Terrorist Omar Sheikh of Pakistan posed as Pranab, rang Zardari

Pakistani militant Omar Saeed Sheikh, one of the three freed in 1999 by India at Kandahar in exchange for passengers of a hijacked Indian Airlines plane and later arrested for the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl, was the one who made hoax calls to President Asif Ali Zardari and the Chief of Army Staff, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, in a bid to heighten Pakistan-India tensions after last year's terrorist attacks on Mumbai, investigators have told Dawn.

"Omar Saeed Sheikh was the hoax caller. It was he who threatened the civilian and military leaderships of Pakistan over telephone. And he did so from inside Hyderabad jail," investigators said.

The controversy came to light after Dawn broke the story, one year ago, that a hoax caller claiming to be then Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee was making threatening calls to President Zardari.

It was on the night of November 26 last year that Saadia Omar, Omar Sheikh's wife, informed him about the carnage in Mumbai. Sources said that the information was passed on to Omar in Hyderabad jail through his mobile phone, which he was secretly using without the knowledge of the administration.

Saadia kept updating Omar about the massacre through the night and small hours of the morning. On the night of November 28, when the authorities had regained control over the better part of the city, Omar Saeed, using a UK-registered mobile SIM, made a phone call to Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

He told an operator handling Mukherjee's calls that he was the President of Pakistan. Indian officials started verification as part of security precautions and, after some time, the operator informed Omar that the Foreign Minister would get in touch with him soon.

Omar then made a call to President Asif Ali Zardari and another to the Chief of Army Staff. He also made an attempt to talk to the US Secretary of State, but security checks barred his way.

The presidency swung into action soon after Zardari's conversation with the adventurous militant. Zardari first spoke to Prime Minister Gilani and informed him about the happenings. He also took Interior Minister Rehman Malik into the loop.

In Rawalpindi, Gen Kayani immediately spoke to the chief of the Inter Services Intelligence, Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha.

According to sources, not only President Asif Zardari was taken in by Omar's audacity but the COAS was also baffled by his cheekiness.

Gen Kayani, sharing his thoughts with close associates, said he had been bewildered by the caller's threatening tone. But Maj Gen Athar Abbas, the military spokesman, finds the report unbelievable. "I am not his (Army chief's) operator. I don't know who puts calls through to him, but I think this can't be true," said Athar Abbas.

Interestingly, when Omar Saeed Sheikh was making these hoax calls, the Lashkar-e-Toiba chief was also in Karachi, but it is not known whether Omar Saeed was acting under the guidance of Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi or on his own.

Investigators got into the act without wasting time, coming up with their findings within hours. Their conclusion was that the phone call which came from the Indian External Affairs Ministry was actually their (Indians') check. They said calls to President Zardari and the Army chief were made from a Britain-registered SIM.

Gen (retired) Pervez Musharraf, in his autobiography, had alleged that Omar Saeed was an agent of MI6, the British intelligence agency.

The very next morning, November 29, Hyderabad jail was raided by intelligence agencies and over a dozen SIMs were recovered along with two mobile sets. Majid Siddiqui, the jail superintendent, was suspended.

"I don't know much but it is true that some mobile SIMs and mobile sets were recovered from Omar Saeed Sheikh when he was in Hyderabad jail. I got him transferred to Karachi jail because that is a far better place for such high-profile terrorists," Allauddin Abbasi, DIG Prisons, Hyderabad, told Dawn over phone.

The authorities had a word with Saadia Omar too. She was advised to "control" herself. The matter was then placed in the files of secret agencies marked as 'secret'.

The Federal Investigation Agency never interrogated Omar Saeed about the Mumbai attacks. Dawn's efforts for getting the viewpoint of Tariq Khosa , the FIA chief, drew a blank.

Omar, currently confined in a high security cell of Karachi Jail, has a long record of militancy, from kidnapping foreigners in Mumbai in 1994 to kidnapping Daniel Pearl in January 2002. He was freed by India in December 1999 as part of a deal that saw New Delhi agreeing to release militant leaders in exchange for the freedom of hostages on board an India plane hijacked to Kabul.

Soon after his release from Indian captivity, Omar Saeed developed close relations with the LeT leadership, including Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi. He was invited to a training camp in Muzaffarabad where he spent a couple of days delivering lectures to recruits. Sources said Lakhvi wanted Omar to join LeT and give the organisation an international face. In February 2002, Omar was arrested for the murder of Daniel Pearl. — Dawn, Pakistan

ISI helped Taliban supremo Mullah Omar flee

Terrorist Organization ISI helped Taliban supremo Mullah Omar flee:

Fearing that Taliban supremo Mullah Omar might be targetted by US drones, Pakistan's ISI has helped him to flee from the border town of Quetta to the mega port city of Karachi, where he has established a new Shura council.

One-eyed leader of the Afghan Taliban recently found refuge from potential US attacks in Karachi with Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) assistance, the Washington Times reported quoting US intelligence officials.

"Mullah Omar travelled to Karachi last month after the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He inaugurated a new senior leadership council in Karachi, a city that so far has escaped US and Pakistani counter-terrorism campaigns," the officials said.

The paper said the ISI helped Mullah Omar move from Quetta, where they felt he was exposed to attacks by unmanned US drones.

"The development reinforces suspicions that the ISI, which helped create the Taliban in the 1990s to expand Pakistani influence in Afghanistan, is working against US interests in Afghanistan as the Obama administration prepares to send more US troops to fight there," the daily said.

Bruce Riedel, a CIA veteran and analyst on al Qaeda and the Taliban, confirmed that Mullah Omar had been spotted in Karachi recently, the daily said.

"Some sources claim the ISI decided to move him further from the battlefield to keep him safe" from US drone attacks, Riedel was quoted as saying.

"There are huge madrassas in Karachi where Mullah Omar could easily be kept," he said.

Riedel noted that there had been few suicide bombings in Karachi, which he attributed to the Taliban and al Qaeda not wanting to "foul their own nest".

At the same time, the daily said so far there has been no indication that the top Al Qaeda leadership too had moved to Karachi.

Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri are still thought to be in the tribal region of Pakistan on Afghanistan's border, he said.

However, the newspaper said according to intelligence officials, other mid-level al Qaeda operatives who facilitate the travel and training of foreign fighters have moved to the Karachi metropolitan area, which with 18 million people is Pakistan's most populous city.

"One reason, [al Qaeda] and Taliban leaders are relocating to Karachi is because they believe US drones do not strike there," a official was quoted as saying adding that it is a densely populated urban area.

Pakistan's five military officers, linked to Headley, arrested

Some serving and ex-military officers are among five people arrested in Pakistan in connection with the LeT plot to carry out a major terror attack in India using American national David Coleman Headley, a media report said today.

"Pakistani authorities had arrested as many as five other people in connection with the (Lashkar-e-Toiba) plot in recent weeks, including some former or current Pakistani military officials," the New York Times reported.

The paper quoted an official, who has been briefed on the investigation, as saying that those arrested remain in custody, but it was unclear what role they played in the expanding plot.

Headley, 49, and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 48, who were arrested last month by FBI are accused of plotting terror attacks on behest of LeT against India and a Danish newspaper.

"The arrests of Headley and Rana have widened into a global terrorism inquiry that has led to arrests in Pakistan and implicated a former Pakistani military officer as a co-conspirator," the paper quoted officials as saying.

The American intelligence officials believe that some Pakistani military and intelligence officials even encourage terrorists to attack what they see as Pakistan's enemies, including targets in India, it said.

Headley and Rana were accused in the FBI complaints of reporting to Ilyas Kashmiri, a former Pakistani military officer who has become a militant commander associated with both al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Toiba.

Taliban target creator, blow up ISI jihad lab

Mad that parts of the very institution that created it had now turned against the Taliban, Islamist suicide bombers on Friday completely destroyed the headquarters of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence in Peshawar that was once the laboratory of jihad run by Pakistan army officers.

Taliban terrorists blew up an explosives-laden truck outside the three-story building on Khyber Road that leads to the gateway to Afghanistan and central Asia through which the ISI pushed in combatants, weapons and explosives for years to help its erstwhile ally, the Afghan Taliban to capture Kabul finally in 1996.

The dawn attack at 6.40am, the 19th in Peshawar in five months, razed the building to rubble. It was not clear how many security personnel were inside the building when the bomber struck on the road leading to the Khyber Pass just before the city's rush-hour.

``It was a suicide bombing outside the intelligence office building. Five security personnel have been martyred,'' Pakistan's chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told reporters. Other officials said the toll was nine.

