Self Accountability
By Ch. Naeem Sidhu • Aug 4th, 2008 • Category: Politics (Urdu) • 7 Comments
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Ch. Naeem Sidhu Sahib, I agree with you that we Pakistani nation and our state is not involved in terrorism or extremism and it is not in our national interest to jeopardize ourselves for the cause these few thousand extremists. We have to protect and consolidate ourselves and risk a war which we can ill afford.
Aftab S Alam! please try to read between the lines. Urdu press has its limitations so I can not write in more explicit way. We as Pakistani nation are not involved in terrorism, YES…..But… There are some institutions which are involved in promoting terrorists. Remember story published by NYT last week informing us about role of ISI in suicide attack on Indian embassy in Kabul. Our poor Mohammad Siddique (spokesman of F.O) can only ‘deny’ in written text which is given to him by his seniors. Even our PM Gilani had to face USA administration in Washington and M.M. Sigh, Indian PM, embarrassingly in Colombo.
Elements in ISI are causing bad name to our country. Please read my sentence again which says: “enemies were ‘CREATED’ assidously”…. Its pity we have always been taught concocted history. TRUTH is hidden.
Thanks for the comment.
Aftab S Alam! I am copying/pasting text of stories of WP and NYT. Please read:
U.S. Officials: Pakistani Agents Helped Plan Kabul Bombing
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 1, 2008;
U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that elements of Pakistan’s military intelligence service provided logistical support to militants who staged last month’s deadly car bombing at the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan’s capital, U.S. officials familiar with the evidence said yesterday.
The finding, based partly on communication intercepts, has dramatically heightened U.S. concerns about long-standing ties between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, and Taliban-allied groups that are battling U.S. forces in Afghanistan, according to two U.S. government officials briefed on the matter.
The July 7 bombing at the Kabul embassy has been linked to fighters loyal to Jalaluddin Haqqani, an ethnic Pashtun militant who has led pro-Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan and has been associated with numerous suicide bombings in the region. More than 40 people were killed in one of the deadliest attacks on Afghan civilians since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
“There continues to be evidence of Taliban and Haqqani network involvement in the Indian Embassy bombing as well as the attempted assassination of [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the reports. He said there was “significant” evidence suggesting that individual ISI members provided logistical support to the embassy bombers. He declined to elaborate further.
CIA officials raised the issue of possible ISI support for the embassy bombers during a meeting last month between the newly elected Pakistani government and a delegation led by Stephen Kappes, the agency’s director of clandestine operations, two officials said. The conclusion by U.S. intelligence and the visit were first reported by the New York Times.
One official involved with U.S. counterterrorism efforts stressed that the ISI has generally worked closely with U.S. intelligence in battling al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in the tribal region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. But he acknowledged that the Pakistani intelligence service is “not monolithic.”
The intelligence community is divided about the extent of Taliban sympathies within the Pakistani service, a second senior official said. “You will find folks who will say there is significant penetration of the ISI by terrorist elements and that’s a serious concern,” the official said. “But others are saying that certainly, there’s penetration, but we don’t think it’s top to bottom.”
Pakistani officials have repeatedly denied the allegation of ISI support for the Taliban, though Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar, who accompanied Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani in a visit to Washington this week, acknowledged that his U.S. counterparts had aired serious concerns. Following their meetings this week, Gillani and President Bush sought to ease bilateral tensions over the conduct of the campaign against terrorism. Their talks focused on efforts to clamp down on al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists in Pakistan’s northwest tribal areas.
Gillani secured a pledge from Bush to respect Pakistani sovereignty in exchange for promises from Islamabad to crack down on the militants. “This is our own war,” Gillani said. “This is a war which is against Pakistan.”
Pakistan, which has received more than $10 billion in U.S. aid since 2001, has resisted suggestions that troops from the United States or other countries be allowed into the region.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, when asked yesterday whether the ISI and the military were aligned with the Pakistani government, said it was a question “the government of Pakistan ought to speak to.”
Mullen, who recently traveled to Pakistan, said the country’s leaders made clear during talks that they recognized the tribal areas pose “a serious internal threat to Pakistan, and it’s growing,” and that they are “committed to taking steps to . . . address it.”
U.S. concerns about Taliban support within the ISI’s ranks date back nearly a decade. Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer with experience in the region, noted that the ISI was an early backer of the Taliban during the 1980s, at a time when they were allied in the fight against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Some ISI officers forged personal ties with Taliban commanders that persist today, he said.
