Al-Qaeda's guerrilla chief lays out strategy

While Obama administration debates the fate of the US presence in Afghanistan, the Al Qaeda regional war continues to achieve and expand it's objective. One of it's star field commanders, Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri, a veteran of the Kashmiri war with India and past darling of Pakistan ISI, invites a reporter to demonstrate his death has been greatly exaggerated. He gives a fascinating explanation of Al Qaeda's regional strategy without giving anything away.

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Pakistan is at critical juncture, with the armed forces gathered in their largest-ever numbers (almost a corps, as many as 60,000 troops) around South Waziristan to flush out the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Taliban (PTT), al-Qaeda and their allies from the Pakistani tribal areas.

In these tense times, Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri, an al-Qaeda leader who, according to American intelligence is al-Qaeda's head of military operations and whose death they wrongly confirmed in a recent US Predator drone attack in North Waziristan, spoke to Asia Times Online.

He invited this correspondent to a secret hideout in the South Waziristan-Afghanistan border area, where drones regularly fly overhead.

[..]"Saleem! I will draw your attention to the basics of the present war theater and use that to explain the whole strategy of the upcoming battles. Those who planned this battle actually aimed to bring the world's biggest Satan [US] and its allies into this trap and swamp [Afghanistan]. Afghanistan is a unique place in the world where the hunter has all sorts of traps to choose from.

"It might be deserts, rivers, mountains and the urban centers as well. This was the thinking of the planners of this war who were sick and tired of the great Satan's global intrigues and they aim for its demise to make this world a place of peace and justice. However, the great Satan was full of arrogance of its superiority and thought of Afghans as helpless statues who would be hit from all four sides by its war machines, and they would not have the power and capacity to retaliate.

"This was the illusion on which a great alliance of world powers came to Afghanistan, but due to their misplaced conceptions they gradually became trapped in Afghanistan. Today, NATO does not have any significance or relevance. They have lost the war in Afghanistan. Now, when they realized their defeat, they developed an emphasis that this entire battle is being fought from outside of Afghanistan, that is, the two Waziristans. To me, this military thesis is a mirage which has created a complex situation in the region and created reactions and counter-reactions. I would not like to go into the details, to me that was nothing but deviation. As a military commander, the reality is that the trap of Afghanistan is successful and the basic military targets on the ground have been achieved," Ilyas said.

I responded that the relocation of 313 Brigade from Kashmir was itself proof that foreign hands were involved in Afghanistan.

"The entire basis of your argument is wrong, that this war is being fought from outside of Afghanistan. This is just an out-of-context understanding of the whole situation. If you discuss myself and 313 Brigade, I decided to join the Afghan resistance as an individual and I had quite a reason for that. Everybody knows that only a decade ago I was fighting a war of liberation for my homeland Kashmir.

"However, I realized that decades of armed and political struggles could not help to inch forward a resolution of this issue. Nevertheless, East Timor's issue was resolved without losing much time. Why? Because the entire game was in the hands of the great Satan, the USA. Organs like the UN and countries like India and Israel were simply the extension of its resources and that's why there was a failure to resolve the Palestinian issue, the Kashmir issue and the plight of Afghanistan.

"So I and many people all across the world realized that analyzing the situation in any narrow regional political perspective was an incorrect approach. This is a different ball game altogether for which a unified strategy is compulsory. The defeat of American global hegemony is a must if I want the liberation of my homeland Kashmir, and therefore it provided the reasoning for my presence in this war theater.

Ilyas continued, "When I came here I found my step justified; how the world regional powers operate under the umbrella of the great Satan and how they are supportive of its great plans. This can be seen here in Afghanistan." He added that al-Qaeda's regional war strategy, in which they have hit Indian targets, is actually to chop off American strength.

via Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan.

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One man's terrorist and State Sponsored Terrorism

India has been the long time one time supporter of the Tamil insurgency in Sri Lanka. Pakistan created the Taliban to enforce a friendly neighbor in Afghanistan. The US and Saudi Arabia created the precursors of Al Qaeda to help defeat the Russians in Afghanistan. It's all a game of deception and misdirection that needs to stop!

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One's man terrorist is another's freedom fighter. That at least was the comforting logic employed by a multitude of nations to justify their support for insurgents indulging in violence against civilian populations. In the past few months though, enough has happened to justify a more civilized course of action by all countries.

Three of Asia's most-wanted terrorists have been killed over the

course of the past few months alone: Velupillai Prabhakaran of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka in May, Baitullah Mehsud of the Pakistani Taliban in August and Noordin Mohammad Top of the Jemaah Islamiah in September in Indonesia. The apparent trigger for the successes was a change in heart of the terrorists' key sponsors.

Many other terrorists have been either captured or killed, but the stories of these three terrorists point to the use of "irregulars" to do the dirty job of various countries; and particularly in their own neighborhoods.

Details via Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan.

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Krane: American Nuclear Reactors for Dubai, Iran’s Best Friend

Dubai is "the diplomatic equivalent of the bar scene in the first Star Wars", complete with Arabs, Israelis, Shia, Sunni, traders and traitors  including the likes of nuclear smuggler Kahn.

And Obama wants to sell them nuclear energy?

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The contrast is startling. Dubai is Iran’s window through the US embargo, one of its largest trading partners, and an offshore Mecca for Iranian business. “Dubai is the most important city on earth to the Islamic Republic of Iran, with the exception of Tehran,” says Saeed Leylaz, the editor of Tehran’s Sarmayeh financial newspaper.