``First there was firing, then a huge blast. Then everything was turned into dust and thick smoke,'' said Haroon Jan, an eyewitness who was brought into the Lady Reading hospital with a broken shoulder and head injuries.

The lawless frontier town of Peshawar, criss-crossed by Great Game deal-makers, militias and armies as political histories on both sides of the Khyber changed, has borne the brunt of the Taliban reprisals. Suicide attacks have bloodied the town's marketplaces and streets daily as Pakistan's army, eager to be seen to be acting against the globally-despised Taliban, mounted offensives against South Waziristan tribespeople.

Several big tribes, such as the Mehsud, form the backbone of the Tehrik-e-Taliban and have been suppliers of warriors and weapons traditionally for the mujahideen and later for Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida and several anti-India groups which operated openly with military support in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Most of these operations, even after Washington turned on the heat following 9/11, were supervised by Pakistani officers posted at the Peshawar ISI regional HQ on Khyber Road.

The last time an ISI building was targeted was in May, when 24 people were killed in a suicide attack in Lahore.Minutes after Friday's attack, soldiers sealed off the area around the ISI headquarters but another suicide attack on a police station in Peshawar killed six other people and wounded 40. Scared residents whispered that more attacks were imminent since a fresh batch of suicide bombers had entered the town.

Khyber Road was shut to all traffic and security beefed up at residences and offices of the provincial chief minister, NWFP governor, the army corps commander and the American consulate, all located few hundred meters from the blast sight. Schools, which had barely opened after a two-week closure because of security threats, were ordered shut again on Friday.

The attack came on a day that Gen James L Jones, president Barack Obama's national security adviser, began a two-day trip to Pakistan and met with army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Washington has goaded a reluctant Pakistan army into taking the war against terror seriously. That's led to the daily reprisals on both military and civilian targets.

Security Agents in Pakistan behind Terror Attack

Iran has received information that "some security agents" in Pakistan were cooperating with elements behind Sunday's attack on the Revolutionary Guards, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.

Ahmadinejad called on Pakistan not to waste time in cooperating with Iran in apprehending the perpetrators, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported.

Meanwhile, Pakistan condemned the suicide bomb attack in Iran and denied suggestions from the Iranian president that "some security agents" in Pakistan were cooperating with the bombers.

Iranian state television said 42 people were killed in Sunday's attack on the elite Revolutionary Guards in the country's volatile southeast.

"Pakistan is not involved in terrorist activities ... we are striving to eradicate this menace," foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit told the Daily Times newspaper on Sunday.

Pakistan's prime minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani strongly condemned the "ghastly act of terrorism" in predominantly Shi'ite Iran, Gilani's office said.

Iran has in the past accused Pakistan of hosting members of the Sunni insurgent group Jundollah, Iranian state television said. Iranian media said Jundollah claimed responsibility for Sunday's bombing, which killed more than 30 people.

Some analysts believe Jundollah has evolved through shifting alliances with various parties, including the Taliban and Pakistan's ISI intelligence service, who saw the group as a tool against Iran.

"We were informed that some security agents in Pakistan are cooperating with the main elements of this terrorist incident ... We regard it as our right to demand these criminals from them," Ahmadinejad said, without giving details.

"We ask the Pakistani government not to delay any longer in the apprehension of the main elements in this terrorist attack," he said.

State television said Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned a senior Pakistani diplomat in Tehran, saying there was evidence "the perpetrators of this attack came to Iran from Pakistan."

Pakistan ISI behind attack on Indian Embassy

Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI was behind the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul which killed 17 people and wounded more than 60 others, Afghan envoy to the US has claimed.

"Yes, we do," Afghan Ambassador to the US Said T Jawad told the PBS news channel in an interview when asked if he was pointing the figure at Pakistan for the suicide bombing that took place on Thursday.

"We are pointing the finger at the Pakistan intelligence agency, based on the evidence on the ground and similar attack taking place in Afghanistan," Jawad said.

While the Karzai government was quick to point figure towards foreign players in the attack on the Indian embassy early this week, this is for the first time that a top Afghan official has blamed the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI for the terror strike.

The Afghan government has also blamed the ISI in the July 2008 attack on the Indian Embassy which claimed 60 lives.

The Afghan Ambassador also supported the report of General Stanley McChrystal, Commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, which recommends some 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

This is necessary to secure the country, Jawad said. He said Afghanistan would like to have a clear commitment to success from the Obama administration, which is currently, reassign its strategy for the country.

AQ Khan nails Pakistan's Goverment nuke lies

Pakistan The Most Dangerous Nuclear Proliferator

An angry, humiliated, and wounded A.Q.Khan has finally made public and official what has long been suspected: his nuclear proliferation activities that included exchanging and passing blue-prints and equipment to China, Iran, North Korea, and Libya was done at the behest of the Pakistani government and military, and he was forced to take the rap for it.

''The bastards first used us and are now playing dirty games with us,'' Khan writes about the Pakistani leadership in a December 2003 letter to his wife Henny that has finally been made public by an interlocutor. ''Darling, if the government plays any mischief with me take a tough stand,'' he tells his wife, adding, ''They might try to get rid of me to cover up all the things they got done by me.''

But Henny was unable to play hardball because Khan had also sent copies of that letter to his daughter Dina in London, and to his niece Kausar Khan in Amsterdam through his brother, a Pakistan Airlines executive. Pakistani intelligence agencies got wind of it and threatened the well-being of the family, forcing him to recant and publicly take the blame for the proliferation activities in a humiliating television spectacle engineered by then military ruler Pervez Musharraf.

However, a copy of the four-page letter reached Khan’s long-time journalistic contact Simon Henderson in 2007. In fact, in the letter, Khan tells his wife, ''Get in touch with Simon Henderson and give him all the details.'' Henderson says when he acquired the copy of the letter, he was shocked. His acquaintance with Khan goes back to the late 1970s, but it was never intimate, and consisted of an occasional interviews and conversations, and seasonal greetings.

Describing the four-page letter as ''extraordinary,'' Henderson says in numbered paragraphs, it outlines Pakistan’s nuclear co-operation with China, Iran and North Korea, and also mentions Libya. Some of the disclosures are stunning , and in one para that is bound to embarrass Beijing, besides implicating it, Khan writes about how Pakistan helped China in enrichment technology in return for bomb blueprints.

''We put up a centrifuge plant at Hanzhong (250km southwest of Xian),” Khan writes. “The Chinese gave us drawings of the nuclear weapon, gave us 50kg of enriched uranium, gave us 10 tons of UF6 (natural) and 5 tons of UF6 (3%).'' UF6 is uranium hexafluoride, the gaseous feedstock for an enrichment plan.

On Iran, the letter says: ''Probably with the blessings of BB [Benazir Bhutto]...General Imtiaz [Benazir’s defence adviser, now dead] asked me to give a set of drawings and some components to the Iranians. The names and addresses of suppliers were also given to the Iranians.''

On North Korea: ''[A now-retired general] took $3million through me from the N. Koreans and asked me to give some drawings and machines.''

Henderson does not explain why he waited nearly two years since he got hold of the letter to make it public. But he writes sympathetically about Khan’s travails in Pakistan, where he is held largely incommunicado under house arrest. The Pakistani government and the military have repeatedly rejected and challenged court orders to free him, and an episode last month, where Khan was freed just for a day on court orders before Islamabad locked him up again under pressure from Washington, appears to have precipitated the leak of the explosive letter.

Henderson’s Sunday Times expose also implicates the U.S and other western powers, who he says, basically shoved Islamabad’s rampant proliferation (while blaming it solely on Khan) under the carpet in order to get Pakistan’s cooperation in the war on terror. The move also saved Washington from huge embarrassment since it was basically asleep on the watch when Pakistan began its nuclear proliferation and then winked at it when it was discovered, all the while lavishing billions in military supplies on its unstable client state.

PAK GOVT RESCUED BROKE A.Q.KHAN WITH $ 2500 PER MONTH PENSION

Henderson also implicitly defends Khan from charges that he profited from proliferation activities, as alleged by deposed military ruler Pervez Musharraf. Khan, he says, is adamant that he never sold nuclear secrets for personal gain. So what about the millions of dollars he reportedly made?

''Nothing was confiscated from him and no reported investigation turned up hidden accounts. Having planted rumours about Khan’s greed, Pakistani officials were curiously indifferent to following them through,'' Henderson writes.

