the defensive and offensive options available to the US. The defensive aspect relates to protecting the networks of the USA against Al Qaeda attacks and the offensive to neutralising or penetrating Al Qaeda's assets.

3. The second document, dated September 24, 2001, is titled "Veteran Afghan Traveller's Analysis of Al Qaeda and Taliban's Exploitable Weaknesses" and carries the following caution: "This is an information report. Not finally evaluated intelligence."

4. It would appear that this document is not the traveller's report, but an analysis prepared by an official of the DIA, either in the US Embassy in Islamabad or in the DIA headquarters in Washington DC, on the basis of the traveller's report. The language used in the portion declassified and released is that of a professional intelligence analyst and not that of an Afghan traveller.

5. The analysis carries the following summary: "Eventually, the Taliban and Al Qaeda will war with each other. The weakness of both is in the minds of the individuals that belong to the groups and in the power that is given to them by their names. Al Qaeda have not integrated with Afghans or the Taliban, leaving them susceptible to exploitation." By this, the analyst means exploitation by the US to play the Taliban/Afghans and Al Qaeda against each other. What wishful-thinking this has proved to be in retrospect!

6.The analysis carries the most damning account of Pakistan's role as the real host of bin Laden and his Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. It says: "Bin Laden's Al Qaeda network was able to expand under the safe santuary extended by Taliban following Pakistan directives. If there is any doubt on that issue, consider the location of bin Laden's camp targeted by US Cruise missiles, Zahawa. Positioned on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, it was built by Pakistani contractors, funded by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate and protected under the patronage of a local and influential Jadran tribal leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani. However, the real host in that facility was the Pakistani ISI. If this was later to become bin Laden's base, then serious questions are raised by the early relationship between bin Laden and Pakistan's ISI."

7. It describes Jalaluddin Haqqani as "the Jadran tribal leader most exploited by ISI during the Soviet-Afghan war to facilitate the introduction of Arab mercenaries " and the Taliban as "the handy cloak woven by Pakistan to shroud their progress?" Whose progress---Al Qaeda's or Pakistan's? Most probably, Pakistan's, but this is not clear.

8. The analysis describes the US objective as "the establishment of a more stable coalition Afghan Government free of the Taliban and Pakistani interference" and advocates a cost effective military engagement, with appropriate air support, than the mass deployment of ground forces. It says: "The enemy does not have mass, which makes them harder to engage."

9. The analysis' predictions of differences one day emerging between the Afghans and the Taliban on the one side and Al Qaeda on the other because of Al Qaeda's superiority complex and its perception of itself as an elite force destined to command have not proved correct so far.

10. The analysis projects the then coming war against terrorism in Afghanistan as likely to be fought on two fronts--- a war to destroy the material strength of Al Qaeda---its cadres, training camps, infrastructure etc--- and another for the minds of the people. In the context of the war for the minds of the people, it underlines the importance of right names and right images to influence the minds of the targeted people.

11. It points out the impact on the minds of the Muslims made by the characterisation of the US as "the Great Satan". The constant reference to the US as the "Great Satan" and not as the US serves the double purpose of highlighting the immense power of the US which could be countered only with determination and projecting that power in negative colours to create an aversion for that power. It stresses the importance of a similar characterisation of Al Qaeda by an appropriate name and not by its real name of Al Qaeda. Apparently, US policy-makers and psy-warriors have not been able to determine what that characterisation could be.

12. The third document, also dated September 24,2001, is titled: "Veteran Afghanistan traveller's analysis of Al Qaeda and Taliban, military, political and cultural landscape and its weaknesses. " It also carries the same caution as the second. It goes into great detail regarding the Pakistani game in Afghanistan in the following words:

13. "During the Soviet-Afghan war, the West preferred to maintain a policy of deniability and allowed Pakistan to handle the daily administration of the war, cash and arms distribution. It was a task Pakistan carried out with great enthusiasm and they helped themselves to generous portion of cash and arms. The Pakistan Government also had a hidden agenda.

14. "Unlike the West, they (Pakistan) were concerned with what would happen after the war to ensure influence over any Government that came to power in Afghanistan after a Soviet withdrawal. Pakistan decided to directly influence the outcome. Rather than allow the most gifted Afghan commanders and parties to flourish, who would be difficult to control later, Pakistan preferred to groom the incompetent ones for the role of future leaders of Afghanistan. Being incompetent, they would be wholly reliant on Pakistan for support. The principal beneficiary of this policy was Gulbuddin Heckmatyar. His credentials were that of an anti-Western Islamic fundamentalist.

15." In tandem with favouring the incompetent Heckmatyar over more enterprising and gifted commanders such as Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Tadjik commander from Northern Afghanistan, Pakistan also encouraged, facilitated and often escorted Arabs from the Middle East into Afghanistan...... Visitors from the Middle East had been in evidence since the very early part of the Soviet-Afghan war. However, they lacked numbers, confidence, experience or bonding ties sufficient to give them a separate identity from their hosts.

16." This was allowed to evolve over a period of time, which was effectively the incubation of Al Qaeda. For the first time, large numbers of Arabs were observed in Afghanistan during the Soviet withdrawal. One of the key features of the Paktia border province, in which they were first established, was that it had no Russians.....At that point, the Arab visitors were largely linked and reliant on Haqqani's mujahideen in Paktia.

17. "When Kabul finally fell, it was Ahmed Shah Massoud who captured it, not Heckmatyar. Pakistan could not accept this result and the fragile Afghan coalition Government began another civil war, with the Pakistani stooge Heckmatyar being backed to seize total power. He was never able to wrest Kabul from Massoud, despite massive logistical and material ( including manpower) support from Pakistan. Against this failure, it should be noted that Pakistan has lost every war it has ever fought.

18. "After years of futile effort, which effectively saw the Lebanonisation of Afghanistan, Pakistan finally abandoned Heckmatyar. However, not in favour of a more rational policy. Instead, they set about doing the same thing all over again. They created another force they hoped to have better control over than Heckmatyar's rabble. It was called Taliban,the Arabic name "Talib" being literally translated as "Asker" or "Seeker".

19." Taliban means "the Seekers", signifying a student of divinity. This inspired title helped cloak Pakistan's hidden agenda in a new Islamic coat. To lead the Taliban Pakistan chose Mullah Mohammad Omar, who was willing to do as he was told. According to Taliban propaganda, the Mullah was divinely inspired to rid Afghanistan of the troublesome war and warlords. Afghanistan was blighted with both, largely due to years of civil war sponsored by Pakistan and reliant on the stockpile of arms plundered from a covert Western arms pipeline. From the old Soviet-Afghan war days, the Mullah emerged with a fully functioning, fully-armed, conventionally-equipped, fully-trained military force prone to large-scale conventional actions. Omar's emergence is credited to Pakistan ISI's actions.

20."The repeated, pronounced pattern under ISI direction has been to ignore the poorly-trained guerilla nature of the Afghan Mujahideen and press them to conduct conventional-style engagement, the same style Taliban are credited with learning from the Koran. As a result of these actions, the fully-supported by Pakistan Taliban prevailed over the unsupported legitimate government of Afghanistan.

21." The Taliban is not synonymous with Afghanistan. It was created, imposed and recognised by Pakistan in pursuit of its own interests. Playing the Islamic fundamentalist card as a means of securing control over a compliant proxy regime in neighbouring Afghanistan has seriously backfired. Pakistan has also lost control of the Taliban, who are proving to be both unpredictable and ungrateful. Under the shade of the Taliban umbrella, the bin Laden brand of extremism has been able to grow unmolested inside Afghanistan.

22." The Al Qaeda agenda in Afghanistan differs significantly from that of the Taliban. They are not about creating an independent Islamic State. Long term, there can be no room for Taliban in their ambitions. Having been artificially introduced to the region and encouraged in their ambitions so far, they have grown in confidence and stature. Taliban acceptance and approval of fundamentalist non-Afghans as part of their fighting force were merely an extension of the Pakistani policy during the Soviet-Afghan war. It is very important to realise that members of 055 Brigade (Al Qaeda) might serve with Taliban forces, but they are not in any Western sense integrated. They remain rather like an international brigade, different in language, habit and in the interpretation of Islam. Additionally, their vision of the future of Afghanistan differs.

23."Pakistan's goals are simple, the continuance of the policy they have always demonstrated regarding Afghanistan. It is failing with the Taliban and it cannot succeed under any Afghan Giovernment controlled by Al Qaeda. The repercussions from Pakistan's attempt to manipulate the Islamic card are just surfacing.

