Cut ties with al-Qaida, LeT and Taliban: US tells ISI

Paksitan ISI a Terrorist Organization

The United States on Sunday asked the ISI to sever all its ties with extremist's groups including al-Qaida, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, which it called an "existential threat" to Pakistan itself.

ISI, which is having undeniable links with these terrorist groups, has been warned by the Obama Administration, which is more explicitly reflected in the new Af-Pak policy announced by US President Barack Obama on Friday, to set its house in order as soon as possible.

"What we need to do is try and help the Pakistanis understand these groups are now an existential threat to them and we will be there as a steadfast ally for Pakistan," US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Fox News today in an interview in which he clearly said that the ISI needs to cut its ties with extremists.

"They can count on us and they don't need that hedge," Gates said as he cited ISI's links specifically to the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani militant network and to the forces of warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in Afghanistan.

It has been told in clear words, that cutting all ties with extremist elements means not only the Taliban and al Qaida related to Afghanistan or western Pakistan, but also those elements like LeT in Kashmir, as the US establishment has now realised and come to the conclusion that all these groups are linked together.

It should be seen as helping the US-led international community in fighting the war against terror and not providing any direct or indirect logistic or other support to these extremists' organisations, ISI has been told by the US.

Richard Holbrooke, the Special US Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, said he along with the Central Command (CENTCOM) Chief General David Petraeus, sat down with the ISI chief (Lt Gen Shuja Pasha) when he was here recently and talked directly in all clear terms with him in this regard.

"It's a topic that is of enormous importance, because if there are links (between ISI and extremist elements) and if those continue and if it undermines the operations, obviously that would be very damaging to the kind of trust that we need to build," Petraeus told the PBS news in another interview.

"ISI really established some of these organizations -- with our money, by the way, back in the days of the Mujahedin fighting against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. So those links were very strong. And some of them, I think, unquestionably do remember - or do remain to this day.

"It is much more difficult to tell at what level those links are still established, whether some of the contact is the contact of intelligence with sources or it is, indeed, warning. There are some cases, I think, that are indisputable in the past, and the fairly recent past, in which that appears to have taken place," he said.

Pakistan set to reap $35 billion windfall from terrorism

Terrorism pays. That may well be the message the United States and its allies send out to the world this week as they line up billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan despite the country’s military and intelligence agencies being implicated by American officials in acts and practice of terrorism.

Ignoring confirmation about the Pakistan’s continued support and use of terrorism obtained through electronic surveillance and informants, and even brazen affirmation by Pakistani officialdom itself, the Obama administration is set to lavish a bonanza that might eventually add up to more than $ 30-$ 35 billion over the next decade.

About half the windfall will come from the US and the other half from its allies such as Japan, EU, and Gulf countries.

Washington is set to announce its largesse of around $ 15 billion of US tax-payer money in course of its new Af-Pak policy to be unveiled Friday, followed by a conference in Tokyo on April 17 of the so-called ''Friends of Pakistan'' where Islamabad is pitching for $ 10 billion.

This is in addition to the $ 7.6 billion pledged by the IMF and various donors, all at the instance of the United States, which believes Pakistan will disintegrate, with disastrous consequences all around, if it is not rescued with massive amounts of aid.

Congressional staff and sources associated with drawing up the aid package say there will be stringent conditions and tough oversight attached to the assistance, but critics of the policy regard the assurances as credulous. The Indian government
has not opposed the package. ''If they (the United States) have not learned from the past, there is little we can do,'' one official said on background, referring to the Reagan era bonanza when untrammeled support for Pakistan’s military emboldened the country to adopt terrorism as a state policy.

That policy is still very much in place, going by a stunning page one New York Times account on Thursday in which Pakistani officials admit first-hand knowledge of ties between the ISI and extremists and even justify. They tell the paper that the contacts are less threatening than the American officials depict and are part of a strategy to maintain influence in Afghanistan for the day when American forces would withdraw and leave what they fear could be a power vacuum to be filled by India.

''In intelligence, you have to be in contact with your enemy or you are running blind,'' the paper quotes a senior Pakistani military officer as describing Islamabad’s strategy of backing the terrorists. But evidently, Pakistan's activity constitutes more than just contact with the enemy.

The NYT account, striking for the candid detail revealed by unnamed US and Pakistani officials, said Pakistan’s support to the Taliban and other militant outfits is coordinated by operatives inside the shadowy S Wing of the ISI. The report says the ISI also shared intelligence with Lashkar-e-Taiba accused in the Mumbai attacks and ''provided protection for it.'' It did say when this cooperation and protection took place.

But other new details reveal that the ISI is aiding a broader array of militant outfits with more diverse types of support than was previously known, even months after Pakistani officials said that the days of the ISI’s playing a double game had ended, the paper reported. One such outfit is the Haqqani network, which by American accounts bombed the Indian Embassy in Kabul with help from the ISI.

The attack killed 54 people, including an Indian diplomat and a military commander. Pakistan’s army chief Pervez Kiyani, a former ISI Director-General, subsequently described the Haqqani network as Pakistan’s ''strategic asset.''