According to Henderson, much was made of a ''hotel'', named after Khan’s wife, Henny, built by a local tour guide with the help of money from Khan and a group of friends in Timbuktu. But it is a modest structure at best, more of a guesthouse, he says. A weekend home at Bani Gala, outside Islamabad, where Khan went to relax, is hardly the palace that some reports have made it.

In fact, says Henderson, Khan was close to being broke by the summer 2007, when he was finding it difficult to make ends meet on his pension of 12,200 (Pakistani) rupees per month. After pleading with General Khalid Kidwai, the officer supervising both Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and Khan, the pension was increased to $2,500 per month and there was a one-off lump-sum payment of the equivalent of $50,000. Hendersen says he has copies of the agreement and cheques.

Henderson’s 3000-word expose also reveals a couple of intriguing tid-bits that should interest the world’s strategic community, including New Delhi. Besides details of the Pakistan-China nexus, he says Pakistan tested only two devices in its 1998 tit-for-tat nuclear tests that followed India.

While Pakistan claims it conducted six tests to be one-up on India’s five tests, Western experts and seismologists have long said they recorded only two signals for devices that measured between two and four kilotons. Khan also states clearly that China gave Pakistan designs for the nuclear bombs.

In fact, in one colorful passage in his article, Henderson describes how Khan was warned by a Chinese counterpart about the Pakistani Army. On a visit to Kahuta, Li Chew, the senior minister who ran China’s nuclear-weapons programme, tells Khan, ''As long as they need the bomb, they will lick your balls. As soon as you have delivered the bomb, they will kick your balls.''

Henderson himself seems deeply conscious of any perception that he is close to Khan or that he is a cat’s paw for any country. ''Any relationship with a source is fraught with potential difficulties. One doesn’t want to be blind to the chance of being used. Government officials and politicians in any country are seldom interested in the simple truth. They all have their particular story to tell. In this context, I am frankly amazed that Khan has chosen me to be his interlocutor with the world,'' he writes.

But Pakistani authorities were clearly aware that he and Khan had been in touch and Khan may have managed to smuggle a copy of the letter implicating Islamabad to him. Henderson says in a court document that Khan was asked to sign when he was promised freedom, there is a line that read “That in case Mr Simon Henderson or anyone else proceeds with the publication of any information or material anywhere in the world, I affirm that it would not be based on any input from me and I disown it.” That line was eventually deleted and replaced with a more general prohibition about unnamed ''specific media personnel.''

In other words, stand by for a flurry of denials.

Pakistan Epicenter of Terrorism In world, Exports Terrorists to China USA Afganistan Europe India

In what could be a renewed hardening of tone towards Islamabad, India Saturday alleged that Pakistan is the "epicenter of terrorism", one day after its Army chief threatened the neighboring nation with action if it doesn't stop attempts by militants to infiltrate into India-controlled Kashmir.

"Pakistan is the epicenter of terrorism," Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna told the media in the southern city of Bangalore.

Reiterating that Islamabad should waste no time in acting against those responsible for the Mumbai terror attacks last November, which claimed the lives of over 170 people, Krishna said that "if Pakistan is serious, it will act against Nov. 26 attackers".

"Pakistan should arrest people involved in Mumbai attack," he said.

The minister's statement came a day after Indian Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor warned Pakistan, saying, "If ceasefire violation is not stopped, we will be forced to take retaliatory action. We normally observe restraint but if this does not stop, we will have to think of retaliatory action."

Kapoor also said that cross border infiltration into India-controlled Kashmir has been registering an upward trend with attempts being made to "push in" from Pakistan as many terrorists as possible before the winter.

"Let me put it this way that this period is critical as we have a peaceful valley... Attempts will be made from across the border to try and disrupt that and push in as many infiltrators as possible before the winter sets in," Kapoor told reporters.

Lashkar terrorist with Pak passport arrested in New Delhi

A suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist was arrested in Delhi on Tuesday and explosives were recovered from him, police said.

The suspected Lashkar terrorist, Yusuf alias Salim (27) being arrested from New Delhi railway station by special cell on Tuesday.


The man who alighted from a train on the Ajmeri Gate side of the New Delhi Railway Station was caught by Delhi Police's Special Cell at around 12:40 pm, deputy commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Alok Kumar said. Two of his associates, however, escaped.

The man was carrying an identity card bearing the name Salim from Jammu & Kashmir and also a Pakistani passport bearing the name Yusuf, Kumar said, adding four detonators, two timers and explosive chemicals were recovered from him.

Other incriminating documents have also been seized from his possession, which are being examined by the police.

Asked if the recovered chemical weighing around two kilogram was RDX, Kumar said, "It looks like."

He said they were trying to ascertain his identity as well as his mission in the national capital. The suspected terrorists were believed to be traveling to Maharashtra. Efforts are on to nab the two who escaped.

He is the second terrorist to be arrested by the Delhi Police this month. On August 6 just days ahead of Independence Day, the Special Cell had arrested two suspected Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists from Daryaganj area in central Delhi.

China Supports Paksitan's Terrorism Against India

China has turned down India's request to declare Masood Azhar, chief of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed terror group, a terrorist and be sanctioned by the UN Security Council's 1267 committee.

Chinese officials told their Indian counterparts that theirs was a "technical" hold. No amount of Indian explanation that the decision was "political" succeeded in persuading the Chinese. India held its last round of talks on the subject of Azhar with the Chinese during last weekend's boundary talks between national security adviser MK Narayanan and China's state councilor, Dai Bingguo.

It was in mid-July that India asked China, by then the only country to put a "hold" on Azhar's ban, about its decision to block the declaration. According to top level officials, China had reportedly said they had not seen all the information. Consequently, India sent along a lot of information that it thought would help in persuading China.

In fact, after the Xinjiang unrest in early July, India believed, China would have a greater understanding of Islamic terrorism.

But China's decision, said officials, continues to be led by its relations with Pakistan, which has housed Masood Azhar. In December, it was only after Pakistan gave the go-ahead that China lifted its hold on Laskar-e-Taiba chief Mohammed Hafiz Saeed. Saeed was put on the "consolidated" list of the UNSC's 1267 committee after which Pakistan put him under house arrest.

On Masood Azhar, UK had initially joined China in placing a "hold" on the three names that India had sent to the 1267 sanctions committee -- the others being Azam Cheema and Abdul Rahman "Makki". UK lifted its hold after India protested diplomatically.

Pakistan last week declared that it had banned 25 terror organizations operating on its soil, among them Jaish-e-Mohammed (which was renamed Jamaat-ul-Furqan after being banned by Pervez Musharraf in 2002) and Khuddam-ul-Islam, another India-centric group started by Azhar.

Pakistan Dogs LeT responsible for Mumbai attacks: UK report

Holding the Pakistan's LeT responsible for last year's Mumbai attacks, a British parliamentary committee on Sunday said several major terror attacks across the world, including in London, Madrid and Bali, had origins in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

A report by the powerful Foreign Affairs Committee quoted a former CIA chief as saying that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba, blamed by India for attacks on its soil including on Mumbai, has reached a "merge point" with al-Qaeda.

"It was from the tribal areas in Pakistan that the bomb plots in London, Madrid, Bali, Islamabad and later Germany and Denmark were planned," the report on "Global Security: Afghanistan and Pakistan" headed by lawmaker Mike Gapes said.

"The LeT group, which was responsible for the November 2008 Mumbai attacks which targeted Westerns, in particular US and UK nationals, also operates from these tribal areas," it said.

Terrorist LeT Organization Of Pakistan financing HuJI in Bangladesh

A Top Indian militant detained has confessed his active links with LeT and said the Pakistan based terror outfit has been financing HuJI operations in Bangladesh, even as he has been remanded to police custody.

Mufti Obaidullah, a top operative of India's Asif Reza Commando Force used six mobile phones and had regular contact with Ameer Reza, chief of ARCF working with the Pakistan-based militant outfits, Detective Branch (DB) of police sources has said. He sent SMS to Reza and others in Pakistan. Obaidullah on July 17 said that he knew Reza "quite well."

An official familiar with the Obaidullah's interrogation said that Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Toiba was financing the Bangladesh based Huji.

Deputy commissioner Monirul Islam of DB told The Daily Star, "The call lists of the mobile phones used by Obaidullah show that he made calls to Pakistan regularly and often to India." ARCF is called Indian branch of LeT.

"He talked to Ameer Reza every day over the phone. But we are yet to find out the subjects of their conversation."

ARCF had claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack on the American Centre in Kolkata in 2002 while he was charged with the task of organizing the outfit in Bangladesh.