24." In Islamabad, they have tried to ignore or bury the evidence for some time. It must be a deeply troubling period for General (Musharraf) in Pakistan, who is asked to help hunt down the culprits that he helped to establish and supported. Not to support the US invites trouble and to assist the US to their aims also presents problems to Pakistan. The quandary leaves the Pakistanis confused as to how they might be absolved without permanently shattering their regional aspirations or their Government." (Citation of document ends)

25. The second and third documents are both dated September 24, 2001. The language in the second document is apparently that of a professional intelligence analyst, but the language of the third is not. It appears to be that of a source and not of the DIA. It would seem that the third document is the report of the source and the second is the note of a DIA analyst or analysts who had forwarded it to their superiors giving their assessment and making their recommendations regarding the future course of action.

26. From these documents, it is clear that the DIA knew of the role of the ISI in the sponsorship of not only the Taliban, but also Al Qaeda. And yet, the Bush administration has for over two years chosen to close its eyes to the complicity of Pakistan and to project Musharraf to its own public opinion as well as to the international community as a frontline ally in the war against terrorism. Why? A question to which there has been no convincing answer.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and, Convenor, Advisory Committee, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com )
http://www.saag.org/papers8/paper791.html

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The New York Times, October 29, 2001
Pakistani Intelligence Had Links to Al Qaeda, U.S. Officials Say
By JAMES RISEN and JUDITH MILLER
WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 - The intelligence service of Pakistan, a crucial American ally in the war on terrorism, has had an indirect but longstanding relationship with Al Qaeda, turning a blind eye for years to the growing ties between Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, according to American officials.

The intelligence service even used Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan to train covert operatives for use in a war of terror against India, the Americans say.

The intelligence service, known as Inter-Services Intelligence, or I.S.I., also maintained direct links to guerrillas fighting in the disputed territory of Kashmir on Pakistan's border with India, the officials said.

American fears over the agency's dealings with Kashmiri militant groups and with the Taliban government of Afghanistan became so great last year that the Secret Service adamantly opposed a planned trip by President Clinton to Pakistan out of concern for his safety, former senior American officials said.

The fear was that Pakistani security forces were so badly penetrated by terrorists that extremist groups, possibly including Mr. bin Laden's network, Al Qaeda, would learn of the president's travel route from sympathizers within the I.S.I. and try to shoot down his plane.

Mr. Clinton overruled the Secret Service and went ahead with the trip, prompting his security detail to take extraordinary precautions. An empty Air Force One was flown into the country, and the president made the trip in a small unmarked plane. Later, his motorcade stopped under an overpass and Mr. Clinton changed cars, the former officials said.

The Kashmiri fighters, labeled a terrorist group by the State Department, are part of Pakistan's continuing efforts to put pressure on India in the Kashmir conflict. The I.S.I.'s reliance on Mr. bin Laden's camps for training came to light in August 1998, when the United States launched a cruise missile attack against Al Qaeda terrorist camps near Khost, Afghanistan, in response to the bombings of two American Embassies in East Africa. The casualties included several members of a Kashmiri militant group supported by Pakistan who were believed to be training in the Qaeda camps, American officials said.

Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, the Pakistani government, led by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has turned against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in favor of the United States.

One element in that shift was General Musharraf's decision to oust the chief of the intelligence service, Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, who may have been reluctant to join an American-led coalition against the Taliban government that his organization helped bring to power.

Still, American officials said the depth of support within elements of the I.S.I. for a war on the Taliban and Al Qaeda remained uncertain, and a former chief of the agency has become one of the most vocal critics of American policy in Pakistan.

The former director general, Hameed Gul, complained in an interview with a Pakistani newspaper that the Bush administration was demanding that the agency be placed at the disposal of the Americans, as if it were a mercenary force.

"The I.S.I. is a national intelligence agency, whose potential and ouput should not be shared or rented out to other countries," Mr. Gul said.

American officials acknowledged that recent American policies toward Pakistan had fueled such attitudes. In the 1990's the Central Intelligence Agency failed to maintain the close ties it had developed with the I.S.I. in the American agency's covert action program to support the Afghan rebels fighting the Soviet army of occupation in the 1980's.

The close personal relationships that had developed between C.I.A. and I.S.I. officials - General Gul among them - during the war against the Soviets withered away.

"After the Soviets were forced out of Afghanistan," said Shamshad Ahmad, Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations and a former foreign secretary, "you left us in the lurch with all the problems stemming from the war: an influx of refugees, the drug and gun running, a Kalashnikov culture."

In recent years, in fact, American officials said, the United States offered few incentives to the Pakistanis to end their relationship with the Taliban. Washington gave other issues, including continuing concerns about Pakistan's nuclear weapons program and its human rights record, much greater emphasis than the fight against terrorism.

Those priorities were illustrated by the apathetic reaction within the United States government to a secret memorandum by the State Department's chief of counterterrorism in 1999 that called for a new approach to containing Mr. bin Laden.

Written in the the wake of the bombings of two embassies in East Africa in 1998, the memorandum from Michael A. Sheehan, the State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, urged the Clinton administration to step up efforts to persuade Afghanistan and its neighbors to cut off financing to Mr. bin Laden and end the sanctuary and support being offered to Al Qaeda.

Mr. Sheehan's memo outlined a series of actions the United States could take toward Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen to persuade them to help isolate Al Qaeda.

The document called Pakistan the key, and it suggested that the administration make terrorism the central issue in relations between Washington and Islamabad. The document also urged the administration to find ways to work with the countries to curb terrorist money laundering, and it recommended that the United States go public if any of the governments failed to cooperate.

Mr. Sheehan's plan "landed with a resounding thud," one former official recalled. "He couldn't get anyone interested." As the threat from Al Qaeda and Mr. bin Laden grew and the United States began to press Pakistan harder to break its ties to the Taliban, the Pakistanis feigned cooperation but did little, current and former American officials say.

One former official said the C.I.A. "fell for" what amounted to a stalling tactic aimed at fending off political pressure. The C.I.A. equipped and financed a special commando unit that Pakistan had offered to create to capture Mr. bin Laden. "But this was going nowhere," the former official said. "The I.S.I. never intended to go after bin Laden. We got completely snookered."

The C.I.A. declined to comment on its relationship with the Pakistani agency, saying it did not discuss its ties with foreign intelligence services. But a former senior Clinton administration official disagreed with the idea that the United States had had unrelaistic expectations about the commando proposal.

"There were some concerns about the penetration of the I.S.I., and a lot of uncertainty about whether it would work," the official said. "But all of us, including the intelligence community, thought it was worth doing. What was there to lose?"

What is most remarkable about the tensions that have grown in recent years between the United States and Pakistan's security service is that it was one of the C.I.A.'s closest allies just over a decade ago.

In the 1980's, when the C.I.A. mounted the largest covert action program in its history to support Afghan rebels against the Soviets, the Pakistani agency served as the critical link between the C.I.A. and the rebels at the front lines.

While the C.I.A. supplied money and weapons, it was the I.S.I. that moved them into Afghanistan. The Americans relied almost entirely on the Pakistani service to allocate the weapons to the rebel leaders, and the senior C.I.A. officials involved developed close relations with their counterparts.

But when the Soviet Army finally pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989, the C.I.A. ended its support for the Afghan rebels, the agency's relationship with the Pakistani agency was neglected and Washington began to complain more openly about the Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.

By the early 1990's, officials of the Pakistani agency became resentful over the change in American policy. In 1990, just one year after the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, Congress imposed sanctions on Pakistan for its nuclear program.

Faced with turmoil in post-Soviet Afghanistan - which the United States had no interest in addressing in the early 1990's - Pakistan moved in to support the Pashtun ethnic group in southern Afghanistan as it created the Taliban movement.

With Pakistani support, the Taliban gradually took control of most of the country. By 1996, Mr. bin Laden, who had been in Afghanistan in the 1980's, helping to pay for Arab fighters to battle the Soviets, returned and quickly forged a close alliance with the Taliban.

American officials do not believe that the I.S.I. was ever directly involved with Mr. bin Laden and Al Qaeda in terrorist activites against the United States. But the Pakistani agency used Afghan terrorist training camps for its Kashmiri operations, and the Pakistani leadership failed to act as it watched the the relationship between Al Qaeda and the Taliban grow ever closer.

The I.S.I. did cooperate with the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. on several counterterrorism operations in the 1990's. Most notably, the Pakistanis were instrumental in the capture in Islamabad in 1995 of Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and the arrest in Pakistan in 1997 of Mir Aimal Kansi, who killed two C.I.A. employees on a shooting rampage outside C.I.A. headquarters in 1993.

American officials now believe that the Pakistanis were finally starting to become alarmed in the last year or two by the extent to which the Taliban had been co-opted by Mr. bin Laden. Still, the I.S.I. did little to extricate itself from its relationship with the Taliban - until Sept. 11.