And now Dubai – through the United Arab Emirates federal government – wants American nuclear technology to bolster its overtaxed electric grid.

That a country so central to Iran’s well-being could host American nukes strikes many people as worrying. The US Congress is right to be concerned – but perhaps not for the obvious reasons. Members of Congress now have the chance, albeit unlikely, to scuttle President Obama’s nuclear deal. But they should approve it, with a few amendments.

It isn’t just Iranians who hang around Dubai. The city is the diplomatic equivalent of the bar scene in the first Star Wars. Its array of trading partners and business interests is a gallery of strange bedfellows. Dubai is a major Arab beachhead for Israeli business, especially Tel Aviv diamond dealers tapping into the huge Saudi market. Dubai may have withheld a visa in February from Israeli tennis star Shahar Peer, but the real story is the number of Israelis who do get visas, despite the lack of diplomatic relations.

It gets murkier still. Dubai’s first brush with atomic energy was as the logistics center for the smuggling ring of wayward Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan. It’s a place where Afghan opium producers launder their profits, and, along with neighboring Sharjah, where former KGB arms smuggler Victor Bout once organized cargo shipments. Dubai airport, which offers direct flights to Kandahar, Mogadishu and Baghdad, welcomes all sorts of interesting visitors. One was USS Cole bombing mastermind Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who was detained on arrival and handed to the CIA for waterboarding and threats with a power drill.

Dubai also happens to be a close US ally. It is the US Navy’s No. 1 overseas port, the only Gulf harbor that can berth a carrier or offer shore leave to American sailors. The US consulate in Dubai hosts a lucrative CIA collection operation on Iran, which I detail in my book. And, although Dubai’s ruler allowed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to hold a giant anti-American rally in a soccer stadium, he closed the main roads in the city and declared a mandatory holiday for the visit of US President Bush.

via Informed Comment: Krane: American Nuclear Reactors for Dubai, Iran’s Best Friend.

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Bombshell: Bin Laden Worked for US Until 9/11

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It turns out that Reagan's little adventure with bin Ladin in the Middle East continued in Central Asia after the Russians quit Afghanistan. Apparently directed by the CIA, funded by at least in part, heroin sales world wide, this operation continued right up until 9/11. In 1998 after al-Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed a dozen Americans and hundreds of Africans, Bill Clinton sent cruise missles into Afghanistan to attach al Qaeda training camps. That appears now to be a warning to reign in bin Ladin's ambitions beyond Central Asia.

Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds dropped a bombshell on the Mike Malloy radio show, guest-hosted by Brad Friedman (audio, partial transcript). In the interview, Sibel says that the US maintained 'intimate relations' with Bin Laden, and the Taliban, "all the way until that day of September 11."

These 'intimate relations' included using Bin Laden for 'operations' in Central Asia, including Xinjiang, China. These 'operations' involved using al Qaeda and the Taliban in the same manner "as we did during the Afghan and Soviet conflict," that is, fighting 'enemies' via proxies.

As Sibel has previously described, and as she reiterates in this latest interview, this process involved using Turkey (with assistance from 'actors from Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia') as a proxy, which in turn used Bin Laden and the Taliban and others as a proxy terrorist army.

Control of Central Asia

The goals of the American 'statesmen' directing these activities included control of Central Asia's vast energy supplies and new markets for military products.

The Americans had a problem, though. They needed to keep their fingerprints off these operations to avoid a) popular revolt in Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan), and b) serious repercussions from China and Russia. They found an ingenious solution: Use their puppet-state Turkey as a proxy, and appeal to both pan-Turkic and pan-Islam sensibilities.

Turkey, a NATO ally, has a lot more credibility in the region than the US and, with the history of the Ottoman Empire, could appeal to pan-Turkic dreams of a wider sphere of influence. The majority of the Central Asian population shares the same heritage, language and religion as the Turks.

In turn, the Turks used the Taliban and al Qaeda, appealing to their dreams of a pan-Islamic caliphate (Presumably. Or maybe the Turks/US just paid very well.)

Accordingto Sibel:

This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.

Uighurs

Sibel was recently asked to write about the recent situation with the Uighurs in Xinjiang, but she declined, apart from saying that "our fingerprint is all over it."

Of course, Sibel isn't the first or only person to recognize any of this. Eric Margolis, one of the best reporters in the West on matters of Central Asia, stated that the Uighurs in the training camps in Afghanistan up to 2001:

"were being trained by Bin Laden to go and fight the communist Chinese in Xinjiang, and this was not only with the knowledge, but with the support of the CIA, because they thought they might use them if war ever broke out with China."

And also that:

"Afghanistan was not a hotbed of terrorism, these were commando groups, guerrilla groups, being trained for specific purposes in Central Asia."

In a separate interview, Margolis said:

"That illustrates Henry Kissinger's bon mot that the only thing more dangerous than being America's enemy is being an ally, because these people were paid by the CIA, they were armed by the US, these Chinese Muslims from Xinjiang, the most-Western province.

The CIA was going to use them in the event of a war with China, or just to raise hell there, and they were trained and supported out of Afghanistan, some of them with Osama Bin Laden's collaboration. The Americans were up to their ears with this."

more via GlobalResearch.ca

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Shiite rebellion in Yemen raises concerns in Saudi Arabia

Evidence of how destabilized the Middle East has become as the result of the Bush debacle continues to emerge.

