Pakistan Interior Minister Malik says no Xe-trained officials in PM squad

US private security contractor Blackwater, formerly known as Xe Security, was neither operating in Pakistan nor its trained security officers were part of prime minister’s safety escort, Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Wednesday.

“I said this earlier and categorically say once again that there is no existence of Blackwater in the country,” said the minister. He was replying to a question when asked to comment over media reports about inclusion of Xe-trained officers in the official security escort of the prime minister.

Meanwhile, the minister said the US official security experts had been imparting training to Pakistani civil law enforcementagencies; especially police officers, under a pact signed during Pervez Musharraf era, which was aimed at increasing their professional skills and standard to combat terrorism.

Responding to another query, Malik welcomed the recent Indian announcement for consideration of Pakistani cricketers for second edition of Indian Premier League (IPL), adding that his ministry would certainly allow the players to fly to India; in case they formally receive offer and agree to participate in the IPL. “We welcome the Indian decision, which was made due to strong protest of our nation. India should show same flexibility for resolution of Kashmir as well as water disputes, and come at the dialogue table,” he maintained.

Regarding Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s speech in the National Assembly, Malik said the PM has clearly given the message of national unity and called for working together to achieve combined targets of national development.

Afghanistan being free from Crusaders

Should we celebrate that we were successful in our Afghan Policy. The scenario changed pretty quickly and all over different news channel they are saying that Taliban would be included int he government and that India role in Afghanistan is restricted. What we were saying for the last one year has finally been heard by the world and our awareness of the people have worked. Afghanistan is now being discussed on the 6+2 countries platform with Pakistan and Turkey taking the lead.

Americans have made it pretty clear that they are going to leave Afghanistan, but before leaving they are going to make one last attempt. If they fail (which InshAllah) they will, would result in Afghanistan being free from Crusaders. And as our Great Leader Allama Iqbal once said, Peace in Afghanistan is peace in the whole region. We can then secure our Western Borders and get ready to pay back to our mortal enemy in the East, because of which many our fellow citizens and armed personnel lost their lives.
Is it safe to assume that we have won the Afghan battle diplomatically and that Indians are going to be kicked out of Afghan and a Pakistan loving government would be installed? Looking at the countries in the 6+2 platform reminds me of the prediction of Shah Waliullah that the central Asian countries, Turkey and Iran will join Pakistan and fight the last battle with Hind.

We now have the platform and the vision and should devote ourselves in completing out this mission.

Wajahat (PKKH)

Source: Pakistan Ideology

Taliban claim shooting down second US Drone

Taliban on Tuesday claimed that they have shot down another US drone aircraft in the country’s North Waziristan tribal region. It is the second US drone aircraft to have shot down in the same region in four days. OnJanuary 23, Taliban had claimed to have brought down a suspected US drone.

Tribesmen said that the second drone was shot down late on Monday night and the wreckage came down in Afghan side of the border. The militants used anti-aircraft missiles from a mobile launcher fixed on a vehicle to hit the unmanned aircraft, a tribal elder said on phone from Miranshah, the centre of North Waziristan. Tribesmen on Monday announced to gift a car to the tribesman who had shot down the US drone aircraft on January 23.

Kabul attacked soon after Indian MI Chief‘s covert Afghan trip

Just a couple of days after Chief of India’s Military Intelligence Lt. General R.K Loomba, completed his “high profile” yet covert trip to Afghanistan, militants struck in the heart of the Afghan capital on Monday, launching suicide attacks at key government targets including the Presidential Palace and locked security forces in running gun battles, which left nine people, including four attackers dead.

The brazen strike in the city was a clear sign that the Indian MI Chief’s sensational trip to Afghanistan was not just a visit to make certain assessments but it had some extraordinary motives to pave the way for an elaborated military role of India in Afghanistan by proving that constantly increasing insurgency and terror in Afghanistan was not possible for the ISAF troops alone and the Indian army was the ultimate solution, reveal the investigations of The Daily Mail 

After a series of blasts and more than three hours of ensuing gunfights outside several ministries and inside a shopping mall, President Hamid Karzai said security had been restored to the capital, though search operations continued amid reports that attackers were hiding in the city.

Explosions and heavy machine-gun fire rattled the city for hours. Debris was strewn on the streets, which were quickly abandoned by crowds that normally fill the area. Defense ministry spokesman Gen Mohammad Zahir Azimi said a child and a policeman were killed. The ministry of public health later said five people, a civilian and four security forces, were killed and 30 others wounded.