"I think the Pakistanis realized as time went on that they had made a bad deal," one State Department official said. "But they couldn't find an easy way out of it."
http://tiger.berkeley.edu/sohrab/politics/isi_problems.html

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The Role of Pakistan's Military Intelligence (ISI) in the September 11 Attacks

by Michel Chossudovsky
Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa



Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), Montréal
Posted at globalresearch.ca 2 November 2001





"Connecting the Dots: 9-11 ...War ...Globalisation": Global Outlook Magazine, premiere issue on "Stop the War": to order/subscribe click here;

Visit the CRG home page at: http://globalresearch.ca .


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Summary
Pakistan's chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad "was in the US when the attacks occurred." He arrived in the US on the 4th of September, a full week before the attacks. He had meetings at the State Department "after" the attacks on the WTC. But he also had "a regular visit of consultations" with his US counterparts at the CIA and the Pentagon during the week prior to September 11.

What was the nature of these routine "pre-September 11 consultations"? Were they in any way related to the subsequent "post-September 11 consultations" pertaining to Pakistan's decision to cooperate with Washington. Was the planning of war being discussed between Pakistani and US officials?

On the 9th of September while General Ahmad was in the US, the leader of the Northern Alliance Commander Ahmad Shah Masood was assassinated. The Northern Alliance had informed the Bush Administration that the ISI was allegedly implicated in the assassination.

The Bush Administration consciously took the decision in "the post September 11 consultations" with Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad to directly "cooperate" with Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI) despite its links to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and its alleged role in the assassination of Commander Masood, which coincidentally occurred two days before the terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, senior Pentagon and State Department officials had been rushed to Islamabad to put the finishing touches on America's war plans. And on the Sunday prior to the onslaught of the bombing of major cities in Afghanistan (October 7th), Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad was sacked from his position as head of the ISI in what was described as a routine "reshuffling."

In the days following General Ahmad's dismissal, a report published in the Times of India, revealed the links between Pakistan's Chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad and the presumed "ring leader" of the WTC attacks Mohamed Atta. The Times of India article was based on an official intelligence report of the Delhi government that had been transmitted through official channels to Washington. Quoting an Indian government source Agence France Press (AFP) confirms in this regard that: "The evidence we [the Government of India] have supplied to the US is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism."

The revelation of the Times of India article has several implications. The Indian intelligence report not only points to the links between ISI Chief General Ahmad and terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta, it also indicates that other ISI officials might have had contacts with the terrorists. Moreover, it suggests that the September 11 attacks were not an act of "individual terrorism" organised by a separate Al Qaeda cell, but rather they were part of coordinated military-intelligence operation, emanating from Pakistan's ISI.

The Times of India report also sheds light on the nature of General Ahmad's "business activities" in the US during the week prior to September 11, raising the distinct possibility of ISI contacts with Mohamed Atta in the US "prior" to the attacks on the WTC, precisely at the time when General Mahmoud and his delegation were on a so-called "regular visit of consultations" with US officials.

In assessing the alleged links between the terrorists and the ISI, it should be understood that Lt. General Ahmad as head of the ISI was a "US approved appointee". As head of the ISI since 1999, he was in liaison with his US counterparts in the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Pentagon. Also bear in mind that Pakistan's ISI remained throughout the entire post Cold War era until the present, the launch-pad for CIA covert operations in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Balkans

The existence of an "ISI-Osama-Taliban axis" was a matter of public record. The links between the ISI and agencies of the US government including the CIA are also a matter of public record. The Bush Administration was fully cognizant of Lt. General Ahmad's role. In other words, rather than waging a campaign against international terrorism, the evidence would suggest that it is indirectly abetting international terrorism, using the Pakistani ISI as a "go-between".

The Bush Administration's links with Pakistan's ISI --including its "consultations" with General Ahmad in the week prior to September 11-- raise the issue of "complicity". While Ahmad was talking to US officials at the CIA and the Pentagon, ISI officials were allegedly also in contact with the September 11 terrorists.

In other words, according to the Indian government intelligence report, the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks had links to Pakistan's ISI, which in turn has links to agencies of the US government. What this suggests is that key individuals within the US military-intelligence establishment might have known about the ISI contacts with the September 11 terrorist "ring-leader" Mohamed Atta and failed to act.

Whether this amounts to the complicity of the Bush Administration remains to be firmly established. The least one can expect at this stage is an inquiry. What is crystal clear, however, is that this war is not a "campaign against international terrorism". It is a war of conquest with devastating consequences for the future of humanity. And the American people have been consciously and deliberately misled by their government. Whether this amounts to the complicity of the Bush Administration remains to be firmly established.

And the American people have been consciously and deliberately misled by their government.

Ultimately the truth must prevail. The falsehoods behind America's war against the people of Afghanistan must be unveiled.


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Complete Text
Two days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, a delegation led by the head of Pakistan's military intelligence agency (ISI) Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed, was in Washington for high level talks at the State Department.1

Most US media conveyed the impression that Islamabad had put together a delegation at Washington's behest, and that the invitation to the meeting had been transmitted to the Pakistan government "after" the tragic events of September 11.

But this is not what happened!

Pakistan's chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad "was in the US when the attacks occurred." 2. According to the New York Times, "he happened to be here on a regular visit of consultations." 3

Not a word was mentioned regarding the nature of his "business" in the US in the week prior to the terrorist attacks. According to Newsweek, he was "on a visit to Washington at the time of the attack, and, like most other visitors, is still stuck there," unable to return home because of the freeze on international airline travel 4

General Ahmad had in fact arrived in the US on the 4th of September, a full week before the attacks. 5 Bear in mind that the purpose of his meeting at the State Department on the 13th was only made public "after" the September 11 terrorist attacks, when the Bush Administration took the decision to formally seek the "cooperation" of Pakistan in its "campaign against international terrorism."

The press reports confirm that Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad had two meetings with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, respectively on the 12th and 13th. 6 After September 11, he also met Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the powerful Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate.

Confirmed by several press reports, however, he also had "a regular visit of consultations" with US officials during the week prior to September 11, --i.e. meetings with his US counterparts at the CIA and the Pentagon. 7

What was the nature of these routine "consultations"? Were they in any way related to the subsequent "post-September 11 consultations" pertaining to Pakistan's decision to cooperate with Washington, held behind closed doors at the State Department on September 12 and 13? Was the planning of war being discussed between Pakistani and US officials?

"The ISI-Osama-Taliban Axis"
On the 9th of September, the leader of the Northern Alliance Commander Ahmad Shah Masood was assassinated. The Northern Alliance had informed the Bush Administration that the ISI was allegedly implicated in the assassination: The Northern Alliance had confirmed in an official statement that:

a `Pakistani ISI-Osama-Taliban axis' [was responsible] of plotting the assassination by two Arab suicide bombers.... `We believe that this is a triangle between Osama bin Laden, ISI, which is the intelligence section of the Pakistani army, and the Taliban,' 8

More generally, the complicity of the ISI in the "ISI-Osama-Taliban axis" was a matter of public record, confirmed by congressional transcripts and numerous intelligence reports.9

The Bush Administration Cooperates with Pakistan's Military-Intelligence

The Bush Administration consciously took the decision in "the post September 11 consultations" at the State Department to directly "cooperate" with Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI) despite its links to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and its alleged role in the assassination of Commander Masood, which coincidentally occurred two days before the terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, the Western media --in the face of mounting evidence-- had remained silent on the insidious role of Pakistan's Military Intelligence agency (ISI). The assassination of Masood was mentioned, but its political significance in relation to September 11 and the subsequent decision to go to war against Afghanistan, was barely touched upon.

Without discussion or debate, Pakistan had been heralded as a "friend" and ally of America.

In an utterly twisted logic, the US media had concluded in chorus that:

US officials had sought cooperation from Pakistan [precisely] because it is the original backer of the Taliban, the hard-line Islamic leadership of Afghanistan accused by Washington of harboring bin Laden. 10

From The Horse's Mouth
Nobody seemed to have noticed the obtrusive and unsubtle falsehoods behind the Administration's "campaign against international terrorism", with perhaps the exception of an inquisitive journalist who questioned Colin Powell at the outset of his State department briefing on Thursday September 13th:

[Does] the U.S. see Pakistan as an ally or, as the "Patterns of Global Terrorism" pointed out, a place where terrorist groups get training. Or is it a mixture?" 11

"Patterns of Global Terrorism" referred by the journalist (at http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000/ ) is a publication of the US State Department which confirms that the government of President Pervez Musharraf has links to international terrorism:

The United States remains concerned about reports of continued Pakistani support for the Taliban's military operations in Afghanistan. Credible reporting indicates that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with materiel, fuel, funding, technical assistance, and military advisers. Pakistan has not prevented large numbers of Pakistani nationals from moving into Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban. Islamabad also failed to take effective steps to curb the activities of certain madrassas, or religious schools, that serve as recruiting grounds for terrorism. 12

Behind Close Doors at the State Department
The Bush Administration had sought the "cooperation" of those, who were directly supporting and abetting the terrorists. Absurd, but at the same time consistent with Washington's broader strategic and economic objectives in Central Asia.