But according to the NYT, the ISI’s S wing not only helps such networks with fuel and ammunition to fight American troops in Afghanistan, but also replenishes its ranks with recruits from madrassas in Pakistan. There is even evidence that ISI operatives meet regularly with Taliban commanders to discuss whether to intensify or scale back violence before the Afghan elections, it said.

None of this appears to have made a whit of a difference in the planned US largesse for Pakistan. If anything, US officials and analysts argue it is all the more reason to rush aid to Pakistan so that its democracy and social sector can be strengthened and it can be walked away from the abyss. ''If there is a better way to do this, we are all ears,'' a senior Congressional aide involved in the process, said. While some analysts say that Pakistan extracts aid by pointing a gun to its own head, key figures in the Washington establishment don't want to take the chance that Pakistan ends up falling into the abyss.

US officials, who typically make strenuous effort to shield the Pakistani leadership from charges of fomenting terrorism, maintain that mid-level ISI operatives cultivate relationships that are not approved by their bosses. They say it is unlikely that top officials in Islamabad are directly coordinating the clandestine efforts. But Pakistani officials themselves appear to scoff at American credulity in the NYT report, saying it is part of their long term strategy to keep their options open when the U.S withdraws from Afghanistan.

That expectation got a boost this week when US President Barack Obama spoke of an ''exit strategy'' in Afghanistan. Although Obama did not specifically refer to any troop withdrawals (on the contrary, he has just directed induction of 17,000 more troops), the fact that Washington is even contemplating an exit strategy seems to justify Pakistan’s outlook of keeping its Taliban and terrorism powder dry.

Pakistan Based LeT claims responsibility for Kupwara encounter

Militants of the Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) terror outfit were involved in an ongoing six-day long gunfight with security forces in north Kashmir in which eight army personnel and 17 insurgents have been killed, an officer said Wednesday.

'The operation is still in progress. The majority of the terrorists have been killed. However, remnants if any, will also be eliminated,' Brig. Gurmeet Singh, the Brigadier General Staff of 15 Corps, told reporters here.

The death toll in the long drawn gunfight in the Shamsbhari forests in the border district of Kupwara has risen to 25, Singh said.

'The area of the encounter is a thick jungle with difficult mountainous terrain. The terrorists were mostly foreign terrorists of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit,' the officer added.

'All the martyrs, including Major Mohit Sharma, Sena Medal, and jawan (soldier) Shabir Ahmad Malik, are from 1 Para (SF) Regiment,' he said.

Malik, a Kashmiri soldier, was laid to rest in his native village in north Kashmir's Ganderbal district. He completed his schooling from the Sainik School, Manasbal, and later joined the army. His village neighbours thronged the graveyard to join his Nimaz-e-Jenaza (funeral prayers) Tuesday.

Jittery Pakistan instigated Bangla mutiny?

Top intelligence agencies, including those representing the western powers, now see a strong link among a series of significant developments in Dhaka prior to the unprecedented BDR mutiny at its Pilkhana headquarters on February 25. The agencies suspect the whole episode was part of a Pakistani plot — helped by Bangladeshi collaborators — to fuel revolt in the armed forces for upstaging the Sheikh Hasina government.

Just nine days before armed BDR jawans went on the rampage, ruthlessly killing their superiors from the army, Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari had sent one of his emissaries — Zia Ispahani — to Dhaka to request Hasina not to open war criminal cases. This, expectedly, did not find much favour with the Bangladesh prime minister.

It may be recalled that soon after coming to power this time, the Awami League-led alliance had decided to prosecute war criminals responsible for killing and torturing thousands of people during the country's liberation war, 38 years ago. A similar initiative was called off after the 1975 political changeover that followed the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Ispahani apparently made it clear that any attempt to reopen the cases would adversely affect the relations between the two countries. He called on Begum Khaleda Zia a day after his meeting with Hasina. It is learnt that Ispahani and a senior officer of the Pakistani mission in Dhaka had advised the BNP supremo to stay away from her cantonment residence on February 25 and 26, which she did.

Coincidentally, Khaleda's electoral partners — Jamaat-e-Islami leader Matiur Rahman Nizami and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid — were also out of their homes on both days. Investigations by top agencies reveal that some ISI operatives posted at Pakistan's Dhaka high commission had met a few senior BNP and Jamaat leaders on February 22, just three days before the BDR mutiny.

Investigating agencies are also probing the role of BNP leader-cum-shipping baron Salahuddin Qader Chowdhury alias Saka Chowdhury, who allegedly played a key role in abetting the mutineers by providing funds to the tune of several crores of taka. Chowdhury had earlier come under the scanner for his alleged involvement in the smuggling of 10 truckloads of arms into Bangladesh through Chittagong in 2004. (These arms were allegedly meant for the rebels in northeastern India.)

Soon after they swept the polls, the Awami League leadership had promised to conduct a full-fledged probe into the Chittagong arms seizure case. The Rapid Action Battalion, in its mopping-up operation, has already recovered unclaimed funds to the tune of a few crores from the Pilkhana territory, strengthening suspicion about outside involvement and funding. On March 4, parents of an absconding BDR soldier
were arrested for allegedly keeping a large amount of unaccounted money.