Saudi Arabia is concerned by the Shiite rebellion taking place just over the border in Yemen, prompting security officials from both countries to consult on the sudden flare-up in violence, Saudi officials said Tuesday. Saudi Arabia, a staunchly Sunni country with the world’s largest oil reserves, is worried about the rebels’ alleged links to Iran, the kingdom’s main regional foe which has established firm footholds in several Arab countries over the past few years. It also fears that Al-Qaeda militants who have sought sanctuary in the impoverished nation will capitalize on the tense situation by smuggling fighters across the long and difficult-to-control Yemeni-Saudi border.

[..]The latest violence in Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, threatens to further undermine Yemen’s weak government, which is also facing secessionists in the south, Al-Qaeda militants, poverty and pirate-infested seas.

More at The Daily Star - Politics - Shiite rebellion in Yemen raises concerns in Saudi Arabia.

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Taliban on the run in Swat

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Asia Times Online
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

Following a barrage of American pressure, Pakistan abruptly abandoned all its existing plans to thwart insurgents and, in a televised speech by Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, promptly declared all-out war against the Pakistani Taliban.
Within hours, Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, General Pervez Ashfaq Kiani, launched an aggressive military operation - supported by gunship helicopters, heavy artillery and fighters jets - into northern North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), ransacking Taliban sanctuaries in Swat and other areas. Interior Minister Rehman Malik told the BBC that an estimated 200 militants were killed over the weekend, bringing the total killed in fighting in the region to 700.
Water, electricity and lines of communications were completely cut; the Taliban had no option but to flee. An exodus of the local population also began, with hundreds of thousands of residents leaving their homes. In the most affected districts of Swat, Buner and Shangla, some 70% of the population has fled for their lives. The number may soar to 1.5 million in the weeks ahead.
Elsewhere, the government sponsored anti-Taliban conferences across the country in which Shi'ite and Sufi clerics declared the Taliban rebels heretics and called for their destruction. All four of Pakistan's major political parties - including the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party and the largest opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz - released statements in support of the military strike.
This was how the situation unfolded over the past week in Pakistan - a situation envisioned by the administration of former United States president George W Bush more than two years ago. The events are a culmination of years of political deals cut with Islamabad to form a consensus government and provide popular support for Washington's "global war on terror".
But the essential question remains: will Pakistan win this American war against the Taliban? Neither Islamabad nor Washington has the answer, but both realize this will be a very long war. Even if the Taliban can be routed, the force and scope of the operation will undoubtedly pit different segments of society against each other.
This is the exact situation that al-Qaeda has been waiting for.
On the ground
Seven years of war in Afghanistan have shown that no matter how much bad press the Taliban receives, they are still the representatives of Pashtun tribal culture and nothing is going to change this.
Even as the new drama was unfolding in Islamabad, the Taliban issued warnings to all doctors in the NWFP that if they didn't abandon Western pants and shirts and begin wearing Pakistani shalwar kameez, or "proper clothing", they would be attacked by the Taliban.
The NWFP department of health responded by asking doctors to comply and don the Taliban's preferred attire. Despite the powerful military push, many officials still do not have the heart to resist the Taliban.
The military campaign is not universally popular in Islamabad, either. At a dinner held on Sunday at the elite Islamabad Club, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the former chief of the fundamentalist party Jamaat-e-Islami, lambasted Pakistan's Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Babar Awan over the operation, claiming that it looked like a war against the people of Swat, not against the militants. Qazi Hussain Ahmed demanded to know why the plan was not approved by the parliament and the cabinet.
The federal minister initially avoided the answer and said that he respects Qazi Hussain Ahmed as a very senior politician. But when Qazi Hussain Ahmed continued his arguments, his patience ran out.
As witnessed by Asia Times Online, Dr Babar Awan said: "Sir, have you seen the footages shown by some international TV channels about how a senior official of the administration was informing the Taliban to leave the places as the security forces are set to enter in Buner? Sir, we did discuss the issues in the closed-door sessions of parliament, but what can we do when our parliamentarians leak the information to the militants? Even a minister leaked very crucial information to the militants. Now, tell me what [other] option [was there] except unleashing the military operation secretly?"
Qazi Hussain Ahmed countered by saying the regional curfew should be relaxed so ordinary civilians could leave instead of being bombed or starved. Some believe that should the humanitarian crises worsen, it would justify direct American interventions deep inside Pakistan.
Influential US military minds, such as retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor, have been highlighting this possibility. Macgregor believes that the US should make Pakistan its focus rather than Afghanistan. But in Pakistan nobody is ready to accept this scenario. In fact, no Pakistani decision-maker could have foreseen that one day the entire world would consider the whole area of Afghanistan and Pakistan as the same conflict zone.
From the eyes of al-Qaeda
The militants did not anticipate such a quick operation in the area and were caught completely unprepared. The numbers of casualties for the security forces are minimal. In most areas, either the militants are on the run or under siege by the security forces. In some cases, they are using the civilian population as human shields.
According to the local people, transporters have raised the bus fares for a single seat from 700 rupees (US$8.70) to 7,000 rupees. People have left their belongings and homes abandoned as they fled to other cities for shelter. Such a mass exodus has not been seen in the region since the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in late 1970s.
Now, for financially battered Pakistan, the biggest challenge is the management of the refugees. So far, no political party has been seen in the affected areas. The only NGO, which is active for the relief operation is Al-Khidmat, a wing of the Islamic party, the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan. The number of displaced people is likely to grow to as many as 1.5 million in coming days. The total funds the government has allocated so far is 200 million rupees (out of total 1 billion rupees announced by the prime minister). This means roughly 133 rupees for each person, hardly enough for one day's food.
The complaints have already started, and in the weeks ahead the situation is likely to get worse. As in the past, people may blame the government for the situation, not the Taliban.
Taliban may simply flee from Swat, as they did in late 2007, and regroup in different places to exploit the chaotic situation. Gaining several thousands of new recruits should not be a problem, especially when they are lured by monthly stipends and other benefits. The Taliban can easily generate resources from robberies and ransoms. Within a few months, the Taliban will be able to raise new brigades of guerrillas.
With large numbers of people travelling to destinations like Islamabad and Lahore, ethnic tensions will flare up as people in Punjab are already wary of the Taliban and have started treating all Pashtuns with suspicion.
Amid the military strikes, an anti-Taliban religious segment is amplifying its grudge against the militants. When the Taliban regroup they are likely to strike back, killing their opponents as they have done in the past. If that happens, neither the Sufis nor Shi'ites will have much support - neither from their frightened constituencies nor from the military establishment.
This is the situation al-Qaeda has desired for a very long time. Al-Qaeda carried out sectarian attacks on Shi'ite mosques, allegedly assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and bombed bombed public places. But they failed to rupture the national fibre of the country or create enough chaos in Pakistan to draw security forces to multiple fronts.
Now the government has done this for them. Islamabad has sponsored a military campaign that will push an isolated situation to the other parts of the country. The previous fear of the "Talibanization" of Pakistan could possibly become reality.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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Al-Qaeda gets a new target