The Daily Mail’s findings indicate that the incident occurred at a time when the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and US Special Envoy on Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrook were set to hold talks with Indians to discuss an elaborated military role of India in Afghanistan.

These findings further indicate that New Delhi is desirous of taking a comprehensive military role in Afghanistan after the US and the NATO troops are withdrawn from the war ravaged country and thus it wants to be militarily engaged in Afghanistan right now to take the military control gradually. The Indians are planning to get a nod in this regard, during or after the high profile international conference on Afghanistan that is going to be held in London later this month. The findings reveal that at the moment, the Indians have planned to prove their importance for deployment in Afghanistan to the Americans and the NATO members and thus it has launched an aggressive campaign of terror and insurgency operations in Afghanistan through its own agents and operatives.

The Daily Mail’s findings further indicate that to make an “assessment” in this direction and to give certain fresh direction to the Indian army personnel, present in Afghanistan, the Chief of Military Intelligence of India Lt. General Loomba carried out a stealthy trip to Afghanistan along with some top MI and RAW officials. The findings suggest that the Loomba team, apart from meeting the Afghan, US and NATO officials, also met with some of the covert Indian troops that are posted in Afghanistan in the disguise of trainers of Afghan Nationa Army and also as Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). The Daily Mail’s findings further indicate that an officer of the Indian Army, with the rank of Major General, who is on a covert assignment in Afghanistan for the past couple of years also held a special meeting with the Loomba & Company. These findings indicate that the said officer runs a covert training network in Afghanistan with the joint efforts of RAW and the Special Operations Division of RAW provides human resource to the said Indian army general from different parts of Afghanistan.

The Daily Mail’s findings further indicate that Indian’s Military Intelligence has a history of getting engaged in terror activities in the region. The serving officers of Indian Army’s Military Intelligence are on record to have been exposed and even arrested for indulging into high profile terror activities out of professional jealousies, in bid to prove to be at par with RAW. These findings reveal that a senior officer of Indian Military Intelligence, a Colonel named Srikant Purohit was arrested by top Indian Investigators Hemant Karkare for planning and executing a very high profile terror operation in which a Pakistan-bound train, Samjhota Express was set ablaze and over 60 Pakistanis were burnt alive in the inferno. These findings indicate that Karkare’s investigation had proved that some serving officers of the Indian MI were running a terror network with the connivance of certain serving and retired officers of Indian Army and there was a nexus between these military men and the radical Hindu extremist organizations.

The Daily Mail’s findings indicate that Lt Col Shrikant Purohit, alias ‘Mithun Chakraborty’, serving in the MI was arrested in connection with the Malegaon blast and 2007 Samjhauta Express blaze (killing 69 Pakistani passengers returning from India) and was also working for General ® Hoon and Colonel ® Chitale, running the militant wings of Hindu extremists outfit Shiv Sena. Colonel ® Jayant Chitale and his associate Sanjeev Atre, were arrested in November 2002 for running a suicide training camp on the outskirts of Mumbai and but were later released at the intervention of RAW. It is no coincidence that Col ® Chitale is now the next door neighbour of Col Purohit, the main accused in Samjhauta Express blaze and Malegaon blasts.

Source: Daily Mail

Afghan Soil Being Used Against Pakistan: DG ISI

Director General ISI Ahmad Shuja Pasha said on Tuesday that Afghan soil is being used for terrorist activities in Pakistan, adding that peace cannot be established in Pakistan unless infiltration from Afghan border is stopped.

Pasha’s statement came in the backdrop of increased US pressure to launch a parallel operation in North Waziristan.

Briefing the parliamentary committee on national security, the DG said that the drug mafia in Afghanistan is supporting terrorists who are creating unrest within Pakistan. According to reports, the committee members believe that the Pak-Afghan border should be fenced and movement across the border should be strictly monitored. The members also called for the need to enhance security along the Pak-Afghan border.

After the meeting, Senator Raza Rabbani the chairman of the Parliamentary committee on national security briefed the media during which he informed that the committee members condemned the screening of Pakistani citizens at US airports, terming it a ‘violation of international Human Rights Declarations.

Fake Pakistan Passports Issued to Indians by Mission in Houston

Pakistan’s consul general in the US city of Houston appeared in an accountability court here on Monday as a witness and confirmed that fake Pakistani passports had been issued to Indian citizens.