Police had said on July 17 that they have arrested Obaidullah after one and a half months of manhunt while he was hiding in Bangladesh for the past 14 years.

Pakistan President Zardari admits terrorism nurtured by govt for tactical use

In an astonishingly candid admission - a first by any Pakistani head of state - president Asif Ali Zardari has admitted militants and terrorists were wilfully created by past Pakistani governments and nurtured as a policy to achieve tactical objectives.

``Militants and extremists emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralized but because they were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve short-term tactical objectives. Let's be truthful and make a candid admission of the reality,'' he said at a gathering of civil servants in Islamabad on Tuesday night.

``The terrorists of today were heroes of yesteryear until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well,'' Zardari said, emphasising that Pakistan can't be left alone at this stage of the war on terror. He also pointedly said that the future generations won't forgive the current leadership if it does not take corrective measures.

India has long charged Pakistan with sponsoring terrorism in Kashmir by providing arms, ammunition and training to the militants who have been engaged in a war of secession. Zardari's admission is bound to create a major flutter in Islamabad, particularly within the Army, which has historically been the author of Pakistan's India policy.

``Pakistan is a frontline state in the war against terror and we have pledged to eliminate this scourge. I have taken charge of the country at a difficult time and will meet the challenges facing the country,'' he said.

Criticising former military rulers of Pakistan - in itself an act of derring-do - Zardari said concentration of power in one individual was against the spirit of democracy and good governance; power must be dispersed. ``Too much power in one hand lasts for a short time,'' he said. ``For power to be effectively used for long lasting public good, it must be dispersed as widely as possible,'' he added.

These admissions come days after Zardari, in an article in an American daily, accused the US of fomenting militancy in Pakistan.

``The West stood by as a democratically elected (Pakistani) government was toppled by a military dictatorship in the late '70s. Because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the West used my nation as a blunt instrument of the Cold War. It empowered a Gen. Zia dictatorship that brutalized its people, decimated our political parties, murdered the prime minister who had founded Pakistan's largest political party, and destroyed the press and civil society,'' Zardari wrote in the Washington Post.

``Once the Soviets were defeated, the Americans took the next bus out of town, leaving behind a political vacuum that ultimately led to the Talibanization and radicalization of Afghanistan, the birth of Al-Qaeda and the current jihadi insurrection in Pakistan.''

``The heroin mafia, which arose as a consequence of the efforts to implode the Soviet Union, now takes in $5 billion a year, twice the budget of our Army and police. This is the price Pakistan continues to pay,'' wrote Zardari in the article, `The Frontier Against Terrorism'.

It wasn't evident whether Zardari was referring to the Taliban or terrorists operating in Jammu and Kashmir. The Pakistan Army is currently engaged in a debilitating war with the Taliban in the Swat Valley. Of late, it has shifted focus to the militants operating in the South Waziristan in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the border with Afghanistan.

Zardari further said dialogue was the chief ``weapon'' his government would deploy for national reconciliation. ``We intend to keep all political forces together in a harmonious relationship as we can't afford political games and confrontational politics,'' he said.

Responding to suggestions by former civil servants, he said he was taking several measures to improve governance, tackle militancy and extremism, apart from strengthening institutions and devolving power.

Is Pakistan Terrorist Group Lashkar E Toiba the New Al-Qaida?

The evidence is tumbling out of the closet: Pakistan's creation Lashkar-e-Taiba is not merely allied to al-Qaida but can now be described as the new al-Qaida. With the UN Security Council listing LeT leaders Arif Qasmani, Mohammad Yahya Mujahid and Abu Mohammed Ameen al-Peshawari as terrorists allied to al-Qaida, yet another veil is being ripped off Pakistan's terror claims.

The three, banned under a UN Security Council resolution adopted on June 29, are not mere footsoldiers of the Lashkar. In fact, the resolution brings out their importance for LeT and al-Qaida.

It says, ``Arif Qasmani has worked with LeT to facilitate terrorist attacks, to include the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai, India, and the February 2007, Samjhauta Express bombing in Panipat, India. Qasmani utilized money that he received from Dawood Ibrahim to facilitate the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai, India.''

The resolution added, ``Mohammed Yahya Mujahid is head of LeT's media department. In that capacity, Mujahid has issued statements to the press on behalf of LeT on numerous occasions. Fazeel-a-Tul Shaykh Abu Mohammed Ameen al-Peshawari, leader of the Ganj Madrassah in Peshawar, Pakistan, was providing assistance to the al-Qaida network.''

The dangerous part in all of this is that while the US and Pakistani armies are targeting the Taliban, the ISI continues to shelter the Lashkar, a greater threat to India and the world.

It is openly acknowledged in counter-terrorism circles that the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai were masterminded by the ISI and executed with commando precision by the LeT. Increasingly, the LeT is emerging as more than a mere Pakistani terror outfit. It's now revealed to have strong connections with al-Qaida and globally on par with it.

LeT's primary target continues to be India, with the aim of weakening it and establishing a caliphate here. It is for this mission that LeT receives the bulk of its funding from the ISI and is so close to the Pakistan army that some of its retired officers are the chief combat trainers for the LeT, which has, in turn, been training Taliban-Qaida fighters.

Over the years, al-Qaida has found great use for the extensive network of LeT — its charitable arm, JuD, is an effective front for its terror activities. Several years ago, ISI brought the LeT and Dawood's organized crime network together — thus bringing about a marriage of interests.

Recently, Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer who is in charge of Obama's Af-Pak strategy review, was quoted as saying, ``I think we have to regard the LeT as much a threat to us as any other part of the al-Qaida system.''

While LeT and al-Qaida are yet to launch joint operations, there is ample evidence of the two entitites marching together on the jihad highway. Security expert B Raman says al-Qaida is finding Arab recruitment for jihad more difficult, and has come to rely on LeT's extensive network of Pakistan diaspora jihadis, who are being trained and sent off on missions or as sleeper cells.

In 2006, national security adviser M K Narayanan described LeT as part of the "al-Qaida compact", and "as big and omnipotent" as the former. "The Lashkar today has emerged as a very major force. It has connectivity with west Asia, Europe... It is as big as and omnipotent as al-Qaida in every sense of the term," he said.

After the Mumbai attacks, David Kilcullen, US counter-insurgency expert, told a panel that counter-terror officials in Europe had found CDs of al-Qaida's recent urban warfare tactics that matched those used in Mumbai.

A significant number of Qaida leaders like Abu Zubaydah have been found from LeT safe-houses, while reports say over six Guantanamo bay detainees were LeT operatives or trained in LeT camps. Top intelligence officials in India say that their information shows LeT and al-Qaida share "cadres, ammunition and funds."

According to the South Asia Terrorism portal, LeT has an extensive network that run across Pakistan and India with branches in Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Bangladesh and South East Asia. It gets donations from Pakistanis in Gulf, UK, Islamic NGOs and Pakistani businessmen. But main source of funds is ISI and Saudi Arabia. It maintains ties to groups in Philippines, Middle East and Chechnya, been part of the Bosnian campaign against Serbs, set up sleeper cells in Australia and US and been active in Iraq. It even has a unit in Germany.

Farhana Ali, terrorism analyst with RAND Corporation, said in a post-Mumbai discussion, "The internationalisation of LeT has made it a potent force, capable with its capabilities but also in its membership. In this way LeT is far greater in power than al-Qaida."

Selig Harrison, author of `Pakistan: State of the Union', points to a more dangerous threat from the LET. "Disarming LeT should be the top US priority in Pakistan because it would greatly reduce the possibility of a coup by Islamist sympathisers in the armed forces. The closet Islamists in the Army and the powerful ISI are not likely to risk a coup in Islamabad unless they can count on armed support from Lashkar-e-Taiba and its allies to help them consolidate their grip on the countryside."

42 Operational Terror camps in Pakistan, PoK to Train Islamic Terrorists Attacking India America UK France

When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh acted tough with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari in the full glare of television cameras this week, he had solid reason to do so. There are still 42 terror-training camps directed against India alive and kicking in Pakistan and PoK.

The latest assessment of Multi-Agency Centre (MAC), the nodal agency for all terror-related intelligence under the home ministry, holds there are 34 `active' and eight `holding' camps operational across the border.

Both Pakistan/Northern Areas and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir have 17 `active' and four `holding or dormant' camps each, says the MAC assessment, based on inputs from Research and Analysis Wing, Intelligence Bureau, Military Intelligence and National Technical Research Organisation, among others.