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Asia Times Online

Within two weeks of United States officials laying down the law to key Pakistani players - including President Asif Ali Zardari, chief of army staff General Ashfaq Kiani and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif - that they must join forces against the Taliban, a committee has been formed to decide on the modalities for Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) to join the federal government.
This coincides with a public warning by US Central Command chief General David Petraeus that the next two weeks will be critical in determining whether or not the Pakistani government survives, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen's comment on Monday that he was "gravely concerned" about Pakistan. Zardari is due in Washington this week for a meeting with US President Barack Obama.
In this charged environment, former premier Sharif has for the first time openly criticized the Taliban for their "brutal conduct" and their brand of Islam, which he pointed out included stoning to death and the amputation of hands. Sharif's statement serves as an announcement of his support for a new American-sponsored military operation in Pakistan.
This is an important and dangerous shift for Sharif and his right-wing party as it places them directly in the crosshairs of the Taliban and their al-Qaeda colleagues.
The new round of military operations has already begun in the Swat Valley in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). In February, after two years of fighting between militants and Pakistani security forces, a peace agreement was struck in the Swat area. One of its features was that sharia (Islamic) law would be introduced. However, over the past week or so, the truce appears to be in tatters, with fierce fighting raging and both sides claiming grave violations of the accord.
A curfew has been slapped on the area for an indefinite period and additional troops have been sent in to sort out the Taliban in Malakand division if they refuse to lay down their weapons.
Unlike in the recent past, when the present Pakistani government clearly distanced itself from any military operations against militants, calling them exclusively army work and passing resolutions in parliament against them, presidential spokesperson Farahnaz Isphani is now singing a different tune.
She said in a press statement, "The people of Pakistan and their elected representatives fully back the security forces conducting an operation against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in NWFP. The security forces are involved in a fight that will decide the future of Pakistan. It is a battle for a modern, democratic, progressive and pluralistic Pakistan."
Isphani said the elected representatives were fully aware of the efforts being made by the Pakistan army in the "war on terror", and they would support military operations through all possible means. She said the government was committed to ridding the country of terrorism and hoped the president's visit to the US would help the Obama administration and opinion-makers in Washington understand the concerns of Pakistanis.
Al-Qaeda looks on with concern
Over the past few years, al-Qaeda in Pakistan has lost more than a dozen senior leaders to US Predator drone attacks and seen its support in the tribal areas shrink in the face of peace deals between tribal elders and the government.
Another major upset came from Syed Munawar Hasan, the newly elected chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest religious party. Al-Qaeda had expected a lot from him, but he came out in his first policy address and publicly announced his support for democracy and condemned all kinds of terrorism, saying that anyone who had joined al-Qaeda should leave that path. He did though condemn the pro-American policies of the government and lend clear support for the Taliban-led Afghan national resistance.
Al-Qaeda and the Taliban have responded to the military and secular leaders joining forces by sending their leaders in Afghanistan underground.
In jihadi circles, the traditional punishment for betrayal is death. For al-Qaeda, in the face of this "betrayal" by Sharif and others, they have adopted a different but potentially as dangerous approach.
A few days ago, al-Qaeda's media wing al-Sahab released a detailed video documentary on the life, struggles and death of a surgeon from the southern port city of Karachi, Dr Arshad Waheed. The video was uploaded on Youtube and the media were informed.
Arshad Waheed was a surgeon at a prominent hospital in Karachi when he was arrested in 2004, along with his brother, also a heart surgeon, Dr Akmal Waheed. They were held on charges of facilitating militants associated with an al-Qaeda-linked group, Jundullah. The brothers were subsequently released on bail and Arshad moved to the South Waziristan tribal area, where he was killed last year in a US drone strike. The brothers were prominent activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and its medical wing, the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association.
The documentary stresses the loyalty of Arshad Waheed to the cause of jihad, and contrasts this with what it calls the betrayals of leaders like Nawaz Sharif. Sharif is pictured with various US officials and is portrayed as an opportunist who used the name of Islam and the Taliban to gain votes in the parliamentary elections of February 2008.
"No law is acceptable except the laws framed by the Koran," Arshad Waheed is shown as saying in an address to a gathering in South Waziristan. Jamaat-e-Islami leaders are then pictured meeting with various British and American officials. Some of the background commentary says, "Democracy is a sham and it takes us away from the real course of the Islamic system of life. In democracy, politics cannot serve the Islamic cause, but deviate it."
The release of the video and the interest it has stirred places Sharif and his PML-N in a bind. Now that Sharif has, under US pressure, turned on the Taliban and al-Qaeda, whose names he previously used to gain popularity, he has made bitter foes of them - and become a target.
The Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international pan-Islamist party whose goal is to combine all Muslim countries into a unitary Islamic state or caliphate, issued a statement:

