Ahmed Quraishi
 

[CENTER][COLOR="Navy"][SIZE="4"][B][U]Zardari Govt. Turns Down Uranium Deal For Pakistan[/U] [/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]
By [B]AHMED QURAISHI [/B][/CENTER]

[B][RIGHT]Tuesday, 12 May 2009 [/RIGHT][/B]

[B]The Zardari government cited budgetary constraints to refuse uranium from Kazakhstan. But the real story is that the government has accepted aid in exchange for what appears to be a freeze on Pakistan’s advanced nuclear and strategic programs. These were Washington’s conditions. And it is part of a wider pattern. [/B]

After cutting down funding for Pakistan’s strategic and nuclear programs by more than a third, the government of President Asif Ali Zardari has refused to sanction the purchase of fuel for nuclear plants, turning down a rare opportunity to buy uranium from the international market.

Pakistani officials won’t confirm the report, which is being made public here for the first time. But sometime around late 2008, interlocutors from Pakistan and Kazakhstan apparently reached an agreement under which uranium-rich Kazakhstan agreed to sell nuclear fuel to Pakistan.

A government source referred to a Central Asian nation without naming it during an off-the-record conversation. She was most probably referring to Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan has the world’s largest reservoirs of uranium and will soon become its biggest producer. Pakistan is the world’s seventh declared nuclear power and has an ambitious civilian nuclear energy program meant to help fuel Pakistan’s economic growth. The country’s biggest stock exchange at Karachi has been one of the best performing markets in Asia for the most part of this decade, fetching high profit margins for Pakistani and foreign investors. Pakistan cannot continue growth without more energy.

The deal apparently preceded the agreement India signed with Kazakhstan in January 2009 in which New Delhi reportedly agreed to buy up to 2,500 tons of uranium.

The Pak-Kazakh deal was expected to move forward without problems, the only exception being the usual opposition from U.S. and Britain, and Australia.

Pakistan is not a signatory to Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty. This means that the Pak-Kazakh deal would not have violated international laws that had governed uranium transfers in the past decades. Washington had lobbied to exempt India from those restrictions despite New Delhi’s refusal to endorse NPT but refused the same for Pakistan on spurious grounds. India is being groomed by Washington as counterweight to China and a possible supplier of cheap ground troops to stabilize the faltering American occupation of Afghanistan.

This was Pakistan’s opportunity to break this fake embargo imposed by the U.S. But President Zardari refused to authorize the release of funds for the deal citing budgetary constraints.

While the excuse seems plausible, a pattern is emerging where the Zardari government appears to have entered into a series of silent agreements with Washington regarding Pakistan’s nuclear program in exchange for financial aid.

The Pakistani English-language daily newspaper The News International broke the news that Mr. Zardari has cut 35% of the budget of the country’s classified strategic weaponization programs, while the nonclassified part has also been indirectly frozen with the blocking of 84% of its approved budget.

Freezing almost 90% of an approved budget for parts of the Pakistani nuclear and strategic industry by a Pakistani government is unprecedented and unheard of.

No government official is ready to confirm or deny the story on record.

The cuts indicate an unannounced freeze on the Pakistani nuclear program, according to a scientist quoted by the newspaper’s chief investigative reporter Ansar Abbasi.

“Senior nuclear scientists and those holding key positions in the country’s nuclear program apparatus were extremely upset with the situation and fear that the cut would badly damage the nuclear program and would tantamount to a quiet unannounced rollback,” an unnamed scientist was quoted as saying.

Reports suggest that Mr. Zardari and his aides have accepted secret conditions by Washington and the IMF in exchange for aid. The conditions apparently include freezing funding for the country’s advanced strategic programs. The government is yet to share these conditions with the federal Pakistani parliament or with the Pakistani public opinion. Washington pressed Mr. Zardari to accept IMF conditions last year. Ironically, the Pakistani embassy in Washington lobbied its own government to accept the deal and a close associate of Mr. Haqqani who runs a PR firm wrote in Pakistani newspapers lobbying on behalf of the IMF package.

There are other indications that something fishy is going on in Islamabad, where a government brought to power through an American-style regime-change is cooperating in what appears to be at least a freeze on Pakistani nuclear capabilities if not an outright rollback.

For example, while President Zardari was in the U.S. last week, U.S. officials leaked to the Boston Globe that Mr. Zardari’s aides are secretly negotiating the transfer of enriched Pakistani uranium to the U.S. for disposal. Pakistani newspaper The Nation described the leak as Nuclear Surrender in an editorial on May 7.

Last year Mr. Zardari, without consulting anyone in Pakistan, single-handedly altered Pakistan’s stated nuclear policy by saying Islamabad won’t be the first to use nuclear weapons in case of war, which effectively ends the balance of power with India, a country that invaded Pakistan without provocation during an internal Pakistani political crisis in 1971, and can repeat it.

However, Mr. Zardari’s refusal to pay for uranium from Kazakhstan could possibly prove to be a blunder that Pakistan might regret in the future.

It is a price Pakistan has to pay for accepting a U.S. puppet government under the guise of American democracy, woven together through intricate secret deals, the simplest of which is that Mr. Zardari gets back the millions of dollars in illegal wealth frozen in foreign banks in exchange for promoting the U.S. agenda in Islamabad. And he’s doing a good job at it!

Obama Is Lying About Pakistan
 

[CENTER][B][U][SIZE="4"][COLOR="Navy"]Obama Is Lying About Pakistan[/COLOR][/SIZE][/U][/B]
By [B]AHMED QURAISHI [/B][/CENTER]

[RIGHT][B]Friday, 1 May 2009.[/B][/RIGHT]

[B]Mr. Obama used a domestic event to ‘accidentally’ declare war on Pakistan. Now his team is trying to encourage the Pakistani military to seize power. The Americans destroyed Pakistan’s stability through the Benazir-Musharraf deal in 2007. They are doing it again. Here is the easiest way of telling the Americans to: Lay off, stop lecturing us on India, stop supporting separatism, and mend your ways in Afghanistan. [/B]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—There is not a single towering personality in the Pakistani landscape today, with enough credibility, strong personality and effective communication skills, to stand up and tell U.S. President Barack Obama: You are a liar.

It is not difficult to respond to the entire American psy-ops on Pakistan, which are built on half-truths, disinformation and in some cases outright lies. This campaign is successful mainly because of the broad influence of the U.S. media in setting the world news agenda.

Before listing the exact points where Mr. Obama is lying, let me briefly sum up the existing situation.

[B]AMERICA’S PLAYGROUND[/B]

In less than two years, the United States has successfully managed to drop from news headlines its failure to pacify Afghanistan. The focus of the Anglo-American media – American and British – has been locked on Pakistan. In order to justify this shift, multiple insurgencies and endless supply of money and weapons has trickled from U.S.-occupied Afghanistan into Pakistan to sustain a number of warlords inside Pakistan whom the American media calls ‘Taliban’ but they are actually nothing but hired mercenaries with sophisticated weapons who mostly did not even exist as recently as the year 2005.

No other nation in the world would have tolerated half the arrogance that the Americans are showing Pakistan. But thanks to a mistake by former President Musharraf – sometime in late 2006 when he consented to allow the U.S. to manipulate domestic politics through direct engagement with Benazir Bhutto and other players – Washington was given a free hand to deal directly with individual players inside Pakistan and recruit supporters and proxies.

Today, there are many parties inside Pakistan that are pushing the U.S. agenda and very few of those who would come out and condemn how the U.S. media and officials are single-handedly tarnishing Pakistan’s image worldwide to justify a military intervention.

This is precisely why senior Pakistani military officers are gradually coming out of their self-imposed ban on public activity to counter this nasty American psy-ops. Pakistanis need to watch this carefully.

On 24 April, Chief of Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, in the words of an official press release, “condemned pronouncements by outside powers raising doubts on the future of the Country,” a veiled reference to a spate of official U.S. statements and planted media reports predicting the collapse of the Pakistani state.

On 25 April, Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman issued a statement saying that PAF “will continue to maintain its optimum operational readiness to undertake all types of missions against all internal and external threats … Pakistan Air Force is capable of providing instant support to Pak Army as and when directed by Government of Pakistan. To keep PAF at the highest state of Operational Readiness is my number one priority,” the Air Chief said in a public statement.

And on 1 May, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Gen. Tariq Majeed called a meeting of the military leadership and an official statement made sure to underscore that “the meeting took place against the backdrop of widespread propaganda unleashed by the western media about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.”

The military statement was being nice. The propaganda was not unleashed by the ‘Western media’ but exclusively by the American media.

This unusual series of public statements by the Pakistani military leadership was an indirect repudiation of the sheepish attitude of the Pakistani politicians who failed to reflect the will of the Pakistani people. Amazingly, while U.S. media organizations and U.S. officials continued their propaganda about the imminent fall of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, in the hands of unknown terrorists, not a single official from the elected government came out to clarify the position from a Pakistani perspective. The world continued to feed on U.S. propaganda and psy-ops for several days until the public statements from the Pakistani military set the record straight. That is when a couple of government officials, like President’s Advisor Dr. Babar Awan, released statements contradicting the U.S. propaganda.

Interestingly, even Mr. Nawaz Sharif, supposedly the opposition leader, refrained from criticizing the U.S. aggressive posturing toward Pakistan. Mr. Sharif, more vengeful than statesmanlike, is hoping these days that Washington will support his bid to become the next all-powerful President after the Americans ditch a weakened President Zardari.

[B]OBAMA’S LIES[/B]

Mr. Obama basically chose a domestic event – a press briefing on completing 100 days in office – to unveil what essentially amounts to a declaration of war against another country. The declaration was stage-managed to look accidental and not deliberate. Considering the serious nature of his pronouncements, there is no question these were well prepared in advance. This ‘accidental’ declaration of war should henceforth be taught in public relations classes as a classic lesson in how to deceive your public and voters and declare war without raising any alarm.

Mr. Obama first made an astonishing remark, that he is concerned about the fate of the elected Pakistani government because it cannot provide services to the people. Ironically, this was a swipe at the fake democracy that Washington itself helped erect a year ago with its direct intervention to bring Benazir Bhutto and later her husband Asif Zardari to power.

