Jundullah a Product of Foreign Intelligence, Gen. Beg

Seestan Tragedy and Our Deplorable Neglect

20 Oct, 2009 General Mirza Aslam Beg

The tragic suicide attack in the Seestan Province of Iran, causing the death of about 50 Pasdarans, including their senior commanders, indeed is deplorable. This is not for the first time that such act of terrorism has taken place inside Iran, using Pakistani soil. As a matter of fact, since 1980, the terrorist group, called Fidaeen-e-Khalk have been operating against Iran. After occupation of Afghanistan in 2001, CIA jointed hands with the Indian spy network in Afghanistan, and formed the anti-Iran terrorist organization called Jindullah and used it against Iran. Two years back, I wrote a detailed article titled: “Global Conspiracies against Pakistan” about the Indo-US espionage activities against all the neighbours of Afghanistan. About Jindullah and their terror operations in Iran, I said: “The forward bases at Herat and Farah (in Afghanistan) are manned by RAW, CIA, MI-6 and Mossad for subversive activities inside Iran. Jointly operating from inside Pakistan, from the anchorages of Kot Kalamat, and Jiwani, (facility granted for war in Afghanistan) the saboteurs are heli-lifted to Mand (a Pakistani town, close to Iranian border) to undertake terrorist actions inside Iran.” General Musharraf quite deliberately ignored my revelations and the acts against our brotherly neighbour – Iran. But the indifference of the present government is rather shocking. To create a wedge between Iran and Pakistan is the objective of such subversive acts, which is much too dangerous a game. Pakistan cannot afford to ignore it. It is no less than the magnitude of insult the nation faced through the passing of the KLB which has ominous consequences for Pakistan. It is time now for the Pakistan government to eliminate such activities taking place from our soil. The crimes Jindullah commit are attributed to Pakistan as if Pakistan were the culprit in supporting terrorist activities inside Iran, which is a blatant lie. The so called flag bearers of international norms of justice and fair play are involved in “Terrorism through consensus.” And they are not even ashamed of putting this clause in the Kerry-Lugar Bill: “Prevent attacks into neighbouring countries. Eliminate terrorist threats and close safe havens in Pakistan, requires the development of a comprehensive plan that utilizes all elements of national power, including coordination and cooperation with other concerned governments and that it is critical to Pakistan’s long-term prosperity and security, to strengthen regional relationships among India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.” Iran has been purportedly left-out.!! General Mirza Aslam Beg, Former COAS, Pakistan and Chairman FRIENDS, a research centre based in Rawalpindi

Gates Preparing News of War Escalation That Is Not a “War Escalation”

Gates says moving ahead on Afghan troop policy

SEOUL (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday he is moving ahead with his recommendation on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan and would first tell the president before a NATO defense ministers meeting this week.

Gates, speaking in Seoul after meetings with South Korean officials, gave no indication of what his recommendations to President Barack Obama may be regarding troop deployments. He was headed to the meeting in the Slovak capital of Bratislava that will be held on Thursday and Friday.

Obama said on Wednesday he could reach a decision on his new war strategy for Afghanistan before the outcome of an Afghan election run-off on November 7.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army General Stanley McChrystal, has requested tens of thousands more troops and beefed-up training of Afghan forces.

“In terms of what I will say in Bratislava, I think that I will probably share with the president and my colleagues in the American government where I come out on this issue before I share it with 27 defense ministers,” Gates said.

“I am moving into my personal decision phase,” he said.

Gates said last week there was no rift between Obama’s military and civilian advisers on the Afghan war strategy.

Gates said discussions at the NATO meeting would likely include how to expand the size and training of the Afghan national army and police as well as matters of governance.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai removed a major stumbling block for Obama when he agreed on Tuesday, under intense U.S. pressure, to a second round of balloting after many of his votes from the August presidential election were tossed out as fraudulent.

“Everybody has an interest in making sure there are as few problems with this run-off election as possible in terms of providing legitimacy for the wining candidate,” Gates said.

The prospect of another ballot has disillusioned voters after many stayed at home during the first round, intimidated by insurgent violence and threats.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

Chief Strategist of Waziristan Operation Murdered in Islamabad

[The attack was nearly identical to the previous assassination of the chief strategist of the first operation in S. Waziristan, Gen. Alavi.]

A police officer drives away an army jeep with bulletholes splattered on the windshield, after it was attacked by gunmen in Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009. A pair of gunmen on a motorbike killed a soldier and a high-ranking army officer in the Pakistani capital Thursday morning, officials said, the latest strike against security forces as the military wages a major anti-Taliban offensive in the northwest.

(AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)

Army brigadier, soldier killed in Pakistan capital

By ASHRAF KHAN, Associated Press Writer Ashraf Khan, Associated Press Writer – 28 mins ago

ISLAMABAD – Suspected militants on a motorbike shot and killed a senior army officer and a soldier in the Pakistani capital Thursday, striking at security forces as the military continued a major anti-Taliban offensive in the northwest.

The assault in Islamabad showed that insurgents are able to hit the heart of the country despite increased security. In recent weeks, suicide bombings and raids involving teams of gunmen on a range of targets have killed more than 170 people.

The offensive in South Waziristan is considered a critical test of nuclear-armed Pakistan’s campaign against Islamist extremists aiming to overthrow the state and involved in attacks on Western forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

Two gunmen Thursday fired on an army jeep in a residential area of the capital, police official Zaffar Abbas said. A soldier and a brigadier — a high-ranking army officer — were killed, while the driver was wounded, authorities said.

“Terrorists and extremists are behind this,” Islamabad’s top police officer, Syed Kalim Imam, told reporters.

The military is advancing on multiple fronts in South Waziristan, seen as a likely hiding place for al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. Over the past few days, they have been fighting for the hometown of Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.

The fight for Kotkai is strategically important because it lies on the way to the major militant base of Sararogha.

An army statement Wednesday said forces were engaged in “intense encounters” in hills surrounding Kotkai and had secured an area to its east. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said there was no significant fighting inside the town yet.

The army believes Mehsud and his deputy Qari Hussain remain in the region directing militants’ defenses.

The statement Wednesday reported three more soldiers were killed, bringing the army’s death toll to 16, while 15 more militants were slain, bringing their death toll to 105.

It is nearly impossible to independently verify information coming from South Waziristan because the army has closed off all roads to the region. Analysts say both sides have exaggerated successes and played down losses in the past.

The army has deployed some 30,000 troops to South Waziristan against about 12,000 Taliban militants, whose ranks include up to 1,500 foreign fighters, many of them Uzbeks.

More than 100,000 people have fled South Waziristan, including at least 32,000 people over the past week, the U.N. says.

Baton-wielding police beat back refugees crowding an aid distribution center run by Pakistani authorities in Paharpur town, some 28 miles (45 kilometers) outside Dera Ismail Khan, a key town near the tribal region. The lines to the center were long, and some refugees tried to climb the facility’s boundary wall to get inside. Associated Press reporters saw an old man with a bloodied head.

