Report Suggests Pakistani Envoy In Washington Has Issued 360 Visas To Americans In One Month Without Consulting Islamabad
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 www.BlackwaterUSA.com, 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).
CLICK TO ENLARGE
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:
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.
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.
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.
Richard Snelsire
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?
Monday, January 11, 2010
US Recruiting Retired Pakistani Military Officers
Who Protected Ali Zaidi, A Frontman For American Mercenaries In Pakistan?
Despite denials by the US Embassy in Islamabad, this incident exposes the presence of American private security operations similar to Blackwater in Pakistan. The embassy and US citizens working for either the US government or the US military are recruiting retired and well connected Pakistani military officers in order to build a network of informants and special operations agents inside Pakistan. This is tantamount to creating a US military presence in Pakistani cities without sending the US army into Pakistan. To camouflage this effort, US government's media management teams are using the mainstream American media to churn out stories that seek to discredit these reports as 'conspiracy theories'.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Washington is invading Pakistan without the need to order the US military in Afghanistan to invade Pakistani territory.
Some influential lobbies within the US government, military and intelligence have been advocating a direct invasion of Pakistan for quite some time. It was impossible to achieve because of Washington would not prefer a direct confrontation with a nuclear-armed Pakistan.
But the Americans have achieved several breakthroughs in Pakistan recently without putting a single boot on the ground.
CIA-manned drones have so far killed less than 20 al-Qaeda terrorists at the cost of murdering more than 700 innocent men, women and children, Pakistani citizens, who have unfortunately been abandoned by the power elite in Islamabad.
Now evidence confirms that the United States has launched a massive program of recruitment of retired Pakistani military officers to create information-gathering networks and private militias tasked with special operations inside Pakistan.
Part of this expansion is the introduction of private American security firms, or American mercenaries, contracted by the US military and working on their behalf. The US embassy is being used as a cover. US diplomats often tell Pakistani authorities that the private security militias are tasked with the protection of US diplomats and five diplomatic missions in five major Pakistani cities. This is correct in many cases but not in all cases. The US program of recruitment of retired Pakistani military officers and bolstering the presence of private security firms is far larger than just the task of protection of US buildings in Pakistan.
Since the Pakistani military and Pakistan's intelligence agencies remain on Washington's target list, retired military officers can provide a valuable insight and access into the inner side of the Pakistani military. US diplomats and others directly seeking this type of insight would alert Pakistani security authorities. But not if the same is done using retired Pakistani officers.
The case of a former Pakistani special operations officer Captain Ali Zaidi must send alarm bells ringing within the Pakistani national security community.
Capt. Zaidi's Inter-Risk security firm was the Pakistani face for US defense contractor DynCorp, which provides defense-related maintenance and supply services to US military bases worldwide. But in Pakistan, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, DynCorp was helping Washington create private security militias, or mercenaries in real terms, with proper military training and access to advanced weapons.
This is tantamount to creating an indirect US military presence inside Pakistani cities. The alarming part is the Zaidi and DynCorp had created an elaborate physical setup right in the heart of Pakistan to train recruited Pakistanis. Using his connections within the Pakistani civilian and military bureaucracy, Mr. Zaidi is suspected of smuggling advanced weapons into the country to be used by the Americans and their hired recruits. As a legal, cover, the US Embassy in Islamabad told Pakistani authorities that Zaidi/DynCorp were providing security services to US diplomats.
Pakistani newspaper The Nation broke the story on Sept. 29, with hard evidence, including photographs of an elaborate building on the outskirts of the Pakistani federal capital that was acting as a military training facility for the Pakistani recruits. The facility was camouflaged as a car repair workshop.
The activities of Mr. Zaidi and the US defense contractor DynCorp were obviously being protected by individuals at high levels of the Pakistani government. In fact, US Ambassador Anne Patterson personally intervened earlier this year with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and Interior Minister Rehman Malik seeking licenses for Mr. Zaidi and DynCorp to operate in entire territory of Pakistan. This is why Mr. Zaidi managed to stay away from Pakistani investigators thanks to a bail. But The Nation reports today that the court has cancelled his bail and that he has been arrested yesterday, which is an indication of how seriously Pakistani authorities are taking this case. [continued below]
click to enlarge
[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.]