Nawaz Sharif's reality, that is, his secular ideas, has been exposed. We warn him that mocking and criticizing Islamic penal laws like the amputation of hands and stoning to death might have acquired him American support, but not the appeasement of the Prophet Mohammad in the life hereafter.
By criticizing Islamic laws, Nawaz Sharif has actually convinced the Americans that he will leave Asif Zardari behind in carrying out American dirty work in the region. This once again proves that democracy is a sham and that the caliphate will provide genuine leadership to the Muslim nation.

The leader of the opposition in parliament and a key member of the PML-N, Chaudhary Nisar Ahmad, responded in a television show, "This is absolutely the wrong impression, that we are going to support the American cause in the region. We have opposed American policies in the region and we will continue to do that."
It appears, though, that Sharif has made his decision, even though it places his life on the line with jihadis. His support for the "American war" will keep him going in politics. Were he not to do so, the result would most likely be some form of a military coup, which would spell his political death.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Exposed jihadis put Pakistan on the spot

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Asia Times Online

The high-profile arrest of a group of Pakistani militants in mid-April in the restive Afghan province of Helmand by the Afghan army and their subsequent handover to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for grilling exposed a jihadi network running to the heart of urban Pakistan.
In the course of interrogation, the militants confessed to being recruited, trained and then launched into Helmand after spending some time in places such as the southern port city of Karachi and Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province.
They also gave details of their Pakistani leaders and their activities, including how these leaders could move around freely and how they owned huge religious establishments.
The report of the interrogation of the militants, circulated to all tiers of NATO command, including the top military and diplomatic command, raises immediate questions on the competence and the commitment of the Pakistani government in controlling militants.
This event happened when there were already heated arguments between Islamabad and Western capitals on the handling of the militancy, especially in the Swat Valley, where there is a peace treaty of sorts between the government and militants.
In the United States, President Barack Obama, Central Command chief General David Petraeus and army head Admiral Mike Mullen have all raised questions over the competence of the Pakistani government, while expressing appreciation for the armed forces.
Mullen visited Pakistan twice in 10 days and met with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani, army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, among others. The message was hammered home that it is Pakistan which is running out of time, and not a particular section of society or government. Therefore, the entire Pakistani national leadership has to move very quickly to bury political differences to fight against the threat of the Taliban.
The statements were not indicative of supporting a coup in Pakistan, but a clear warning for the entire Pakistani national leadership, whether in opposition or in the government. American officials have already spoken in detail of the need for them to develop a comprehensive consensus on national policy against the militancy. This would involve removing their mental blocks concerning the Taliban - whether for or against or because of political compulsions. In short, the leaders have been urged to remain focused on the US-led "war on terror".
Well-placed contacts have confirmed to Asia Times Online that as a follow-up of these warning messages from American officials, in the next few days Sharif will accept a power-sharing formula to join the government led by Zardari's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) to fight against the Taliban.
In terms of this, powerful political slots will be offered to the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) group. In principle, former premier Sharif has agreed to the terms and will add his party's weight to the battle against the Taliban. Alternatively, if either the PML-N or the PPP refuses to accept the formula, a technocratic interim government under the auspices of the Pakistani armed forces might take over.
This development sets the stage for a new battle against the Taliban in Pakistan. And for the first time, Taliban command councils in southwestern Balochistan province and across the border in Helmand and Kandhar have warned their cadre to be aware of the possible changes in Islamabad.
Caught out
While US officials were shuttling back and forth to Pakistan, seven youths were seized by the Afghan National Army (ANA) in the Gramsir district of Helmand province.
Pakistani youths from the tribal areas and the cities have frequently been arrested or killed by NATO troops in Afghanistan. Most of these youngsters went to the country in the zeal of jihad, and they could usually be linked to particular stand-alone point-persons.
This time it was different.
Three of the men have been identified as Enyatur Rahman (North-West Frontier Province - NWFP), Saeed (NWFP) and Imran (Punjab). When they were apprehended along with the four others, a Pakistani Taliban commander named Mansoor, based in Helmand, aware of the possibility of them exposing a major jihadi network inside Pakistan, tried his level-best to negotiate with ANA to prevent them from falling into the hands of NATO.
But a little mishandling caused ANA to turn them over to NATO.
There is an arrangement between the Taliban and ANA all over the south of Afghanistan, especially in Khost, Paktia, Paktika, Helmand and Ghazni provinces.
Under this, when ANA troops are sent on patrol inside Taliban areas, they pay the Taliban to avoid being killed. The price is arms, ammunition or rockets, which is handed over and then reported as having been lost during an encounter with the Taliban.
In turn, when ANA arrests any Taliban fighters, they demand cash money for their release. If the fighters are Pakistani or non-Afghan, ANA takes a little longer to negotiate a price, but if the fighters are Afghans, ANA personnel will not take unnecessary risks. Either they strike a deal then and there and release the Taliban fighters, or within a few days they hand them over to NATO. The reason is to avoid direct confrontation with the Afghan Taliban and their tribal constituencies, which could cause problems in any prolonged negotiations.
Under this arrangement, as the seven men were Pakistani, Mansoor started negotiations with ANA for the release of his men. ANA demanded US$200,000, Mansoor countered with an offer of 2 million rupees (US$25,000), which was refused. Mansoor then arranged for 10 million rupees to be paid, but since almost 10 days had passed, ANA handed the Pakistanis over to NATO.
Mansoor mishandled the situation on two counts. First, he did not involve the Afghan Taliban command, and secondly he took too long in reaching an agreeable figure.
Apparently, the youths soon began talking under interrogation. In particular, they gave details of a jihadi network known for its past association with the defunct Jaish-e-Mohammad. They also gave details of their backgrounds and how they were recruited and how they had spent time in different Pakistani urban centers, where the leaders of their network openly ran religious establishments.
This information was shared with concerned Pakistani quarters, but by that time all senior Pakistani Taliban commanders had gone underground. In the bigger picture, though, the incident provided Washington the ammunition it needed to really go after the Pakistan national leadership and warn that the entire country needed to stand up as one to fight against all sections and groups of the Taliban in the country. They reminded that it is not any particular government or political party, but the state of Pakistan that is running out of time.
This is where a new joint government involving Sharif could come into play, and Pakistan will once again be dancing to American tunes.
The Pakistani Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies obviously will not stand back. Al-Qaeda's command has already drawn up plans to stir up a reaction all across the country - the masses will be urged to show their allegiance in black and white.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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The Hush-Hush Story: Why They Tortured