“We came here for bread, but the police beat us up,” said Rahmatullah Mehsud, one of the injured. “There, the Taliban were messing with things and the army was showering bombs. Here, we have to bear the clubs.”

Aid administrator Javed Shaikh said there was plenty of food, but that the refugees were “impatient.”

“There are some policemen deployed who are fed up with the indiscipline of the people,” he said.

Wahabis are the problem with Islam

hussainmehdi

whether there is true islam or there is no true islam, this is another thing,

the matter that affects people is that that when some one jumps in your privacy and tells you that “please be ready to be killed because you are infidels” this is real problem,

whether people follow truth or not, this is their own business,
but no one has authority to come with sword in hand to kill them because they are infidels,
this is real problem,

and, wahabis do exactly that,
they pose themselves as the owner of the world, and owner of the whole people of the world,
this is real problem,

if, God has granted people with freedom,
who are wahabis to come, announce and kill them in the name of the same God ?
this is real problem.

Deoband is a town a hundred miles north of Delhi where a madrasa (religious school) was established there in May 30, 1866.

Just as Sikhs originated from Hinduism, but are not Hindus,
as same wahabis originated from sunnis, but are not sunnis,

The fundamentalist Deoband Dar-ul-Uloom brand of Islam inspired the Taliban,
The fundamentalist Deoband Dar-ul-Uloom brand of Islam inspired the Terrorism,

Most of the Taliban leadership attended Deobandi-Darul Uloom influenced seminaries in Pakistan,

Although the majority of the Islamic population is Sunni in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the theologians who have pushed Pakistan towards Islamic Radicalism for decades, as well as the ones who were the founders of the Taliban, espoused Wahabi Darul Uloom based rhetoric and ideals,

Khaled Ahmed in his article ‘The Grand Deobandi Consensus’ published in The Friday Times of Pakistan, dated 4-10, February 2000 said:

‘The civil war in Afghanistan and the jehad in Kashmir have gradually veered to a Deobandi consensus.’ He also maintained that the Taliban of Mulla Umar, which enjoys popularity in Pakistan, was trained in the traditional Deobandi jurisprudence and that Harkat-ul- Ansar (Movement of Islamic warriors), a terrorist outfit in Kashmir is of Deobandi persuasion.

He also quoted John K. Cooley in his book Unholy Wars that ‘Mullah Umar and Osma bin Laden first met in 1989 in a Deobandi mosque, Banuri Masjid, in Karachi.”

Taliban Leadership educated in Pakistani Madrassas: In YEAR 1998:

Governor of Jalalabad and his Deputy is a student of Jami’ah Haqqaniah, Akora Khattak Peshawar,
Judge of Jalalabad High Court and its Qazi were both educated in another Madrassah in Peshawar,
Taliban UN Representative – Maulana Abdul Hakim is a student of Binori Town, Karachi,
Taliban ambassador in Islamabad, Muhammad M’asoom Afghani is a student of Dar-ul-Uloom Karachi,
Afghan Envoy in Karachi acquired religious education from Jamiah Hammadiah,

amazingly, those, who sing song of talibanization…talibanization…talibanization…twenty four hours a day, never ever said that terrorists production centers darul ulooms in karachi should immediately be shut down.

Anti-Pakistan TTP Terrorists Equipped With U.S., Indian, German, Weapons

In one case, Germany sent 10,000 small weapons to Afghanistan.  Half of them have disappeared.  This is a classic way of supporting insurgencies without being caught.  German investigators can never accuse German intelligence of crossing the NATO mandate and helping CIA in extracurricular activities.  The Americans are good at dismissing their double actions in Afghanistan as conspiracy theories.  Here is a brief, detailed and sourced account of what types of foreign-origin sophisticated weapons are in use against the Pakistani military.  A ragtag army of criminals, throat-slitters and mercenaries could never have faced one of the world’s largest organized armies if not for outside sophisticated support.

By Akhtar Jamal

Wednesday, 21 October 2009.

WWW.AHMEDQURAISHI.COM

ISLAMABAD – Reports reaching here confirm that hundreds of militants from Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or the so and other associated groups are equipped with most sophisticated American, Indian and German weapons.

According to a survey the weapons in the possession of these militants included U.S. made M249 automatic machine guns, U.S.-made Glock pistols, Indian hand guns, FN Browning GP35 9mmx19mm, Indian automatic machine pistols GLOCK 17 9mmx19mm, Indian machine guns Heckler & Koch MP5A3 9mmx19mm, Indian made Sterling L2A1 sub machine guns, Israeli licenced Indian made UZI 9mmx19mm sub machine guns and German Walther-P1 pistols. [CONTINUED BELOW]

Weapons Used By -Foreign-Funded TTP Terrorists Against Pakistan

[Left to right] U.S. made M249 automatic machine guns, U.S.-made Glock pistols, and FN Browning GP35 9mmx19mm

Glock 17

[Left to right] Indian machine guns Heckler & Koch MP5A3 9mmx19mm, Indian made Sterling L2A1 sub machine guns

[Left to right] a model of Israeli licenced Indian made UZI 9mmx19mm sub machine guns and German Walther-P1 pistols

During Swat operation, a number of the Indian army used Vickers-Berthier (VB) light machine guns were also recovered.  The recovery of Indian designed weapons were not astonishing for Pakistan But what was more surprising for Pakistani officials is that the U.S. and German weapons were recently introduced in the Waziristan area.

German sources today confirmed that thousand of German guns are being sold illegally on Afghan, Pakistan black markets.  The German guns were sent to Afghanistan for police and army via a U.S. agency.

The weapons were sent in 2006 and were intended for local police and army personnel.

According to the latest reports in 2006, the German Defense Ministry shipped 10,000 old Walther-P1 pistols to the Afghan Interior Ministry to equip Afghan police and army.

However, both the German government and the responsible US-led security team in Afghanistan failed to properly monitor the guns’ distribution and use.  The U.S. unit was quoted by a German source as saying that “it only had detailed records of German Walther-P1 pistols, numbering 4,563 pistols out of a total 10,000.”  It is believed that German officials failed to pursue the investigation in Afghanistan due to non-cooperation from the Afghan Government.

In February this year, CNN has reported that more than one-third of all weapons the United States has procured for Afghanistan’s government are “missing.”

On February 12, 2009, CNN had quoted a U.S. Government Accountability Office report as saying that the U.S. military failed to “maintain complete inventory records for an estimated 87,000 weapons — or about 36 percent — of the 242,000 weapons that the United States procured and shipped to Afghanistan from December 2004 through June 2008.”

The report elaborated that the U.S. military “is unable to provide serial numbers for 46,000 of the missing 87,000 weapons” and that “no records have been maintained for the location or disposition for the other 41,000 weapons.”