The meeting behind closed doors at the State Department on September 13 between Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad was shrouded in secrecy. Remember President Bush was not even involved in these crucial negotiations:

"Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage handed over [to ISI chief Mahmoud Ahmad] a list of specific steps Washington wanted Pakistan to take".13 "After a telephone conversation between [Secretary of State Colin] Powell and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Pakistan had promised to cooperate." 14 President George W. Bush later confirmed (also on the morning of September 13th) that the Pakistan government had accepted "to cooperate and to participate as we hunt down those people who committed this unbelievable, despicable act on America''. 15

Former Iran-Contragate Officials Call the Shots
Bear in mind that Richard Armitage had served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security under the Reagan Administration. "He worked closely with Oliver North and was involved in the Iran-contra arms smuggling scandal." 16

In many regards, the pattern of Bush Junior appointments replicate the Iran-Contragate team of the Reagan and Bush senior administrations:

The same kind of appointments are being made in foreign policy. Bush has been choosing people from the most dubious part of the Republican stable of the 1980s, those engaged in the Iran-Contra affair... Armitage served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Reagan years, but a 1989 appointment in the elder Bush administration was withdrawn before hearings because of controversy over Iran-Contra and other scandals. 17

Armitage was one of the main architects behind US covert support to the Mujahedin and the "militant Islamic base, both during the Afghan-Soviet war as well as in its aftermath. US covert support was financed by the Golden Crescent drug trade.

This pattern has not been fundamentally altered. It still constitutes an integral part of US foreign policy by the Bush Administration and the basis of CIA covert operations.

Pakistan's Chief Spy on Mission to Afghanistan
On September 13th, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf confirmed that he would send chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad to meet the Taliban and negotiate the extradition of Osama bin Laden. This decision was at Washington's behest, most probably agreed upon during the meeting between Dick Armitage and General Mahmoud at the State Department.

Pakistan's chief spy is rapidly whisked back from Washington to Islamabad:

At American urging, Ahmed traveled ... to Kandahar, Afghanistan. There he delivered the bluntest of demands. Turn over bin Laden without conditions, he told Taliban leader Mohammad Omar, or face certain war with the United States and its allies. 18

Mahmoud's meetings on two separate missions with the Taliban were reported as a "failure." Yet this "failure" to extradite Osama was part of Washington's design, providing a pretext for a military intervention which was already in the pipeline. If Osama had been extradited, the main justification for waging a war "against international terrorism" would no longer hold. And the evidence suggests that this war had been planned well in advance of September 11, in response to broad strategic and economic objectives.

Meanwhile, senior Pentagon and State Department officials had been rushed to Islamabad to put the finishing touches on America's war plans. And on Sunday prior to the onslaught of the bombing of major cities in Afghanistan by the US Air Force (October 7th), Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad was sacked from his position as head of the ISI in what was described as a routine "reshuffling."

"The Missing Link"
In the days following Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad's dismissal, a report published in the Times of India, which went virtually unnoticed by the Western media, revealed the links between Pakistan's Chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad and the presumed "ring leader" of the WTC attacks Mohamed Atta. In many regards, the Times of India report constitutes "the missing link" to an understanding of who was behind the terrorist attacks of September 11:

While the Pakistani Inter Services Public Relations claimed that former ISI director-general Lt-Gen Mahmoud Ahmad sought retirement after being superseded on Monday [8 October], the day the US started bombing Afghanistan], the truth is more shocking. Top sources confirmed here on Tuesday [October 9], that the general lost his job because of the "evidence" India produced to show his links to one of the suicide bombers that wrecked the World Trade Centre. The US authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of Gen. Mahmoud. Senior government sources have confirmed that India contributed significantly to establishing the link between the money transfer and the role played by the dismissed ISI chief. While they did not provide details, they said that Indian inputs, including Sheikh's mobile phone number, helped the FBI in tracing and establishing the link.

A direct link between the ISI and the WTC attack could have enormous repercussions. The US cannot but suspect whether or not there were other senior Pakistani Army commanders who were in the know of things. Evidence of a larger conspiracy could shake US confidence in Pakistan's ability to participate in the anti-terrorism coalition. 19

According to FBI files, Mohamed Atta was "the lead hijacker of the first jet airliner to slam into the World Trade Center and, apparently, the lead conspirator" 20

The Times of India article was based on an official intelligence report of the Delhi government that had been transmitted through official channels to Washington. Agence France Press (AFP) confirms in this regard that:

A highly-placed government source told AFP that the "damning link" between the General and the transfer of funds to Atta was part of evidence which India has officially sent to the US. `The evidence we have supplied to the US is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism,' the source said. 21

Pakistan's Military-Intelligence Agency behind September 11?

The revelation of the Times of India article has several implications. The report not only points to the links between ISI Chief General Ahmad and terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta, it also indicates that other ISI officials might have had contacts with the terrorists. Moreover, it suggests that the September 11 attacks were not an act of "individual terrorism" organised by a separate Al Qaeda cell, but rather they were part of coordinated military-intelligence operation, emanating from Pakistan's ISI.

The Times of India report also sheds light on the nature of General Ahmad's "business activities" in the US during the week prior to September 11, raising the distinct possibility of ISI contacts with Mohamed Atta in the US in the week "prior" to the attacks on the WTC, precisely at the time when General Mahmoud and his delegation were on a so-called "regular visit of consultations" with US officials. Remember, Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad arrived in the US on the 4th of September.

US Approved Appointee
In assessing the alleged links between the terrorists and the ISI, it should be understood that Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad as head of the ISI was a "US approved appointee". As head of the ISI since 1999, he was in liaison with his US counterparts in the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Pentagon. Also bear in mind that Pakistan's ISI remained throughout the entire post Cold War era until the present, the launch pad for CIA covert operations in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Balkans 22

In other words, General Mahmoud Ahmad as head of the ISI was serving US foreign policy interests. His dismissal on the orders of Washington was not the result of a fundamental political disagreement. Without US support channeled through the Pakistani ISI, the Taliban would not have been able to form a government in 1996. Jane Defense Weekly confirms in this regard that "half of Taliban manpower and equipment originate[d] in Pakistan under the ISI," which in turn was supported by the US.23 Moreover, the assassination of the leader of the Northern Alliance General Ahmad Shah Masood --in which the ISI is alleged to have been implicated-- was not in contradiction with US foreign policy objectives. Since the late 1980s, the US had consistently sought to side-track and weaken Masood who was perceived as a nationalist reformer, by providing support to both to the Taliban and the Hezb-I-Islami group led by Gulbuddin Hektmayar against Masood .

Corroborated by Congressional Transcripts
Corroborated by the House of Representatives Internaitonal Relations Committee, US support funneled through the ISI to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden has been a consistent policy of the US Administration since the end of the Cold War:

...[T]he United States has been part and parcel to supporting the Taliban all along, and still is let me add... You have a military government [of President Musharraf] in Pakistan now that is arming the Taliban to the teeth....Let me note; that [US] aid has always gone to Taliban areas... We have been supporting the Taliban, because all our aid goes to the Taliban areas. And when people from the outside try to put aid into areas not controlled by the Taliban, they are thwarted by our own State Department... At that same moment, Pakistan initiated a major resupply effort, which eventually saw the defeat, and caused the defeat, of almost all of the anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan. 24

Cover-up and Complicity?
The existence of an "ISI-Osama-Taliban axis" is a matter of public record. The links between the ISI and agencies of the US government including the CIA are also a matter of public record.

Pakistan's ISI has been used by successive US adminstrations as "a go-between." Pakistan's military-intelligence apparatus, constitutes the core institutional support to both Osama's Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Without this institutional support, there would be no Taliban government in Kabul. In turn, without the unbending support of the US government. there would be no powerful military-intelligence apparatus in Pakistan.

Senior officials in the State Department were fully cognizant of General Mahmoud Ahmad's role. In the wake of September 11, the Bush Administration consciously sought the "cooperation" of the ISI which had been supporting and abetting Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.

In other words, the Bush Administration's relations with Pakistan's ISI --including its "consultations" with General Mahmoud Ahmad in the week prior to September 11-- raise the issue of "cover-up" as well as "complicity". While Ahmad was talking to US officials at the CIA and the Pentagon, the ISI allegedly had contacts with the September 11 terrorists.