Aqil Naeem told Judge Wamiq Javaid that the passports had been issued by the Houston consulate as alleged by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in its reference against former consul general Ghulam Rasool Baloch and others. He said that cases of misappropriation had been mentioned in the report of the audit of the consulate’s financial record. He said the record of all people who had submitted additional fees to obtain passports from the consulate was available. The court put off the hearing till Jan 19.

Pakistan’s consul general in Houston appeared in an accountability court and confirmed that fake passports were issued.—File photo

The foreign affairs ministry had referred to NAB on March 28, 2008, a report received from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation that about 300 passports had been issued by the consulate on fake or incomplete documents. A reference was filed against Ghulam Rasool, Assistant Consul General Mohammad Naeem and travel agent Imran Lalpuri for issuing passports to Indian citizens Aziz Moosa, Salim Ali and Abdul Sadiqas Sultan Abdullah.

An American passport bearing the name Syed Nazar Ali was found after the 1993 terrorist attacks in Mumbai and investigations revealed that he was actually an Indian national, Aziz Moosa. During investigation it was found that several fake passports had been issued from the consulate. The former consul general’s lawyer S.A. Mehmood Sadozai argued that the prosecution had merely relied on information provided by the FBI and had not investigated the case. Replying to a question by the court, NAB prosecutors said they had examined FBI officials but did not record their statements.  Source: Dawn News

Blind in Afghanistan

One of the paradoxes of America’s bumbling intervention in Afghanistan is that the United States knows next to nothing about the country it is occupying. Not only that, but America’s learning curve is so steep that it will be years, or decades, before our military and our intelligence services finally figure out which end is up — if they ever do. Which raises the question: how does years-long counterinsurgency learning curve sqaure with President Obama’s pledge to start withdrawing troops by July, 2011?

I raise that question because that deadline will be long come and gone and US forces there still won’t have any idea what they’re doing.Last October,”Mc Chrystal Admits: We Don’t Understand the Afghans,” I quoted fairly extensively from General Stanley McChrystal’s leaked, 66-page report on the war, in which he acknowledged that the United States and its allies, under the umbrella of ISAF (International Security Assistance Force), are blind to Afghanistan’s complexities.

In the report, McChrystal wrote:”ISAF has not sufficiently studied Afghanistan’s peoples, whose needs, identities, and grievances vary from province to province and from valley to valley.” and Afghan social, political, economic, and cultural affairs are complex and poorly understood. ISAF does not sufficiently appreciate the dynamics in local communities, nor how the insurgency, corruption, incompetent officials, power-brokers, and criminality all combine to affect the Afghan population.

Now comes Major General Michael T. Flynn, the deputy chief of staff for intelligence in Afghanistan, who released a paper through the Center for a New American Security that sharply criticizes America’s floundering intelligence effort in Afghanistan. (You can read the entire 28-page document here.) In the executive summary, General Flynn writes: “The paper argues that because the United States has focused the overwhelming majority of collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups, our intelligence apparatus still finds itself unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which we operate and the people we are trying to protect and persuade.”

Flynn brags about the recent creation of the “Information Dominance Center, whose Orwellian title suggests a comprehensive effort to figure out the country that we stumbled into nine years ago. The key quote from Flynn’s report says otherwise: Ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced, incurious about the correlations between various development projects and the levels of cooperation among villagers, and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers – whether aid workers or Afghan soldiers – U.S. intelligence officers and analysts can do little but shrug in response to high level decision-makers seeking the knowledge, analysis, and information they need to wage a successful counterinsurgency.

Meanwhile, a scathing piece in the New York Times notes that the US military is pathetically deprived of the kind of people it needs before it has any idea about what to do in Afghanistan. The Times reports that Admiral Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is very concerned about the lack of Afghan experts inside the armed forces:In a memo sent last month to the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, Admiral Mullen expressed concern that the services were not consistently providing the ‘best and the brightest leaders’ for the program’s corps, whose members will work in the field and at headquarters.

In many cases, the volunteers have been the right people for this very critical program’ Admiral Mullen said in the one-page memo, dated Dec. 14. However, I am concerned that this is not the case across the board. To fix the problem, the military is stepping up training, recruiting, and language instruction, but on a timetable that suggests a years-long COIN effort, since the graduates of this effort won’t even arrive in Afghanistan until mid-2011, exactly when the withdrawal of US forces is supposed to start:”The program was conceived as a way to develop a pool of uniformed experts who would spend several years rotating between assignments in Afghanistan or Pakistan, and desk jobs in Washington or other headquarters working on the same regional issues. At the outset, volunteers receive cultural training and 16 weeks of language instruction in Dari, Pashto or Urdu. In time, they are expected to provide a deep bench for assignments that could significantly alter the course of the war.