[The Americans are looking for ambitious risk-takers such as Mr. Zaidi. For more information on how this retired officer describes himself, see his own brief biography posted at a Pakistani news website that introduces him as an 'investigative editor'.]
HIRING ACADEMICS/MEDIA COMMENTATORS
Retired Pakistani military officers are not the only people being hired by the Americans in Pakistan to spy on their own country. Washington's military and intelligence has also hired the services of a handful of Pakistani academics and media commentators. These civilian recruits are longtime critics of their own country and its national interest. The Americans are using them to present a Pakistani face to what essentially are American plans for Pakistan. These academics/commentators also provide occasional input into US plans and Washington uses them to sell these ideas and plans to the US public as something that the Pakistanis people themselves are demanding.
Despite denials by the US Embassy in Islamabad, this incident exposes the presence of American private security operations similar to Blackwater in Pakistan. The embassy and US citizens working for either the US government or the US military are recruiting retired and well connected Pakistani military officers in order to build a network of informants and special operations agents inside Pakistan. This is tantamount to creating a US military presence in Pakistani cities without sending the US army into Pakistan. To camouflage this effort, US government's media management teams are using the mainstream American media to churn out stories that seek to discredit these reports as 'conspiracy theories'.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Washington is invading Pakistan without the need to order the US military in Afghanistan to invade Pakistani territory.
Some influential lobbies within the US government, military and intelligence have been advocating a direct invasion of Pakistan for quite some time. It was impossible to achieve because of Washington would not prefer a direct confrontation with a nuclear-armed Pakistan.
But the Americans have achieved several breakthroughs in Pakistan recently without putting a single boot on the ground.
CIA-manned drones have so far killed less than 20 al-Qaeda terrorists at the cost of murdering more than 700 innocent men, women and children, Pakistani citizens, who have unfortunately been abandoned by the power elite in Islamabad.
Now evidence confirms that the United States has launched a massive program of recruitment of retired Pakistani military officers to create information-gathering networks and private militias tasked with special operations inside Pakistan.
Part of this expansion is the introduction of private American security firms, or American mercenaries, contracted by the US military and working on their behalf. The US embassy is being used as a cover. US diplomats often tell Pakistani authorities that the private security militias are tasked with the protection of US diplomats and five diplomatic missions in five major Pakistani cities. This is correct in many cases but not in all cases. The US program of recruitment of retired Pakistani military officers and bolstering the presence of private security firms is far larger than just the task of protection of US buildings in Pakistan.
Since the Pakistani military and Pakistan's intelligence agencies remain on Washington's target list, retired military officers can provide a valuable insight and access into the inner side of the Pakistani military. US diplomats and others directly seeking this type of insight would alert Pakistani security authorities. But not if the same is done using retired Pakistani officers.
The case of a former Pakistani special operations officer Captain Ali Zaidi must send alarm bells ringing within the Pakistani national security community.
Capt. Zaidi's Inter-Risk security firm was the Pakistani face for US defense contractor DynCorp, which provides defense-related maintenance and supply services to US military bases worldwide. But in Pakistan, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, DynCorp was helping Washington create private security militias, or mercenaries in real terms, with proper military training and access to advanced weapons.
This is tantamount to creating an indirect US military presence inside Pakistani cities. The alarming part is the Zaidi and DynCorp had created an elaborate physical setup right in the heart of Pakistan to train recruited Pakistanis. Using his connections within the Pakistani civilian and military bureaucracy, Mr. Zaidi is suspected of smuggling advanced weapons into the country to be used by the Americans and their hired recruits. As a legal, cover, the US Embassy in Islamabad told Pakistani authorities that Zaidi/DynCorp were providing security services to US diplomats.