According to the Indian government intelligence report (referred to in the Times of India), the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks had links to Pakistan's ISI, which in turn has links to agencies of the US government. What this suggests is that key individuals within the US military-intelligence establishment might have known about ISI contacts with the September 11 terrorist "ring-leader" Mohamed Atta and failed to act.

Whether this amounts to the complicity of the Bush Administration remains to be firmly established. The least one can expect at this stage is an inquiry. What is crystal clear, however, is that this war is not a "campaign against international terrorism". It is a war of conquest with devastating consequences for the future of humanity. And the American people have been consciously and deliberately misled by their government.

Ultimately the truth must prevail. The falsehoods behind America's war against the people of Afghanistan must be unveiled.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes
The Guardian, 15 September 2001.
Reuters, 13 September 2001.
The New York Times, 13 September 2001.
Newsweek, 14 September 2001.
The Daily Telegraph. London, 14 September 2001,
The New York Times, September 13th 2001 confirms the meeting on the 12th .of September
The New York Times, 13 September 2001.
The Northern Alliance's statement was released on 14 September 2001, quoted in Reuters 15 September 2001.
For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, "Osamagate", Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), at globalresearch.ca, October 2001.
Reuters 13 September 2001.
Journalist's question to Secretary of State Colin Powell, State Department Briefing, 13 September 2001.
US State Department, "Patterns of Global Terrorism", State Department, http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000/, Washington 2000.
Reuters, 13 September 2001
Ibid.
Presidential Papers, Remarks in a Telephone Conversation With New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and New York Governor George Pataki and an Exchange With Reporters, 13 September 2001.
The Guardian, 15 September 2001.
United Press International, Face-off: Bush's foreign policy warriors,by Peter Roff and James Chapin, UPI, 18 July 2001.
The Washington Post, 23 September 2001.
The Times of India, Delhi, 9 October 2001, at http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?catkey=-2128936835&art_id=1454238160&sType=1)
The Weekly Standard, Vol. 7, No 7, October 2001.
AFP, 10 October 2001
For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Who is Osama bin Laden, Centre for Research on Globalisation, 12 September 2001
Quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, 3 September 1998.
US House of Representatives: Statement by Rep. Dana Rohrbacher, Hearing of The House International Relations Committee on "Global Terrorism And South Asia", Washington, July 12, 2000.

------------------------------------http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO111A.html--------------------------------------------

[candypreet]

The Alliance Al Qaeda War
Pakistan helped al-Qaeda members launch their operations in Afghanistan in the 1990s and even secretly ran a major training camp used by Osama bin Laden's terror network, according to US intelligence documents made public.

The documents, produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency in the fall of 2001 and declassified in a censored version this past week, also indicate that legendary Afghan guerrilla commander Ahmad Shah Masood may have been killed two days before the September 11 attacks because he had learned something about bin Laden's plan and "began to warn the West."

In its secret dispatches, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive, a non-profit research organization here, the DIA warns that the documents represent only raw intelligence.

They nonetheless paint a complex picture of factional rivalry, in which Pakistan had tried to use the Taliban and al-Qaeda to promote its influence in war-torn Afghanistan -- only to eventually lose control over both of them.

"Taliban acceptance and approval of fundamentalist non-Afghans as part of their fighting force were merely an extension of Pakistani policy during the Soviet-Afghan war," said one of the DIA dispatches among US government agencies after the September 11 attacks but before US troops began their operation to root out the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It said Pakistani agents "encouraged, facilitated and often escorted Arabs from the Middle East into Afghanistan."

To make them a more viable fighting force, Pakistan even built a training camp located outside the Afghan village of Zahawa, near the border between the two countries.

According to the DIA, the camp, target of a US missile strike, was built by Pakistani contractors funded by the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), and protected by a local and influential Jadran tribal leader called Jalalludin.

"However, the real host of the facility was the Pakistani ISI," said one of the documents, which added that this arrangement raised "serious questions" about early ties between bin Laden and Pakistani intelligence.
The US military fired a volley of cruise missiles into the camp in August 1998 in retaliation to the terrorist bombings earlier that year of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that left 257 people dead.



Ashrafi, chairman of the Pakistan Ulema (Muslim scholars) Council and a regional government advisor, said: "When the jihad was on, US airlines used to offer 50 percent rebate to Arabs who would volunteer to participate in the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan," .and "The US military strategists were at that time living in Pakistan. They provided weapons and selected the location of training camps in Afghanistan."



He claimed that bin Laden was once the US military's "most favorite" child, who they held up as an inspirational hero to Muslim youth.



This news had appalled Abdul HaqIn the 1980s Abdul Haq was the leading field commander of the Hezb-e Islami party and actively fought the Soviet troops. He was wounded many times and lost a foot in a mine explosion.


After the advent of the Taliban to power Abdul Haq went to Pakistan to start an opposition to Arabs dictating Afghan policy.. In 1999 unknown armed men killed his wife and son. After that Abdul Haq went to Dubai (the United Arab Emirates) where he took up business. restless he returned to Afghanistan in 2001 to help the Alliance against Taliban and to gather Tribal support in the South. He had traveled to Kabul and Jalalabad where Pakistani intelligence ISI quickly notified Al Qaeda that Abdul Haq is gathering opposition against them, He was captured shot several times and hung and dealt a severe blow to US alliance with Tribal south until the emergence of Hamid Karzai

http://www.afghanland.com/history/alliance.html

[candypreet]

read this too


Bin Laden's safe haven?

Ex-CIA officer: Bin Laden hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas

By Henry Schuster | CNN

Editor's Note: Henry Schuster, a senior producer in CNN's Investigative Unit and author of "Hunting Eric Rudolph," has been covering terrorism for more than a decade. Each week in "Tracking Terror," he reports on people and organizations driving international and domestic terrorism and efforts to combat those.

RENO, Nevada (CNN) -- Gary Schroen doesn't know exactly where Osama bin Laden is. But he thinks he knows who does.

He doesn't think Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, knows, even though Schroen believes bin Laden is somewhere inside Pakistan. Instead, he believes, someone at a more operational level inside Pakistan's army or its intelligence service, the ISI, knows.

"I can only speculate, but it is based on almost 20 years of dealing with the Pakistani military and ISI officers. I think at some level, probably the colonel level, there are officers probably in ISI who know where bin Laden is at."

Here's why it matters what Gary Schroen thinks.

A long-time Central Intelligence Agency operative, Schroen was dispatched to Afghanistan after September 11, 2001, to find bin Laden and to help overthrow the Taliban.

That mission marked the culmination of an extensive career that included some 35 years working in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Dubai.

Now, after decades of avoiding the press, Schroen is talking.

Targeting bin Laden

Mostly, it's about his riveting new book, "First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan." In it, he recounts how his boss, then-CIA director of counterterrorism Cofer Black, told him that he wanted "bin Laden's head shipped back in a box filled with dry ice."

That marked the first time in Schroen's career as an intelligence officer, he says, that he was ever told to kill someone, if necessary. And his team was ready to do so.

What made him especially qualified for that mission was that he had developed two plans to capture or kill bin Laden, once in 1998 and then again a year later. Both were turned down by higher-ups in the CIA and the White House.

"Everybody in the agency felt a sense of frustration that we hadn't taken a shot [in 1998 and 1999] -- especially the second time, which was after the bombings that al Qaeda conducted in Africa," he said. "But the decision was made based on policy considerations back in Washington, so we [soldiered] on."

The morning of September 11, the veteran CIA officer was on the glide path to retirement. He came in that day to work on his resume, knowing he had only a few weeks left at the agency.

Schroen soon found himself being evacuated from the CIA's headquarters in northern Virginia, as fear spread that the building was the hijackers' next target.

Days later, Black hand-picked him to lead a team inside Afghanistan, where he had close ties to many in the Northern Alliance -- the main opposition at the time to the ruling Taliban.

Schroen's team, code-named JAWBREAKER, had rapid success in helping to topple the Taliban using cash, contacts and air strikes coordinated by the CIA and U.S. Special Forces.

Finding bin Laden was another story. Schroen says the closest U.S. forces came was at the battle of Tora Bora in late November 2001. But bin Laden escaped across the border to Pakistan, aided, according to Schroen and others, by some of the same Afghans who promised the United States they were going to capture al Qaeda's leader.

Does Pakistan want to find bin Laden?

So where's bin Laden now?

"He's hiding in Pakistan in the northern tribal areas above Peshawar -- an area that is rugged, hilly, heavily forested," Schroen says. "The U.S. government and the U.S. military are not authorized by the Musharraf government to enter there unilaterally."