Investigating agencies are now convinced that a huge amount of funds and arms had come from outside well before the BDR jawans went berserk. Lt-Col Shams, a survivor of the massacre, had described how he had seen arms being unloaded from a grey pick-up van while he was hiding inside the BDR headquarters.

Read More :
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Pakistan
www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/world/asia/12india.html?fta=y

Pakistan ISI top boss met Osama aide'

One of the top bosses of Pakistan's intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has held talks with Osama bin Laden’s key aides in Miram Shah in Pakistan’s restive federal administered tribal Area, according to Times Now.

In fact, highly placed intelligence sources told Times Now that around the time when Pakistan’s foreign minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi was visiting Washington and meeting officials of the Barack Obama administration and reaffirming Pakistan's determination to fight terrorism, a senior ISI official of the rank of a major-general no less was meeting Sirajuddin Haqqani considered an ally of the Taliban as also al-Qaida chief Laden.

Sources said that the subject of discussion in the meeting was the shifting of Haqqanis operations from North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in Pakistan to Afghanistan in exchange for ceasefire with Pakistan army and to halt military operations if the Haqqanis moves their operations from the NWFP into Afghanistan.

Another topic was the construction of the Khost-Gardez road being built by Indian company in Afghanistan. The ISI urged Haqqanis to sabotage efforts by the Indian government to help Afghanistan government to build the Khost-Gardez road.

The meeting assumes significance because the Haqqanis are not ordinary players but hold a great deal of influence in the region and can dictate the course of the war on terror in the region. Jalaluddin Haqqani and Sirajuddin Haqqani are Pashtun warlords and military leaders with links to Taliban and Laden.

Haqqanis have been accused by the coalition forces of carrying out the late-December 2008 bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan at an Afghan elementary school near an Afghan barracks that killed several schoolchildren, an Afghan soldier, and an Afghan guard; no coalition or USA personnel were affected. They are also supposed to have facilitated the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul. Haqqanis were also linked to Maulvi Jabbar suspect in IC-814 hijacking. Haqqanis are linked to Maulvi Jabbar of the Peshawar Shura who was in touch with the hijackers of the IC-814 in 1999.

Haqqani is the son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, one of the most feared Afghan commanders, who fought against the Soviet occupation during the 1980s.

Jalaluddin, now aged and in failing health, lives in Khost and has passed the reigns of the Haqqani terror network on to his second son, Sirajuddin. Jalaluddin Haqqani once had strong ties with the CIA, according to published accounts. But now he and his son are wanted men.

The US military has placed a bounty of $200,000 on Sirajuddin Haqqani's head.

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www.danielpipes.org/comments/2859
www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13240421&fsrc=rss
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7746

China deploys huge security across Tibet on uprising anniversary

Tibetan areas of China were sealed off for foreigners on Tuesday amid tension surrounding the anniversaries of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule and violent protests last year.

Foreign journalists and tourists were barred from almost all Tibetan areas of provinces adjoining the Tibet Autonomous Region, as the Communist party tightened border security and stepped up a propaganda drive.

The road to the Rongwo monastery in Qinghai province, which several foreign journalists visited in recent weeks, was blocked and large military convoys were travelling on nearby roads, said one journalist who returned to Beijing on Monday.

Police also prevented journalists from staying in several other previously open Tibetan towns in the neighbouring province of Sichuan.

The Beijing-based Foreign Correspondents Club of China said reporters from at least six news organisations were detained, turned back or had material confiscated in the past week.

"This contravenes regulations made permanent by the foreign ministry in October 2008 that foreign reporters can travel freely without seeking prior permission everywhere outside of the Tibet Autonomous Region," the club said in statement.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said authorities had also closed at least one Tibetan-language website, arrested a Tibetan editor and suspended some text-messaging services as part of a "systematic violation of press freedom and free expression in Tibet".

"We urge the Chinese authorities to allow foreign journalists to visit Tibet and the Tibetan regions freely," the group said.

"We also call on them to grant the Tibet-based media more editorial freedom and to stop jamming international radio stations broadcasting in the Tibetan language," it said.

The autonomous region has never been open to foreign journalists while tourists visiting it need a special permit in addition to a Chinese visa, and must register with a travel agency.

The government has taken several groups of foreign journalists on stage-managed visits to the region since last year's protests.

One Beijing-based tour operator said authorities had cancelled permits already issued for foreign tour groups in late February and early March.

In a statement to mark the 50th anniversary of the uprising on Tuesday, the exiled Dalai Lama accused China of a "brutal crackdown" since March 2008.

He said the Communist party was "publishing distorted propaganda about Tibet and its people".

"Consequently, there are, among the Chinese populace, not many who have a true understanding about Tibet," the Dalai Lama said.

"It is, in fact, very difficult for them to find the truth," he said.

Chinese state media on Monday quoted police as saying they had increased security along the Himalayan border between Tibet and neighbouring countries ahead of "expected sabotage activities" by supporters of the Dalai Lama.