Now the U.S. President, no less, has taken it upon himself to criticize the ability of what he called the “civilian government”, as opposed to a military government, to provide for the people.

It seems Washington is trying to nudge the Pakistani military again to seize power. The Americans are doing it in subtle ways. One is Obama’s swipe. A second way is what Adm. Mike Mullen, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has done. He was allowed to join the panel of the U.S. Time magazine in choosing Gen. Kayani, the Pakistani army chief, to be among the top 2o most influential people in the world. To work up Gen. Kayani’s ego, Adm. Mullen wrote the following words:

“I don't remember all the details of my first meeting with General Ashfaq Kayani, the Pakistan army's Chief of Staff. But I do remember thinking, Here is a man with a plan, a leader who knows where he wants to go. He seemed to understand the nature of the extremist threat inside Pakistan, recognized that his army wasn't ready to meet that threat and had already started working up solutions.”

The Americans are obviously hoping they can have Gen. Kayani in their pockets and use him to achieve their goals in the region. That is why President Obama in his ‘accidental’ speech on Pakistan shed these crocodile tears: "I'm more concerned that the civilian government there right now is very fragile.”

And in another nudge for the Pakistani military, what President Obama’s top general for Pakistan and Afghanistan told an American television channel was even more damning. Fox News reported on Thursday that Commander U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus has told U.S. officials the next two weeks were ‘critical to determining whether the Pakistani government will survive.’

But in what is sure to be one of the most hypocritical statements to ever come out from the mouth of the leader of the Free World, Mr. Obama said this: "We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests -- huge national security interests -- in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear-armed militant state."

If Mr. Husain Haqqani, the Pakistani ambassador in Washington who basically is the overseer of the Bhutto-Musharraf deal that brought the present ‘democracy’ to Pakistan, has any feelings for his country, he should call an important press conference and tell the American people the following truths that their media and politicians are hiding from them:

[B]1. American Anti-Pakistanism[/B]: The most spectacular, anti-Pakistan media campaign ever against our country has been launched by the U.S. media and continues unabated, with the purpose of softening the international opinion for a possible military action against Pakistan. And there is no question that this campaign has some backing from official U.S. quarters as was the case in the propaganda that preceded the invasion of Iraq.

[B]2. Stop Grooming & Training Separatists Inside Pakistan[/B]: With prodding from CIA, academic programs are being launched in the U.S. that advocate the breakup of Pakistan and the creation of smaller entities. This has to stop.

[B]3. Terrorism Inside Pakistan Is Not The Main Story[/B]. The real story is America’s failure to bring peace to Afghanistan despite the passage of seven years on its direct occupation of the country. Terrorism in Pakistan is a result of the American failure in Afghanistan. We trusted the Americans. And what did they do? They let Osama bin Laden escape from Tora Bora, and then the Americans refused to listen to our advice and filled the puppet government in Kabul with the same people who helped Osama escape.

[B]4. Don’t Lecture Us On India[/B]: The United States and its sidekick, Britain, have decided that India will be their slave-soldier in Asia in the 21st century. They want India to fight China and stabilize Afghanistan. They now want Pakistan to accept Indian military and intelligence presence in Afghanistan, forget about Kashmir and the water disputes, and turn the Pakistani military into a little more than a local police force tasked with killing anyone who doesn’t like America’s occupation of Afghanistan.

[B]5. India IS Pakistan’s enemy until proven otherwise through actions and not words[/B]: Someone has to teach Mrs. Clinton, President Obama and their other team members some lessons in strategy. India continues to prove by actions that it is an enemy of Pakistan. This does not apply to the people of India but it certainly applies to their government and their intelligence services, their media, and their ‘non-state actors’. The world should know that India in 1972 launched a unilateral invasion of Pakistan exploiting a domestic political crisis and helped break up Pakistan. We have never done anything similar to India before that year. This naked aggression by India was never condemned by the so-called leaders of the free world and continues to be overlooked. India is portrayed as a responsible country despite having committed aggression against a smaller neighbor without provocation. Can the Americans guarantee India will not do this again?

[B]6. The Afghan Taliban Are Not A Threat To America[/B]: The Afghan Taliban have never operated outside their country and are attacking American and other occupation forces inside Afghanistan as a result of the occupation. Washington should stop deliberately confusing the world about the difference between the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda. The al Qaeda is a terrorist organization that should be eliminated, and has considerably been eliminated.

[B]7. Eliminating Afghan Taliban Is Not Pakistan’s Responsibility[/B]: It is America’s responsibility to bring the Pashtun in Afghanistan into the power structure and defuse tensions.

[B]8. So-called Pakistani Taliban Are No Threat To America[/B]: Although money and weapons for these militants are coming from U.S-controlled Afghanistan, many of the recruits and fighters are Pakistanis and we will deal with them any way we deem fit. It is not for Washington to decide how we do this.



[B][U]Source[/U][/B]: AHMEDQURAISHI.com

[U][CENTER][SIZE=4][COLOR=navy]Indian Weapons In Swat & FATA[/COLOR][/SIZE][/CENTER]
[/U]
[RIGHT][B]Published on June 16, 2009[/B][/RIGHT]


[B]While the Pakistani government is reluctant to confront the Americans about the activities of America’s Indian allies, the Pakistani military has given the Americans solid evidence about the activities of Indian intelligence in Pakistan’s tribal belt and Swat. These activities appear to be facilitated by the Karzai regime and the U.S. military and intelligence. The latest discovery of Indian weapons inside Pakistan is the Indian army standard issue Vicker-Berthier light machine gun. [/B]

The Pakistani military through its own channels has shared evidence with the U.S. military about Indian support for terrorism in Pakistan’s tribal belt and Swat.

The evidence was embarrassing for the Americans because they have been defending Indian presence in Afghanistan and have also been defending the opening up of Indian consulates in areas close to the Pakistani border.

More embarrassing for the Americans is that besides some Indian weapons and the proof on the presence of Indian-origin special forces personnel and assets, a large amount of standard issue U.S. military weapons have been confiscated by the Pakistanis from dead terrorists. Washington is explaining this by saying these weapons were sold on the black market by the U.S.-trained new Afghan army. But the quality of the weapons – including anti-aircraft guns and launchers – and their quantity eliminates the possibility that smuggling is the only explanation.

The Pakistani government is reluctant to make the evidence public, possibly because it does not want a confrontation with the Indians and the Americans. But the Pakistani military has made its strategic red lines clear.

This is one explanation for why U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns raised for the first time in New Delhi last week the need to “trim” the Indian consulates working in Afghanistan, among other things.

A number of the Indian army standard issue Vickers-Berthier (VB) light machine gun, manufactured in India, have been found by the Pakistani military in the hands of the terrorists in Swat. This LMG has a 30-round box magazine and a bipod stand, and is sometimes mistaken for the Bren. Apart from India, it was only sold to a few Baltic and South American states. The picture here has been procured by BRASSTACKS from its own sources in Swat. (Attached)

In addition to weapons and local assets, a large number of trained special operations personnel working for intelligence agencies are believed to be moving along with the local recruits of the Pakistani Taliban. These foreign operators pose as ‘Islamic fighters’. These foreigners are in addition to foreign fighters that have existed in the area before 2001. The mysterious new foreigners are believed to have introduced in Pakistan actions such as group throat slittings, mass executions, brutal murders, and kidnapping, molesting and raping of women of the poor villagers in the tribal belt in the name of religion. Pakistani soldiers have been consistently discovering uncircumcised dead terrorist fighters in the area over the past three years, something unusual for a militia fighting in the name of Islam. Pictures were posted on this forum of the latest discovery of such fighters. Click here to see the pictures: [URL="http://groups.google.com.pk/group/paknationalists/web/indians-fighting-in-swat"]http://groups.google.com.pk/group/paknationalists/web/indians-fighting-in-swat[/URL]

The bulk of the heavy weapons, communications equipment and huge stacks of cash owned by the so-called Pakistani Taliban are all supplied by unknown sources in Afghanistan. The size of this entire enterprise precludes the possibility that this is the work of unorganized elements. Supporting evidence suggests that there is more than one intelligence agency in Afghanistan involved in this operation.

It is unthinkable that the Indians would risk sending Indian-made weapons to terrorists. It is believed that these weapons were sent in small numbers to a select group of operatives who slipped from Afghanistan to Pakistan’s tribal belt. The most probable thinking might have been that the agents operating these weapons will not fight on the front lines and will not be captured. Obviously the foreign backers of the so-called Pakistani Taliban did not anticipate that the Pakistani military might at some go for an all-out war against these terrorists by draining the swamp, which means emptying up Swat from its civilian population in order to have a free hand against the terrorists.



[B][U]Source[/U][/B]: AhmedQuraishi.com

[U][CENTER][SIZE="4"][COLOR="Navy"]Are French Bribes Stopping Zardari Govt. From Buying German Submarines?[/COLOR][/SIZE][/CENTER][/U]
[RIGHT][B]Saturday, 27 June, 2009.[/B][/RIGHT]

[B]ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The stench of a multimillion dollar scam can be smelled in the Pakistani capital. This time it has to do with the estimated $1.5 to 2 billion deal that the Pakistan Navy has almost finalized with Germany. But it seems there are strong lobbies in Islamabad that want to oblige France and buy French vessels because Paris is willing to pay heavy bribes. To ensure the deal is sealed with France instead of Germany, a junior bureaucrat has been appointed as Pakistan’s ambassador in Paris bypassing the Pakistani foreign office. Reports accuse President Asif Ali Zardari of orchestrating this appointment.[/B]

No one would be more disturbed at these developments than the government of Angela Merkel in Germany. Berlin went out on a limp to approve the Pakistani request for the submarines in the face of strong opposition to selling weapons to Pakistan.

India, whose 90% of weapons continue to be aimed at Pakistan while feigning peace and making excuses about threats from China, has launched a quiet diplomatic effort to convince Germany not to sell the vessels to Pakistan.

The deal with Germany is ready to be inked and the Germans await Pakistan to make a formal order for the submarines. But this order is not coming despite the visit by Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to Berlin on 18 June. The Defense minister has also visited Germany earlier to discuss the deal.

Seven months ago, the CEO of the company that building the submarines for Pakistan visited Karachi and told The News International that the deal between Germany and Pakistan was “95% done”.