Mr. Akhtar Jamal is a senior journalist and founder editor of the independent PPA News Agency.  He can be reached at pakpress@yahoo.com

© 2007-2009. All rights reserved. AhmedQuraishi.com & PakNationalists

US Terror In Pakistan

DynCorp Security facility outside Islamabad.

more about "US Terror In Pakistan ", posted with vodpod

Unpeople, Dirty Wars and a Web of Deceit – Britain’s Foreign Policies

Paul Cochrane
Worldpress.org contributing editor
January 6, 2005

British soldiers patrol a street in the southern city of Basra, Iraq, Nov. 18, 2004. (Photo: Essam al-Sudani / AFP-Getty Images)

According to new research, Britain bears “significant responsibility” since 1945 for the direct or indirect deaths of 8.6 million to 13.5 million people throughout the world from military interventions and at the hands of regimes strongly supported by Britain.

Less than a year after the publication of Web of Deceit: Britain’s Real Role in the World, a highly praised book that critiques modern British foreign policy, British popular historian Mark Curtis has aggravated the authorities yet again with his latest publication, Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses.

This book, like its predecessor, uses declassified files to reveal Britain’s foreign policies since 1945 toward Russia/Chechnya, Israel, Uganda, Chile, Vietnam, Nigeria and the Middle East.

Curtis chronicles the “dirty war” conducted by Britain in North Yemen in the 1960’s – a conflict which lasted for a decade and claimed up to 200,000 lives – Britain’s intervention in Oman in 1957, and the British backed coups in Sharjah in 1965, Abu Dhabi in 1966 and Oman in 1970. [Sharjah and Abu Dhabi are two of the seven sheikdoms that became the United Arab Emirates in 1971.]

Curtis also recounts the British backing of repressive and brutal regimes in Iraq from 1958 until1968, and its complicity in Iraq’s use of chemical weapons and aggression against the Kurds.

The most searing accounts, however, regard the Blair government’s selling of the war on Iraq to the British public, citing fallacious intelligence reports and claims, and the “irrelevance of international law.”

Curtis said he came up with the term “Unpeople” because he thought it adequately described the British government’s attitude towards people who are expendable in Britain’s pursuit of economic and political goals.

“Last year,” Curtis said in a phone interview, “there was a British army officer who was quoted in Iraq as saying the Americans view the Iraqis only as Untermenschen, the Nazi concept of subhuman. In a way, the British have no real different regard for Iraqis than Americans, but [Unpeople] is a kind of similar concept. The attitude of the British policy making elite’s towards people on the opposing end of policies, I really don’t believe that has changed very much, not from the files I’ve seen. The attitudes towards people on the ground are very rarely a factor in decision making at all.”

What is unique about Curtis’s research is that he is the only person to have accessed these declassified files, despite many of the files being available to the public for over a decade. Curtis thinks this is due to more emphasis being placed on critiquing U.S. rather than British foreign policy, in Britain as much as elsewhere.

“I think that many activists on the Left know far more about, and write far more about the U.S. than Britain,” he said. “I have been trying to encourage writers to pay more attention to the U.K. than the U.S. I think there is an intellectual understanding of that, but I think partly it has got to do with what I think is a failure of the academic community. At least in the U.S. there is a large body of very good critical analysis of U.S. foreign policy … whereas in the U.K. academics have been appalling in revealing these secret documents. One amazing thing is how long these documents sit just in the archives where no one has looked at them … academics are simply failing to reveal this stuff.

“There are not that many people looking at Britain as a discipline, within international relations or politics whereas you get courses on U.S. foreign policy and the E.U.’s role in the world. There aren’t that many courses or specialists working solely on Britain which is amazing in itself considering this country’s role in the world.”

Curtis, who is currently the director of the London-based World Development Movement, believes history is crucial to understanding how contemporary British foreign policy is shaped: “If you look at some of the files that were revealed during the [2004] Hutton enquiry for example in the U.K. around planning for Iraq, and compare them to some of the secret files I have uncovered with regard to Iraq [in 1963] or other countries, they reveal exactly the same cynicism about the public, about the need to pull the wool over the public’s eyes … they reveal the same kind of great power machinations as 30 years ago.”

These machinations are geared toward maintaining Britain’s great power status and its place on the world stage, “and ensuring the global economy is organized to benefit western corporations,” Curtis said. “Those in essence are the two ultimate goals of British foreign policy and I don’t think they have changed over time.”

On the probability of genuine democracy in Iraq, Curtis is far from optimistic.

“When  [British Premier] Blair now stands up and says we are supporting democracy in Iraq, to me the proper response to that is to burst out laughing,” he said. “The idea that Britain would in any way be interested in promoting a genuine democracy in a state in the Middle East is so ridiculous based on our knowledge of what kind of regimes Britain supported in the past and what its interests are in the region.”

Britain and America’s interests in Iraq were not solely about oil. “I do think it was about the U.S. demonstrating its military might, and wanting to reshape the wider Middle East,” Curtis said.

In regard to what the Bush administration calls the broader Middle East, Curtis talked of the recent, seemingly unrelenting media coverage of Iran’s nuclear programs: “My interpretation is that the Europeans are trying to stop an American intervention by trying to get the Iranians to curb their uranium enrichment program, and the Europeans are actually quite fearful of what the Americans will do.”

Curtis said that Britain’s foreign and defense policies are based on the United States’ war on terror rationale. “I refer to in the book the [British government’s] 2003 white paper on defense which outlines these unprecedented plans for intervention around the world, really under the pretext for fighting terrorism,” he said. “This is really the new rationale now for Britain’s interventionist foreign policy. Previously it was humanitarian intervention in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, but now it is terrorism.”

In British domestic politics, Curtis said that after the criticism Blair has faced over the war on Iraq, in the media as much as from within his own party, the threat of terrorism against Britain could play out in two ways.

“If there were a major terrorist attack on Britain,” he said, “Blair would be very vulnerable, because people know that Blair was presented with intelligence reports two weeks before the invasion of Iraq saying that if Britain invaded Iraq the terror threat toward the U.K. would increase, and yet he still went ahead. On the other hand they are obviously using the wider threat of terrorism and the war against terror rather like Bush is using it in America, of scaring the public and justifying an interventionist foreign policy.”

However, Curtis believes that the massive demonstrations that took place in Britain against the invasion of Iraq may have deterred Blair’s government from “further adventures.”

“It must be the case,” he said, “that Bush and Blair discussed Iran and Syria, probably at the same time as Iraq, and everyone knows that Iran and Syria have been in Bush’s targets, but presumably what Blair is now telling Bush is that there is no way he can carry the British public if the U.K. were to sign up to some American attack on any other country at the moment. The huge public protests have probably had a deterrent on Blair.”

Curtis calls for significant change to occur within Britain’s political system to prevent such an aggressive foreign policy from continuing, which are frequently carried out without a mandate by the British public.