"It is estimated that around 2,200 militants are housed in these camps. After 26/11, many of these camps emptied out or relocated. Some are back to their original status now, while new ones have also come up,'' said an official.

With the PM declaring India wants Pakistan to take "strong, effective and sustained action'' against the terror networks targeting India from its soil before it decides on resuming the composite dialogue process, the fate of these camps as well as that of the masterminds behind the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai is being tracked closely.

India, of course, had rebuffed Pakistan's calls for resumption of the dialogue process after 26/11. Even now, though India has signalled its interest in reviving the dialogue after the Singh-Zardari meeting in Yekaterinburg in Russia this week, New Delhi remains cautious about whether Pakistan will actually walk its talk.

While Pakistan is taking steps to crack down on the Taliban-al Qaida nexus, faced as it is with unrelenting heat from the US, the jihadi factory against India continues to run with impunity.

As per the MAC assessment, of the around 2,200 militants in the 42 camps spread across Pakistan, around 300 belong to Lashkar-e-Taiba, 240 to Jaish-e-Mohammed and 130 to Huji, while the rest are of "mixed'' origins.

The "active'' camps in PoK include those in Kotli, Garhi Dupatta, Nikial, Sensa, Gulpur, Forward Kahutta, Peer Chinasi, Jhandi Chauntra, Bhimbher, Barnala, Skardu, Abdullah Bin Masud, Tattapani, Samani and Shavai Nallah, among others.

The North-West Frontier Province is another hotbed of jihadi activity, with the densely-forested hilly Manshera region, in particular, housing several madrasas, which also double up as training camps. These include Jangal Mangal, Andher Bela, Shinkiari and Jalo Gali, with other NWFP camps including Boi, Oghi and Attar Shisha.

The other camps in Pakistan and Northern Areas include Muridke, Sialkot, Beesian, Garhi Habibullah and Jalogali. "Many of these camps are makeshift, which can be translocated very quickly to evade scrutiny. Moreover, the real leaders of the various tanzims are based in cities like Islamabad and Lahore,'' said another official.

'US admn allowed Pak to acquire Nuke Technology'

The US allowed Pakistan to manufacture and acquire nuclear weapons without informing the Congress, a non-profit corruption watchdog
has said, quoting a whistleblower who was fired for objecting to the policy.

A CIA and Pentagon official, who tried to object to this policy of the then US administration of keeping the Congress in dark on this issue, was fired.

"As a CIA intelligence officer and later in the Pentagon, Rich Barlow learned that top US officials were allowing Pakistan to manufacture and possess nuclear weapons," Danielle Brian, executive director, Project on Government Oversight (POGO), told a Congressional hearing last week.

Washington-based, POGO is a non-profit non-partisan watchdog that works with whistleblowers and government insiders to expose corruption, fraud, and abuse of power.

"Barlow also discovered that US officials were hiding these activities from Congress," Brian told US lawmakers in her testimony during a hearing.

"Barlow objected and suggested to his supervisors that Congress should be made aware of the situation... he was fired," said Brian in her testimony.

"Barlow is now destitute and living in a trailer," she said as she went on to give other examples of the fate of the whistleblowers in the US government.

Pakistan-born student found guilty of supporting LeT

Pakistan Students Trained to be Terrorists

A Pakistan-born student of Georgia Tech in Atlanta has been found guilty of conspiring to support terrorist groups including Al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan based outfit blamed for the Nov 26 Mumbai attacks.

Syed Haris Ahmed, who provided videos of important places in Washington to LeT and Al Qaeda operatives, now faces up to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)said Wednesday after a trial court in Georgia found Ahmed guilty of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.

'This case has never been about an imminent threat to the United States, because in the post-9/11 world we will not wait to disrupt terrorism-related activity until a bomb is built and ready to explode,' said David E. Nahmias, US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.

'The fuse that leads to an explosion of violence may be long, but once it is lit - once individuals unlawfully agree to support terrorist acts at home or abroad - we will prosecute them to snuff that fuse out,' he said.

'This investigation is connected to arrests and convictions of multiple terrorist supporters in Atlanta and around the world-all before any innocent people were killed,' Nahmias said adding, 'This prosecution underscores the importance of international and domestic cooperation in combating terrorism.'

In April 2005, the FBI said Ahmed and his principal co-conspirator travelled to the Washington D.C., area to take the casing videos of infrastructure targets for potential terrorist attacks, including the US Capitol, to establish their credentials with 'the jihadi brothers' as well as for use in violent jihad propaganda and planning.

Ahmed's co-conspirator allegedly sent several of the video clips to Younis Tsouli, a propagandist and recruiter for the terrorist organisation Al Qaeda in Iraq, and to Aabid Hussein Khan, a facilitator for the Pakistan-based terrorist organisations, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. Both Tsouli and Khan have since been convicted of terrorism offences in the UK.

The government also presented evidence at trial that in July 2005, Ahmed travelled from Atlanta to Pakistan in an unsuccessful attempt to enter a training camp and ultimately engage in violent jihad.

Ahmed was arrested in Atlanta on March 23, 2006, on the original indictment in this case, which charged him with one count of material support of terrorism.

The initial indictment was unsealed and publicly announced on April 20, 2006, after the arrest of the alleged principal co-conspirator in Bangladesh. Superseding indictments added three additional charges.

Chinese passing off fake drugs as ‘Made in India’

Chinese passing off fake drugs as ‘Made in India’

Are fake drugs manufactured in China being pushed into various African countries with the `Made in India' tag? The Indian government
has long suspected this to be the case, but it now has definite evidence for the first time.

Last week, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) of Nigeria issued a press release stating that a large consignment of fake anti-malarial generic pharmaceuticals labelled `Made in India' were, in fact, found to have been produced in China.

New Delhi has registered ``strong protest'' with the Chinese mission and China's foreign trade ministry, according to sources in the commerce ministry.

India's High Commissioner in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, Mahesh Sachdev, had earlier written to then commerce secretary GSK Pillai, alerting him to the large seizure: ``While this is a case of a Chinese company exporting fake `Made in India' labelled medicines which has been accidentally exposed, it is unlikely to be an isolated incident. Indeed there is no reason for Nigeria to be the only country to be receiving such consignments.''

His letter went on to say: ``Fake foreign-made generics carrying `Made in India' label can do tremendous harm to our interests. It not only dents our image and takes our legitimate market share, it also erodes the distinction between generic and fake medicines that we have been campaigning for at WHO and WTO''.

Commerce ministry sources said: ``We have had many complaints about such fake drugs from China being offloaded as Indian drugs in countries like Ghana, South Africa, Ivory Coast and West Africa — in general, where India has a substantial market share. But so far there has been no formal complaint. This is the first time that such a large international consignment has been seized and this will be taken up strongly with the Chinese side.''

Sachdev in his letter said that he had spoken to the director-general of NAFDAC Dr Paul Orhii who said that the Nigerian preference for generics made such cases of fake drugs more common. He expressed NAFDAC's determination to curb circulation of substandard fake medicines.

India and China have been held primarily responsible for fake drugs in the Nigerian market in particular and Africa in general. About 60% of drugs in Nigeria are imported. Between 2001 and 2007, more than 30 Indian and Chinese companies were banned in Nigeria for exporting fake drugs to the country.

However, Dr Mira Shiva of the Initiative for Health Equity and Society (IHES) told TOI that both India and China being large manufacturers of generics, multinational firms would look to discredit the two countries and label their drugs as substandard, so that they would have greater access to the African markets. She warned against the two countries trying to run each other down before ascertaining the full facts in the case to rule out any orchestration, but added that India ought to be more careful to ensure the quality of the drugs exported as well as sold domestically.

ISI maintains link with militant commanders, says Musharraf : The Former Chief Of Army Staff

Former Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf has conceded that his country's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) maintains link with militant commanders like Sirajuddin Haqqani, suspected of having masterminded the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul.

Musharraf said that ISI had "used Haqqani's influence" to get Pakistan's Ambassador to Afghanistan, who was kidnapped by Tehrik-e-Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, released.

Haqqani, "is the man who has influence over Baitullah Mehsud, a dangerous terrorist, the fiercest commander in South Waziristan and the murderer of Benzir Bhutto, as we know today," Musharraf said in an interview to German newspaper Der Spiegel.

"Mehsud kidnapped our Ambassador in Kabul and our intelligence used Haqqani's influence to get him released. Now that does not mean that Haqqani is supported by us. The intelligence service is using certain enemies against other enemies. And it is better to tackle them one by one than making them all enemies," he said.