“The military expects to fill all of the positions by the summer of 2011. The first 304 positions — including trainers, military planners and advisers to Afghan ministries — will be assigned in Afghanistan and Pakistan by November 2010. Chas Freeman, the former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia has said years ago, after the US blundered into Iraq, “We haven’t invaded Iraq, we’ve invaded the Iraq of our dreams.” What President Bush and his fellow bunglers did was to invade a country it knew virtually nothing about. The same can be said of Afghanistan. In both cases, the nations that America dreamed about have turned into nightmares.

Mossad Tied to ‘Underwear Bomber’

“His explosives couldn’t have blown up his own seat. Even if full power, it wouldn’t have worked.” These were the words relayed to me during a Jan. 2 interview with military analyst and counterinsurgency specialist Gordon Duff in regard to the attempt of Christmas Day underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab [sometimes referred to as Abdulmutallab] to ignite 80 grams of the explosive PETN on a flight destined for America. He also explained how the patsy’s country of origin, Nigeria, is clandestinely controlled by the Israeli army and Mossad.

These entities train the military, sell weapons, run the airports, and wield power over DICON (Defense Industries Corporation). Furthermore, Mutallab’s father is a Mossad partner and Israel’s No. 1 contact in Nigeria. As the former CEO of his country’s most influential bank and the man who ran their national arms industry, Mr. Mutallab also harbors extremely close relationships with the U.S. ambassador and CIA chief in Nigeria.

On Nov. 19, 2009, Mutallab supposedly felt so alarmed about his errant son’s behavior that he met with the CIA’s station chief in Nigeria. Duff describes the father in a Dec. 31 article for Veterans Today as “one of the richest people in the world, head of a major bank, head of the national armaments industry, and close associate of the U.S. ambassador,” as well as being a Mossad asset. Yet we’re to believe that nobody prevented his Yemeni-influenced “terrorist” son from boarding a plane ultimately bound for Detroit?

Another significant detail is being neglected by mainstream media sources. The firm in charge of security at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport is the Israeli-owned International Consultants on Targeted Security (ICTS).They’re also the same outfit responsible for all three airports used by “Muslim hijackers” on 9-11. ICTS also handled security for London’s bus system during their 7-7 “Muslim bombing,” while doing the same at Charles de Gaulle Airport when “shoe bomber” Richard Reid boarded a plane in Paris on Dec. 22, 2001.

When a Michigan passenger, attorney Kurt Haskell, reported that a “well-dressed” Indian man arranged for Umar Mutallab to perform a “walkaround” without a passport in Amsterdam, ICTS was one of only a few entities that could have permitted this security breach to take place. Despite tighter screening processes since 9-11, Northwest Airlines Flight 253 experienced no delays in takeoff. According to the Mathaba News Agency on Jan. 2, “It is evident that clearing the terrorist with higher-ups took a matter of a minute or so—the ‘Indian’ obviously had a high-level pass (CIA, Mossad or high-level security clout).”

Then, during the flight, onlookers noted that another passenger spent a great deal of time filming 23-year-old Mutallab with his camcorder. Even stranger, once the suspect tried to ignite his “crotch bomb,” Mathaba reported, “Throughout the incident, the man continued recording the terrorist, calmly and without interruption.” Next, after the plane landed, another Indian man was led away in handcuffs after bomb-sniffing dogs smelled explosives in his luggage. Now, more than a week later, officials have refused to release Schiphol CCTV airport footage from Amsterdam, the air-bound “video passenger” film, or identify the man arrested in Detroit. This Indian link doesn’t surprise Duff. “Israel and India are very close business partners, especially via their military contracts. Also, the Indian intelligence agency (Research and Analysis Wing) works hand-in-hand with Israel. Essentially, the two governments are one.”

But the Mossad’s reach extends even further, directly into the country where Mutallab purportedly trained. On Oct. 7, 2008, BBC News reported, “Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said that security forces have arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence.” The ties go even deeper, straight to Mutallab’s home country. In a Sept. 5, 2008 article by Tashikalmah Hallah and Francis Okeke entitled “Nigeria: Lawmakers Divided Over Mossad,” Sen. Nuhu Aliyu voiced his support for their pact with Israel. “They (Mossad) are professionals, and they are here to help train our own intelligence agents. I don’t see any way by which their presence in the country poses a threat to our national security.”