“We have significantly been kept in the dark as to this country’s real role in the world,” he said. “We the public don’t know a fraction of what this country has been up to in the last 50 years, even though the evidence of what the country has been up to is actually sitting there ready to be documented by interested academics or journalists. That is the reason for wanting to write these books, to expose what’s been going on in our name for such a long time, and to compare it to what is going on now and show that not much has changed really. Britain is a very centralized decision making system at the end of the day, and there is only a democratic façade really. The actual democratic elements of policy making are few and far between. A prime minister can get away with whatever he or she wants, and clearly elites want to keep it that way. They don’t want the public interfering in policymaking and they have been protected in that system by the fact that we the public know very little what they have been actually doing. It is not a giant conspiracy at all, it is not that conspiratorial, but the system has served to protect elites from public scrutiny and properly holding them to account.”

Curtis’s book is a powerful condemnation of Britain’s real role in the world, in which the reader is left shaken by the contempt and ambivalence of the British government toward other people and what is done in the name of the British public.

Mark Curtis’s Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses (2004) and Web of Deceit: Britain’s Real Role in the World (2003) are published by Vintage.

Pakistan tells Iran: Jundallah, TTP and LJ are involved

[Direct links between Jundullah and TTP and other militant groups shows that both groups operate as one, and that both groups have direct lineage to ISI.  ISI promoted Sipah Sahaba in Afghanistan to support Mullah Omar against Iranian proxies the Northern Alliance, under General Ahmed Shah Masood.  After achieving victory they proceed to slaughter Iran-supported Hazara Shia.  Sipah offspring Lashkar e-Jhangvi (LJ) descend upon Parichinaar and Kurram Agency to carry-on anti-Shia slaughter.  Sipah fighters move north to Ferghana Valley, where they spawn Islamic Movement of Uzbekestan (IMU).  IMU relocates to S. Waziristan, where they train fighters of Jundullah and forces of Nek Mohammed.  Nek signs a peace deal with the Army to end the first offensive in S. Waziristan.  Nek Mohammed is then killed by a US Predator strike and Mullah Dadullah is given the "mantle of Nek Mohammed."  Dadullah ends the next S. Wazir offensive by signing another peace deal with the Army and he is promptly killed by a drone missile.  Baitullah Mehsud becomes the new "emir" and he creates the  TTP with Sipah's radical grandchildren, before the next S. Wazir offensive, which he ends by signing another peace deal, before he gets his missile.  Most of the leaders of all these Sipah derivative groups were graduates of one madrassa in Karaichi, the Binora Madrassa, which is also the alma mater of Abdolmalek Rigi, the leader of Jundullah in Iran.  It may be proven that ISI support for Sipah's militant activities ended with Taliban victory in Afghanistan, but the militant groups who grew out of the initial proxy forces multiplied into the monster that terrorizes the innocent today.  These "Punjabi Taliban" fuel sectarian division and ethnic cleansing all the way from Central Asia to Zahedan.

It looks like Iran has an airtight case to me.]

By Amir Mir

LAHORE: Islamabad has informed Tehran that Jundallah (or Soldiers of God), the Pakistan-based anti-Shia militant outfit, which has claimed responsibility for the October 18 deadly suicide attack in Zahedan, targeting Iranian Revolutionary Guards, is carrying out coordinated terrorist operations with the help of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ), to undermine Pak-Iran ties.

According to well-placed interior ministry sources in Islamabad, the explanation has been conveyed to Tehran after the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad alleged that Sunday’s mayhem in Tehran had been plotted from neighbouring Pakistan. Ahmadinejad had further alleged that Abdolmalek Rigi, the chief of the Jundallah, who has claimed responsibility for the attack, operates from Pakistan.

Sources said during his Monday’s telephonic conversation with President Asif Zardari, his Iranian counterpart expressed deep concern over the failure of the Pakistani authorities to proceed against the Jundallah network in Balochistan and elsewhere despite having been provided specific intelligence information by Tehran. He said the Tehran attack could have been averted had Islamabad acted in time on the Iranian intelligence information.

While responding to the Iranian allegations, the ministry of interior has informed the concerned authorities in Tehran through the Pakistani ambassador that the October 10 Fidayeen attack on the General Headquarters of the Pakistan Army was also a coordinated operation which was carried out jointly by a select group of highly trained militants belonging to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan with the help of at least two Punjab-based militant organisations ñ the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the Jaish-e-Mohammad. The authorities in Islamabad have conveyed in their post Sunday attack talks with their Iranian counterparts that the enemies of Iran and Pakistan are common and are trying to sabotage the recently signed Pak-Iran gas pipeline project. The Iranian authorities were also apprised of the intelligence reports regarding a recent meeting between Abdul Malik Rigi and some top notches of the TTP.

The October 18 suicide attack was not the first such incident blamed on Pakistan. On May 28, 2009, Jundallah had carried out a deadly suicide bombing inside the Amirul Momenin Mosque in Zahedan, in Sistan-Balochistan province of Iran, killing 25 people. Pakistani ambassador to Tehran MB Abbasi was subsequently summoned by the Iranian foreign ministry and told that three Pakistanis – Haji Noti Zehi, Gholam Rasoul Zehi and Zabihollah Naroui have already confessed to smuggling explosives into Iran from Balochistan and passing them over to the suicide bomber. The trio was subsequently hanged in public in Zahedan on May 30. Almost a week after the hanging, hundreds of Baloch women and children took out a protest rally in Quetta on June 9, 2009 and threatened to target the Iranian nationals in Pakistan, as a reaction to the execution of the five Baloch nationals by the Iranian government.

Jundallah, also known in Iran as the Rigi group (after its ringleader, Abdul Malik Rigi), is a rebel militant group of Iranian Baloch, who claims to represent their minority’s rights in Iran’s southeast province of Sistan-Balochistan. Their hideout is in Pakistani Balochistan. Iran directly blames Jundallah for a series of cross-border guerrilla operations that have been going on since 2003, killing mostly Iranian soldiers and border guards. In the wake of the October 18 suicide bombing in Tehran, Islamabad faces tremendous pressure to arrest and extradite Jundallah chief Rigi, who is believed to be based in Balochistan. While asserting that the Pakistani law-enforcement agencies were making efforts to dismantle the Jundallah network from Balochistan, authoritative sources in the ministry of interior pointed out that the militant organisation in question has actually stepped up its anti-Iran activities following the June 15, 2008 extradition of Abdul Hamid Rigi, the brother of Jundallah chief, Abdolmalek Rigi, from Pakistan to Iran. Rigi is now being tried by an Iranian court on terrorism charges.

Initially, patronised by late Taliban commander Nek Mohammad, the Pakistan chapter of Jundallah usually draws its cadre from Jihadi and sectarian groups like the Sipah-e-Sahaba and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

Lt-Gen Ahsan Salim Hayat, former corps commander of Karachi, was one of those high-profile personalities to have been targeted by the Pakistan chapter of Jundallah on June 10, 2004, killing 11 people including seven Army personnel when his convoy was ambushed near the Clifton bridge. Interestingly, there are those in the Pakistani establishment who insist that Jundullah was actually created by the mastermind of 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. He was arrested in March 2003 from Rawalpindi and handed over to the Americans, after which Jundallah went wild. Soon after the Karachi attempt on the corps commander, the police were able to apprehend a group of Jundullah terrorists headed by an Arab, Musab Aruchi, who turned out to be a nephew of Khalid Sheikh with a million dollars on his head.