So why is the Pakistani side reluctant now?

On Friday, security analysis service BRASSTACKS issued an alert that said:

“All is set for the new [German] submarines. Almost all hurdles have been removed. But we fail to understand why there is no pressure from the Naval Headquarters (NHQ) on DP MoD [Director of Purchases at the Ministry of Defense] to finalize the contract. Already the Indians are exploiting the situation and pressurizing the Germans to stop the sale. It is not less than a miracle that the Germans are adamant on going ahead with the sale despite the pressures. Pakistan Navy is set to lose this deal due to a lack of will, lack of decision making, and due to other vested interests.”

One reason could be France. The French are lobbying to get Pakistan to cancel the German deal and buy French submarines.

Coincidentally, in 1995, the Pakistan People’s Party was in power when the government bought three French Agosta 90-B submarines. President Zardari was an investment minister then. The incumbent French President Nicolas Sarkozy was also in power at the time as a minister and key aide to then French President Edouard Balladur. Ironically, both were powerful men who operated behind the scenes. And now both of them stand accused of receiving lavish kickbacks from the Agosta deal.

The French media has accused President Zardari of being part of a list of powerful people in both Paris and Islamabad who received kickbacks. The French judges have also accused others besides Mr. Zardari especially within the military of receiving parts of the bribe. On the French side, the bribe money from the deal helped finance the reelection campaign of Mr. Balladur in which Mr. Sarkozy played a key role.

A French judge has even accused some powerful Pakistanis including Mr. Zardari of having something to do with the murder of 11 French engineers in Karachi in May 2002 as a retaliation for the decision of France’s new government to cease bribe payments from the 1995 deal.

As recently as Friday, 26 June 2009, The Independent of London published a report titled Bribes and Bombs that mentioned the names of both President Zardari and President Sarkozy as prime suspects among others in receiving bribes for the French submarines. The opening paragraphs of the report said this:

“A political scandal is gathering pace over claims that 11 French submarine engineers were murdered in a bomb attack in Karachi seven years ago to punish France for the non-payment of arms contract "commissions" to senior Pakistani officials. Lawyers for the French victims' families believe the attack, allegedly carried out by Islamist terrorists, was in fact part of a web of financial chicanery and political maneuvering which may yet severely embarrass senior figures, including the French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari.”

Interestingly, when Mr. Zardari decided to pay a visit to Paris in May, Mr. Sarkozy wasn’t exactly a happy man. The French media highlighted a letter that the families of the 11 engineers sent to the French president showing displeasure at meeting Mr. Zardari. The German news agency, DPA, reported that Mr. Zardari’s decision to visit Paris “has placed the French president in a delicate position.”

The Independent newspaper report published the following list of the key figures in the French submarine bribes scandal. This list is based on the French investigation into the murder of the 11 engineers.

[U][B][SIZE="3"]The key figures: 15 years ago and now[/SIZE][/B][/U]

[B][I][U]Edouard Balladur, 80 [/U][/I][/B]

[B]THEN[/B] Centre-right prime minister in cohabitation with the Socialist president, François Mitterrand. Ran for presidency in 1995 but was knocked out by Chirac in first round.

[B]ROLE[/B] It is alleged in documents seized by French police that his campaign – quite possibly without his knowledge – benefited from illegal kickbacks.

[B]NOW[/B] Retired.

[I][U][B]Jacques Chirac, 76[/B][/U][/I]

[B]THEN [/B]Mayor of Paris and leader of the centre-right RPR party. Ran for the presidency in 1995 for the third time and won.

[B]ROLE[/B] As president, he ordered the cancellation of the Pakistani "commissions", allegedly in pique against M Balladur.

[B]NOW[/B] Retired.

[B][I][U]Charles Millon, 63[/U][/I][/B]

[B]THEN [/B]Chirac's defence minister in 1995.

[B]ROLE[/B] Admits he cancelled Pakistani commissions on Chirac's orders.

[B]NOW [/B]Faded from mainstream politics.

[I][B][U]Asif Ali Zardari, 53 [/U][/B][/I]

[B]THEN[/B] Minister in government of his wife, Benazir Bhutto, who was murdered in 2007 after she returned to Pakistan.

[B]ROLE[/B] Alleged to have "distributed" part of the commissions paid by France, which were legal under French law.

[B]NOW[/B] President of Pakistan.

What is compounding suspicions is the decision by the Pakistani government to appoint a civil servant from the District Management Group [a classification within the Pakistani bureaucracy] as the Ambassador of Pakistan to France. This is an unusual appointment. For the first time, the Pakistan Foreign Office and the veteran diplomats there have been bypassed for this critical station. Again, Mr. Zardari’s name has come up as the man behind the move and his spokesman had to step in to deny it.

So is the delay in the issuing of the order for the German submarines that were almost finalized in December 2008 has something to do with President Zardari’s meeting with President Sarkozy of France in May 2009? Is the appointment of a junior civil servant as the envoy to Paris related to this? And has all of this something to do with the reluctance of the Ministry of Defense in issuing a purchase order for the German submarines?

The delay could also be an attempt at hurting the fast developing military ties between Pakistan and Germany.

Pakistan and Germany have deepened military and security ties over the past years.

Germany has become the fourth country after the United States, Japan and Russia to begin a strategic dialogue with Pakistan.

There are regular political-military talks with Pakistan army officials on security and military issues which include counter- terrorism and training of Pakistani officers in Germany.

Pakistani officers have received military training and education in Germany in recent years as part of military education and training programs

Pakistan needs the German Class-214 submarines. India’s military buildup is coupled with renewed aggressiveness toward Pakistan. The Indians are expected to use the naval buildup to bully Pakistan. It is imperative that Islamabad build up its naval defense to maintain peace through deterrence.



[B]AhmedQuraishi.com[/B]

[CENTER][U][SIZE=4][COLOR=navy]ALERT: A Senior Pakistani Politician In Govt. Caught On Tape Endorsing Breakup Of Balochistan! [/COLOR][/SIZE][/U][/CENTER]

[RIGHT][B]August 05, 2009[/B][/RIGHT]

[B]ALERT: A Pakistani Government Official Caught Telling Brahamdagh Bugti: 'Declare Balochistan Independence While You Still Have A Chance'[/B]

[B]This hard evidence adds to the existing circumstantial evidence that some foreign governments have successfully cultivated high-level moles in Islamabad.[/B]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Pakistan's Balochistan province is under attack.
Pakistanis should be in no doubt now and must begin to question their government. And question it hard.

This is the latest:

- A stunning telephone conversation between a Pakistani official and Indian-backed terrorists in Balochistan;

- Permission for US Marines to land on Pakistan's southwestern coastal area in a mock invasion;

- And a consortium of three western companies want to circumvent Gwadar and get government's approval for a mini-seaport instead.

These are three startling developments that point not just to criminal negligence on the part of the elected federal Pakistani government but to collusion at some high level within the Pakistani government. We know that a few who claim to represent Pakistani Balochis are completely sold out to the agenda of two or three countries in the region. What is new is connivance in Islamabad. If something is going to happen to Pakistan's Balochistan, it will not be possible without inside help.

Alarmingly, this follows the credible information that a group of foreign-backed terrorists who claim to represent Pakistani Baloch are planning in coordination with at least two foreign governments to declare the 'independence' of Pakistan's Balochistan province three days before Pakistan's Independence Day celebrations on 14 August. The move, if happens, won't change anything on the ground but would a score a point for the anti-Pakistan forces gathered on Afghan soil.

Let's get into the details of the latest alert:

[I]1. US MARINES IN BALOCHSITAN:[/I] According to an alert today by BRASSTACKS, an Islamabad-based security monitoring center, and I quote: "The US Marine Corps has reportedly been allowed [by the Pakistani government] to land around Makran coast in Pakistan's Balochistan province. The pretext is that the marines are conducting some anti-narcotics exercise in Afghanistan and the supposed landing in Pakistan's Balochistan is part of that exercise. The timing is not only dangerous but could pose a srious threat to Pakistani national security because the rulers in Islamabad have allowed the US Marine landing at a time when the US has stationed a large number of troops in the Afghan province of Helmand bordering the Balochistan province of Pakistan."

[I]2. A MOLE IN ISLAMABAD:[/I] A senior member of the elected federal government in Islamabad urged Brahamdagh Bugti in a telephone conversation recently to expedite the declaration of independence "while you have the chance." The said official is a senior member of the government. If this tape were to be released publicly, the said official could face treason charges. The irony is that the said official often makes strong statements about defending Pakistan's national integrity and strategic interests against the anti-Pakistan forces gathered on the Afghan soil.

[I]3. A WESTERN COMMERTIAL SEAPORT:[/I] The third interesting activity in Balochistan has to do with the three western companies. One of them is the Tethyan Copper of Australia in collaboration with Canadian mining firm and another from Chile, (all have joint ownership of the copper-gold deposit at Reko Diq in Balochistan. According to BRASSTACKS, the three companies want to build an exclusive small port (commercial jetty) near Gwadar port some 30 miles towards Karachi. One or more of them also have Israeli links of some sort, most probably in terms of equity, which is in itself should make this the concern of national security experts in Pakistan because of the growing Israeli covert role in the region, which is not documented by the western media but is well known to Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and other countries in the region.



[B][CENTER][IMG]http://www.massmediacell.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/3.bmp[/IMG][/CENTER]
[/B]
[CENTER][/CENTER]
[B]The location of the resource-rich Reko Diq in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province[/B]



According to the BRASSTACKS alert, this project for "an exclusive small port-like facility indeed should be looked upon with high suspicion. The main question here is: Why the small port in the presence of a new modern port like Gwadar in close proximity? Who will be using this new port facility apart from these companies? What will be the security plan for this jetty and who will be looking after the security? Foreigners from native countries of the three companies will freely use this new mini-seaport."

This situation will represent a grave security breach from Pakistan's standpoint, particularly in an area like Balochistan that already is the focus of third-country-sponsored terrorism emanating from Afghanistan.