One final element of the equation needs to be addressed; specifically, the “terrorist cell” that ostensibly trained Mutallab prior to his Christmas Day terror attempt.

However, Duff paints an entirely different picture. “There is no al-Qaeda in Yemen. George Bush released a couple of phony operatives from Guantanamo, and after traveling to the Middle East, they hooked up with the Mossad. The only reason Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez released them is because they’re assets.” Of course, the American public is being misled again into believing that this “lone nut” terrorist sneaked through the system (no-fly lists, airport scrutiny etc) due to mere incompetence, similar to what occurred on 9-11.

Yet Israeli intelligence provided security at the Amsterdam Airport, where Mutallab boarded a plane with no passport; the NSA is equipped to electronically eavesdrop anywhere around the world; the Mossad is tied to Yemen, Nigeria and India; while the suspect’s father opened up banking and arms contacts in the Middle East while harboring an extremely close relationship with American and Israeli intelligence. What we’re being fed is another propagandized cover story that is intended to keep ratcheting up Orwellian-style trauma and fear, all the while further spreading our global “terror war” to Yemen and the African continent.

Victor Thorn is a hard-hitting researcher, journalist and the author of many books on 9-11 and the New World Order. These include 9-11 Evil: The Israeli Role in 9-11 and Phantom Flight 93.

US says: Pakistan deals with its Devils

Pakistan and the United States are apparently not on the same page in regard to the Afghan Taliban, particularly insofar as the Haqqani network in Afghanistan is concerned. Washington clearly sees Sirajuddin Haqqani as the enemy. Pakistan sees him as a possible ally in the exit of the US from the war theater beginning in 2011. The US views Haqqani’s fallback position (read sanctuary) in Pakistan as a direct threat to the Western coalition in Afghanistan and has warned of expanded drone strikes into Pakistani territory if it did not move more aggressively against him. Pakistan’s reactions to the threat have ranged from sullen silence to outright anger expressed by senior establishment officials who consider Haqqani key to any reconciliation process.

Pakistan’s army chief, General Ashfaq Kiani, made no bones about his reservations on the subject when he responded to US exhortations “to do more” by saying that he had his hands full countering the al-Qaeda-inspired Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and that the Pakistan army was in no position to open another front. But there seemed to be a level of understanding on the common threat posed by the Afghan Taliban when The Washington Post quoted a Pakistani intelligence official as having said, “The Pakistani Taliban are the clear and present danger. They are what matters most. Once we are done with them, we will go after the Haqqani network” – signaling that no hard and fast lines had been drawn on the issue.

Nevertheless, Pakistan could have reason to be ambivalent on fueling animosity with Haqqani’s network, as it remains gravely concerned about the expansion of Indian influence in Afghanistanand fears encirclement by India after the US withdrawal begins in 2011. Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, attempted recently to allay these fears when he agreed to the need of addressing the Kashmir dispute (the main bone of contention between the two neighbors) for stability in the region. But with there being no signs of a breakthrough on this, Pakistan feels it would be an error to close the door on such former “strategic assets” as Haqqani, irrespective of the complications this presents at the moment.

Pakistan may be living in a time warp. From all the evidence available, Haqqani is as committed to expelling US forces fromAfghanistan as any other branch of the Taliban. On this, an expert on al-Qaeda, Syed Saleem Shahzad, Pakistan bureau chief for Asia Times Online, has no doubts. He contends that sooner rather than later, Pakistan will have to re-evaluate Haqqani as a strategic asset in the broader context of the “war on terror”. He believes Pakistan could come off second-best as the voice to be heard by the Taliban insurgents, with al-Qaeda looking beyond Pakistan’s borders, toward India to its east, the Central Asian republics to Afghanistan’s north and, more recently, towards Yemen, to merchandise its message of a global caliphate.

The US is only too aware of this and has geared itself to act against further al-Qaeda encroachment in the volatile Af-Pak region, with President Barack Obama therefore opting for a 30,000-troop surge in Afghanistan. At the same time, there has been repeated admittance that without Pakistan’s unqualified support in the “war on terror”, the US and its allies could end up at the losing end of the stick.