Pakistani newspaper The Nation broke the story on Sept. 29, with hard evidence, including photographs of an elaborate building on the outskirts of the Pakistani federal capital that was acting as a military training facility for the Pakistani recruits. The facility was camouflaged as a car repair workshop.
The activities of Mr. Zaidi and the US defense contractor DynCorp were obviously being protected by individuals at high levels of the Pakistani government. In fact, US Ambassador Anne Patterson personally intervened earlier this year with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and Interior Minister Rehman Malik seeking licenses for Mr. Zaidi and DynCorp to operate in entire territory of Pakistan. This is why Mr. Zaidi managed to stay away from Pakistani investigators thanks to a bail. But The Nation reports today that the court has cancelled his bail and that he has been arrested yesterday, which is an indication of how seriously Pakistani authorities are taking this case. [continued below]
click to enlarge
[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.]
[The Americans are looking for ambitious risk-takers such as Mr. Zaidi. For more information on how this retired officer describes himself, see his own brief biography posted at a Pakistani news website that introduces him as an 'investigative editor'.]
HIRING ACADEMICS/MEDIA COMMENTATORS
Retired Pakistani military officers are not the only people being hired by the Americans in Pakistan to spy on their own country. Washington's military and intelligence has also hired the services of a handful of Pakistani academics and media commentators. These civilian recruits are longtime critics of their own country and its national interest. The Americans are using them to present a Pakistani face to what essentially are American plans for Pakistan. These academics/commentators also provide occasional input into US plans and Washington uses them to sell these ideas and plans to the US public as something that the Pakistanis people themselves are demanding.
US Security Firm Bribes Pakistani Officials, Top Interior Ministry Officer Arrested
· Over US $ 250,000 paid as bribes to people inside the Interior Ministry to license illegal weapons
· PS to State Minister of Interior arrested
· Bribes were paid after US Ambassador personally lobbied for the licenses
· Capt. Zaidi, Jamil Abbasi, Mr. Qadir and Dr. Dara are under arrest
· Fears the accused are being protected and might possibly be allowed to escape the country
· A total of 100 former SSG commandos secretly hired by US to create rapid-intervention teams for unknown purposes
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.
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
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. [Watch the video.]
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:
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.
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.
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.
RESCUING INTER-RISK & DYNCORP
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.
· PS to State Minister of Interior arrested
· Bribes were paid after US Ambassador personally lobbied for the licenses
· Capt. Zaidi, Jamil Abbasi, Mr. Qadir and Dr. Dara are under arrest
· Fears the accused are being protected and might possibly be allowed to escape the country
· A total of 100 former SSG commandos secretly hired by US to create rapid-intervention teams for unknown purposes
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.
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
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. [Watch the video.]
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:
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.
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.
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.
RESCUING INTER-RISK & DYNCORP
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.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Pakistan Must Expand Its Nuclear Arsenal
Published : June 28, 2009 | Author : S. M. Hali
Pakistan has been on the defensive far too long. United States, Britain and India have been verbally assaulting Pakistan’s nuclear program. As a sovereign country, We have the option of deciding for ourselves the number and quality of nuclear weapons we must have in our arsenal, directly proportional to the threat perception. No outsider has the right to declare “Pakistan is stockpiling nukes over and above its genuine needs.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Pakistan’s nuclear program has been under attack right from its inception. The decade of seventies saw conspiracy theories of Pakistan’s acquisition of nuclear technology clandestinely. The decades of 80s and 90s saw an orchestrated campaign to malign its program. After being forced to cross the nuclear threshold in May 1998, Pakistan established its Nuclear Command Authority three years before India; put in place, its Strategic Plans Division (SPD) to perform functions relating to planning, coordination, and establishment of a reliable command, control, communication, and intelligence network; yet Pakistan faces a concerted campaign to instill fears regarding the security of its nuclear assets.
Frederick Kagan, former West Point military historian, who devised the Bush administration's Iraq troop surge, called for the White House to consider various options for an unstable Pakistan, including the US to consider sending elite troops to Pakistan to seize its nuclear weapons if the country descends into chaos.