Jundallah was not without its support system in the port city of Karachi as it proceeded to avenge the arrest and handover of its mastermind after 2003. The support system included two MBBS doctors. Dr Akmal Wahid, an orthopaedic surgeon, and his younger brother Dr Arshad Wahid, a heart specialist, were convicted in 2005 by an anti-terrorism court which sent them behind bars for 18 years on charges of “causing disappearance of evidence by harbouring and providing medical treatment to activists of banned Jundallah group”. There were protest marches in Karachi and Lahore by pious doctors when the two doctors were sentenced. As Dr Arshad Wahid was bailed out almost a year later, he got killed in a US missile attack in the Wana on March 16, 2009. According to recent intelligence information passed on to the ministry of interior, the Jundallah network is still active in Karachi and intends to carry out hostage taking operation for the release of its leader Sheikh Attaur Rehman alias Zubair, who is currently imprisoned in Karachi Central jail after the Anti-Violent Crime Unit arrested him in 2003 from his hideout in Model colony, Karachi.

Jundallah versus the mullahtariat

By Pepe Escobar

Fasten your seat belts; it’s gonna be a bumpy ride. As a crucial subplot of the New Great Game in Eurasia, Balochistan – on both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border – promises turbulence aplenty. Welcome to United States General Stanley McChrystal’s self-fulfillment prophecy – “Chaos-istan” in action.

There are few doubts the deadly (as many as 49 fatalities) suicide bombing on Sunday in Pishin, near Sarbaz, in the deserted, impoverished Iranian province of Sistan-Balochistan, was carried out by Pakistani Balochistan-based Jundallah (“Soldiers of God”).
This is being billed by Iranian state-controlled media as the worst suicide bombing ever in the country. Key casualties include the number two of the armed forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Brigadier Nour-Ali Shoushtari, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the provincial IRGC commander and assorted Sunni and Shi’ite tribal leaders.

The IRGC – the key component of the dictatorship of the mullahtariat currently in power in Tehran – is seething, to say the least. It is one thing to repress student protests in Tehran; but how could they not see this coming, and how could they not prevent it, considering their allegedly good ground intelligence on Jundallah’s support by the US, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia?

Ibrahim Raisi, the vice president of Iran’s judiciary, says there’s evidence the US and Britain support Jundallah not only with intelligence but with weapons. Conservative paper Resaalat denounces “Saudi money” and “American spies” who “have tried for years to raise ethnic tension in the region”.

Tehran’s paranoia does contain an element of truth: Iran is in effect encircled by the US in invaded Iraq and occupied Afghanistan, and it is a victim of terrorist attacks from outfits based in third countries. The head of the IRGC, General Mohammad-Ali Jafari, said that an Iranian team would go to Islamabad to “prove” that Jundallah was “supported by American and British intelligence services and unfortunately the Pakistani intelligence service”.

Meet the new contras
Jundallah was founded in 2003 by Nek Mohammad Wazir – a top, charismatic Pakistani Taliban commander killed by Islamabad’s forces in 2004. Its current leader is the youthful Abdel Malik Rigi, who studied at the famous Binori mosque in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi, the alma mater of many a Taliban luminary.

Approximately 2,000 strong, Jundallah claims to represent the Sunni Balochi struggle against the centralizing power of Tehran. Nonsense: pan-Balochi aspirations actually are better represented by other Balochi nationalist groups, such as the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) in Pakistan. Jundallah for its part does not threaten Islamabad; it is an ultra-sectarian, anti-Shi’ite outfit immersed in the intolerant Deobandi interpretation of Islam.

Jundallah has its headquarters in Karachi and bases in both Balochistans. It does have a firm connection to the South Waziristan tribal areas; it has been connected to the hardcore Sunni and viscerally anti-Shi’ite Lashkar-e-Jhangvi; and is definitely tactically connected to al-Qaeda, “talking” if not to the historic leadership ensconced, in theory, in South Waziristan, at least to the “new generation” al-Qaeda.

It was Jundallah that, last December, perpetrated the first suicide bombing ever in Iran, after spending a few years basically practicing sabotage, kidnapping officials and killing border guards. In May, only three weeks before the Iranian presidential election, Jundallah raised the stakes with an attack on the top mosque in Zahedan, the largest city in the southern part of Sistan-Balochistan.

Islamabad – as always when it comes to anything regarding Balochistan – is perplexed. It never knew how to deal with Balochi separatist movements in the first place – apart from iron-clad repression. But as far as Jundallah is concerned, Islamabad did try, it handed over Rigi’s brother, Abdul Hamid, to Tehran, branding Jundallah as a “terrorist organization”, and always protesting its innocence of the outfit’s designs.

Furthermore, in the middle of a sprawling, make-or-break offensive against the Mehsud tribe in Waziristan, the last thing Islamabad needs is diplomatic hell with regard to neighbor Iran. And there’s the inescapable Pipelineistan angle – how will the Iran-Pakistan (IP) pipeline ever take off with both Balochistans on fire?

That inevitably brings out the US connection. Rigi’s brother, condemned to death in Iran, gave an interview to Iranian Press TV a few months ago in which he confirmed direct links between the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Jundallah, not only in terms of support but with cash changing hands. The CIA during the George W Bush years always loved Jundallah’s potential to cause havoc in eastern Iran. It’s no secret that during Bush’s second term, “regime change” in Iran was to be pursued by any means necessary.

Although no smoking gun is likely to arise, it makes sense – the CIA using Jundallah as a proxy army, the new “Balochi contras” (remember Nicaragua?) fighting “evil” Tehran. It’s the same modus operandi of Washington’s support for the Mujahideen-e-Khalq in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and disgruntled Sunni Arabs living in western Khuzestan (or “Arabistan”) province, where the bulk of Iran’s oil is located.

Cynics in Tehran, commenting on the suicide bombing, note the massive US aid package to Pakistan is seemingly being put to good use. But the Obama administration knows very well it needs Tehran to keep western Afghanistan stable. And this attack further complicates the already ultra-sensitive Iranian nuclear negotiations that were back on the table on Monday in Vienna. But one thing is the Obama administrations’ priorities; another is the agenda of “full spectrum dominance” types at the Pentagon and the CIA.

Pipe nightmares
Then there’s all-encompassing Pipelineistan. Chaos in Iranian Balochistan derails the IP pipeline – something that is an absolute priority for full spectrum dominance: Washington wants its horse, the Trans-Afghan (TAP) pipeline, to win at all costs. A “victory” of the IP pipeline means Gwadar port in Balochistan falling into China’s orbit, not the US’s (China built the port to start with).

For the Pentagon, the only acceptable scenario is to “win” Gwadar as a key node of Pipelineistan meeting the US empire of bases. (See Balochistan is the ultimate prize, Asia Times Online, May 9, 2009). There’s a key, new US base in the Dasht-e-Margo desert in southern Afghanistan, a stone’s throw from Pakistani Balochistan. There are another two US-controlled air bases in Dalbandin and Panjgur, in Pakistani Balochistan. Jundallah is resolutely anti-pipeline. It’s easy to see which interests converge.