On US media reports that ISI had systematically supported Taliban, the former Pakistan President said, "Intelligence always has access to other network -- that is what Americans did with KGB, that is what ISI also does."

Sirajuddin Haqqani is the son of renowned Mujaheedin commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, who is now one of the foremost commanders of Afghan Taliban. Haqqani brothers have been accused of masterminding the attack on Indian embassy in Kabul on July seven, 2008.

Pakistan frees Mumbai attack accused Terrorist - Hafiz Saeed

Terrorist Country (Pakistan) Frees Their Terror Dogs

Pakistani authorities have freed detained Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the leader of Lashkar-e-Toiba front Jamaat-ud-Dawa from house arrest in his house in eastern Pakistan on Tuesday. The release was ordered by the Lahore High Court.

Saeed had been put under house arrest on Thursday December 11, 2008 following international hue and cry over the JuD's involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks of 26 November 2008.

In December 2008, the UN Security Council had listed the group as a front for LeT. Saeed's home in Johar Town area of Lahore was declared a "sub-jail".

Saeed's associates freed too

PTI reports that Saeed's close aide Col (retired) Nazir Ahmed too was freed along with him nearly six months after they were detained following the Mumbai terror attacks.

A three-member bench of the Lahore High Court freed Saeed and Ahmed after hearing arguments by the JuD chief's counsel A K Dogar, who claimed the detention of the two men violated Pakistan's constitution and laws.

The three-judge bench, hearing the case, said it will give a detailed order later.

Dogar, who addressed the bench for about 45 minutes, said the UN Security Council had only sought a freeze on the JuD's assets and a travel ban on its leaders and the world body had not demanded the arrest of JuD leaders.

He claimed it was not binding under Pakistani laws to implement UN Security Council resolutions.

This is not the first time Hafiz Saeed has been under house arrest or released therefrom. He was first placed under house arrest in August 2006 but later Lahore High Court had ordered his release.

Authorities rearrested him hours after that, only to set him free again a few weeks later.

In January 2009, Pakistani authorities had extended by two months the detention of Hafiz Mohammed Saeed and seven other activists of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa.

The Mumbai terror strikes had left over 170 people dead and horrified the world.

The Jamaat leaders have been detained under the Maintenance of Public Order ordinance, which allows a person to be held for up to 90 days.

The then Pakistani Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar had told reporters that Saeed and other militant leaders detained by Pakistani authorities could not be tried in the absence of evidence against them.

The Punjab government spokesman had also said 10 schools and 18 dispensaries run by the Jamaat in the province had been taken over by authorities. Seven Jamaat publications had been banned and all copies had been confiscated.

Though Pakistani authorities had detained Jamaat leaders, sealed the group's offices across the country and frozen its bank accounts, local media reports had described the measures as "half-hearted".

The reports had said Saeed, also the leader of the LeT, had been allowed to leave his home and that the Jamaat's sprawling headquarters at Muridke near Lahore was still fully operational.

Taliban torched over 200 schools in Swat in 2 years

Pakistan Created Monster Taliban Devouring Pakistan Itself

Taliban militants have burnt down more than 200 schools in Pakistan's restive Swat valley in the last two years and made all out efforts to prevent girls from receiving education, a media report here said on Sunday.

The militants told the residents in the valley that if they were good Muslims they would stop sending their daughters to schools, 'The Sunday Times' said in a report from Mingora, the capital of Swat.

"Every evening (Taliban commander) Maulana Fazullah, nicknamed 'Radio Mullah', broadcast the names on the radio of girls who had stopped going to school - it would be, 'Congratulations to Miss Kulsoon or Miss Shahnaz, who has quit school.' Then he warned others if they continued with their education they would go to hell," the paper said.

The Taliban have torched over 200 of Swat's 1,500 schools in the last two years, it said.

The military offensive against the militants resulted in what Martin Mogwania, the acting UN humanitarian coordinator, called "the most dramatic displacement in the world."

According to UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, more than 1.7 million people have been rendered homeless in just three weeks. On Friday, the UN appealed for 340 million pounds, while officials urgently tried to find new sites for camps.

The newspaper also gave a graphic account of the havoc created by Taliban in Swat. A 22-year-old medical student from the valley had secretly catalogued the horrors of life in Swat under the Taliban.

The burning-down of schools, bodies hanging upside down, public lashings and decapitated heads with dollars stuffed in their nostrils and notes reading, 'This is what happens to spies,' were all captured on the student's mobile phone at great personal risk, the report said.

The paper noted that Fazullah in December announced a deadline of January 15 for all girls to stop attending school.

The medical student's account was corroborated by Ziauddin Yusufzai, who ran two schools in Swat and was spokesman for the private school association until he fled the bombing three weeks ago.

"Once, my wife went shopping in a market popular with women and a man with long hair and a gun came and terrorised them and shouted, 'Haven't we warned you women not to come to shops? Next time we'll kill you.'"

Yusufzai, too, admitted that Fazullah won widespread popularity early on. "Fazlullah used his radio to spread venomous propaganda," he said.

"He was winning the support of many people. The whole town would go to Friday prayers and he would arrive on a horse, his long hair flowing, as if he were the prophet."

Fazlullah's call for the restoration of Islamic law was broadly supported. The Taliban were also seen by many as a class movement - occupying the homes of wealthy residents. Yusufzai estimated that by the end of 2007 the Taliban controlled 30 per cent of Swat.

Two army operations intended to remove the Taliban merely tightened their grip, the paper said. "The army would tell people to leave their villages, but instead of clearing them of militants it seemed they were cleared for militants."

It was the combination of international pressure and the militants' proximity to the federal capital Islamabad that finally persuaded the army to act. "They're not going to salute a Mullah Omar, no way," explained President Asif Ali Zardari in an interview to the newspaper.

"It was fine when the militants were just tools but now the tools have come to threaten the masters. It's a different fight," he said.

Rehman Malik, the Interior Minister, said: "We had a choice: either we hand over the country to the Taliban or we fight, and we have decided to fight. We will not stop now until we have cleared them all."

About 15,000 members of the security forces are fighting between 4,000 and 5,000 militants in Swat. According to the army, more than 1,000 militants and 50 soldiers have been killed, though the lack of media access to the area meant it was impossible to verify those figures.

According to the Interior Minister, Fazullah's forces have been receiving help from Al-Qaeda. Malik said that among those captured in Swat were four Saudis, a Libyan and an Afghan, all currently under interrogation.

Pakistan multiplying Nuclear weapons, increasing Danger to World Civilization

Rogue Pakistan is multiplying its nuclear arsenal much beyond its present stable of 60 to 100 weapons and increasing their destructive power and deliverability system, according to latest satellite photos released.

Pakistan is expanding its plutonium producing production capacity to build smaller, lighter plutonium-fission weapons and deliverable thermo-nuclear weapons.

The new lighter nuclear weapons would use plutonium as a nuclear trigger and enriched uranium in the secondary, a report by US arms control institute said.

Satellite images have revealed that Pakistan now has the fastest nuclear weapons programme and it has considerably expanded two sites producing fissile material for nuclear weapons, the report by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) said.

The new plutonium producing sites are located near Rawalpindi and could be engaged in activities to build two new plutonium production reactors. Islamabad so far has only uranium-based nuclear weapons.

"Pakistan's ongoing expansion of its plutonium production programme, which includes new undeclared, unsafeguarded reactors and plutonium reprocessing facilities, is likely linked to Pakistan's strategic plans to improve the destructiveness and deliverability of its nuclear arsenal," ISIS said.

The other sites being expanded, according to the satellite photos released by the ISIS, are located near Dera Ghazi Khan in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), which produces natural uranium hexafluoride (UF6) and uranium material, two materials used for making Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

Satellite photos taken in August last year, of the chemical plants in Dear Ghazi Khan, show new industrial buildings, new anti aircraft installations and several settling ponds that have come up as part of the expansion.

The satellite photos of the expansion of Pakistan's nuclear weapons capability come as top US military commander Admiral Mike Mullen confirmed last week that Pakistan was building up its nuclear arsenal.

With the Pakistani security forces waging a war against militant groups in the NWFP, ISIS said that security of country's "nuclear assets remains in question".

"An expansion in nuclear weapons production capabilities, needlessly complicates efforts to improve the security of Pakistani nukes," the report said.

Dera Ghazi Khan nuclear site in the recent past had been a target of at least one ground attack by more than a dozen gunmen, the report said adding that a nearby railway line had also been bombed.

CIA chief Leon Panetta said yesterday that US intelligence doesn't have complete track of Pakistani nuclear weapons, but was sure that they were "pretty secure".