With much fanfare, the Pakistani army went into part of the tribal area last year, ostensibly hunting for bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. (The move was significant because, from the time of Pakistan's independence in 1947 until that point, the area was autonomous, with local leaders governing its affairs.)

Schroen says Pakistani forces went into the wrong area. Instead of going into the area north of Peshawar, they went south of that city, into southern Waziristan.

The campaign was a failure.

"They did get clobbered heavily," Schroen said of the Pakistani forces. "I think they knew that bin Laden wasn't there, and therefore they would be able to arrest a few al Qaeda operatives and make us happy."

Schroen believes Musharraf not only doesn't know where bin Laden is, but he doesn't want to know, afraid of the internal political consequences of finding him. That's because, Schroen thinks, Pakistan's northern tribal areas would explode upon news of the death or capture of bin Laden.

"I think the philosophy of the Taliban, this fundamentalist view, is popular there. So bin Laden, I think, strikes them as heroic. He fought a jihad against the Russians, and he's bloodied America's nose time and again."

That strong sense of loyalty to bin Laden and al Qaeda is one reason reward money, be it $25 million or $50 million, won't work. The trick is to get bin Laden or al-Zawahiri to break cover and move from this heavily protected area, Schroen says.

"As long as he stays in place, it is going to be almost impossible to find him."

Another key job for the United States, Schroen says, is to figure out a way to find the right incentive for Musharraf to hunt harder for al Qaeda's leaders. One major step, in that regard, is for the Pakistani president to get more answers from inside his own military and intelligence establishment.
"A man of that caliber [bin Laden] could not be hidden out for that many years without word getting out in the community. So, I think some people probably know within ISI and the military."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/31/schuster.column

[candypreet]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lodi inquiry highlights Pakistan's complex role in war on terrorism
Teresa Castle, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, June 11, 2005
A federal investigation into possible links between a Lodi man arrested this week and a terrorist camp in Pakistan has raised questions about the involvement of America's principal ally in the region in networks that train terrorists.

According to the FBI affidavit outlining charges against Hamid Hayat, the 22-year-old said he was trained "to kill Americans" -- even using photos of President Bush and other U.S. officials as target practice -- at a camp called Tamal near Rawalpindi, a city just outside the capital of Islamabad.

That assertion raised eyebrows among terrorism experts because Rawalpindi is home to the Pakistani army's general headquarters and also is the site of President Pervez Musharraf's official residence.

A Pakistani senior foreign ministry official, Naeem Khan, rejected the assertion this week. "There are no training camps in Pakistan," he said. "We are the frontline state in the fight against terrorism. How could we allow such camps in our country?"

But a number of experts on Pakistan said such training camps -- many of them formed to feed insurgencies in Afghanistan and Kashmir -- do exist in some parts of the country and in the part of Kashmir under Pakistan's control even as the Musharraf government works with the United States to combat terrorists.

Michael Krepon, director of the South Asia project at the Henry L. Stimson Center, a Washington, D.C., think tank that studies international security issues, said "many thousands" of young would-be recruits to al Qaeda and other extremist groups cycle through camps in various parts of the country.

Al Qaeda has long maintained a support network in Pakistan's remote, mountainous border with Afghanistan, and most experts believe that clandestine training sites operated by different jihadi organizations are concentrated in the fiercely independent North-West Frontier Province, in Waziristan, in the Punjab and in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

The government, which has carried out highly visible campaigns to smoke out terrorists near the border with Afghanistan in the past year, "may allow the camps to remain open so they can have the militants in a known place and keep an eye on them so they don't engage in mayhem elsewhere in the country,'' said Krepon.

However, Husain Haqqani, a former senior adviser to Pakistan's government who is now a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said recent arrests and killings in such Pakistani cities as Mardan, Faisalabad and Gujarat, far from the border, show that terrorist groups have extended their presence in the country.

Michael Weinbaum, a Pakistan expert at the Middle East Institute in Washington and former State Department analyst, expressed skepticism about the assertion in the original FBI affidavit, deleted from a later affidavit, that Hamid Hayat had been given a first-class tour of all the inner workings of terrorist camps and had seen "hundreds of attendees from various parts of the world.''

The presence of so many Arabs and Muslims from outside the region would be hard to hide, Weinbaum said. He also questioned the assertion that Hamid's father, Umer Hayat, had visited "several operational training camps" and "observed weapons and urban warfare training, physical training and classroom education."

"You don't share that information with trainees. You create tight cells," Weinbaum said. In addition, he said, "it is very difficult to approach these camps." But he added that there are Al Qaeda cells all over the country as well as militant training camps run by Pakistani and Kashmiri jihadi groups.

Rahimullah Yusafzai, a veteran Pakistani journalist who met al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 1998, said it was "unlikely that even if such a camp existed it would be close to Rawalpindi.''

Yusafzai said two huge camps -- Muridke, near Lahore, run by the military arm of the militant Islamist group Lashkar-e-Tayyba, and Mansehra, near the Kashmir border, run by fighters affiliated with a militant group known as Jaish-e-Mohammad -- were well known in the past. Under pressure from the United States, Musharraf moved against them after the Sept. 11 attacks, but they may have been re-established elsewhere, he said.

FBI affidavits

Other allegations made by the FBI also raised questions.

The government's first affidavit said the training camp the Lodi man allegedly attended was operated by Maulana Fazlur Rehman. In a second affidavit, however, his name was omitted, and it is unclear what, if any, role Rehman has in the current investigation. Rehman is secretary-general of the country's opposition Islamic Alliance and head of a pro-Taliban group called Jamat Ulema Islami.

Arnaud de Borchgrave, director of the Transnational Threat Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Rehman "used to brag that he was a friend of Osama bin Laden," even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. De Borchgrave spent years in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a Newsweek correspondent and once interviewed Taliban religious leader Mullah Omar.

However, Yusafzai said he thought the reference to Rehman in the FBI affidavit might refer to the similarly named Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, a senior figure in Harakat al-Mujahedeen, an outlawed group that operated the terrorist training camp at Mansehra, among others.

In 1998, he vowed to take revenge on the United States after U.S. cruise missiles hit a training camp he operated in Afghanistan in an attempt to kill bin Laden. That same year, he was one of the original signers, along with bin Laden, of an edict calling for Muslims worldwide to wage holy war against Americans and Jews.

Despite its status as the center of Pakistan's military establishment, some analysts said Rawalpindi's association with the military could, paradoxically, make it fertile ground for a terrorist training operation.

Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, many in Pakistan's military and intelligence community were openly allied with the Taliban and with al Qaeda. Since then, Musharaff has tried to end such links, but old allegiances run deep.

"Rawalpindi is full of retired military officers, many of whom were pushed out (of the armed services) because of their alliance with the Taliban, " said de Borchgrave.

The militant groups may also draw support from current and former members of the country's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), which openly sponsored a number of jihadi groups before Pakistan joined the U.S.-led war on terror, noted Hassan Abbas, author of "Pakistan's Drift Into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America's War on Terror."

"Without their support, it's not possible for these militant organizations to operate," said Abbas, a former Pakistani police officer who is now a scholar at Tufts University's School of Law and Diplomacy and a fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Musharraf is still struggling to control his own military, said Haqqani, the former Pakistan government adviser.

"The Pakistani security establishment is massive. Musharaff made a U-turn after 9/11, a U-turn that is like the Titanic turning in a very narrow stream, '' he said. "Some in the security establishment in Pakistan may act against Musharraf and follow their own agenda.''

Indeed, two assassination attempts against Musharraf were carried out in December 2003 on the road between Rawalpindi's military headquarters and the president's official residence. Last May, six army and air force officers were arrested in connection with the two attempts.

Link acknowledged

The government acknowledged the connection between some elements in the military and al Qaeda when it claimed recently that the assassination attempts were orchestrated by Abu Farraj al-Libbi, a terror mastermind it handed over to the U.S. government on Monday. Although al-Libbi is not on any U.S. terrorist list, Pakistan claims he was al Qaeda's No. 3 man.
Despite the reports of terrorist training camps on Pakistani soil, analysts said the latest embarrassment would not harm Islamabad's relations with the Bush administration.

"We've made our bargain with Pakistan, and they've made theirs with us," said Weinbaum of the Middle East Institute. "There's no one out there who serves our interests as well, and we're not going to let anything jeopardize that.''

Chronicle staff writers Michael Taylor and Edward Epstein and Chronicle Foreign Service correspondent Mark Williams contributed to this report.E-mail Teresa Castle at tcastle@sfchronicle.com
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/11/MNGS2D786Q1.DTL

[candypreet]

for people who wanted pakistan and taliban links

[Tomahawk]

Hey if you find the "sanity link" let us know!