Although still negligible in terms of a strategic threat to Tehran, Jundallah gains weight when it becomes a component of a warped “vision” – a hardcore Sunni strategic corridor straddling Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan, the Khyber Agency in the Pakistani tribal areas, and Pakistani and Iranian Balochistan, with al-Qaeda as the glue. This is directly related to a recent “surge” of Balochis from Pakistan training in al-Qaeda camps in both North Waziristan and South Waziristan.

Tehran has many reasons to wonder whether the Pakistan army during the current, highly publicized offensive in South Waziristan will finally find and clear these camps. It won’t be easy: Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is on all-out fund-raising mode, demanding cash for weapons, food and medicine from assorted tribal politicians, businessmen, drug lords and jewelers, insisting the fight will be long. Only then will the Pakistan army’s offensive in Waziristan really dovetail with strangling Jundallah.

On the other side of the border, the war is set: it’s the IRGC against Jundallah and the massive drug trafficking in Sistan-Balochistan. But in terms of the turbulent, internal political equation in Iran, the symbolic meaning of the suicide bombing could not be more devastating.

It paints the IRGC – the key pillar of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s military dictatorship – as weak and incompetent, capable of beating up students in urban Tehran but incapable of controlling the country’s porous borders. Full spectrum dominance types could not dream of a better outcome.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

Israel wants law of war changed after damning UN Gaza report

[Legalize ethnic cleansing, or just for the Zionists?]

Israel wants law of war changed after damning UN Gaza report

JERUSALEM: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed his government on Tuesday to draw up proposals to amend the international laws of war after a damning UN report on its war in Gaza.

The security cabinet did not, however, discuss calls made by ministers for an internal investigation into the 22-day offensive at the turn of the year that killed some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, an official told AFP.

“The prime minister instructed the relevant government bodies to examine a worldwide campaign to amend the international laws of war to adapt them to the spread of global terrorism,” his office said in a statement.

Israel was dealt a heavy diplomatic blow with the adoption by the UN Human Rights Council of the report that accused both Israel and the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip of war crimes.

Israel’s closest allies, the United States, Britain and France urged it to investigate war crime allegations raised by the fact-finding missions headed by Richard Goldstone, a former international war crimes prosecutor.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak backed Netanyahu’s call for a diplomatic campaign, saying that Israel should propose changes in the international laws of war “in order to facilitate the war on terrorism,” an official quoted him as saying.  “It is in the interest of anyone fighting terrorism. We must give the IDF (Israeli army) the full backing to have the freedom of action,” Barak said.

Netanyahu dismissed the Goldstone report on the Gaza war and vowed that Israel would not give up its right of self-defence.

“We are struggling to delegitimise the ongoing attempts to delegitimise Israel… We must persistently fight this lie, which is being spread by the Goldstone report,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying.

“I want to make it clear: no one will weaken our ability and right to defend our children, citizens and communities.”

Meanwhile, hardline Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman met with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, reiterating Israel’s stance that peace talks with the Palestinians could not progress amid international support for the Goldstone report.

Lieberman said Palestinian support for the report “raises real questions about the true intentions of the Palestinians: Is it the establishment of a Palestinian state or the destruction of the State of Israel?” he said according to a statement from his office.

Goldstone, the respected South African jurist who led the UN fact-finding team, recommended that the conclusions of the report be forwarded to the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court at The Hague if the two sides fail to conduct credible investigations into the conflict within six months.

Israel has slammed it as a “diplomatic farce” and warned that it risked sinking the stalled Middle East peace process.

Goldstone, who has faced a storm of personal attacks inside Israel since the report’s publication, dismissed the argument and urged the Jewish state to comply with the recommendation to investigate the war.

“It’s a shallow, utterly false allegation,” Goldstone said during a meeting with a group of rabbis in the United States, remarks aired on Monday by Israeli public radio.

“What peace process are they talking about? There isn’t one. The Israeli foreign minister doesn’t want one,” Goldstone said.

The New Blood Libel

When the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet ran a report on Israeli organ harvesting, the Jewish dominated world media reacted in a predictable manner. As Jews often do, they are talking in different tongues to Gentile and Jewish audiences. If the media for the Gentiles did not completely ignore the article they focused on (mostly Jewish) voices protesting against the publication and demands towards the Swedish government to do something and to apologise. The media for the Tribe, on the other hand, did their best to rally the troops by drawing parallels to the infamous ‘Blood Libel’.

Personally I find the comparison not that unfitting. Just like the centuries of accusations against Jewish communities of abductions and ritual sacrifices of Christian children by Jews as part of the annual Passover celebrations, rumours of illegal organ harvesting by Israeli doctors have been a persistent feature of the Israeli-Palestinian relations. And just like in the case of the ritual sacrifices of Christian children on Passover, the commercial slaughter of Palestinian youths for organ harvesting purpose have proven to be a fact. No Jewish grandstanding and hyperventilating can change that.

Which brings me to the question what exactly it is that enables Jews to do such evil towards other human beings. Are those people who are committing such crimes against humanity exceptional monsters and psychopaths? I doubt it. Within their Jewish communities they are probably well liked and adjusted people, who take care of their families and contribute generously to various causes. Do psychopaths act like that? So why do they act with such lack of empathy and conscience towards non-Jews?

The answer can be found in the traditional Jewish belief that non-Jews are not humans, but animals in human shape. Not unlike farmers and butchers who lose no sleep over the often gruesome process of producing meat, many Jews have no bad conscience when it comes to doing harm to non-Jews. They might say otherwise, but that’s only for tactical reasons. The more control they gain over a country, the more their true attitude comes out, a phenomenon that can be clearly seen in Israel and the U.S. Even those Jews who are not religious at all often show symptoms of the same kind of contempt towards non-Jews. If it’s not religion then they find other reasons such as the supposedly higher Jewish IQ and references to Jewish saint (and master plagiarist) Albert Einstein for their supremacist attitudes.

The only surprising about the Aftonbladet story is that it got published at all. None of the Western media, including the very few that aren’t controlled (yet) by Jews, can’t afford to upset one of the many sensitivities of the Tribe. Even the most ‘anti-Semitic’ publisher won’t risk losing his advertising customers given how ruthless and experienced the various extortion rackets of the Tribe are.

If a Swedish tabloid dared to publish such an explosive article, it means that it has higher protection from someone very powerful. That person – or group of persons – is trying to send a rather blunt message to Israel. Who in the state of Sweden has so much power that he can stand up to the Zios? Which brings me to the little known fact that Sweden is one of those countries with a privately owned central bank, the reason why it hasn’t introduced the Euro, just like Denmark and the UK. The Jewish bankster families who own those central banks are immensely powerful, thanks to their wealth and centuries of intermarriage with Europe’s old elites. (It is probably no coincidence that the very same countries are amongst the few European countries left without “hate” laws prohibiting expressions of doubt in the Holy Hoax.)