The LA Progressive

The US Senate Armed Services Committee report, issued April 21, on the interrogation techniques employed against detainees following the September 11 terrorist attack, wrote Pepe Escobar in the Asia Times, "reads like deja vu all over again: the US establishment under Bush was a replay of the Spanish Inquisition. And it all started even before a single 'high-profile al-Qaeda detainee' was captured.
What Bush, vice president Dick Cheney, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assorted little inquisitors wanted was above all to prove the non-existent link between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al-Qaeda, the better to justify a pre-emptive, illegal war planned by the now-defunct Project for the New American Century (PNAC) in the late 1990s. The torture memos were just a cog in the imperial machine."
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman mentioned it in his column April 24, writing, "For the fact is that officials in the Bush administration instituted torture as a policy, misled the nation into a war they wanted to fight and, probably, tortured people in the attempt to extract 'confessions' that would justify that war. And during the march to war, most of the political and media establishment looked the other way." Krugman was more explicit in his blog, titled "Grand Unified Scandal" appearing the previous day, after the Senate report came out. "Let's say this slowly: the Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to make them confess to the nonexistent link," he wrote. "There's a word for this: it's evil."
The impetus for the comment by Krugman and Escobar was a story carried April 21 in the McClatchy Newspapers by Jonathan S. Landay The story has made the rounds on the internet and in some of the foreign press but as of this writing has been ignored or obscured by most of the major U.S. media.
"The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist," wrote Landay. "Such information would've provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush's main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and Saddam's regime.
"The use of abusive interrogation - widely considered torture - as part of Bush's quest for a rationale to invade Iraq came to light as the Senate issued a major report tracing the origin of the abuses and President Barack Obama opened the door to prosecuting former U.S. officials for approving them."
Landay went on to quote "A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue" saying former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld 'demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.'
"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," Landay was told. "The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

Few dare call Ahmed Chalabi what he is, an Iranian intelligence agent, who along with AIPAC officials, Israeli Intelligence agents duped Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal into invading Iraq.
And now the Israeli spies will get away with it because the truth of the huge security hole in the Bush Administration will become obvious to all.
Reuters

"Given the diminished likelihood the government will prevail at trial under the additional intent requirements imposed by the court and the inevitable disclosure of classified information that would occur at any trial in this matter, we have asked the court to dismiss the indictment," Dana Boente, acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement.