The Washington Post carried a detailed report on war-games to take out Pakistan’s nukes. Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer, senior advisor to three US Presidents including President Obama on Middle East and South Asian issues came up with an Op-Ed “Pakistan and the bomb: How the US can divert a crisis†in WSJ (May 30, 09) based on half truths, conjectures and apparent twisting of facts in pursuit of an agenda. It has been refuted by various analysts including this scribe so let it rest at that though because of Mr. Bruce Riedel’s position in the US government, it may be construed that his views are reflective of the Obama administration.
Earlier, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS)’s David Albright’s presented sleuth-work: ‘Update on Khushab Plutonium Production Reactor Construction Projects in Pakistan’ and ISIS report implying “the Pakistani nuclear program is outta controlâ€. In the former he provides “evidence†of a second Plutonium reactor at Khushab and in the latter, commercial satellite images “revealing a major expansion of a chemical plant complex near Dera Ghazi Khan that produces uranium hexafluoride and uranium metal, materials used to produce nuclear weaponsâ€.
Independent US analyst Peter Lee has already retorted to it through ‘The world doesn't have a Pakistan nukes problem ... it has a David Albright problem’; quoting Scott Ritter’s “devastating rip job on Albright†in “Truthdig†titled: ‘The Nuclear Expert Who Never Was’. Characterizing Albright as a dilettante wannabe nuclear weapons guy, who has self-promoted himself, his honorary doctorate, and his institute (ISIS) using the flimsiest of pretexts. Ritter identifies Albright’s key credential as “a willingness to offer up uninformed and tendentious alarmism when the situation demands it.†I rest my case!
Babur, Pakistan's first indigenously developed cruise missile, named after the
16th century Pakistani emperor, now buried in Kabul, who was based in the old city of Delhi for several years. It is now part of New Delhi,
India's capital built by a succession of Muslim rulers from Central Asia.
That brings me to the title of this article, Pakistan has been on the defensive far too long, the West and India have been verbally assaulting Pakistan’s nuclear program. First it was the proliferation issue and now the security of our nuclear weapons with flimsy make-believe conspiracy theories, straight out of fiction literature. It is high time Pakistan stopped being apologetic. It has established a sound and operational nuclear security program; learning from the slipups of USA and other nuclear powers, a very mature, multi-dimensional and sturdy mechanism that covers all aspects of security, including physical protection tiers, intelligence systems, counter-intelligence set-ups, technical solutions to security like “Permissive Action Links†(PALs) and more importantly the “Personnel Reliability Program†(PRP) that respond to the human factor threat. Let it rest at that!
A more important aspect, which the world is perhaps being deliberately oblivious to, is Pakistan’s genuine security concerns. Pakistan’s ill-will bearing neighbour, India has been rewarded with a nuclear deal with USA, has been assured nuclear fuel for its reactors, is massively stockpiling nukes as well as building conventional weapons, has acquired multi-faceted force multipliers, has evolved a Pakistan-specific “Cold-Start Doctrineâ€, which has been designed to gain the element of surprise in mounting a major assault by land, sea and air, thus denying reaction time to Pakistan.
Under the above mentioned constraints, any prudent defense planner would take preventive measures to deter Indian adventurism. The response threshold has to take into cognizance both the conventional and the nuclear options.
Pakistan has never tried to match India in the number of conventional weapons; it has to offset the strategic imbalance through better planning, training of its human resource, reliability, dependability and sophistication of its material assets. In the nuclear arsenal, numbers do not matter; it is the delivery system, the precision capability of the warhead and more importantly, the second strike capability, i.e. the assured ability to respond to a nuclear attack with powerful nuclear retaliation against the attacker.