To quote the BRASSTACKS alert:

"To understand the entire situation and the security concerns for Pakistan linked with demand of these foreign companies, the background of all these companies is a must to looked into. Reko Diq is a small town in Chagai District, Baluchistan having the world´s largest Gold and Copper reserves. According to reports US $ 65 Billion natural deposit have been sold for US $ 21 Billion to Tethyan Copper of Australia which has taken the contract to develop this mine while Barrick Gold Corporation of Canada (a Jewish company) and Antofagasta of Chile have a joint-ownership of the copper-gold deposit at Reko Diq. The Reko Diq deposit is being explored by Tethyan Copper Company Pty Ltd (75%) and the (BDA) Balochistan Development Authority (25%). Tethyan Copper Company is held jointly (50:50) by Barrick Gold Corporation and Antofagasta Minerals. So far, three foreign companies have purchased stakes in the strategic copper and gold assets setting off a cycle of `change of foreign ownership´ of Reko Diq copper project. Pakistan has only 25 per cent stake in the Reko Diq copper project. The rest of the 75 per cent stakes had first been transferred to BHP Billiton, the Anglo-Australian mining giant and then BHP Billiton under a `deed of waiver and consent´ transferred it to the Australian TCC and now TCC has sold its 19.95 per cent stake to Antofagasta Minerals."

Pakistan's strategic southwestern province of Balochistan is facing a real, focused threat. The federal Pakistani government, controlled by individuals with strong links to Washington, are showing criminal negligence in this regard. The government has so far failed to put Britain on the spot for providing sanctuary for terrorists committing arson and terrorism inside Balochistan and openly calling for the breakup of the Pakistani state.

To provide media cover and legitimacy to these terrorists, strong lobbies in Washington and New Delhi are trying to use the media to revive the debate on how Pakistan became independent from Britain and how Balochistan 'acceded' to the new nation.

We do not have much trust in the capability of the Pakistani government to rise to the occasion. But to the national security practitioners and experts and the managers of the state foreign policy and public diplomacy, it is important that Pakistan not be drawn into this debate.

Pakistan is a reality. We cannot and will not revisit events going back half a century or more in time just because this happens to suit the strategic interests of the United States, NATO, or India.

Islamabad needs to question why the governments of Britain, India and the United States are supporting terrorism in Pakistan through indirect support to terrorists claiming unilateral representation of a large segment of the Pakistani nation.

The BRASSTACKS alert has been quoted here under special arrangement.

[CENTER][U][SIZE=4][COLOR=navy]ALERT: Blackwater Recruiting Agents Fluent In Urdu & Punjabi For Pakistan[/COLOR][/SIZE][/U][/CENTER]

[RIGHT][B]September 15, 2009[/B][/RIGHT]

[B]Report Suggests Pakistani Envoy In Washington Has Issued 360 Visas To Americans In One Month Without Consulting Islamabad.[/B]

Blackwater USA is looking for mercenaries fluent in Urdu, Pakistan's national language, and Punjabi, the language spoken by natives of Pakistan's largest populated province. The US military already deploys officers and commando units manned by people fluent in Pashto, spoken in most of western Pakistan and southern Afghanistan. Keeping in view the denials of the US embassy in Islamabad and the expanding American presence on Pakistani soil, these recruitments are obviously not meant for running call centers. Since Washington has unilaterally decided that Pakistan is now a 'war theater' after Iraq and Afghanistan, it is only natural that American terrorism will also be unleashed in Pakistan. Blackwater is in Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Blackwater USA has concealed its Web presence. If you type [URL="http://www.BlackwaterUSA.com"]www.BlackwaterUSA.com[/URL], you will be redirected to the website of an organization called U.S. Training Center , which offers military and personal security courses. The website does not overtly say or indicate it is linked to Blackwater, but on Sept. 12 a media release was posted on the homepage defending Blackwater against accusations the private 'army' overbilled the US government for work in Iraq in 2006 and 2007.

The bigger news, however, is that 'Blackwater USA' is hiring in Pakistan. While BlackwaterUSA.com does not exist on the Web any longer, I 3an employment form on a secured page of the private security firm's website that clearly indicates the private mercenary army is hiring Urdu- and Punjabi-speaking agents. This would complement the existing Pashto-speaking agents that both Blackwater private mercenary army and its employer, the US military, have on the ground in Afghanistan and – as reports increasingly indicate – in Pakistan.

Snapshots of the screen from the page titled secure.blackwaterusa.com show that the page is part of the Blackwater Employee and Applicant Resource System (BEARS).
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The snapshots shown here indicate that hiring continues as we speak for agents and for people with military training who can speak Urdu, Pakistan's national language, and Punjabi, spoken by the natives of Pakistan's largest populated province.

Obviously, agents with proficiency in the two languages will be operating in and around Pakistan since there is little utility for such agents anywhere else in the world.

This is the latest in a pile of circumstantial evidence that supports the growing concerns within the Pakistani public opinion that private US security firms are setting up shop in Pakistan, bringing to the country the same mayhem that has engulfed Iraq and Afghanistan, possibly with the permission of influential people in the Pakistani government.

A petition has been submitted to the Supreme Court of Pakistan today requesting that the government of Pakistan be ordered to explain why the US embassy in Islamabad is building a fortified embassy the size of an international airport, spread over 52 to 54 acres. The petitioner, who is a private Pakistani citizen, has accused the United States of constructing a military base in the heart of the Pakistani capital in the guise of an embassy.

On Aug. 5, PakNationalists/AhmedQuraishi.com broke the news of how a Washington-incorporated private company that calls itself an NGO and executes contractual humanitarian work for the US government in conflict zones is suspected of acting as cover for Blackwater in Peshawar.

On Jul. 27, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur [DPA] reported that residents of an upscale suburb in Peshawar have formally complained to the Pakistani government that armed private Americans were spreading fear in the area.

We also received a statement issued by Mr. Richard Snelsire, the spokesman for the US embassy in Islamabad, denying these reports:

[I][COLOR=navy]Since 2002, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has committed more than $3.4 billion in humanitarian and development assistance to the people of Pakistan in relief, health, education, and economic development programs.[/COLOR][/I][COLOR=navy]

[I]Creative Associates is one of many organizations USAID engages to deliver this assistance, which also includes the Government of Pakistan, local non-governmental, and international humanitarian institutions. This organization has no link to any international security firm, nor is it affiliated in any way with an intelligence service.[/I]

[I]Recent allegations against USAID partners such as Creative Associates are false, and place individuals delivering humanitarian and development assistance to the people of Pakistan at risk.[/I]

[I]Richard Snelsire[/I][/COLOR]

Despite these denials, the Pakistani government and the US embassy are unable to explain several incidents in Peshawar and Islamabad over the past few weeks that involved privately armed American citizens, especially accounts by private citizens confirming they have seen and interacted with these foreign agents in public places. In at least three incidents, these privately armed Americans were released by police authorities under pressure from the government despite involvement in altercations with local Pakistanis. In one case, an armed US citizen physically assaulted a Pakistani police officer and uttered obscenities against the host country.

The alarming part of this story is that the embassy of Pakistan in Washington is reported to have issued several hundred entry permits and visas to individuals without seeking clearance from the country's security departments. In one recent report, it is reported that the Pakistani ambassador issued 360 visas to US citizens in one month, sometime this year, from the ambassador's discretionary quota of visas and again without clearance from Pakistani security departments.

Who are these Americans who are arriving in Pakistan in the tens and hundreds at a time when the US embassy in Islamabad follows a strange practice where a staffer personally calls any US citizen in the United States in order to warn them about coming to Pakistan for personal reasons or pleasure, apparently because of the security situation?

[CENTER][U][SIZE=4][COLOR=navy]A US Counteroffensive In Pakistan[/COLOR][/SIZE][/U]
A Loose Coalition Of Pro-American Politicians, Writers, Academics To Promote US Goals, Isolate Pak Military [/CENTER]

[RIGHT][B]Sunday, 27 September 2009[/B][/RIGHT]

[I][FONT=Book Antiqua][SIZE=3]Forget US diplomacy with the Pakistani government. The Americans are now setting the policy agenda in Pakistan in direct talks with Pakistani political parties. To ensure privacy, these talks are being held in Washington, away from prying eyes and ears in Pakistan. Pakistani politicians, writers and some academicians are being recruited to promote US policies and isolate the Pakistani military and intelligence. This is how a superpower occupies a nuclear-armed nation.[/SIZE][/FONT][/I]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—US political and military officials go on the offensive inside Pakistan, boldly confronting critics and seeking to build a coalition of pro-American supporters across Pakistani politics, media and the academia. The goal is to create a domestic counter to the entrenched Pakistani policymaking establishment [read 'the military'] that is resisting American efforts to force Pakistan to become a voluntary full-fledged second theater of war after Afghanistan.

Signs of the new American aggressiveness abound from increased willingness of US diplomats in Pakistan to confront their local critics, to sweet-talking Pakistani politicians, media and academicians into openly promoting the US agenda through sponsored visits to Washington and Florida.

This is similar to a Plan B: using local actors to force change from within. Plan A, which was focused on coercive diplomacy and threats of sending boots on the ground into Pakistan, failed to yield results over the past months.

In essence, the United States is covertly raising an army of special agents and soldiers on Pakistani soil, with the help of local Pakistani accomplices, but without the full knowledge of the Pakistani military to avoid a confrontation.

This counteroffensive began with Ambassador Anne W. Patterson's attempt to intimidate a Pakistani columnist and a known critic of US policies. Ms. Patterson did not seek a public debate to counter criticism. Instead, she resorted to backchannel contacts to have the writer blocked. In so doing, Ms. Patterson unwittingly broke a new barrier for US influence, creating precedence for how the US embassy deals with the Pakistani media. This is something that the Ambassador's counterparts could never imagine pulling off in places like Moscow, Ankara, or Cairo.

Buoyed by this, the Ambassador went on the offensive. This month, she held a press conference, released a long policy statement, and met Prime Minister Gilani to reassure him after reports suggested her government did not trust Islamabad with the expected aid money. She also appeared on primetime television, carefully choosing a nonaggressive TV talk show as a platform to address Pakistanis glued to their sets in peak evening hours.