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The Sick Logic of the CIA Memos: Abuse Isn't Torture If a Doctor Is There

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AlterNet

Perhaps the most chilling aspect is that medical professionals apparently conducted a form of research on the detainees, without their consent.
Former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden was fond of saying that when it came to handling high-value terror suspects, he would play in fair territory, but with "chalk dust on my cleats." Four legal memos released by the Obama administration make it clear that the referee role in CIA interrogations was played by its medical and psychological personnel.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, which authored the memos, legal approval to use waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other abusive techniques pivoted on the existence of a "system of medical and psychological monitoring" of interrogations. Medical and psychological personnel were assigned to monitor interrogations and intervene to ensure that interrogators didn't cause "serious or permanent harm" and thus violate the U.S. federal statute against torture.
The reasoning sounds almost circular. As one memo, from May 2005, put it: "The close monitoring of each detainee for any signs that he is at risk of experiencing severe physical pain reinforces the conclusion that the combined use of interrogation techniques is not intended to inflict such pain."
In other words, as long as medically trained personnel were present and approved of the techniques being used, it was not torture.
The memos provide official confirmation of both much-reported and previously unknown roles of doctors, psychologists, physician assistants and other medical personnel with the CIA's Office of Medical Services (OMS). The government's lawyers characterized these medical roles as "safeguards" for detainees.
Medical oversight was present from the beginning of the special interrogation program following the 9/11 attacks and appears to have grown more formalized over the program's existence. The earliest of the four memos, from August 2002, states that a medical expert with experience in the military's Survival Evasion Resistance, Escape (SERE) training would be present during waterboarding of detainee Abu Zubaydah and would put a stop to procedures "if deemed medically necessary to prevent severe medical or physical harm to Zubaydah." (All interrogation techniques, the memos said, were "imported" from SERE.)
Later, OMS personnel were involved in "designing safeguards for, and in monitoring implementation of, the procedures" used on other high-value detainees. In December 2004, the OMS produced a set of "Guidelines on Medical and Psychological Support to Detainee Rendition, Interrogation and Detention," a still-secret document that is heavily quoted from in three legal memos that were written the following year.
The CIA declined our request to comment further on the OMS' role in detainee treatment. The OMS employs physicians, psychologists and other medical professionals to care for CIA employees and their families.
Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the memos is their intimation that medical professionals conducted a form of research on the detainees, clearly without their consent. "In order to best inform future medical judgments and recommendations, it is important that every application of the waterboard be thoroughly documented," one memo reads. The documentation included not only how long the procedure lasted, how much water was used and how it was poured, but also "if the naso- or oropharynx was filled, what sort of volume was expelled ... and how the subject looked between each treatment." Special instructions were also issued with regard to documenting experience with sleep deprivation, and "regular reporting on medical and psychological experiences with the use of these techniques on detainees" was required.
The Nuremberg Code, adopted after the horrors of "medical research" during the Nazi Holocaust, requires, among other things, the consent of subjects and their ability to call a halt to their participation.
The memos also draw heavily on the advice of psychologists that interrogation techniques would not be expected to cause lasting harm. At times this advice sounds contradictory. While calling waterboarding "medically acceptable," the OMS also deemed it "the most traumatic of the enhanced interrogation techniques."
The fact that traumatic events have the potential to cause long-lasting post-traumatic stress syndrome has been well documented. Physicians for Human Rights, in interviews with eleven former detainees held in Iraq and Afghanistan, found "severe, long-term physical and psychological consequences." "All the individuals we evaluated were ultimately released without ever being charged," said Dr. Allen Keller, medical director of the Bellevue/New York University School of Medicine Program for Survivors of Torture.
The memos describe the techniques in highly precise and clinical detail, befitting a medical textbook. During waterboarding, in which a physician and psychologist were to be present at all times, "the detainee is monitored to ensure that he does not develop respiratory distress. If the detainee is not breathing freely after the cloth is removed from his face, he is immediately moved to a vertical position in order to clear the water from his mouth, nose and nasopharynx." Side effects including vomiting, aspiration and throat spasm that could cut off breathing were each addressed: "In the event of such spasms ... if necessary, the intervening physician would perform a tracheotomy."
While physician assistants could be present when most "enhanced" techniques were applied, "use of the waterboard requires the presence of a physician," one memo said, quoting the OMS guidelines.
Doctors were also described as having vetted the practices for safety. Certain limits on waterboarding were created "with extensive input from OMS." One memo states that OMS "doctors and psychologists" confirmed that combining the various techniques "would not operate in a different manner from the way they do individually, so as to cause severe pain."
Medical and psychological personnel were required to observe whenever interrogators came into physical contact with detainees, including slapping them and pushing them into flexible walls ("walling"). Whenever a detainee was doused with cold water, a medical officer had to be on hand to monitor for signs of hypothermia. Confining prisoners to cramped boxes required "continuing consultation between the interrogators and OMS officers." Prisoners made to stand for long periods to prevent sleep were to carefully monitor detainees for swelling of the legs and other dangerous conditions, and at least three times early in the program were switched, on medical advice, to "horizontal sleep deprivation."
This was one example of how medical personnel could, according to the CIA, help prevent "severe physical or mental pain or suffering" on the part of the detainees. However, the memos show that the OMS' role was not merely to limit the medical impact of interrogations, but also to consult on the effectiveness of interrogations. A May 30, 2005, memo quotes the OMS suggesting that cramped confinement was "not ... particularly effective" because it provides "a safe haven offering respite from interrogation."
Some medical professionals are calling for their colleagues to be investigated and sanctioned for participating in practices that professional medical and psychological organizations and officials in the Justice Department now call torture. "We stand ready to adjudicate these issues," said American Psychological Association spokesperson Rhea Farberman.
But finding out which professionals were involved in designing, monitoring and implementing the interrogation techniques may be difficult. The four memos were released almost in their entirety. The few redactions concerned mainly the names of the personnel involved.