A misconception has been created perhaps by recent statements that Pakistan had dispersed its nuclear warheads to different locations across the country in order to improve their security. The same has been misinterpreted by a section of the Pakistani media wrongly implying that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons have been “stored in a disassembled state in more than one location. No warhead is attached to a delivery system. No delivery system is located in the same facility as the warhead parts.â€
This is a very dangerous assumption and negates the very essence of “deterrenceâ€. Let it suffice that in the face of threats like the “Cold Start†strategy, Pakistan cannot afford to let its guard down and reduce the reaction time or the credibility of its deterrence by following the hara-kiri implied notwithstanding the elaborate security measures described above.
Coming to taking the Plutonium option, in addition to the Uranium one, all Pakistan’s power reactors, past, present and future, are under IAEA safeguards.
As a burgeoning economy it also has legitimate energy needs. Pakistan is neither a signatory to the NPT, CTBT or any moratorium on nuclear stockpiles. As a sovereign country, it has the option of deciding for itself the number and quality of nuclear weapons it must have in its arsenal, directly proportional to the threat perception. No outsider has the right to declare “Pakistan is stockpiling nukes over and above its genuine needs.â€
Pakistan has been on the defensive far too long. United States, Britain and India have been verbally assaulting Pakistan’s nuclear program. As a sovereign country, We have the option of deciding for ourselves the number and quality of nuclear weapons we must have in our arsenal, directly proportional to the threat perception. No outsider has the right to declare “Pakistan is stockpiling nukes over and above its genuine needs.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Pakistan’s nuclear program has been under attack right from its inception. The decade of seventies saw conspiracy theories of Pakistan’s acquisition of nuclear technology clandestinely. The decades of 80s and 90s saw an orchestrated campaign to malign its program. After being forced to cross the nuclear threshold in May 1998, Pakistan established its Nuclear Command Authority three years before India; put in place, its Strategic Plans Division (SPD) to perform functions relating to planning, coordination, and establishment of a reliable command, control, communication, and intelligence network; yet Pakistan faces a concerted campaign to instill fears regarding the security of its nuclear assets.
Frederick Kagan, former West Point military historian, who devised the Bush administration's Iraq troop surge, called for the White House to consider various options for an unstable Pakistan, including the US to consider sending elite troops to Pakistan to seize its nuclear weapons if the country descends into chaos.
The Washington Post carried a detailed report on war-games to take out Pakistan’s nukes. Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer, senior advisor to three US Presidents including President Obama on Middle East and South Asian issues came up with an Op-Ed “Pakistan and the bomb: How the US can divert a crisis†in WSJ (May 30, 09) based on half truths, conjectures and apparent twisting of facts in pursuit of an agenda. It has been refuted by various analysts including this scribe so let it rest at that though because of Mr. Bruce Riedel’s position in the US government, it may be construed that his views are reflective of the Obama administration.
Earlier, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS)’s David Albright’s presented sleuth-work: ‘Update on Khushab Plutonium Production Reactor Construction Projects in Pakistan’ and ISIS report implying “the Pakistani nuclear program is outta controlâ€. In the former he provides “evidence†of a second Plutonium reactor at Khushab and in the latter, commercial satellite images “revealing a major expansion of a chemical plant complex near Dera Ghazi Khan that produces uranium hexafluoride and uranium metal, materials used to produce nuclear weaponsâ€.
Independent US analyst Peter Lee has already retorted to it through ‘The world doesn't have a Pakistan nukes problem ... it has a David Albright problem’; quoting Scott Ritter’s “devastating rip job on Albright†in “Truthdig†titled: ‘The Nuclear Expert Who Never Was’. Characterizing Albright as a dilettante wannabe nuclear weapons guy, who has self-promoted himself, his honorary doctorate, and his institute (ISIS) using the flimsiest of pretexts. Ritter identifies Albright’s key credential as “a willingness to offer up uninformed and tendentious alarmism when the situation demands it.†I rest my case!
Babur, Pakistan's first indigenously developed cruise missile, named after the
16th century Pakistani emperor, now buried in Kabul, who was based in the old city of Delhi for several years. It is now part of New Delhi,
India's capital built by a succession of Muslim rulers from Central Asia.