The US report has urged the American government to prevail upon Pakistan to halt production of fissile material and join talks that would ban production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium.

Pak Nuclear Sites already in Radical hands: Report

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has told President Obama that nuclear sites in Pakistan's restive frontier province are"already partly" in the hands of Islamic extremists, an Israeli journal has said, amid considerable anxiety among US pundits here over Washington's confidence in the security of the troubled nation's nuclear arsenal.

Claims about the high-level exchange between New Delhi and Washington were made in the Debka, a journal said to have close ties with Israeli intelligence, under the headline "Singh warns Obama: Pakistan is lost." The brief story said the Indian prime minister had named Pakistani nuclear sites in the areas which were Taliban-Qaida strongholds and said the sites are already partly in the hands of "Muslim extremists." A sub-head to the story said "India gets ready for a Taliban-ruled nuclear neighbor."

There was no official word from either Washington or New Delhi about the exchanges, with India in the throes of an election and US winding down for the weekend. But US experts have been greatly perturbed in recent days about what they say is Washington's misplaced confidence in, and lackadaisical approach towards, Pakistan's nuclear assets. The disquiet comes amid reports that Pakistan is ramping up its nuclear arsenal even as the rest of the world is scaling it down.

"It is quite disturbing that the administration is allowing Pakistan to quantitatively and qualitatively step up production of fissile material without as much as a public reproach," Robert Windrem, a visiting scholar with the Center for Law and Security in New York University and an expert on South Asia nuclear issues told ToI in an interview on Thursday. "Iraq and Iran did not get a similar concessions... and Pakistan has a much worse record of proliferation and security breaches than any other country in the world."

Windrem, a former producer with NBC whose book "Critical Mass" was among the first to red flag Islamabad's proliferation record going back to the 1980s, referred to recent reports and satellite images showing Pakistan building two large new plutonium production reactors in Khushab, which experts say could lead to improvements in the quantity and quality of the country's nuclear arsenal. The reactors had nothing to do with power-production' they are weapons-specific, and are being built with resources who diversion is enabled by the billions of dollars the US is giving to Pakistan as aid, he said.

Windrem also pointed out that Khushab's former director, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood met with Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and offered a nuclear weapons tutorial around an Afghanistan campfire, as attested by the former CIA Director George Tenet in his memoir "At the Center of the Storm." Yet successive US administrations had adopted an attitude of benign neglect towards Pakistan's nuclear program and its expansion at a time the country was in growing ferment and under siege within from Islamic extremists.

US officials, going up to the President himself, have repeatedly said in public that they have confidence the Pakistani nuclear arsenal will not fall into the hands of Islamic extremists, and they have Islamabad's assurances to this effect. But scholars like Windrem fear Pakistan's nuclear program may already be infected with the virus of radicalism from within, as demonstrated by the Sultan Bashiruddin incident.

Pakistan a mortal threat to world: Hillary Clinton

Pakistan A Threat to World Security

A stunned Obama administration said on Wednesday that Pakistan posed a "mortal threat" to the United States and world after a rampant Taliban moved to within 60 miles of Islamabad by taking control of Buner district just outside the capital region.

The rapid advance of heavily armed and un-uniformed Taliban towards Pakistan's capital region, home to the country's army (headquartered in nearby Rawalpindi) and much of its nuclear assets (in nearby Kahuta), is sending shock waves across Washington. Administration officials, lawmakers, and South Asia experts are tripping over each other to express grave concern and offer prescriptions to tackle the deteriorating situation.

At a Congressional hearing on US foreign policy priorities, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reflected some of the urgency and panic when she implicitly blamed the Pakistani government, the army, and civil society for ceding space and territory to the advancing Taliban without a fight.

"Pakistan poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world," Clinton said. "And I want to take this occasion ... state unequivocally that not only do the Pakistani government officials, but the Pakistani people and the Pakistani diaspora ... need to speak out forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory to the insurgents ..."

Not enough voices are being heard against the Taliban's progress, she added.

Clinton's blunt remarks are the strongest to come from Washington, where typically, administration officials and regional experts have previously put their trust in Islamabad's bonafides and accepted its word that it was fighting terrorism. For the first time, the US is now saying Pakistan is not; and in fact, it is abdicating its responsibility.

President Obama meanwhile invited President Zardari of Pakistan and President Karzai of Afghanistan to Washington to discuss the speedy developments that seems to have stunned Washington. The three-way talks are likely to take place May 7-8.

Also this week, Washington's top general Admiral Mike Mullen, rushed to Islamabad in what is turning out to be a monthly sortie to get a handle on the situation.

In an interview on CNN, Pakistan's ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani insisted the situation was not so serious and the government in Islamabad was in control of the developments.

Contesting reports about Taliban advancing to within 60 miles of Islamabad, Haqqani split hairs while maintaining US officials were making "factual errors." Islamabad was 60 miles from Buner "as the crow flies" and longer if one took into account that Swat is a isolated valley across mountains, he said. Pakistan's peace deal was also with a movement which supports Taliban and not Taliban itself, he added.

But at the Congressional hearing, Clinton told worried lawmakers that Taliban's advance poses "an existential threat" to Pakistan and urged Pakistanis worldwide to oppose a government policy that is yielding to them.

"(We) cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by the continuing advances now within hours of Islamabad that are being made by a loosely confederated group of terrorists and others who are seeking the overthrow of the Pakistani state," Clinton said.

"I don't hear that kind of outrage or concern coming from enough people that would reverberate back within the highest echelons of the civilian and military leadership of Pakistan," she added.

Lawmakers too expressed immense concern over the deteriorating situation amid a stream of stories in the US media from Pakistan even as Iraq has faded into the background.

The House International Relations Committee chairman Howard Berman, a Democrat from California, said that he and several other Congressional colleagues who had just returned from a trip to India and Pakistan were happy at the dramatically improved ties with India, but deeply concerned about the security situation in Pakistan.

"We cannot allow al-Qaida or any other terrorist group that threatens our national security to operate with impunity in the tribal regions (of Pakistan)," Berman said, adding, "Nor can we permit the Pakistani state - and its nuclear arsenal - to be taken over by the Taliban or any other radical groups, or otherwise be destabilised in a manner that could lead to renewed conflict with India."

Clinton assured lawmakers that the US is advancing its relationship with India as part of a wide-ranging diplomatic agenda to meet today's "daunting challenges" topped by the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

AQ Khan is the world's greatest proliferator: USA

AQ Khan is the world's greatest proliferator: US

Describing Pakistan's rogue nuclear scientist A Q Khan as "probably the world's greatest proliferator," the US has said that thedamage he has caused is "incalculable." World Nations are slowly realising this that how, deliberatelypakistani govermet & Rogue pakistani Army allowed the Nuclear Smuggler ( A.Q.Khan )to profilerate nuclear technology to all rogue nations around the world to save their ass.

"With respect to A Q Khan, there's no doubt he is probably the world's greatest proliferator. The damage that he's done around the world has been incalculable," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday in response to a question from a lawmaker at the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

"We have made it very clear that the network had to be dismantled and it was. There are people who were connected with A Q Khan who are out of business or who were imprisoned. And there are ongoing efforts to continue to obtain useful information," Clinton said.

Khan, 73, was slapped with US sanctions along with those on his network. He was put under house arrest in 2004 by then Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf after he admitted having passed nuclear know-how to North Korea and Iran.

Khan was released by a Pakistani court from house arrest in February this year.

Pak Major General visited Terrorists training camps: Kasab

"Are you ready for jung (war)?" top Lashkar-e-Toiba operatives Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur Rahman Lakhvi asked Ajmal Amir Kasab and his fellow terrorists. "Yes, we are," they replied. "The duo told us that they had been fighting Indian forces in Kashmir for 15 years, and that we had to attack Hindustan from within by targeting its major cities."

This is part of the chilling 37-page confession made by Kasab that was read out for the first time in the special trial court on Friday. The confession — which was later retracted by Kasab, who said it was given under coercion — reveals the manner in which the plot to attack Mumbai was meticulously planned and ruthlessly executed.

Referring repeatedly to his "Klashan" (an AK-47 rifle), Kasab laid bare the intensive training that went into wielding the automatic weapon, turning it into an instrument of mass destruction. Kasab and nine other terrorists were carefully watched by "ustads" (trainers) who imparted not just arms training, but also held indoctrination sessions.