Staff writers Ann Scott Tyson and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.
NewYork Times
Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul, U.S. Officials Say
By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: August 1, 2008
The conclusion was based on intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack, the officials said, providing the clearest evidence to date that Pakistani intelligence officers are actively undermining American efforts to combat militants in the region. The American officials also said there was new information showing that members of the Pakistani intelligence service were increasingly providing militants with details about the American campaign against them, in some cases allowing militants to avoid American missile strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Concerns about the role played by Pakistani intelligence not only has strained relations between the United States and Pakistan, a longtime ally, but also has fanned tensions between Pakistan and its archrival, India. Within days of the bombings, Indian officials accused the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, of helping to orchestrate the attack in Kabul, which killed 54, including an Indian defense attaché. This week, Pakistani troops clashed with Indian forces in the contested region of Kashmir, threatening to fray an uneasy cease-fire that has held since November 2003. The New York Times reported this week that a top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled to Pakistan this month to confront senior Pakistani officials with information about support provided by members of the ISI to militant groups. It had not been known that American intelligence agencies concluded that elements of Pakistani intelligence provided direct support for the attack in Kabul. American officials said that the communications were intercepted before the July 7 bombing, and that the C.I.A. emissary, Stephen R. Kappes, the agency’s deputy director, had been ordered to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, even before the attack. The intercepts were not detailed enough to warn of any specific attack. The government officials were guarded in describing the new evidence and would not say specifically what kind of assistance the ISI officers provided to the militants. They said that the ISI officers had not been renegades, indicating that their actions might have been authorized by superiors. “It confirmed some suspicions that I think were widely held,” one State Department official with knowledge of Afghanistan issues said of the intercepted communications. “It was sort of this ‘aha’ moment. There was a sense that there was finally direct proof.” The information linking the ISI to the bombing of the Indian Embassy was described in interviews by several American officials with knowledge of the intelligence. Some of the officials expressed anger that elements of Pakistan’s government seemed to be directly aiding violence in Afghanistan that had included attacks on American troops. Some American officials have begun to suggest that Pakistan is no longer a fully reliable American partner and to advocate some unilateral American action against militants based in the tribal areas. The ISI has long maintained ties to militant groups in the tribal areas, in part to court allies it can use to contain Afghanistan’s power. In recent years, Pakistan’s government has also been concerned about India’s growing influence inside Afghanistan, including New Delhi’s close ties to the government of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president. American officials say they believe that the embassy attack was probably carried out by members of a network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, whose alliance with Al Qaeda and its affiliates has allowed the terrorist network to rebuild in the tribal areas. American and Pakistani officials have now acknowledged that President Bush on Monday confronted Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, about the divided loyalties of the ISI. Pakistan’s defense minister, Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, told a Pakistani television network on Wednesday that Mr. Bush asked senior Pakistani officials this week, “ ‘Who is in control of ISI?’ ” and asked about leaked information that tipped militants to surveillance efforts by Western intelligence services. Pakistan’s new civilian government is wrestling with these very issues, and there is concern in Washington that the civilian leaders will be unable to end a longstanding relationship between members of the ISI and militants associated with Al Qaeda. Spokesmen for the White House and the C.I.A. declined to comment for this article. Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, did not return a call seeking comment. Further underscoring the tension between Pakistan and its Western allies, Britain’s senior military officer said in Washington on Thursday that an American and British program to help train Pakistan’s Frontier Corps in the tribal areas had been delayed while Pakistan’s military and civilian officials sorted out details about the program’s goals.
Britain and the United States had each offered to send about two dozen military trainers to Pakistan later this summer to train Pakistani Army officers who in turn would instruct the Frontier Corps paramilitary forces. But the British officer, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, said the program had been temporarily delayed. “We don’t yet have a firm start date,” he told a small group of reporters. “We’re ready to go.”