The relationship between those families and their spoiled love child Israel has recently been strained. Thanks to the American and British troops in Iraq, Israel is no longer needed to control the strategic Middle-Eastern oil reserves. In fact is has become a liability, due to its insistence on upsetting more than a billion Muslims all around the world. The Aftonbladet article on Israeli organ harvesting is part of a concerted effort of Western elites to put pressure on the Zionist colony to come to a peaceful arrangement with the native Palestinians. The message sent out is clear: clean up your act, or (rather sooner than later) there won’t be a ‘Jewish State’.

DALIT VOICE, Oct 16th – 31st 2009, Dalai Lama promotes second Israel inside India

DALIT VOICE, Oct 16th – 31st 2009

Dalai Lama promotes second Israel inside India

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Bangalore: The notorious Dalai Lama, groomed by India’s Brahminical rulers to annoy China, is helping the zionists to set up a “second Israel in India”.

According to a P.1 story in the Milli Gazette, a Muslim English fortnightly from Delhi (Sept.1-15, 2009), over 20,000 Jews have already descended on Dharmashala, headquarters of the Dalai Lama, who it says gets large funds from the zionist state and also CIA.

The report by John Kaminski says the zionists are trying to take over three North-East states to fight Muslims and Islam.

The Aizwal-based Chhinlung Israel People’s convention with 0.25 million army is behind establishing the “New Jerusalem”. Streams of Jewish priests (Rabbis) are pouring into Mizoram and Manipur.

Anti-China hysteria: The writer asks why the Indian security forces and the Brahminical media ignored the fierce fight that took place inside Bombay’s famous Jewish centre, Chabad House, in the 26/11/2008 terrorist attack on Bombay.

Meanwhile, the media led by the Times of India has stepped up anti-China hysteria aided and abetted by top Brahminical leaders. The Govt. of India said it would prosecute the press but we have our own doubts.

CIA-backed firm invests in social media monitoring

[Twitter this.]

CIA-backed firm invests in social media monitoring

Posted by David Meyer

A CIA-sponsored investment company called In-Q-Tel has bought into Visible Technologies, a company that provides a social media monitoring technology called truCast.

TruCast powers services that let companies monitor how often subjects are being discussed on Twitter and in other forms of online social conversation. In a statement on Friday, In-Q-Tel’s head of architecture and engineering, Troy Pearsall, said truCast would help his company keep an eye on online conversation trends.

“Visible Technologies’ platform is key to understanding the breadth and depth of the online social landscape,” Pearsall said. “Its platform delivers a clear and comprehensive view of complex information, integrating real-time data into a navigable and easy-to-use application that understands the context and tone of online dialogue.”

The truCast platform is already used by companies such as Microsoft and Xerox.

In-Q-Tel was founded by the CIA in 1999 as an independent not-for-profit organisation, to help the US intelligence community find and work with emerging commercial technology companies. The company aims to accelerate the development of technologies that the intelligence community wants to use.

Hariri Calls for International Action Against Israel’s Violations

Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri stressed on Monday that the international community should put an end to Israeli violations.
Hariri was speaking after his meeting with the new French Ambassador to Lebanon Denis Pietton in a protocol visit on the occasion of starting his diplomatic mission in Lebanon.

“The planting of spy devices by the Israeli enemy then detonating them represent a clear violation of Resolution 1701,” said Hariri.

The French Ambassador said after the visit that he transmitted a message of friendship from France to the PM-designate. He said that France will always stand by Lebanon and its sovereignty, adding that France hopes that Lebanon forms a new government soon so that it can face the forthcoming challenges.

Pakistan joins the American Raj

Eric S. Margolis
WASHINGTON: Official Washington watches in mounting alarm and confusion as Pakistan spins out of control. The US-led war in Afghanistan has now poured over into Pakistan, bringing that nation of 167 million close to civil war.

Bombings and shootings are rocking Pakistan’s northwest regions, including a brazen attack on army HQ in Rawalpindi and repeated bombings of Lahore and Peshawar. Pakistan’s army has launched a major offensive against rebellious Pashtun tribes in South Waziristan.

Meanwhile, the weak, deeply unpopular government of Asif Zardari that was engineered into power by the US faces an increasingly rancorous confrontation with its own military.

Like the proverbial bull in the china shop, the Obama administration and US Congress chose this explosive time to try to impose yet another layer of American control over Pakistan – just as Nobel peace prize winner Barack Obama appears likely to send thousands more US troops to Afghanistan.

Tragically, US policy in the Muslim world continues to be driven by imperial arrogance, profound ignorance, and special interest groups.

The current Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill approved by Congress and signed by Obama is ham-fisted dollar diplomacy at its worst. Pakistan, bankrupted by corruption and feudal landlords, is being offered US$7.5 billion over five years. Washington claims there are no strings attached. Except, of course, that the US wants to build a mammoth new embassy for 1,000 personnel in Islamabad, the second largest after its giant fortress-embassy in Baghdad. New diplomatic personnel are needed, claims Washington, to monitor the US$7.5 billion in aid. So a small army of US mercenaries is being brought in to protect US “interests”. New US military bases will open. Most of the billions in new aid will go right into the pockets of the pro-western ruling establishment, about 1% of the population.

Washington has been also demanding veto power over promotions in Pakistan’s armed forces and intelligence agency, ISI. This crude attempt to take control of Pakistan’s proud, 617,000-man military and intelligence service has enraged its armed forces.

It’s all part of Washington’s “Afpak” strategy to clamp tighter control over restive Pakistan and make use its armed forces and intelligence agents in Afghanistan. The other key US objective is seizing control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, the cornerstone of its national defence against much more powerful India. Welcome, Pakistan, to the
American Raj.

However, 90% of Pakistanis oppose the US-led war in Afghanistan, and see Taliban and its allies as national resistance to western occupation.

Alarmingly, violent attacks on Pakistan’s government are coming not only from once autonomous Pashtun tribes (wrongly called “Taliban”) in Northwest Frontier Province, but, increasingly, in the biggest province, Punjab.

Recently, the US Ambassador in Islamabad, in a fit of imperial arrogance, actually called for air attacks on Pashtun leaders in Quetta, capital of Pakistan’s restive Baluchistan province.

Washington does not even bother to ask the Islamabad government’s permission to launch air attacks inside Pakistan, only informing it afterwards.

The Kerry-Lugar-Berman Big Bribe comes as many irate Pakistanis accuse President Asif Ali Zardari’s government of being American hirelings. Zardari, widower of Benazir Bhutto, has been dogged for decades by corruption charges.

Washington seems unaware of the fury its crude, counter-productive policies have whipped up in Pakistan. The Obama administration listens to Washington-based pro-Israel neo-conservatives, military hawks, and “experts” who tell it what it wants to hear, not the facts.

Pakistan’s military, the nation’s premier institution, is being pushed to the point of revolt. Against the backdrop of bombings and shootings come rumours the heads of Pakistan’s armed forces and intelligence may be replaced.