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Talibanistan in Pakistan

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The Dreyfuss Report

The real crisis in central and south Asia -- the one in Pakistan -- is going from really bad to much, much worse.
Let's review some of the more recent reports from Pakistan.
Earlier this month, in a terrifying analysis of the situation in Pakistan, the New York Times reported:

Some analysts here and in Washington are already putting forward apocalyptic timetables for the country. "We are running out of time to help Pakistan change its present course toward increasing economic and political instability, and even ultimate failure," said a recent report by a task force of the Atlantic Council that was led by former Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. The report, released in February, gave the Pakistani government 6 to 12 months before things went from bad to dangerous.
A specialist in guerrilla warfare, David Kilcullen, who advised Gen. David H. Petraeus when General Petraeus was the American commander in Iraq, offered a more dire assessment. Pakistan could be facing internal collapse within six months, he said.

An even more frightening and graphic description of the spreading Islamist movement there was provided last week by the Wall Street Journal:

Thousands of Islamist militants are pouring into Pakistan's Swat Valley and setting up training camps here, quickly making it one of the main bases for Taliban fighters and raising their threat to the government in the wake of a controversial peace deal.
The number of militants in the valley swelled in the months before the deal with the Taliban was struck, and they continue to move in, say Pakistani and U.S. officials. They now estimate there are between 6,000 and 8,000 fighters in Swat, nearly double the number at the end of last year.

The Taliban fighters are spreading from the ungoverned tribal areas (the seven agencies of FATA) to the settled areas, starting with the Swat Valley, a key part of the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan proper. And from there, they are spreading into neighboring districts, even as they carry out terrorist attacks in key cities, such as Lahore and Islamabad. They are butchering people, beheading police officers, and terrorizing the citizens, who have no way to fight back. The Journal notes that in Swat, one central plaza "has become known among residents as 'Slaughter Square' because the Taliban have begun using it to dump bodies after executions."
Adds the Journal:

Swat now offers a glimpse of the Taliban's vision for Pakistan. They have taken control of the local government and the police, who have been ordered to shed their uniforms in favor of the traditional Shalwar Kameez, an outfit comprising a long shirt and loose trousers. They also have seized Swat's emerald mines, which extract millions of dollars a year in gemstones.
At barbershops, notices warn men not to shave their beards. Women are no longer allowed to leave their homes without their husbands or male blood relatives. Girls' schools have been reopened after initially being closed but the students must be covered from head to toe, and Taliban officials routinely inspect classrooms for violators.

In an April 14 piece entitled "United Militants Threaten Pakistan's Populous Heart," the Times describes the spreading Taliban cancer in Pakistan thus:

Taliban insurgents are teaming up with local militant groups to make inroads in Punjab, the province that is home to more than half of Pakistanis, reinvigorating an alliance that Pakistani and American authorities say poses a serious risk to the stability of the country. ...
Telltale signs of creeping militancy abound in a belt of towns and villages near here that a reporter visited last week. Militants have gained strength considerably in the district of Dera Ghazi Khan, which is a gateway both to Taliban-controlled areas and the heart of Punjab, the police and local residents say. Many were terrified.
Some villages, just north of here, are so deeply infiltrated by militants that they are already considered no-go zones by their neighbors.
In at least five towns in southern and western Punjab, including the midsize hub of Multan, barber shops, music stores and Internet cafes offensive to the militants' strict interpretation of Islam have received threats. Traditional ceremonies that include drumming and dancing have been halted in some areas. Hard-line ideologues have addressed large crowds to push their idea of Islamic revolution. Sectarian attacks, dormant here since the 1990s, have erupted once again.

Yesterday, the Washington Post carried a brilliant piece by Pamela Constable that reported on the results so far of Pakistan's deal to cede power in Swat to the Taliban and its allies:

A potentially troubling era dawned Sunday in Pakistan's Swat Valley, where a top Islamist militant leader, emboldened by a peace agreement with the federal government, laid out an ambitious plan to bring a "complete Islamic system" to the surrounding northwest region and the entire country.
Speaking to thousands of followers in an address aired live from Swat on national news channels, cleric Sufi Mohammed bluntly defied the constitution and federal judiciary, saying he would not allow any appeals to state courts under the system of sharia, or Islamic law, that will prevail there as a result of the peace accord signed by the president Tuesday.

The Post also reported the release of Maulana Abdel Aziz, the fiery, pro-Taliban leader of the Red Mosque in Islamabad that was invaded and shut down last year. He's back home, and preaching to thousands of fanatics. The Post added:

Together, these rallying cries seemed to create an arc of radical religious energy between the turbulent, Taliban-plagued northwest region and the increasingly vulnerable federal capital, less than 100 miles to the east. They also appeared to pose a direct, unprecedented religious challenge to modern state authority in the Muslim nation of 176 million.

So President Obama is beefing up US forces next door in Afghanistan. By doing so, he's pushing some Taliban militants back across the border into Pakistan. (Unlike Afghanistan, which has no strategic value to anyone except some pipeline builders, Pakistan is a vastly important nation with nuclear weapons.) By catapulting drone attacks on FATA villages, he's pushing militants further east into Pakistan proper, and the US escalation has so far had the effect of uniting the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistan Taliban, and various pro-Taliban militias into a unified fighting force. We're also providing recruiting posters for Pakistani fundamentalists.
A year ago, I would have said that the idea that Muslim fundamentalists could seize control of Pakistan, a relatively modern and urbane country, was laughable. No more. I'm not sure that I agree with Kilcullen that Pakistan could collapse in six months, but it's not impossible.
Make no mistake, though: this is the most dangerous problem in the world.

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