The bombing of the Indian Embassy helped to set off a new deterioration in relations between India and Pakistan. This week, Indian and Pakistani soldiers fired at each other across the Kashmir frontier for more than 12 hours overnight Monday, in what the Indian Army called the most serious violation of a five-year-old cease-fire agreement. The nightlong battle came after one Indian soldier and four Pakistanis were killed along the border between sections of Kashmir that are controlled by India and by Pakistan. Indian officials say they are equally worried about what is happening on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border because they say the insurgents who are facing off with India in Kashmir and those who target Afghanistan are related and can keep both borders burning at the same time. India and Afghanistan share close political, cultural and economic ties, and India maintains an active intelligence network in Afghanistan, all of which has drawn suspicion from Pakistani officials. When asked Thursday about whether the ISI and Pakistani military remained loyal to the country’s civilian government, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sidestepped the question. “That’s probably something the government of Pakistan ought to speak to,” Admiral Mullen told reporters at the Pentagon. Jalaluddin Haqqani, the militia commander, battled Soviet troops during the 1980s and has had a long and complicated relationship with the C.I.A. He was among a group of fighters who received arms and millions of dollars from the C.I.A. during that period, but his allegiance with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda during the following decade led the United States to sever the relationship. Mr. Haqqani and his sons now run a network that Western intelligence services say they believe is responsible for a campaign of violence throughout Afghanistan, including the Indian Embassy bombing and an attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul earlier this year.
David Rohde contributed reporting from New York, and Somini Sengupta from New Delhi.
NOW TELL ME, F.O SPOKESMAN, MOHAMMAD SIDDIQUE’S “DENIAL” IS SUFFICIENT?
Naeem Sahib, I am afraid I have to agree with you that there is some truth in what the Americans are alleging and fully agree with your admonition. In my view, when too much religiosity is allowed to intermingle in politics, local or international, then there would always be some of us who would consider being guided by their religion to fight with other fellow believers even if they are wrong. What I find extremely frustrating is that while the nation is threatend and, frankly, confused by the prevailing circumstances, those who pretend to be leading us are busy in their own little games. In absence of an assertive government and enlightend leaders some organs of the state do transgress into self defined and assigned projects; of course it is dangerous and adverse to the national interest. I consider this one of the most important task of a leader and a government to educate the ordinary people, like myself, to learn to curb my personal preferences over what is desirable and feasible for my country, you know, nation before selfinterests. A good leader can do it. But, where is he?
This has been my fear all along since the elctions. I had wished clear responsibility from one party or another and the rest assuming the role of supportive, but, monitoring opposition to “watchdog” the national interests. Alas, this still remains desired.
Of course, such ‘denials’ are meaningless soliloquies and regarded as such. Again, one gets the feeling of being on a rudderless ship, unfortunately.
One more point. I disagree that Americans’ goal was to ‘take over’ ( Qabza) Afghanistan in encouraging and supporting Afghan resistance of Soviet invasion in 1979. As I understand, the U.S. were motivated in alluring the Soviet deeper into the quagmire, knowing that the USSR could not sustain a prolonged campaign there while there were all kind of dissents (also American / Western inspired and financed) in the Warsaw Pact countries of the Eastern Europe which were basically Soviet satellites. And I personally, admire the beauty of their operation ( Carter / Zbgniev Brzezinski) - not one single shot was fired by an American G.I; not one American death and the whole of the Soviet Empire crumbled down and the rest, as they say, is history. See, what few sincere visionaries can achieve for their country
Your words:
“I consider this one of the most important task of a leader and a government to educate the ordinary people, like myself, to learn to curb my personal preferences over what is desirable and feasible for my country, you know, nation before selfinterests. A good leader can do it. But, where is he?”
Aftab!
Exactly on this very issue, I am prepapring to write my next column for The daily Express.
You are very right.
This leaderless nation is bewildered and obscurity is everywhere. Nobody knows what should be done. Thats why Baitullah Mehsoods, Mangal Baghs and their cronies in some state institutions, responsible for ‘national security’ (ha ha, what is joke) are having hey day. But believe me dear, they will ruin us.
We are the people who are without grain (atta),
we are begging deffered payments of oil from Arabs,
we become over jubilant when an out dated F-16 fighter is handed over to our PAF by our ‘worst enemy’ USA,
we live without electricity for 8-10 hours a day (in urban centres, I dont know how it is in villages),
but on the other hand, we are people who want to
crush India,
we want to subjugate Afghanistan,
we want to make China Musalmaaaan,
we hate infidel Russia,
we want to decimate Israel,
we pray the USA guns get rotten,
(all of the above-mentioned whimsical wishes by us are funny. Based on distorted versions of history and Internatinal relations which we are taught).
In our eyes, the rest of the world is our enemy. Thanks to policies of rogue organs of state, yes, now its very right. But reality is that we ourselves are our biggest enemy. The blind nation who can not sift truth from lies all around, it is bound to suffer more.