That brings me to the title of this article, Pakistan has been on the defensive far too long, the West and India have been verbally assaulting Pakistan’s nuclear program. First it was the proliferation issue and now the security of our nuclear weapons with flimsy make-believe conspiracy theories, straight out of fiction literature. It is high time Pakistan stopped being apologetic. It has established a sound and operational nuclear security program; learning from the slipups of USA and other nuclear powers, a very mature, multi-dimensional and sturdy mechanism that covers all aspects of security, including physical protection tiers, intelligence systems, counter-intelligence set-ups, technical solutions to security like “Permissive Action Links†(PALs) and more importantly the “Personnel Reliability Program†(PRP) that respond to the human factor threat. Let it rest at that!
A more important aspect, which the world is perhaps being deliberately oblivious to, is Pakistan’s genuine security concerns. Pakistan’s ill-will bearing neighbour, India has been rewarded with a nuclear deal with USA, has been assured nuclear fuel for its reactors, is massively stockpiling nukes as well as building conventional weapons, has acquired multi-faceted force multipliers, has evolved a Pakistan-specific “Cold-Start Doctrineâ€, which has been designed to gain the element of surprise in mounting a major assault by land, sea and air, thus denying reaction time to Pakistan.
Under the above mentioned constraints, any prudent defense planner would take preventive measures to deter Indian adventurism. The response threshold has to take into cognizance both the conventional and the nuclear options.
Pakistan has never tried to match India in the number of conventional weapons; it has to offset the strategic imbalance through better planning, training of its human resource, reliability, dependability and sophistication of its material assets. In the nuclear arsenal, numbers do not matter; it is the delivery system, the precision capability of the warhead and more importantly, the second strike capability, i.e. the assured ability to respond to a nuclear attack with powerful nuclear retaliation against the attacker.
A misconception has been created perhaps by recent statements that Pakistan had dispersed its nuclear warheads to different locations across the country in order to improve their security. The same has been misinterpreted by a section of the Pakistani media wrongly implying that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons have been “stored in a disassembled state in more than one location. No warhead is attached to a delivery system. No delivery system is located in the same facility as the warhead parts.â€
This is a very dangerous assumption and negates the very essence of “deterrenceâ€. Let it suffice that in the face of threats like the “Cold Start†strategy, Pakistan cannot afford to let its guard down and reduce the reaction time or the credibility of its deterrence by following the hara-kiri implied notwithstanding the elaborate security measures described above.
Coming to taking the Plutonium option, in addition to the Uranium one, all Pakistan’s power reactors, past, present and future, are under IAEA safeguards.
As a burgeoning economy it also has legitimate energy needs. Pakistan is neither a signatory to the NPT, CTBT or any moratorium on nuclear stockpiles. As a sovereign country, it has the option of deciding for itself the number and quality of nuclear weapons it must have in its arsenal, directly proportional to the threat perception. No outsider has the right to declare “Pakistan is stockpiling nukes over and above its genuine needs.â€
Cut CIA’s Footprint In Pakistan Here’s something you won’t hear the American mainstream media talk about.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The United States Central Intelligence Agency faces its toughest test yet to prove wrong the suspicions of many within the Pakistani strategic community that some of the terrorism exported from Afghan soil into Pakistan has direct or indirect support from Washington.
The immediate test centers on Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the bandits who present themselves as Pakistani Taliban. The Americans have begun some cosmetic drone attacks on Baitullah’s territory and there are reports Washington has agreed to launch a joint operation with Pakistan against this bandit. The purpose is to assuage Pakistani concerns about the U.S. role. In July last year, Pakistan’s military leadership confronted senior CIA and U.S. military commanders with evidence showing Washington indirectly protecting anti-Pakistan terrorists on the ground. This newspaper broke that story on Aug. 5, 2008, with a front page headline, ‘US told not to back terrorism against Pakistan’.
For quite some time now, some Pakistani officials have reason to believe that not everything the Americans have been and continue to do in our region is shared with or has the consent of Pakistan, their supposed ally in this war.
Mehsud is a good example.