The television appearance coincided with an interview she gave to a US news service accusing Pakistan of refusing to join the US in eliminating one of the Afghan local parties – the Afghan Taliban – whom her own government and military failed to wipe out in Afghanistan in eight years of war. The statement played on the usual American accusations, backed by no evidence, that seek to explain the growing disenchantment of the Afghan people with the failed American occupation of their country by linking it to alleged Pakistani sanctuaries and covert support.

But hours before her television appearance, on Sept. 19, Pakistani police raided the Islamabad offices of Inter-Risk, a Pakistani security firm representing American defense contractor DynCorp, where a huge quantity of illegal sophisticated weapons was confiscated. According to one news report, the Pakistani owner of the firm, retired Captain Ali Jaffar Zaidi, escaped from his house hours before the police arrived. A Pakistani journalist, Umar Cheema, who works for The News, confirmed in a published statement that Mr. Zaidi told him a day before the raid that "the US embassy in Islamabad had ordered the import of around 140 AK-47 Rifles and other prohibited weapons in the name of Inter-Risk" and that "the payment for the weapons would be made by the embassy."

[The News reports today that the government has "disbanded" Inter-Risk, voiding its contract with both the US embassy and with DynCorp. The company director Capt. Zaidi remains at large.]

In other words, Pakistani security authorities have found American and Pakistani citizens working for the US embassy involved in suspicious activities.

[B][COLOR=navy]What Really Happened?[/COLOR][/B]

US ambassador Anne Patterson used her goodwill to seek the personal intervention of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and Interior Minister Rehman Malik to obtain licenses for prohibited weapons.

Sixty-one pieces of sophisticated weapons were seized by the police at the Inter-Risk/DynCorp facility.

The question is: Why did the Pakistani police confiscate the weapons if they were duly licensed by the government?

The only logical answer is that the licensing procedure, which includes clearance from the country's intelligence and security departments, was not followed.

Apparently, Washington's staunch allies inside Pakistan's elected government helped their friends with advanced weapons into the country without the knowledge of important national security departments of the government.

This raises serious questions because of several reports recently that implicate Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, in issuing a large number of visas to US citizens without proper clearance from Islamabad. Since US tourists are not exactly flocking to Pakistan, Amb. Haqqani is suspected of having facilitated private US security agents to enter Pakistan. A spate of recent reports have exposed the presence of private American security firms on Pakistani soil.

When the country's security departments finally paid attention to Ambassador Haqqani's indiscretions, the ambassador, who is a former journalist, is suspected of leaking a protest letter he wrote to his country's intelligence chief, apparently attempting to clear his name before his American friends. Of all places, the letter, which is a classified government communication, surfaced in New Delhi, on the screen of an Indian television news channel.

[B][COLOR=navy]PATTERSON'S LIE EXPOSED[/COLOR][/B]

On Sept. 30, Mr. Ansar Abbasi of The News published the full content of a letter written by Ambassador Patterson to Interior Minister Rehman Malik, dated March 30, seeking his "intervention" to grant Inter-Risk and DynCorp "the requisite prohibited bore arms licenses to operate in the territorial limits of Pakistan and as soon as possible."

The letter creates a new dent in the US embassy's counteroffensive that seeks to downplay the presence of private US security firms in the country. A Web news portal, PakNationalists/AhmedQuraishi.com released fresh evidence this month showing the infamous US security firm formerly known as Blackwater recruiting military-trained agents fluent in Urdu and Punjabi.

To quell the controversy, Ambassador Patterson went on record confirming that five million US dollars will be spent by her government to build new living quarters for US Marines within the embassy compound in Islamabad. But the number of marines utilizing this facility will not exceed 20, she assured Pakistanis recently.

The Sept. 19 raid, however, proves there will be a far larger number of armed Americans on Pakistani soil eventually than the figure given by Ambassador Patterson.

[B][COLOR=navy]US MERCENERARIES IN PAKISTAN?[/COLOR][/B]

The strong denials of US officials on the presence of private US security firms in Pakistan do no tally with the circumstantial evidence. At least three verified incidents have been reported in Islamabad alone over the past few weeks that involve armed US individuals in civilian dresses. In two incidents, Pakistani police officers arrested and then released armed civilian Americans after intervention from the US embassy. In one incident, a Pakistani citizen reported being assaulted by armed Americans in civilian clothes. Police officers refused to register a complaint against the Americans for fear of being reprimanded in case of intervention by the US embassy.

[B][COLOR=navy]US DOLLARS RECRUITING PAKISTANIS TO WORK AGAINST PAKISTANI MILITARY[/COLOR][/B]

Private US security agents sneaking into Pakistan is one level of the current US engagement with Pakistan. Another level is political and seeks to isolate the Pakistani policymaking establishment, and especially the Pakistani military and the country's powerful intelligence agencies, from within, after months of incessant one-sided US media campaign demonizing the country's military and intelligence services.

On the political front, Washington's Pakistan handlers have launched a new bout of US meddling in domestic Pakistani politics. The US government has put into high gear its contacts with Pakistani political parties. Washington is now conducting direct diplomacy with these parties.

A high level delegation of MQM, which controls the port city of Karachi, the starting point of US and NATO supplies headed for Afghanistan, is in Washington meeting US political and military officials.

A similar exercise is planned with the ANP, the small ex-Soviet communist ally currently governing the NWFP, the Pakistani province bordering Afghanistan.

Both parties came to power thanks to former President Musharraf's secret 'deal' brokered by Vice President Dick Cheney and his State Department officials in 2007. The deal sought to create a pro-American ruling coalition in the country that would ensure that the Pakistani military is aligned with the US strategic goals in the region.

The Americans are trying to accentuate what they see as pro-Indian, pro-American strains within the two parties.

[CENTER][URL="http://paknationalists.googlegroups.com/web/PNACPlanForPakistan.jpg?gda=GDs9fUwAAABv3-1V-MS-4rKAySfwJo08VJqjQQUxMNpFWa7GELR2-J-uZ0_ID_d5Pdnx2jMYzj2fs7maW8FM3kQMOUV88KaGdCCRClr7cC2Gu78qgjSWHw&gsc=WTPS1QsAAAAKFjqvzNrx9bKcfgcIAW8k"][IMG]http://paknationalists.googlegroups.com/web/PNACPlanForPakistan.jpg?gda=GDs9fUwAAABv3-1V-MS-4rKAySfwJo08VJqjQQUxMNpFWa7GELR2-J-uZ0_ID_d5Pdnx2jMYzj2fs7maW8FM3kQMOUV88KaGdCCRClr7cC2Gu78qgjSWHw&gsc=WTPS1QsAAAAKFjqvzNrx9bKcfgcIAW8k[/IMG][/URL]
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Washington began this program quietly in 2007 after getting a green signal from President Musharraf to increase US involvement in Pakistani politics. There are reports that nazims of several districts in Sindh, Balochistan and NWFP were invited to Washington to meet US government and military officials over the past thirty months. But these were very low key visits. In fact, they were so secretive that ANP chief Asfandyar Wali refused in early 2008 to confirm or deny a visit he made to Washington after the Feb. 2008 elections in Pakistan. In contrast, no effort was made this time to downplay the current visits by MQM and ANP delegations to Washington and their meetings with US and NATO officials. And as in all of these covert visits, the federal Pakistani government, the Foreign Office and the country's security departments are not privy to what is being discussed between US officials and the leaders of the two Pakistani political parties on US soil. In fact, US officials arranged the meetings on US soil precisely in order to circumvent the Pakistani government.

While there is no immediate evidence that Pakistan should be alarmed by Washington's direct diplomacy with Pakistani political parties outside Pakistan's territory, Islamabad needs to be wary of strong strains within Washington's policy establishment that have been focusing on exploiting Pakistan's ethnic and linguistic fissures in order to support its so-called 'Af-Pak' agenda.

A lot of work has been done over the past three years in several Washington think tanks on Pakistan's linguistic and ethnic fissures and how these can be exploited by Washington to weaken Islamabad and force it to follow the US agenda in Afghanistan and the region.

During Pakistan's worst domestic instability in 2007, mainstream US media outlets were leaking policy and intelligence reports focusing on alleged separatism in several Pakistani regions. This week, some of the most ardent American supporters of separatism inside Pakistan – the usual suspects from the US think-tank circuit – came together in Washington to launch a political action committee that seeks independent status for a Pakistani province, Sindh. The ceremony for the launch of the 'Sindhi American Political Action Committee' was addressed by Selig Harrison and Marvin Weinbaum, two think-tank types with extensive links to the US intelligence community and both advocates of engagement with Pakistani separatists as a leverage against Islamabad.

The new American confidence in openly meddling in Pakistani politics should raise alarm bells in the Pakistani capital. This is the strongest sign yet of how weak the federal Pakistani government, and in turn Pakistan itself, appears to outsiders.

The weakness of Pakistan's ruling elite is inviting American hounding at a time when the American bully is on the retreat elsewhere.



[RIGHT][I][FONT=Book Antiqua][SIZE=3]A condensed version of this report was published by The Nation of Lahore on Saturday.[/SIZE][/FONT][/I][/RIGHT]

[RIGHT][B]Published : November 30, 2009[/B][/RIGHT]

[CENTER][U][SIZE=4][COLOR=navy]Daawa Chief: A Message To Indians On Mumbai Anniversary[/COLOR][/SIZE][/U][/CENTER]

[SIZE=5]·[/SIZE] We sympathize with the victims; never attacked women and children; Indian government is deceiving you

[SIZE=5]· [/SIZE]Five Thousand Families In Pakistan Affected By Mumbai Attacks

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—In a detailed letter written to Hamid Mir of Geo News, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai attacks, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, sympathized with the families of all those who lost their lives in the Mumbai attacks last year and said that Islam does not condone random blasts at public places, nor does it endorses the killing of innocent non-Muslims.

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed is not happy with some Pakistani intellectuals and journalists who are “propagating” against him and expected that the Pakistani media would support him.

Following is the text of the letter:

“Dear Mr. Hamid Mir,

As’salaam’u’alaikum’wa’rahmat Allah

I hope you are doing well. It has been almost a year since the Mumbai attacks took place. I am writing to you because I would like to offer some thoughts in this regard.