United States Vice President Joseph Biden reaffirmed this when he said in an MSNBC interview recently that “defeating al-Qaeda and stabilizing Pakistan” are America’s main strategic interests. At the same time, he identified Pakistan as the flashpoint, as he felt that al-Qaeda was more entrenched there than in Afghanistan, but he said the US would provide more assistance to Pakistan to counter al-Qaeda’s growing influence in this country.

But Pakistan has more than one devil to deal with. The ruling Pakistan People’s Party is under pressure, with the Supreme Court ruling against former president Pervez Musharraf’s National Reconciliation Ordinance, which sought to provide amnesty to a number of PPP stalwarts for past alleged misdemeanors. Foremost among them is the PPP’s co-chairman and incumbent president, Asif Ali Zardari, who appears to have America’s confidence. Zardari is not as popular with Pakistan’s military establishment, and the burning question now is whether or not the judiciary will go along with the constitutional stipulations that immunize a president holding office against past cases registered against him.

Zardari suspects it will not. In a public address on December 27, the second anniversary of his wife Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, and repeatedly since, the president lamented that there was a conspiracy afoot to derail democracy through the country’s courts. The US Central Command chief, General David Petraeus, however, certifies that Pakistan’s military would play no role in this. Testifying before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Petraeus said he had been assured by senior military officials that the Pakistan army under Kiani was not interested in disrupting civilian rule. But a US State Department official, also testifying before said committee, admitted to tension between Pakistan’s elected representatives and its military establishment.

Tension does exist. Pakistan’s military commands the activities of the Inter-Services Intelligence, the country’s premier intelligence service, and thus feels it is infinitely better equipped to tackle Pakistan’s security issues (both internal and external) than the country’s elected contingent.

However, the US seems to be more inclined toward blanket democratic management of Pakistan’s national affairs. And it has leverage. The US funneled close to US$10 billion in military aid to Pakistan between fiscal 2001 and 2009 and has sanctioned $1.6 billion for fiscal year 2010 under the Coalition Support Fund, along with $700 million under the Counter-insurgency Capability Fund. But even that may not be enough to tackle Pakistan’s security issues.

Zardari is alert to this reality and sounded fully supportive of the Pakistani military’s views on the subject. In a letter to Obama revealed to The Washington Post by anonymous sources in December, Zardari spelled out that the bill for military operations in the Swat Valley alone had come to $2.5 billion, to suggest that the allocated sums for the “war on terror” in Pakistan were grossly inadequate.

The December 28 strike in the heart of Pakistan’s densely populated financial capital and, significantly, principal port city, Karachi, substantiated this. The suicide-cum-arson attack left 45 dead and scores injured, with 2,500 shops gutted and a reported 10,000 people jobless. Hardly had Pakistan time to catch its breath when this was followed by the as yet unspoken-for car-bomb attack in faraway Lakki Marwat, close by the restive Waziristan territories, that reportedly killed 96, mostly young people, either playing or watching a volleyball game.

The South Waziristan-based TTP commander, Asmatullah Shaheen, is reported to have claimed responsibility for the Karachi attack, but doubt remains about the authenticity of this claim, as seldom has Shaheen acted as a spokesman for the Taliban. Moreover, as the Shaheen testimonial was delivered over the telephone to news agencies from an undisclosed location, it remains suspect.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in his media address from Gwadur, Balochistan province, to inaugurate a section of the Makran Costal Highway, referred to the attack as a “foreign agenda” to destabilize Pakistan. Interior Minister Rehman Malik took up the refrain from Karachi with his statement reading the hand of “foreign elements cannot be ruled out”.

Zardari made his apprehensions on the “foreign agenda” known in the three-page letter to Obama when he “repeatedly referred to Pakistan’s core interests, unresolved historical conflicts and conventional imbalances”, according to The Times of India. He urged Obama to propel Pakistan’s “neighbors” (read India) toward diplomatic engagement. He has since repeated the message in Pakistan’s press.

But Shahzad is convinced it is al-Qaeda’s game to expand the war into India with more proxy operations along the lines of the Mumbai attacks of 2008, as bringing India and Pakistan eyeball to eyeball again would leave the field wide open for the terrorist organization to spread chaos throughout South Asia.

With this in view, the challenging question now is why the Indian army chief, General Deepak Kapoor, would want to raise a host of devils by issuing a statement to the effect that India had the capacity to fight a two-front war against both Pakistan and China – and bring it to a satisfactory conclusion in 96 hours.