This bandit and his former leader and associate, Abdullah Mehsud, pioneered the attacks on Chinese interests in Pakistan, which was the first thing Abdullah did after being released from Gitmo in 2003. Interestingly, he was not handed back to Pakistan despite being a Pakistani citizen but was released to Afghanistan where he went back into the custody of U.S. military and the Karzai government. Abdullah was killed not on his home turf but when Pakistani security forces caught him sneaking back into Balochistan from a secret visit to Afghanistan, where he most probably was meeting his handlers. How he financed, armed and sustained a 25,000-strong militia remains beyond explanation. This militia continues to have quality arms and generous funding. Until now CIA drones have never targeted Abdullah or Baitullah or any other militia that is committed to attacking Pakistan. During the operations in Bajaur, our soldiers were reportedly stunned at one point to see close to 600 well armed terrorists come in from Afghanistan, fight the Pakistani military and then escape across the border. CIA never attacks such ‘terrorists’. There has been a meteoric rise in the number of anti-Pakistan militias and fighters within our tribal belt since 2004 and onwards, complete with religious brainwashing justifying the killing of Pakistanis as a first priority. This has coincided with the launch of terrorism in Balochistan and northern Pakistan, engulfing the area between Gwadar port and the Chinese border.
There are reasons to believe that, in order to punish the real or imaginary Pakistani tolerance for ‘Afghan Taliban’ – the real Taliban, I must add – someone who wields power in Afghanistan decided to make Pakistan pay by grooming their own Islamic fighters who’d solely focus on fighting Pakistan, as compared to the Afghan Taliban who focus on fighting the Americans inside Afghanistan. The idea is simple: pushing fake Islamists – professional killers trained in the art of recruiting and organizing death squads, Islam-focused propaganda experts tasked with brainwashing and mind twisting, fluent in Pashto, Uzbek, Arabic and possibly Chechen, and develop conduits for money and arms supplies from Afghanistan into Pakistan – and let them exploit to the hilt Pakistan’s multiple ethnic and religious fault lines.
We know that Indian spymasters and the intelligence service of the U.S. client government in Kabul are aiding terrorism inside Pakistan. The question is: how much of this has Washington’s covert or overt approval?
It’s also quite interesting to note how the U.S. uses India to ratchet up the heat on Pakistan whenever there is a hiccup in the relationship. These days the Indian climbdown coincides with renewed signs that Pakistan’s political and military leaderships are cooperating with Washington.
This is not the Cold War era. The role of CIA outposts in Pakistan is becoming disputable now in many areas. While there is no question that both countries need to maintain close intelligence cooperation, the conflicting visions of America’s and Pakistan’s respective national security interests in Afghanistan and the region means that we need to reduce the level of unbridled CIA presence here and roll back some of the concessions that were necessitated by 9/11. In 2002, the Americans were allowed to establish bases in Balochistan and CIA was given the right to recruit Pakistanis in the tribal belt. These two areas of Pakistan are the most disturbed parts of our country seven years later. And now our territory is being used to attack the interests of Iran and China. We don’t have problems with these two nations but the U.S. does. It is also quite clear that Washington is creating conditions across our western belt that would make it impossible for China to pursue trade and energy corridors through Pakistan. The U.S. media alone has created and is sustaining an undeclared war against Pakistan whose intensity varies with the fluctuations of the U.S.-Pakistani ties.
Hopefully Mr. Richard Holbrooke heard this week in Islamabad that we don’t accept American diktat over Afghanistan where we have our own interests to watch like everyone else. While diplomats can handle the political side, it is the intelligence cooperation, and the CIA role specifically that is problematic from the Pakistani viewpoint.
The immediate test centers on Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the bandits who present themselves as Pakistani Taliban. The Americans have begun some cosmetic drone attacks on Baitullah’s territory and there are reports Washington has agreed to launch a joint operation with Pakistan against this bandit. The purpose is to assuage Pakistani concerns about the U.S. role. In July last year, Pakistan’s military leadership confronted senior CIA and U.S. military commanders with evidence showing Washington indirectly protecting anti-Pakistan terrorists on the ground. This newspaper broke that story on Aug. 5, 2008, with a front page headline, ‘US told not to back terrorism against Pakistan’.