Hundreds of families were affected by these attacks and these families must certainly be in a state of mourning on the anniversary of the attacks. Yet, if a few hundred families were affected by these attacks in India, at least five thousand families in Pakistan have also had to endure momentous suffering. This is so because India placed the entire blame of the Mumbai attacks on the Jamaat al Dawah and me, without any proof at all, and succeeded in having UN sanctions imposed upon us with the active collaboration of the United States. The sanctions resulted in a crackdown on the Jamaatud Dawah and all of the organization’s humanitarian and educational projects were shut down, while I, along with a number of my colleagues, was put under preventive detention.

The prime victims of these unreasonable and unmerited sanctions have been those underprivileged families whom the Jamaatud Dawah had been supporting with contributions of five to eight thousand rupees a month. Apart from these severely affected families, scores of other individuals who had been working for the Jamaatud Dawah’s humanitarian projects on a monthly remuneration basis, such as doctors, engineers, technicians, teachers, as well as hundreds of volunteers, have been very adversely affected by these unfair sanctions.

I am indeed extremely saddened at the loss of innocent lives in the Mumbai attacks, and I fully sympathise with the families of those who lost their lives, but it remains a fact that India has deceitfully associated me with these attacks. Although India succeeded in associating the Jamaatud Dawah and me with these attacks in the media, yet it has been unable to prove these allegations in any free and independent court of the world.

At the conclusion of the hearings challenging the detention of my colleagues and me, the Lahore High Court had noted in its historical judgment that it had not found any evidence, which associated the Jamaatud Dawah, Hafiz Saeed, or Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi with the Mumbai attacks. The truth is that the government arrested various leaders who endorse Jihad in Kashmir and did so for the sole purpose of pleasing India. These leaders are now enduring in-camera hearings in Anti-Terrorism Court merely because they support the right of self-determination of the Kashmiri people. Almost a whole year has passed since these arrests, yet none of these leaders has been indicted to date.

Meanwhile, India has handed over several dossiers, supposedly carrying evidence against me, to the Pakistani government, yet the Pakistani government has itself admitted that these dossiers do not contain any evidence against me.

The Indian media has made it a perpetual issue of propaganda that several dossiers have been handed over to the Pakistani government by India, yet Pakistan refuses to move against Hafiz Saeed. As I have stated earlier, the truth is that these dossiers do not contain any evidence against me. Then what is the purpose of this entire hullabaloo, one might ask. The fact is that India desires to suppress the Kashmir issue, which is the real dynamic behind all this Indian propaganda. My real ‘crime’ is that I vociferously and comprehensively highlight the Kashmir issue. Kashmir is Pakistan’s jugular vein and we can never close our eyes to it. India is extremely averse to our stance regarding Kashmir and instead of resolving the issue; it resorts to unleashing propaganda in order to cover up the matter.

The Pakistani media should counter Indian propaganda by projecting the Kashmir problem as an existent issue. Indian promises on the United Nations forum of holding a plebiscite in Kashmir are on record, and no one can refuse to acknowledge their existence. Then why has India been consistently sidestepping the UN resolution on the Kashmir issue for the past sixty years? We must press India for a clarification of the delay instead of adopting a defensive stance, for it is India who always either delays the resolution of this critical issue through inconclusive negotiations, spurious calls for friendship, or in fake negotiations in the name of confidence-building measures, and sometimes by just bluntly refusing to negotiate on the matter. If any negotiations do take place, India makes sure that there is no mention of the Kashmir issue. If the Kashmir issue is ever mentioned at all, India promptly associates it with terrorism.

It must be inquired of India that if it is sincere about the Kashmir issue then why is it terrified of negotiations on this matter, and why does it not allow this matter to be resolved? It is precisely because of India’s duplicity and hypocrisy that China too, is exasperated with India’s attitude, while India’s relations with its other neighbours, Bangladesh, Nepal etc too are not very praiseworthy either and usually remain strained. What needs to be done under these circumstances, therefore, is for our government and media to expose India’s duplicitous posture. It is a paradox that our friend, China, is issuing separate visas to Kashmiris, while we pursue an apologetic and defensive policy. India has slaughtered more than a hundred thousand Muslims in Kashmir. This crime must be exposed.

Another reason for India’s personal vendetta against myself, accompanied with all the usual racket, is evident in what every Pakistani man, woman, and child is saying these days, and which I have claimed for several years now; that India is the real sponsor of all the acts of terror and carnage in Pakistan. My crime is that I reveal India’s real face to the people of Pakistan and I expose its two-faced policy of overtly appearing all smiles and geniality, while it conceals a dagger in its sleeve, waiting to stab one in the back at the first opportunity. India cannot stand my existence for another reason too, and that is that I speak about the rights of Muslims of the whole subcontinent. Moreover, I do not stay silent when Muslims are slaughtered in Gujrat and Maharashtra.

Not only my Deen, but, in fact, no law in the entire world forbids me from raising my voice at the massacre of innocent Muslims in India, or anywhere else in the world for that matter. It is also noteworthy that my parents had migrated from India when Pakistan gained independence and, hence, apart from the ties of Islamic brotherhood, I also have a geographical association with the Muslims of India. We lost many of our loved ones during the migration to Pakistan and, therefore, have a much clearer and comprehensive understanding of the difficulties and problems faced by Muslims in India.

India’s double-faced policy is also evident from the fact that it had been constructing dams on rivers flowing into Pakistan while it overtly negotiated confidence-building measures. My organization exposed this Indian conspiracy in every corner of Pakistan. India, therefore, considers my organization and me the biggest obstacles in its path of nefarious designs against Pakistan and that is why it incessantly points the finger at me without providing any tangible evidence. Alas! It is unfortunate that our government continues to pursue a meek and self-protective foreign policy vis-‡-vis India instead of defending Jama’at-ud-Da’awah and me. Pakistan’s government dreams of friendship with an enemy, though its dream will never be realized.

Kindly allow me to also mention here that under sway of incessant Indian propaganda some Pakistani intellectuals and journalists too, hold a negative opinion of my organization and me. Although such individuals are few in number, yet I would like to say with all due respect to these individuals that the Jamaatud Dawah is an organization which has promoted this ideology ever since its inception, that any type of armed activities within Pakistan are not right. Alhamdulillah, it is precisely because of this policy that no evidence has ever been presented against the Jamaatud Dawah in any court of Pakistan, which could show that the Jamaatud Dawah was ever involved in any negative activities, or had ever attempted to disrupt peace in Pakistan.

The Jamaatud Dawah has always been the first to condemn any armed activity within Pakistan, including suicide attacks. We consider such activities damaging to the image of Islam and Pakistan. Islam is a religion of peace and jihad for the sake of Allah is a vital pillar of Islam, yet there are certain specified rules for carrying out jihad, which does not include indiscriminate killing of everyone everywhere. Islam does not condone random blasts at public places, nor does it endorse the killing of every non-Muslim that one comes across. We do not believe in killing and slaughter in non-Muslim countries too, and we believe that it is the responsibility of Muslims to protect the life and property of non-Muslims in Muslim countries. Raising of the sword is only permissible against those non-Muslims who arm themselves to the teeth and invade Muslim lands and people. It is because of this ideology of the Jamaatud Dawah that Hindus and Christians from Karachi and interior Sindh took out protest rallies in support of the Jamaatud Dawah when UNSC imposed sanctions upon the Jamaatud Dawah last year. It has been a hallmark of Jamaatud Dawah’s humanitarian services that it has always served people in need without any discrimination on ethnic or religious basis whatsoever. We did so because that is what Islam had taught us to do.

It deserves mention here that the UN Security Council (UNSC) has imposed sanctions on several public welfare and jihadi organisations of member Muslim nations, yet the Jamaatud Dawah is the only organisation, which formally challenged these sanctions at the Security Council. We prepared and submitted a formal request for de-listing in accordance with the rules of the UNSC, and the UNSC, as well as the European Union contacted us for further clarifications. Our case is still pending at the UNSC. There is a fundamental flaw in the basis on which the UNSC has imposed the sanctions and we firmly believe that sooner or later that day will come when the international community will accept our just point of view and position.

Whatever has been said against the Markaz-e-Taiba, Muridke, in the Kerry-Lugar Bill is also mere propaganda. Markaz-e-Taiba, Muridke is an educational and public welfare complex where, apart from the educational institutions for boys and girls, an excellent hospital also exists. Nor has it ever been a no-go area in the past. Journalists from every corner of the world have toured and surveyed it, yet western media, with its agenda of promoting certain interests and objectives, continues to spew propaganda regarding this educational complex.

The object of writing these lines is to call for an end to negative propaganda against Jamaatud Dawah and to allow it to fully resume its humanitarian and public welfare projects. Perpetual negative propaganda against us, despite our evident past and our open present is beyond our comprehension. We obviously do not expect anything from others, but we do believe we have a right to expect that the Pakistani media will support us against the innumerable injustices committed against Pakistan’s major humanitarian relief organization and will cooperate with us in presenting the truth to the international community.

Was’salaam.

Sincerely,

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed

Ameer Jamaat al Dawah Pakistan”

[RIGHT][B]Published : December 2, 2009[/B][/RIGHT]

[CENTER][U][SIZE=4][COLOR=navy]US Security Firm Bribes Pakistani Officials, Top Interior Ministry Officer Arrested[/COLOR][/SIZE][/U][/CENTER]
[LIST][*][B]Over US $ 250,000 paid as bribes to people inside the Interior Ministry to license illegal weapons[/B][*][B]PS to State Minister of Interior arrested [/B][*][B]Bribes were paid after US Ambassador personally lobbied for the licenses[/B][*][B]Capt. Zaidi, Jamil Abbasi, Mr. Qadir and Dr. Dara are under arrest[/B][*][B]Fears the accused are being protected and might possibly be allowed to escape the country[/B][*][B]A total of 100 former SSG commandos secretly hired by US to create rapid-intervention teams for unknown purposes[/B][/LIST]ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The American defense contractor DynCorp is suspected of having bribed a personal assistant to the country’s interior minister to get a cache of sophisticated weapons into Pakistan without clearance from Pakistani security authorities.