Zahid U Kramet, a Lahore-based political analyst specializing in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran

ALERT: Indian Seminar Targets Balochistan

See below full list of Pakistani Participants Who Are Endorsing This Indian Meddling. Pakistan Needs To Support The 14 Separatist Insurgencies Inside India

1. “Selected” Pakistani participants invited to discuss autonomy for ‘Balochistan and Kashmir.’
2. Unfortunately, the Pakistani media is clueless and is portraying this Jan. 10, 2010 seminar in New Delhi as a success for peaceniks in Pakistan and India.
3. No less than a former Pakistani federal minister has come out to endorse this seminar where an Indian-occupied territory has been equalized with Indian-fed terrorism inside a Pakistani province.
4. Interestingly, the only Pakistani so far to accept the invitation is a Pakistani journalist from Quetta who is supports Indian-backed terrorism in the province. And this Pakistani participant happens to be a graduate of an Indian training school.
5. List of Pakistani participants includes most of those names who are regular visitors of the Indian embassy in Islamabad

While a leading media group of Pakistan has signed an agreement with an Indian media group to promote peace between Pakistan and India with the title Aman Ki Aasha [the hope for peace-Aman is Urdu/Arabic for peace and Aasha is Hindi for hope], the Indian intelligence agency Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) is staging a seminar at New Delhi’s India International Centre from January 10 to January 12, 2010, reveal the findings of The Daily Mail.

These findings indicate that the seminar, titled ‘India-Pakistan Conference-A Road map towards peace” is being hosted by a RAW-run organization Focus on Global South. Only a handful of organizers and participants know about this conference. There has been no publicity about the event made by the organizers and even a very few people from amongst the Delhi-based local and foreign journalists have been informed and invited to the said seminar. The Investigations indicate further that even the official website of the India International Centre (IIC) does not indicate that the said seminar is amongst the event, listed to place on the said dates at IIC.

The Daily Mail’s investigations reveal that though a reasonable number of participants have been invited from Pakistan to take part in the seminar but one particular segment of the seminar that targets Balochistan province of Pakistan, titled “ Issue of Autonomy: Kashmir and Balochistan” has been introduced on special request from RAW’s analysis wing.

[Unfortunately, former federal minister and rights activist Mr. Iqbal Haider has written an op-ed today “greatly appreciating this initiative” of India. This is the height of ill judgment. In 2007, another federal minister and rights activist Ansar Burney lobbied to release an Indian terrorist from Pakistani jail. The terrorist returned to India to admit he was sent by the Indian intelligence to kill Pakistanis by planting bombs in public places, which he did in early 1990s and killed more than a dozen Pakistanis. These so-called Pakistani liberals often act as apologists for the Indians-PakNationalists]

The aim is to draw a comparison between the freedom movement in Indian Occupied Kashmir and the RAW-sponsored separatist movements in Balochistan province of Pakistan where RAW is super-actively engaged for years.

For this part of the seminar, The Daily Mail’s findings indicate that no senior journalist or intellectual from Pakistan has been selected to speak but merely one nationalist journalist from Balochistan who runs a separatism nationalists Online newspaper from Balochistan and got his Journalism degrees from Asian College of Journalism, Chennai India and is known for toeing the RAW lines regarding Balochistan has been invited from the Media side. The Pakistani Baloch journalist, Siraj Malik Akbar, has graduated from Asian College of Journalism at Chennai India while Chennai is known as the hub of RAW-run think tanks.

The Daily Mail findings indicate that the overall Pakistanis, invited for the said RAW arranged seminar include:

ü  former Information Minister (PPP) Ms. Sherry Rehman,

ü  former Law Minister (PPP) Iqbal Haider,

ü  Human Rights activists Aasma Jehangir,

ü  Pakistani journalist Malik Siraj Akbar,

ü  Senator Hasil Khan Bazinjo,

ü  some Farooque Tarique of some Pakistan Labour Party,

ü  some economist Akbar Zaidi [This gentleman was among the few Pakistanis who attended a music and cocktails party organized by the Indian envoy in Islamabad when the country was mourning close to 100 dead in terrorist acts on Dec. 8, 2009.]

ü  defence analyst Ayesha Siddiqua,

ü  and women rights’ activists and theatre artist, Madeeha Gauhar,

All of them are known for having a very soft corner for India and having a very pro-India mindset. However the speakers for the main target and rather the nucleus of the seminar that would be focusing on Balochistan, the “selected” speakers from Pakistan include, Asma Jenagir, Malik Siraj Akbar and Senator Hasil Khan Bizenjo. While all the participants of the overall seminar from the Indian side are very well known for their staunch anti-Pakistan mindsets.