For quite some time now, some Pakistani officials have reason to believe that not everything the Americans have been and continue to do in our region is shared with or has the consent of Pakistan, their supposed ally in this war.
Mehsud is a good example.
This bandit and his former leader and associate, Abdullah Mehsud, pioneered the attacks on Chinese interests in Pakistan, which was the first thing Abdullah did after being released from Gitmo in 2003. Interestingly, he was not handed back to Pakistan despite being a Pakistani citizen but was released to Afghanistan where he went back into the custody of U.S. military and the Karzai government. Abdullah was killed not on his home turf but when Pakistani security forces caught him sneaking back into Balochistan from a secret visit to Afghanistan, where he most probably was meeting his handlers. How he financed, armed and sustained a 25,000-strong militia remains beyond explanation. This militia continues to have quality arms and generous funding. Until now CIA drones have never targeted Abdullah or Baitullah or any other militia that is committed to attacking Pakistan. During the operations in Bajaur, our soldiers were reportedly stunned at one point to see close to 600 well armed terrorists come in from Afghanistan, fight the Pakistani military and then escape across the border. CIA never attacks such ‘terrorists’. There has been a meteoric rise in the number of anti-Pakistan militias and fighters within our tribal belt since 2004 and onwards, complete with religious brainwashing justifying the killing of Pakistanis as a first priority. This has coincided with the launch of terrorism in Balochistan and northern Pakistan, engulfing the area between Gwadar port and the Chinese border.
There are reasons to believe that, in order to punish the real or imaginary Pakistani tolerance for ‘Afghan Taliban’ – the real Taliban, I must add – someone who wields power in Afghanistan decided to make Pakistan pay by grooming their own Islamic fighters who’d solely focus on fighting Pakistan, as compared to the Afghan Taliban who focus on fighting the Americans inside Afghanistan. The idea is simple: pushing fake Islamists – professional killers trained in the art of recruiting and organizing death squads, Islam-focused propaganda experts tasked with brainwashing and mind twisting, fluent in Pashto, Uzbek, Arabic and possibly Chechen, and develop conduits for money and arms supplies from Afghanistan into Pakistan – and let them exploit to the hilt Pakistan’s multiple ethnic and religious fault lines.
We know that Indian spymasters and the intelligence service of the U.S. client government in Kabul are aiding terrorism inside Pakistan. The question is: how much of this has Washington’s covert or overt approval?
It’s also quite interesting to note how the U.S. uses India to ratchet up the heat on Pakistan whenever there is a hiccup in the relationship. These days the Indian climbdown coincides with renewed signs that Pakistan’s political and military leaderships are cooperating with Washington.
This is not the Cold War era. The role of CIA outposts in Pakistan is becoming disputable now in many areas. While there is no question that both countries need to maintain close intelligence cooperation, the conflicting visions of America’s and Pakistan’s respective national security interests in Afghanistan and the region means that we need to reduce the level of unbridled CIA presence here and roll back some of the concessions that were necessitated by 9/11. In 2002, the Americans were allowed to establish bases in Balochistan and CIA was given the right to recruit Pakistanis in the tribal belt. These two areas of Pakistan are the most disturbed parts of our country seven years later. And now our territory is being used to attack the interests of Iran and China. We don’t have problems with these two nations but the U.S. does. It is also quite clear that Washington is creating conditions across our western belt that would make it impossible for China to pursue trade and energy corridors through Pakistan. The U.S. media alone has created and is sustaining an undeclared war against Pakistan whose intensity varies with the fluctuations of the U.S.-Pakistani ties.
Hopefully Mr. Richard Holbrooke heard this week in Islamabad that we don’t accept American diktat over Afghanistan where we have our own interests to watch like everyone else. While diplomats can handle the political side, it is the intelligence cooperation, and the CIA role specifically that is problematic from the Pakistani viewpoint.
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