The attackers were told they were targeting India's economic might by shooting down foreign nationals in Mumbai. "We had to attack places such as Malabar Hill, the Taj and Oberoi Hotels that were frequented by foreigners. We had to specifically kill Americans, British and Israelis," Kasab's confession says.

"Lakhvi and Saeed divided us into pairs — the buddy system. He made five buddy teams of us 10 mujahids. Lakhvi said that on the 27th day of Ramzan, we would launch a fidayeen attack on Mumbai," said Kasab. "We had to set fire to Taj and Oberoi Hotels and also plant bombs around them. The bombs were meant to lead to chaos and traffic jams. This would have prevented security forces from reaching us on time," he continues.

At CST, Kasab was ordered to fire indiscriminately and "not distinguish between Hindus and Muslims". But the brief was different for the hotel sieges: the terrorists were told to single out foreigners and spare the Muslims.

An enigmatic character who crops up in Kasab's statement is a "Major General Sahab" who visited a camp at Baitul Mujahid to oversee their progress and skills. Kasab claims to be the best shooter of the group and Imran Babar, the worst.

Skills to hoodwink the Indian naval and police forces were also part of a one-month training module. The terror recruits were taught to pretend to be fishermen and assume false identities. Kasab was `Sunil Devesh Chaudhary' from Hyderabad. "We were trained to go without food for 60 hours, but yet be able to climb mountains with a heavy bag," he says in his confession, adding that "this training was very difficult and tough, and 10 cadet mujahids ran away".

More
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Pakistan
www.cfr.org/publication/9514/
www.danielpipes.org/comments/2859

China's Tactical Support to Pakistan Terrorism Troubling China Itself

Terrorists-hit Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region has signed a deal for developing friendly relations across the border with the politically volatile North Western Frontier Province of Pakistan. The deal is expected to help China obtain the support from local leaders in NWFP, most of whom are independent of the Zardari regime in Islamabad, to cut off the links between separatists in Xinjiang and terrorists across the border in Pakistan.

Beijing also wants help to track down Xinjiang rebels hiding in Pakistan. sources said. It comes soon after the athiest Communist Party of China signed an agreement with the Jamat-e-Islami in Pakistan. Both agreements suggest that China has lost hope in the Zardari government's ability to help it in the area of tacking terrorists. Beijing is now dealing with Pakistan at the level of its domestic politics.

The agreement comes in the wake of intense crack down on Islamic rebels in Xinjiang, who are known for getting arms and training support from terrorists’ bases in Pakistan. The Chinese ministry of public security had earlier released details of several Xinjiang terrorists while suggesting that most of them had been trained in Pakistan. The Muslim dominated Xinjiang region is a hotbed of a separatist movement for creation of an independent East Turkmenistan nation of Uighur.

This comes within a week of the Tibetan provincial government signing an agreement on developing trade and friendly exchanges with the government of Nepal. Kathmandu is playing a key role in helping Chinese leaders to track down Tibetan rebels, who escape from China and seek shelter in the Himalayan kingdom.

Though these agreements talk of developing trade and cultural exchanges across the border, they are obviously meant for sensitive political purposes. Beijing is obviously pushing provincial governments along international borders to play a more active role in dealing with neighbouring countries in the political sphere.

The central governments of China and Pakistan are apparently behind which what is being described as a move to develop “friendly provincial level relationship”. The deal was signed in Urumqi, the Xinjiang provincial capital by Pakistan’s ambassador Masood Khan and Xinjiang’s governor Nur Baikeli on Tuesday.

China is engaged in broadening the Karakoram highway, which passes through the Khunjerab Pass at an altitude of 4,693 meters connecting Xinjing with NWFP. Islamabad has been trying to persuade China to use this highway as a major international route to bring imported goods from the Gudwar port further up in Pakistan. This is what makes the agreement between Xinjiang and NWFP particularly significant. The deal is also the result of a realisation that the Zardari regime cannot help China control terror.

Speaking on the occasion, Baikeli said the agreement provides an opportunity to enhance economic cooperation and establish joint ventures in the business sphere. He also invited the governor and chief minister of trouble torn NWFP to visit Xinjiang.

"This agreement provides a platform to intensify cooperation in economic, scientific and technological fields between Xinjiang and NWFP", the Pakistani media quoted Masood Khan as saying. He invited Baikeli to visit Pakistan this year.

The deal will help develop close cooperation between NWFP and Xinjiang in the areas of trade, science and technology, culture, education, agriculture, sports, health and tourism, the Chinese media said quoting official sources.

The Hi-Tech Paksitani Terrorists is Ready to strike India

Unholy Jihad of A Rogue Nation

There is a new enemy at the gate. Equipped with GPS systems, satellite phones, detailed maps, winter clothing and, of course, top-notch weaponry. He is "well-trained and motivated" for a head-on confrontation with security forces. And he does not come alone or in small batches.

The Army and paramilitary forces have ramped up a red alert all along the western border with Pakistan
to thwart the deadly designs of the new wave of militants infiltrating across the Line of Control in large groups, without even waiting for the snow to melt like earlier times.

The haste in sending out large number of killers has a scary purpose. Apart from keeping the pot boiling in Kashmir in order to ramp home the point of a Kashmir ``uprising' to the Americans, it is also designed to target leaders in the run-up to the polls and disrupt elections wherever possible.

While the Army has redeployed forces to further strengthen the counter-infiltration grid along the 778-km Line of Control (LoC), home minister P Chidamabarm has directed BSF to maintain a high state of vigil along the International Border (IB) in Rajasthan and Punjab as well.

The alert seems well founded with BSF detecting 1000-odd bunkers constructed by Pakistan Rangers across the international border in Jammu. "These bunkers would certainly help infiltrators enter India from Poonch and Akhnoor centres," said K Rajendra, IDP, Jammu zone. BSF officers said they felt points of ingress could the Chicken neck area, Palanwala, Pargwal, Abdullian, Kanachak and Sawzian.

"There are intelligence inputs that Lashkar-e-Taiba militants might try to sneak across the IB through the fenced border the way they did in Kanachak area in Jammu sector last year," said an official. There were also speculation about Taliban men infiltrating into Kashmir but this is denied by top officials in Delhi.

Officials say the ``tactical'' aim of militants trying to infiltrate into J&K is to disrupt the Lok Sabha polls in the valley, in particular, which stretch from April 16 to May 13. At the same time, the possibility of terrorists gaining quick access through Rajasthan and Punjab to launch terror strikes in the mainland is not ruled out.

That last year's J&K assembly polls were successful and largely violence-free has not gone down well with Pakistan's ISI-Army complex. At that time Pakistan was under US pressure not to create a "diversion" with India and remain focussed on the war against Al Qaida-Taliban. Satellite intercepts had pointed to considerable heartburn among jehadi groups.

It is also felt that by heating up the LoC and instigating long-drawn firefights, the larger ``strategic'' game, covertly guided by Pakistan, could be to drag Kashmir on to US President Barack Obama's agenda by bolstering Islamabad's argument that the Af-Pak theatre was linked to Kashmir. This, Pakistani agencies hope, could lead to Washington pressuring New Delhi to resolve the "regional hotspot".

The violence levels in J&K have certainly shot up. Army and intelligence estimates indicate there are already around 800-900 militants present in J&K, with around 48% of them being of foreign origin. Moreover, another 400 or so from Lashkar, Hizb and Al-Badr cadres are waiting on the "launch pads" along the LoC for an opportunity to cross over. There are still around 40 terror-training camps directed against India operating on Pakistan's soil.

The recent winter-infiltration tactics of the militants, clad in multi-layered winter clothing, equipped with even ice-axes have become a source of concern for the security forces. "Militants used to infiltrate in larger numbers before the LoC fence was erected in 2004. Since then, with the fence slowing them down, the strategy shifted to sneak across in small groups," said a senior officer.

"But suddenly, this year, larger groups of 20-30 militants are trying to infiltrate in one go. They are much better trained and equipped, almost like regular soldiers now. If they are detected, they are ready to hold ground and fight back from positions of advantage," he added.

The new strategy ties down larger number of troops. So much so that even IAF Mi-17 helicopters are now being pressed into service to ferry troops and supplies to faraway encounter sites. IAF helicopters were, in fact, used during the two recent high-voltage encounters. First, a large group of 25 or so heavily-armed militants were intercepted in the Kupwara sector on March 20. Seventeen terrorists and eight soldiers, including an officer, were killed in the fierce five-day gun battle.

Then, the security forces detected another large group of around 35 militants in the Gurez sector on March 25-26. But this time, only one militant was killed, with the others managing to give the security forces the slip.