[candypreet]

Hey if you find the "sanity link" let us know!
????????

[candypreet]

Muslim brotherhood in Pakistan Osama bin Laden’s crucible

Isabel P. Ball
September 11, 2006
Number one enemy of the free world, topping the FBI’s most wanted list, and reportedly, bearing a prize head of cool 50 million dollars, Osama bin Laden, the elusive leader of Al Qaeda, remains that loose in the hinterlands, suspectedly, in the Chitral Province in Pakistan, bordering with Afghanistan.

News reports have not been encouraging either. Reportedly, the intelligence has been pursuing a cold trail to bin Laden’s hideout.

As we are facing a new kind of enemy, Muslim Terrorists, they are bands of Islam followers a religion and culture rolled into one. Archaic and fundamentalist, the Muslims remain in mindset; hence, behaviorally, they are thrusting the world into a chaotic and unstable period of heinous attacks aimed indiscriminately on the mainstream of the worlds with their human bombers.

With such following of dedicated and devoted brethrens, Muslim terrorism of Al Qaeda faction, led and headed by OBL, they are able to sow fear and terror on to the free world without a seeming end to it. America, its number one target, is bleeding with blood and economically, while trying to fight the surge of these infidels, possibly, OBL’s modus operandi. America is fighting Muslim terrorism widespread at home, at their turf in Iraq and Afghanistan, indirectly in Pakistan, Philippines, Sudan, and elsewhere, needless to say, is gargantuan task even for the mightiest nation in the world.

OBL, as a fugitive, at present, is like an individual who has decided to get lost, deliberately. With that advantage, he is truly unconquerable. He is reportedly hiding himself in the hinterlands of Pakistan, within the bosoms of his Muslim brothers, the Pashto’s known for their religiosity, loyalty, and Spartan spirits and habits, having lived in such a mountainous terrain and harsh weather condition. In Lahore, Pakistan a city in the Punjab Province, where I resided once, Pashto men are the preferred chowkidar “security guard” at homes and at hotels. I’ve had one Pashto guard my residence. OBL is in the area where the heinous Talibans were formed, have been hiding, and now regrouping. The area is a remote part of the radical North West Frontier of Pakistan, where the government hardly has any control.

Within that area, bin Laden, reportedly is keeping only 2-3 guards, could be very free to mill about, for everybody in the area are his brethrens. Although the place is harsh, and economic conditions of the people are tenuous, with bin Laden’s wealth and supports, he might be helping the people eke out on their living.

In a report, just the past May 2006, an American diplomatic officer was ousted of the place from an order of an official in the Chitral area, after being suspected of doing an intelligence mission, taking surveys in the area, riding in official vehicle, then later in a private SUV. The official reportedly complied, and did leave the place. The report reminds me of my time while living in a village in Pakistan, and people turned suspicious of my very prolonged stay in the village; they begin to call me a jahsus (Urdu for Agent), hence I was tagged as a KGB, Indian Spy, to being a CIA.

Brotherhood among the Pakistanis, seedbed of Muslim faith, is undoubtedly strong and basic. While in Pakistan, I’ve seen the bond among the Muslims, protective and defensive of their own people regardless of the incident. That objectivity belonged only to the quiet and mute citizens cowed by fear to voice out their side of the incident is more of the realism. These impressions I’ve encountered while involved in some road mishaps. The blaming fingers are outright pointed to me a woman and a foreigner in the country. Such incident happening more than once with me was scary then, let alone under this times, might have been an instantaneous death just being in Pakistan, a foreigner with affinity to America.

Recently, President Musharraff of Pakistan, made a pact with the Talibans in the region, about where bin Laden is suspected of hiding, to spare the Pakistan military from becoming targets for killing, in return for peace in the region. Military have gone back to their barracks, and left the outposts. This equates to Musharraff having snuffed out the light from an American candle, and symbolically, darkening the pathway to bin Laden.

Inside his fortress and bastion of Muslim brotherhood, bin Laden is safe, unreachable, and free to continue to plan, design, and remotely control his heinous schemes to bring down America to its knees. Historically and biblically, man has its known weakness. The time that America discovers that whether it is a lock of hair like Samson, or Mark Anthony’s and Julius Cesar’s weakness for Cleopatra would be America’s challenge to find out, and hopefully, soonest.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=13503

[aj1]

how can Musharraf say there are no training camps in Pakistan, when his government does not control all of the territory?

that mountainous areas seems to be a no man's land, which no government has control over.

[candypreet]

With friends like Pakistan ...

By Arnaud de Borchgrave
Wednesday, September 13, 2006


WASHINGTON
The good news from Afghanistan is the 18,500-strong coalition, now under NATO command, is good at finding and killing Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.

The bad news, according to a recently returned U.S. Army commander, is "as fast as the guerrillas are killed, they are replaced by new recruits -- from camps in Pakistan," whose existence the Pakistani government keeps denying.

Part-time beneficiaries of Afghanistan's record opium harvest that produces 95 percent of Europe's heroin consumption, Taliban fighters are now equipped with the best money can buy on the international arms black market. The annual poppy crop is now at an all-time record of 6,000 tons, an increase of 50 percent from last year. Taliban's resurgence in southern Afghanistan has impacted five provinces where crop substitution was abandoned to the exigencies of counter-guerrilla operations. Taliban also encourages poppy farming for levied protection.
Some of the opium bounty greases the relays for Taliban to operate in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, which Pakistan also denies despite having lost at least 700 soldiers fighting Taliban and their al-Qaida allies in these same areas.

Pakistan first tipped British intelligence about the August plot to down the same day 10 airliners flying from London to U.S. cities. Many of the British suspects arrested are of Pakistani origin. And for many would-be suicide bombers all roads seem to lead to Pakistan.

What is it about Pakistan that still holds a special appeal among those who harbor virulently anti-Western feelings, especially among Pakistani offspring in Britain?

Taliban was originally a Pakistan-based student movement nurtured, if not instigated, by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency, a combined FBI-CIA agency with a license to "terminate with maximum prejudice," rig elections and recommend civilian candidates for posts in military governments.

ISI assisted Taliban in its conquest of Afghanistan (1992-96). Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were the only three countries to recognize the Taliban regime that took the country back several centuries and gave sanctuary to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist organization. ISI is yet to locate bin Laden, widely believed to be headquartered in Pakistan's FATA, protected by fiercely loyal tribes that are clearly disinterested in a $25 million U.S. reward.

Pakistan is frequently described as the most dangerous country in the world. One-third of 165 million Pakistanis survive below the local poverty line of $2 a day. Per capita income is $800. Half the population is still illiterate.

Two of its four provinces -- that share a 1,400-mile border with Afghanistan -- are governed by politico-religious coalitions that are friendly to Taliban and admire Osama bin Laden. President-Gen. Pervez Musharraf himself reckons 1 percent, or 1.6 million people, are violence-prone extremists whose organizations are banned from time to time only to reopen a few blocks away with a new shingle.

But Pakistan is also a nuclear power with some 60 nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them as far as Mumbai in India. And the country's most popular figure after founder-father Ali Jinnah is Dr. A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, and the international racketeers who sold nuclear secrets to America's enemies -- North Korea, Iran and Libya.

Pakistan is also the country of some 12,000 madrassas, the free-board Quranic schools for boys whose single discipline is learning the holy book in Arabic by heart, heavily larded with hate messages for the United States, Israel and India.

Before their teens, they are examined on the meaning of holy war and martyrdom. Thousands of foreign madrassa students from Muslim countries, as well as Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia, have been ordered out of the country. But local police, loyal to local mullahs, tell the foreigners they can stay.

President Musharraf has talked frequently about madrassa reform, but five years after he switched alliances from the medieval Taliban to the United States, following President Bush's post 9/11 are-you-with-us-or-against-us phone call, little has been done.

To survive, Musharraf concluded early in his so far seven years in the driver's seat that he had to pander to the mullahs. And the mullahs tell government regulators to butt out. Nothing seems to shake their conviction President Bush's war on terror is a war on Islam.

Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/guests/s_470155.html

[bigearth]

candy DO YOU HAVE TO GIVE ME SO MUCH TO READ??!?!?!??!?!

http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/1413/beardenbj2.jpg

milton bearden, is the guy who gave the $1bn to the taliban...primary effect, got rid of ussr out of afghanistan, secondary effect, created an militant extremist islamic state, as gorbachev predicted...americas naive stumblings on the world stage, eh? :rolleyes:


4. It would appear that this document is not the traveller's report, but an analysis prepared by an official of the DIA, either in the US Embassy in Islamabad or in the DIA headquarters in Washington DC, on the basis of the traveller's report.
hmmz, so this is an american document drawn from the notes of one persons "travels"?