Mr. Qadir, a personal assistant [P.S.] to Minister of State for Interior Tasnim Qureshi, is currently under arrest with the Federal Investigation Agency. He along with three others is suspected of receiving up to US $ 270,000 as bribe in exchange for issuing licenses to DynCorp that allow the company to use the sophisticated guns anywhere within the territory of Pakistan. The licenses were issued this summer without informing the country’s security agencies responsible for internal security, including the FIA.

This development is particularly embarrassing for US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson who personally lobbied the Pakistani Interior Ministry early this year to secure the licenses for DynCorp. Her lobbying effort is documented, including letters she and her staff wrote to the Ministry. The bribes were paid in the same case that Ambassador Patterson was pushing.

Details of the story, some being published here for the first time, show how the US push to forcibly include Pakistan in Washington’s failed Afghan project has resulted in alarming and inappropriate levels of US meddling inside Pakistan. The case also provides a glimpse into a covert American effort to create and operate private militias inside Pakistan with the help of a pro-US government.

Ambassador Patterson’s personal involvement in the case confirms suspicions inside Pakistan that she is directly linked to a disturbing new trend: the introduction of Blackwater-style private US security militias in the country. Ms. Patterson is quite acquainted with the concept, having worked with similar US groups in Colombia. Her experience in this area might have played a role in posting her to Pakistan.

The arrested assistant to the State Minister for Interior was receiving US $ 2,000 for every license issued for the prohibited weapons. The money was shared with two Pakistanis, one of them a retired Pakistan Army Capt. Ali Jafar Zaidi. Mr. Zaidi is also the founder of Inter-Risk, the local Pakistani affiliate of DynCorp.

The name of Mr. Tasnim Qureshi, the State Minister, came up frequently in the interrogation with his assistant. The Minister’s signatures are all over the paperwork for those illegal weapons. But Mr. Qureshi belongs to the second tier of PPP politicians. He is not expected to have approved the licensing of illegal weapons without clearance from Interior Minister Rehman Malik and/or other senior authorities in the government. But it is not clear, however, if Minister Qureshi is part of this probe or not.

Up to US $ 270,000 were paid for 138 pieces of advanced weapons. Investigators have been able to account for only half of those weapons. The rest are believed to be hidden inside the US Embassy compound in Islamabad. The US Embassy won’t say where the remaining weapons have gone. The Embassy insists that DynCorp was hired to protect Embassy and Consulate buildings across the country. But Pakistani investigations and piles of evidence shows other activities that are typical of private US militias hired by US military and intelligence for covert missions.

This scandal is not limited to low level staffers in the Interior Ministry. Some reports point finger at Interior Minister Rehman Malik and Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani. These reports suggest both men had some role in letting private US security contractors into the country without the knowledge of the Pakistani military and the country’s intelligence agencies. Security officials refuse to comment on these reports.

The footprint of the private US security contractors in Pakistan is far and wide these days, and has come very close to Pakistan’s most sensitive nuclear installations for the first time ever, as I explain below.

On Nov. 28, Mr. Malik’s Ministry launched a probe into reports that DynCorp had recruited a large number of former officers of the Special Services Group [SSG], Pakistani military’s elite commando unit. The probe appeared to be an attempt by Mr. Malik to appease the Pakistani military. Reports of DynCorp’s secret activities have been highlighted by the Pakistani media as early as April this year.

[B][COLOR=navy]WHAT REALLY HAPPENED[/COLOR][/B]

After Mr. Zardari became President last year, Washington accelerated its agenda in Pakistan, confident it had many people in power in Islamabad who were pro-US. Besides the President, this included National Security Adviser Mehmud Ali Durrani, Ambassador Haqqani, and Interior Minister Malik.

The US agenda included raising Iraq-style private US militias in the country. This reflects Washington’s strong desire to turn Pakistan into a third theater of war after Iraq and Afghanistan, by force if necessary; a desire that continues even now with President Obama and British prime minister’s blunt threats against Pakistan and cheap attempts to blame Islamabad for what essentially are Am-Brit failures.

There is little doubt that Blackwater operated in Pakistan in some capacity over the past few years but not in the same style as in Iraq. There were no private US militias let loose around Pakistan. But this is happening now. And this assignment has been outsourced to DynCorp. The company came to Pakistan in 2008 under the pretext of protecting US diplomatic interests. But it ended up launching a secret program to recruit retired Pakistani military officers. DynCorp has also been found working on creating some kind of rapid-intervention teams made up of former Pakistani army officers trained by American instructors, who in turn are mostly former US military and intelligence officers.

DynCorp hired the services of a Pakistani, Dr. Iqditar Dara, to liaise with various Pakistani government departments. Mr. Dara, in turn, enlisted the services of a well-connected activist of the ruling PPP, Mr. Jamil Abbasi.

The US firm also set up a training facility on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital, appropriately disguised as an automobile repair workshop. [FONT=Georgia][[COLOR=#0000de][URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTHl-xY9-BI"][COLOR=#0000de]Watch the video[/COLOR][/URL][/COLOR].][/FONT]

According to the interrogations, Mr. Dara and Mr. Abbasi shared the US $ 270,000 with the Minister’s assistant Mr. Qadir. Some amount of the money was also shared with Capt. Zaidi, who received a smaller amount from this booty mainly because he was already making a lot of money from his company’s contract with DynCorp.

Inter-Risk was given one-year provisional approval by the authorities to represent DynCorp in Pakistan. This was in 2008. But by early this year, Inter-Risk failed to get official approval for a license legalizing DynCorp’s activities in Pakistan.

When Inter-Risk’s offices were raided by the Pakistani police in September, DynCorp’s American trainers had already trained and ‘graduated’ 59 former Pakistani SSG officers from their illegal training facility on the outskirts of Islamabad. Fifty nine recruits were divided into two batches. Another 59 former SSG officers were undergoing training in September when the operation was forcibly terminated by Pakistani police.

The US Embassy reacted by quickly moving the 59 ‘graduates’ from the first two batches to the US Consulate in Peshawar.

The US Embassy was upset when, on Sept. 2, Chief Commissioner Islamabad suspended Inter-Risk’s license to operate as a private security firm, and three weeks later the Securities and Exchange Commission ordered Inter-Risk to wind up its business permanently. This in effect meant shutting the doors on DynCorp in Pakistan.

So upset was the US Embassy that no less than the Deputy Head of Mission, Mr. Gerald Feierstein, held a press conference on Oct. 1 to announce publicly that Inter-Risk and DynCorp, both US Embassy contractors, were not barred from operating in Pakistan. He tried to portray the action against Inter-Risk as a misunderstanding.

Next day, the Interior Ministry issued a statement announcing ‘to whom it may concern’ that Inter-Risk has been disbanded. Interestingly, the Ministry of Interior was not ready to name Mr. Feierstein who openly challenged its order. It was obvious the statement came out under pressure from Pakistani security officials outside the Ministry, possibly from the three main intelligence agencies, the FIA, ISI and the MI.

Nor did Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi take notice of the US diplomat’s action, even when Mr. Feierstein used the same press conference to issue a veiled threat of a US attack on the Pakistani city of Quetta.

According to a report published in Karachi’s Business Recorder on Nov. 28:

[CENTER][I]Sources said that the presence of American military contractors, like Blackwater World-wide, (now known as 'Xe Service') and Dyncorp, operating in Islamabad, had been extensively reported in the local media. Foreigners, mainly of US origin, have reportedly rented around 284 houses in different sectors of Islamabad, they said. According to details, 69 houses were rented by foreigners in F-6 sector, 85 houses in F-7, 62 houses in F-8, 15 houses in F-11, 12 houses in E-7, 38 houses in G-6, and three houses in I-8 sector of the capital.[/I][/CENTER]

[CENTER][I]A local security company, namely Wackenhut, has the contract to provide security to all these 284 houses in different sectors of Islamabad and their guards are deployed at these houses. This company is one of four recommended by the Overseas Security Advisory Council, US Department of State, on diplomatic security on its website.[/I][/CENTER]

[CENTER][I]Sources said that application forms are available at specific photocopy shops and are issued to retired commandos of Special Services Group. These retired commandos have been offered jobs as security guards. These SSG retired commandos would be trained under supervision of American trainers in a private training institute working under the garb of an automobile workshop on the outskirts of Islamabad.[/I][/CENTER]

[B][COLOR=navy]RESCUING INTER-RISK & DYNCORP[/COLOR][/B]

Legal loopholes and diplomatic pressure by the US Embassy is behind a coordinated push to revive the work of Inter-Risk and DynCorp in Pakistan.

There are reports that the embassy is planning with some influential officials in the Pakistani government to get the four arrested men in the case out of jail and then smuggle them out of the country, most probably by sea. The three accused know much more than what they have admitted during the interrogations, especially information about the network of informants and other recruits that the US Embassy and DynCorp have cultivated across Pakistan.

These men are also suspected to know something about another suspicious US activity on Pakistani soil: the Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program under US State Department, based at the police training college in Sihala, a few kilometers away from Pakistan’s most important nuclear installations.

Pakistani police officials have reported witnessing unusual activities at the facility. The Interior Ministry came down hard on those police officials who blew the whistle on what the Americans are doing there. This action compounded Pakistani suspicions, in addition to the fact that US citizens based at the Sihala facility insist they want to remain in the area despite the fact that they have not conducted any training programs for some time now.

According to reports, there is a strong suspicion that radioactive material detection equipment is installed at the facility. Low-ranking Pakistani staffers working with the Americans at Sihala have been found driving cars with fake number plates. And four US citizens were arrested in July in the maximum security zone around the Kahuta security facilities. In two and a half hours of interrogation, they couldn’t explain what they were doing there. Finally federal Interior Ministry intervened and forced their release without pressing charges.

Earlier this month, Inter-Risk filed a petition with the Lahore High Court seeking to overturn government’s decision to ban its activities in the country. Interestingly, the Rawalpindi Bench of the Court issued a stay order on Nov. 11, restricting the government from interfering in Inter-Risk’s ‘lawful’ business.

The verdict came as a surprise considering the extent of violations and defiance of Pakistani law committed by Inter-Risk and DynCorp, not to mention endangering the country’s national security.

There have been five or six incidents recorded in and around the Pakistani capital over the past few months where armed US citizens were arrested dressed as Afghan Taliban and carrying weapons that only the Pakistani military is allowed to carry in public.