The Daily Mail’s finding indicate that through the particular segment of the seminar that relates to Balochistan, RAW plans to draw parallels between the freedom movement in Indian Occupied Kashmir and the RAW funded separatists’ drives in Balochistan. However, surprisingly the organizers have neither invited anyone from among the officials of Pakistan government or Delhi-based Pak diplomats nor have they opted to invite anyone from amongst the Pakistani Baloch tribes that confront the militant Indian-backed elements.

The Daily Mail’s findings also reveal that the said scheduled seminar is not the first of its kind to promote separatism inside Pakisstan. In the past, many foreign intelligence organizations have been indulging in such exercises. These finding indicate that RAW, in connivance with the British, American and Israeli intelligence agencies, has been organizing many such forums to benefit the separatist movements in Balochistan. According to these findings, different foreign agencies including India’s RAW have remained actively involved in the formation of different militant and separatist outfits like

–        Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA)

–         Balochistan Rights Movement (BRM)

–         Balochistan Republican Army (BRA)

–         American Friends of Balochistan

–         And of course the Balochistan Liberation Army

These foreign agencies have been continuously using such outfits in Balochistan and have been patronizing them. The Daily Mail’s findings indicate that apart from the funding and provision of arms and ammunition to the militants in Balochistan, these foreign intelligence agencies have been organizing media and intellectual support programmers for these organizations.

These findings reveal that in one of such endeavors, on June 27, 2006, when Pakistani security forces were gaining immense success in restoring peace and disarming the militants in Balochistan and hundreds of mercenaries started surrendering to the government authorities, a UK based so-called think tank Foreign Policy Centre (FPC) organized a highly disturbing seminar on Balochistan, titled ‘Balochistan at the crossroads’. Surprisingly, the FPC organized the said seminar with open collaboration of Balochistan Rights Movement (BRM), which is merely an extension of BLA, an outfit that has been banned and declared a terrorist organization, not only by Pakistan government but also by the government of England while the FPC organized the seminar at the committee room number 16 of the House of Commons, which shows support from within the British establishment.

To add to it, and make the credentials of the said seminar even more dubious, the organizers neither invited anyone from among the officials of Pakistan government or UK-based Pak diplomats nor did they bother to invite anyone from amongst the Pakistani Baloch tribes that confront the terrorists and separatists.

However there was a comprehensive representation from the three Militant tribes and leaders and workers of BLA and BRM. It is learnt that that a Board member of FPC, a British politician and a fomer member of British Parliament, Stephen Twigg was the main spirit behind the holding of this seminar.
UK & India Seminars

The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that in the said seminar, chaired by Hugh Barnes of FPC and someone who goes by the name Mehran Baloch, an active member of BLA and a senior activist of Balochistan Rights Movement, Mr. Sanaullah Baloch, whose close association with warlords of Balochistan and militant outfits like BLA are known to everyone, Dr. Naseer Dashti another associate of Bugti and Marri and BLA, Fredric Grare of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

All of them expressed their views and analysis about situation in Balochistan. All the participants of the said seminar blamed Pakistan government for ‘usurping’ the human rights in Balochistan. They also declared Balochistan to be a separate state and accused Pakistan of illegally occupying it. They one-sidedly accused Pakistan government and people of one Pakistani province, Punjab, of trampling the rights of people of Balochistan and portrayed the terrorists as heroes of the Pakistani Baloch people. Fredric Grare blamed Pakistani media of being in control of the Pakistani military while member of European Parliament from Poland Ryszrd Czarnecki went on to claim that Balochistan was not a part of Pakistan and a “Punjabi Army” was ruling them he also went on to say that Pakistan came into existence through a restrictive voting.

So in other words, the seminar was merely an attempt to malign Pakistan, Pakistan government and Pakistan Army and media as well. All attempts were made to lay the fundaments for the separation of Balochistan from Pakistan and to encourage the separatists and militant activists in Balochistan while the seminar concluded with pledge from the chair to hold more sessions on similar debate in near future.

A similar conclusion is expected when the Delhi seminar’s episode regarding Balochistan would end as the Chairman of the said segment former Indian Judge Rajendra Sacchar is expected to come up with similar conclusions, as desired by RAW and the government at New Delhi.