...and this is supposed to be definitive?!


13. "During the Soviet-Afghan war, the West preferred to maintain a policy of deniability and allowed Pakistan to handle the daily administration of the war, cash and arms distribution.
hmmz, sowing the seeds of our own troubles?


ok, so america want to get the ruskies out of afghanistan, in the rabid minds of the no con cunts, this is a very important and vital task...why i don't know...these infantile dangerus zionist cunts who are running america decide when america shall goto war and when they shall not.

then rumsfeld was LYING, like a cunt, that the "ruskies are coming!!!!!" and that soon the red army will be marching over the bering straights and start raping yanky babies...well, surprise sur-fucking prise, a few years later the u.s.s.r. implodes...ending for ever this supposed russian threat...

in 1976 the cunt rumsfeld stated that the russians are building more weapons, building more factories to build EVEN more weapons...oh and they are designing better weapons too...in a kindof 'if we don't act now, then we're all doomed' kinda way. i've posted a screenshot of this very news broadcast before, i must write down the words and make a jpg with the words hard coded in, on it...it needs to be done.

soooooooooooooo, to this end, of course, by whatever means necessary, america must get the russians out of afghanistan...even if there was no threat to america or that there would be no benefit to america of removing the taliban...sure human rights concerns should be enough, but america only acts on human rights issues, when it is beneficial for itself...it has to have a profit in it's crusading...iraq was about oil or israel, one of the two...and we all know, when it comes to israel, americans don't have a choice then must respond.

soooooooooooooooooo, the CIA give lots of money to those brave chappies fighting those pesky ruskies and they ask pakistan (the ISI) to pass the money on for them.

then they stand back and say "OMG THE ISI ARE SUPPORTING THE INSURGENCY IN AFGHANISTAN!!!!!!!"

here's an idea america, why not stop fucking about in the world and then the world won't be so fucked up!

good idea?

i think so.


26. From these documents, it is clear that the DIA knew of the role of the ISI in the sponsorship of not only the Taliban, but also Al Qaeda.
that's because they gave the money to the ISI to give to osama...

wow, what a revelation!


And yet, the Bush administration has for over two years chosen to close its eyes to the complicity of Pakistan and to project Musharraf to its own public opinion as well as to the international community as a frontline ally in the war against terrorism. Why? A question to which there has been no convincing answer.
erm, maybe precisely because pakistan had these links, it would be a good ally?

seems obvious to me.

what's the alternaitve, make an enemy of a nuclear powered islamic state?

yeah, bu$h, let's start ww3!



(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and, Convenor, Advisory Committee, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com )
http://www.saag.org/papers8/paper791.html
candy, this is all old?

2003?

have there not been any more up to date evidence of ISI/"al queda" links?

[bigearth]

candy, sorry i simply do not have the time to read thru 4 huge posts just to argue with you over the ISI - "al queda" -taliban links...if you wish to make certain, specific points and ask my thoughts on them, fine...but i just don't have the time, sorry...

america gave money to these islamic extrmists to get the ruskies out of aghanistan.

now, you can blame the bag man for this, or you can blame the mr big who ordered the hit, instead. that would be america.

america gave money to the ISI to give to the taliban to get rid of the ruskies, it's as simple as that.

certain parts of pakistan are wild backwaters (i'm thinking like waziristan) where even the pakistani army fear to tread...now, this could mean that "pakistan is supporting terrorism", or it could mean that osama/taliban/islamic fighters are hiding in pakistan, from where they launch attacks on afghanistan...

guess which one i back?


whatever has happend in the past (and americas grubby hands are usually on post ww2 fucks ups...), we are here today, with afghanistan STILL fucked up and the bloke who did 9/11 still making videos and laughing at americans...

we could blame the ISI, we could blame musharraf, we could blame osama, we could blame zwawhiri, or even azzam (you know him?) the founder of the group, in afghanistan the zwahiri took over...etc etc etc

or we could simpy say that bu$h fucked up when he invaded i-rak when he should have stayed the course in afghanistan AND FINISHED THE FUCKING JOB.


if osama had been caught or killed and afghanistan cleaned up, this would be a pointless debate!

:)

[bigearth]

how can Musharraf say there are no training camps in Pakistan, when his government does not control all of the territory?

that mountainous areas seems to be a no man's land, which no government has control over.
yup.

[candypreet]

[COLOR="DarkOliveGreen"]candy DO YOU HAVE TO GIVE ME SO MUCH TO READ??!?!?!??!?!

http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/1413/beardenbj2.jpg

COLOR]

:) :) :)

what you say is nearly true, i am not blaming the US at all, just pointing out the links between the talibs and the ISI/ Anyway even the thread was very old, and now everyone agrees thatthe two are linked

[bigearth]

:) :) :)

what you say is nearly true, i am not blaming the US at all, just pointing out the links between the talibs and the ISI/ Anyway even the thread was very old, and now everyone agrees thatthe two are linked
sure they are, with all due respect who ever thought that they weren't?

again, tho, old links 2001, 2003, do you have anything more recent?

:)

[candypreet]

sure they are, with all due respect who ever thought that they weren't?

again, tho, old links 2001, 2003, do you have anything more recent?

:)
yes I do, and will post them soon

[candypreet]

Happy New Year to all! I hope this year brings you more happiness, joy and success in all your endeavors!!

[candypreet]

ISI still supports Qaeda, Taliban, says Benazir

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C08%5C29%5Cstory_29-8-2007_pg7_24

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairwoman Benazir Bhutto has charged that elements of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) “continue the alliance with both the Taliban and Al Qaeda to this very day” on the premise that Pakistan’s security requires “strategic depth” in the shape of a friendly or pliant Afghanistan.

In an interview with Nayan Chanda of YaleGlobal, a publication of the Yale Centre for the Study of Globalisation, Bhutto said that the ISI was continuing to adhere to the old arrangement, “even if it means supporting fanatics”. She said it was not a premise she or her party shared. “We believe it is essential for Pakistan to support democracy in Afghanistan. We want an end to that policy of strategic depth. Afghanistan has traditionally been viewed either as a buffer state or as a forward policy state where there is strategic depth ... I think for us it is much better to have an Afghanistan that is peaceful, that allows us to trade with it, that has good relations with all its neighbours,” she added.

Asked about the US criticism that President Musharraf was not doing enough to capture the Al Qaeda suspects hiding in Pakistan and if it was fair criticism, she replied, “As a Pakistani, it certainly hurts me very much when I see that inevitably the trail of terrorists leads back to my country ... We don’t want to make our country hospitable to such elements. My party, the PPP, severely criticised the peace agreement that was signed in 2006 with the Taliban elements in the tribal regions of Pakistan. We feel that our tribal areas have been ceded to the foreign elements, to Afghan Taliban and Arab and Chechen militants. And now those groups actually administer parts of our territory, holding our people hostage. They dispense their own form of justice. They teach little 12-year-old boys to behead those they accuse of being spies.”

Bhutto said the Musharraf government had verbally expressed sentiment for the right cause of eliminating terrorism and extremism in Pakistan, but unfortunately it had not been able to assert the rule of law in the country.

A government under her control, she promised, would move swiftly to assert law and order in the tribal areas of Pakistan, hunt down the Al Qaeda leaders who were trying to take advantage of the lack of law and order there, stop the drug trade, which was actually funding and fuelling terrorism, and reform the political madrassas that were actually militant headquarters using women and children as human shields.

Asked about the US incursion threats to Pakistan, Bhutto replied, “Well, I can understand why they say that, because they feel that Islamabad has failed to stop the terrorists and that is why they would like to move in. But I will really urge against that. I believe that the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty through unauthorised military action will have very adverse consequences. When under attack, all Pakistanis will forget their differences and will unite. So any unauthorised action would pit NATO against all the people of Pakistan, and I do not think that is advisable. But I think what is advisable is to have a close working relationship. Certainly, when the PPP is elected to power, we intend to restore law and order in our tribal areas and prevent the militants from attacking NATO.”

[bigearth]

ISI still supports Qaeda, Taliban, says Benazir

hmm, let me see...bhutto wants to get back in power.

the current "president" is supporting "al queda"...so she says.


see how it works???


her words are NOT "proof"...

[candypreet]

hmm, let me see...bhutto wants to get back in power.

the current "president" is supporting "al queda"...so she says.


see how it works???


her words are NOT "proof"...

bhutto and mush are in a nexus now

[bigearth]

bhutto and mush are in a nexus now
oh?


do you understand what i'm saying, about the previous post?

bhutto wants power, what's she gonna do, say musharraf is doing a great job?!