Eight years after the US landed in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s security stands compromised at the Pak-Afghan border and inside the country. The Americans are part of the problem, not the solution.

[RIGHT][B]Published: December 29, 2009[/B][/RIGHT]

[CENTER][U][SIZE=4][COLOR=navy]Blame India For Karachi Terror[/COLOR][/SIZE][/U][/CENTER]


[B]New clues emerge: Suicide attacks against Pakistani Shias in Karachi and Kashmir are unprecedented. There have been no sectarian or suicide attacks in Kashmir before. The attack in Karachi is the first major sectarian assault in five years. The attack in Karachi is the work of Indians. It cripples Pakistan's business hub, it aims at a civil war between Pakistanis, it puts Pakistani military on the defensive, it strengthens America's intention of invading Pakistan, it reinforces US propaganda that war is in Pakistan and not Afghanistan. The Indian role here is critical. India is responsible for poisoning the Afghan well for the Americans and for everyone else. India is the missing part in the story of how US blundered in Afghanistan.[/B]


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Feeding sectarian tension is the last thing Karachi needed after the terrorist attack on a large Shia procession. But that is exactly what Interior Minister Rehman Malk unwittingly did when he quickly blamed ‘religious extremists’ for the attack, which in other words means Sunni militants.

That’s what the enraged crowds wanted to hear to bring Pakistan’s business hub to a halt.

Despite all his experience in the Federal Investigations Agency [FIA], Mr. Malik missed an important clue: In all the sectarian incidents Pakistan witnessed until 2004, none of the feuding Pakistani Shia and Sunni groups used suicide attackers against each other. This method was introduced in Pakistan a couple of years later by a shadowy group called Pakistani Taliban, whose manpower is partially Pakistani but its arms and funding are coming from powerful and organized supporters inside US-controlled Afghanistan.

The US says it’s unable to stop the support for anti-Pakistan terror from a US-controlled territory just as Pakistan is unable or unwilling to help in stopping the attacks by the Afghan Taliban against the US military in Afghanistan.

There are strong reasons why Islamabad should look at India for the terror wave inside Pakistan. It is strange why Mr. Malik won’t consider this possibility. His position becomes more untenable considering how his pro-US government has been reluctant to confront Washington and New Delhi on issues pertaining to Pakistan’s legitimate interests.

The position of Karachi’s largest political party MQM and its UK-based chief Altaf Hussain is worse. His support for the military operation against terrorists on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan should be appreciated. But Mr. Hussain has been exploiting recent terror attacks to get back at his political opponents. Mr. Hussain’s city has seen Indian-instigated terrorism over the years. But MQM chief never once criticized India for its meddling inside Pakistan, not even when Pakistani intelligence officials confronted Washington recently with evidence of Indian terrorism.

Even Mr. Zardari’s ruling PPP tried to use the attack in its own legal battle over corruption charges and its tussle with the country’s powerful military over national security issues. Several of its spokespersons claimed the attack was the work of ‘anti-democracy’ forces.

Sectarian terrorism in Pakistan is linked to Iran and Arab countries. Iran’s new rulers after 1979 began exporting the ‘revolution’ and its Arab neighbors reacted. This clash is not indigenous to Pakistan. It’s not a battle that Pakistanis owned. Both Iran and Arab countries scaled back their support for sectarian Sunni and Shia terror groups in Pakistan over the past decade. Countermeasures by Islamabad helped reduce the footprint of the sectarian groups in Pakistan in recent years. When money from Iran and Arab countries dried up, so did their proxy Sunni-Shia war on Pakistani soil.

That’s why Pakistan saw no major sectarian attack in the past five years. The last major attack occurred in Quetta in March 2004, and it was not a suicide attack.

The Karachi attack is unique in several ways.

The attack in Karachi was preceded by a terrorist explosion two days earlier in a public area with no specific target. It was meant to spread panic and instability. Pakistan saw similar attacks during the 1980s and early 1990s. Our investigators and intelligence analysts are familiar with this footprint. Those attacks were executed by agents working for the Indian intelligence.

But two days before Karachi, there was an attack on a Shia procession in Azad Kashmir. This attack is also of special interest to Pakistani security analysts.

There has not been a suicide attack targeting Shias in Pakistan’s Kashmir before. The region is right next to India but too far away from south Waziristan on the border with Afghanistan, the hub of suicide attackers in Pakistan.

The only other suicide attack in liberated Kashmir’s capital, Muzaffarabad, happened in June this year. It targeted a Pakistan Army truck and killed two soldiers. It is unthinkable for anyone belonging to Pakistan’s religious groups, and especially groups fighting India in the occupied part of Kashmir, to attack Pakistani soldiers stationed there to keep an eye on India.

The June 2009 suicide attack and then Sunday’s attack against the Shias in Pakistani Kashmir confirms a theory gaining currency among Pakistani security analysts. This theory goes back to 2006, when an unknown Pakistani Pashtun named Abdullah Mehsud was released from Gitmo after serving three years there. He was not handed back to Pakistan but sent back to Afghanistan. He was allowed to reenter Pakistan. Once here, he organized a militia and kidnapped Chinese engineers and attacked Chinese interests in Pakistan. In three years, his project has expanded into a major terror operation, well funded and armed. His militia introduced suicide attackers who kill Pakistanis, civilian and military. Former President Musharraf’s blunder of pitching the Pakistani army against its own tribesmen provided the perfect excuse for Abdullah’s terror militia to recruit gullible and poor Pakistanis to kill other Pakistanis. CIA drone attacks, which killed more than 750 innocent civilians so far, indirectly help that militia, which is called the Pakistani Taliban, to recruit suicide attackers from among the affected people and tribesmen.

The terror militia, despite being surrounded from all sides in Pakistan by Pakistani soldiers, continues to receive state of the art weapons, ammunition, fuel and funding, all from Afghanistan. When Pakistanis confronted senior US military and intelligence officers about this, their answer was that the money is coming from the drug trade controlled by the Afghan Taliban and that the advanced US-made weapons in the hands of the Pakistani Taliban, used to kill Pakistanis, were stolen from the US-trained Afghan National Army.

However, the drug trade in Afghanistan is not controlled by the Afghan Taliban but by the warlord allies of US military and intelligence in that country. These warlords are part of the US-backed government. But more interestingly, their drug trade is supported by the CIA in Afghanistan.

In October, someone in the US intelligence community, probably trying to embarrass CIA, leaked a sensitive piece of information to the New York Times. The information said that Afghan President’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, considered one of the biggest drug traffickers in Afghanistan, is on CIA payroll. The agency’s spokespeople later tried to minimize the damage by justifying it as part of the war effort.

This was a serious leak. This is how CBS News described it, “release of this sensitive information is troublesome and potentially game-changing in a dangerous war.”

Pakistan should have taken up this matter with its US ally but the country is too destabilized right now to focus.

But the implications for Pakistan are deadly. The CIA, or at least rogue elements in the agency, is directly involved in sustaining the terror capability of the militia in south Waziristan. This militia is CIA’s asset. And it is being used to punish Pakistan and its armed forces for not fully endorsing the US plan for the region, including accepting a larger role for India at the expense of Pakistani interests.

[B][COLOR=navy]INDIA’S ROLE[/COLOR][/B]

The Indian role here is critical. India is responsible for poisoning the Afghan well for the Americans and for everyone else. India is the missing part in the story of how US lost Afghanistan.

India’s intelligence officers offered their services to the Americans at the start of the occupation. Their argument was attractive. India is an expert on all things Pakistan. India played the same role with the Soviets, helping them unleash a wave of terror bombings across Pakistani cities during the 1980s.

Except the pro-US government of Mr. Asif Zardari in Islamabad and a few supporters cultivated by the US Embassy here, almost everyone else in Pakistan understands this background to the continuous acts of terror in Pakistan.

In the case of the suicide attack in the capital of Azad Kashmir, the autonomous government there concluded from the available evidence that India’s intelligence agency, RAW, was involved in that attack. Kashmir has not witnessed any sectarian attacks before. Nor has there ever been attacks on the Pakistani military there except by the Indian army across the ceasefire line. This is an important thread that the Pakistani media ignored. But the government of Azad Kashmir didn’t. The Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir directly accused India of masterminding this terror act in Kashmir.

After the attack in Karachi, groups of people unleashed organized vandalism in the heart of the business district. After the assassination of Benazir Bhutto this week a year ago, organized groups conducted selective targeting across the province of Sindh. Those targets were carefully chosen to spark language-based riots and divide Pakistanis. On Sunday, the same day of the suicide attack in Kashmir, one of the closest friends of Mr. Zardari and a man with a record of corruption, tried to ignite those tensions again when he revealed that he and some if his colleagues were plotting the breakup of Pakistan during the riots last year and were stopped by Mr. Zardari at the last minute.

These characters have been imposed on the people of Pakistan by the United States and the United Kingdom through a ‘deal’ with Musharraf. This deal allowed Washington to execute a regime-change in Pakistan and install a puppet government without the need for a war and invasion, as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Americans are interested in Karachi because it’s the closest fully operational seaport for the use of NATO forces in Afghanistan. But this link is incomplete without Balochistan, because of the new Gwadar port but also because of its proximity to Iran and the Gulf.

Terrorism and destabilization will continue in Pakistan. By the current standards, Pakistan is headed for serious domestic instability if the Pakistani government and the Pakistani military don’t stop the slide.

[B][COLOR=navy]Pakistan needs to:[/COLOR][/B]

1. Openly accuse the United States and its Indian ally of destabilizing Pakistan and the region.

2. Warn India about its direct involvement in terrorism.

3. End Pakistan’s involvement in America’s bungled war in Afghanistan.

4. Launch direct talks between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban in order to stabilize the Pakistani tribal belt.

5. Stop CIA drones and declare them a failure. Over 750 innocent Pakistanis, mostly women and children, were killed in the drone attacks with no first-tier al Qaeda leaders worth mentioning eliminated.

6. Take punitive measures against India for stealing Pakistan’s water supply from the rivers of Kashmir and for supporting terrorism inside Pakistan. These punitive measures must include stopping Afghan land trade with Indian through Pakistan and the prospect of indefinitely closing Pakistani air space for Indian flights until India stops support for terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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