Pakistanis are calling for the removal of the Zardari regime’s strongman, Interior Minister Rehman Malik. The possibility of a military coup against the Zardari regime grows. But Pakistan is dependent on US money, and fears India. Can its generals afford to break with patron Washington?

Eric S. Margolis is a contributing editor to the Toronto Sun chain of newspapers, writing mainly about the Middle East and South Asia. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

Five killed in twin suicide blasts in Pak university

32 minutes ago‎
PTI | Islamabad

Two suicide bombers blew themselves up near simultaneously at a prestigious Islamic university in the Pakistani capital on Tuesday, killing at least five persons and injuring over 40, the latest in a series of deadly terror attacks that have rocked the country.

The blasts occurred at the male and female campuses of the International Islamic University, considered one of the world’s leading centres for studies in Islamic law, thought and history.

The first suicide bomber blew himself up at the cafeteria in the women’s campus, killing a student and an employee of the university, witnesses said.

They said they had seen parts of the bomber’s body stuck to the ceiling of the cafeteria.

The second bomber struck about five minutes later in the Shariah block of the male campus while a lecture was underway. Witnesses said three persons were killed in this explosion.

The two blasts also left over 40 people injured.

Wasim Khwaja, a doctor at the state-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, said the hospital had received two legs and a head. It is believed they belonged to one of the suicide attackers.

Khwaja said three of the 13 injured brought to the hospital were in serious condition.

More than a dozen ambulances rushed to the university to take the injured to nearby hospitals.

The university is located near police offices. There are also some residential neighbourhoods at a short distance.

Students from around the world study at the International Islamic University though it could not be ascertained if any foreigners were among the victims of today’s attacks.

Police cordoned off the area as investigators scoured the area for clues.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for today’s attacks, though the Taliban, against which the army has launched a major offensive in Waziristan, is suspected to be behind a series of recent blasts in the country.

In the past two weeks, terrorists have carried out a numerous suicide bombings, blasts and attacks in Pakistan, including the storming of Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi and three synchronised attacks on law enforcement establishments in Lahore, leaving over 170 people dead.

Today’s blasts came four days after a suicide car bomber struck a police station in the NWFP capital Peshawar, killing 13 people.

The Private Scandal That Obama Rode to Power

AP 27 June 2004: Kenyan-born Obama all set for US Senate

Barrack Obama

Kenyan-born US Senate hopeful, Barrack Obama, appeared set to take over the Illinois Senate seat after his main rival, Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race on Friday night amid a furor over lurid sex club allegations.

The allegations that horrified fellow Republicans and caused his once-promising candidacy to implode in four short days have given Obama a clear lead as Republicans struggled to fetch an alternative.

Ryan’s campaign began to crumble on Monday following the release of embarrassing records from his divorce. In the records, his ex-wife, Boston Public actress Jeri Ryan, said her former husband took her to kinky sex clubs in Paris, New York and New Orleans.

“It’s clear to me that a vigorous debate on the issues most likely could not take place if I remain in the race,” Ryan, 44, said in a statement. “What would take place, rather, is a brutal, scorched-earth campaign – the kind of campaign that has turned off so many voters, the kind of politics I refuse to play.”

Although Ryan disputed the allegations, saying he and his wife went to one ‘avant-garde’ club in Paris and left because they felt uncomfortable, lashed out at the media and said it was “truly outrageous” that the Chicago Tribune got a judge to unseal the records.

The Republican choice will become an instant underdog in the campaign for the seat of retiring Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald, since Obama held a wide lead even before the scandal broke.

“I feel for him actually,” Obama told a Chicago TV station. “What he’s gone through over the last three days I think is something you wouldn’t wish on anybody.”

The Republican state committee must now choose a replacement for Ryan, who had won in the primaries against seven contenders. Its task is complicated by the fact that Obama holds a comfortable lead in the polls and is widely regarded as a rising Democratic star.

The chairwoman of the Illinois Republican Party, Judy Topinka, said at a news conference, after Ryan withdrew, that Republicans would probably take several weeks to settle on a new candidate.

“Obviously, this is a bad week for our party and our state,” she said.

As recently as Thursday, spokesmen for the Ryan campaign still insisted that Ryan would remain in the race. Ryan had defended himself saying, “There’s no breaking of any laws. There’s no breaking of any marriage laws. There’s no breaking of the Ten Commandments anywhere.”

—AP

Source: Sunday Standard

From CNN:

Several Chicago media organizations had sued for release of documents relating to the Ryans’ divorce, saying the public interest outweighed their concerns about privacy and the possible effect on their now 9-year-old son. Friday, a judge in Los Angeles, where their divorce was litigated, agreed to unseal portions of more than 360 pages of documents, although large parts remained blacked out.

Both Ryans had objected to the release of details in the documents, but they opted not to appeal the ruling.

Jeri Ryan said her then-husband took her on three “surprise trips” in the spring of 1998 to New Orleans, New York and Paris, during which he took her to sex clubs. She said she refused to go in the first and went into the second at his insistence.

“It was a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling,” she said in the court document, adding that her husband “wanted me to have sex with him there, with another couple watching. I refused.”

She said on arriving at the third club, in Paris, “people were having sex everywhere. I cried. I was physically ill. [He] became very upset with me and said it was not a ‘turn on’ for me to cry.”

“Jundullah” In Iran Stepchild of ISI/CIA

[The bullshit cover stories are starting to flow.  There is evidence in existence about "Jundullah (Army of Islam)."   The first actions of the groups' founders included the kidnap and murder of Daniel Pearl.

[Omar Sheikh] kidnapped him and handed him over to Amjad Hussain Farooqui…“News” (May 23, 2002), the group that also included “three Yemeni-Balochs” who took part in Pearl’s kidnapping, his murder and disposal of his body parts [Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and nephew Ramzi Yousef were Yemeni-Balochs]…KSM had admitted having personally killed Pearl…

[After organizing, their first terror attack was "On June 10, 2004, the Corps Commander of Karachi narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in Karachi.  the attempt was jointly organised by the HUJI and a new organisation called Jundullah (Army of Allah), which had been trained by the Uzbecks and Chechens in the South Waziristan area of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan.

The Jundullah group in Iran is the same gang of cutthroats who murder and terrorize in Pakistan.   It has been suggested by Indian analyst B. Raman that the Jundullah name has been appropriated by many other groups, and that the name has become a generic label applied to all anti-Iranian groups, suggesting that they may actually MEK (Mujahedeen e-Khalq terrorists, even though they operate under the name and direction of the original Wana-based group.]

Jundallah and relations with Iran

On Sunday, a suicide-bomber in the Iranian province of Sistan shockingly killed seven commanders of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard and up to 42 other people. Iran’s President Mr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the attack was planned inside Pakistan where an anti-Iran terrorist organisation named Jundallah has been active for the past several years. The Pakistani chargé d’affaires in Tehran has been called to the Foreign Ministry in connection with what can be called the most serious terrorist incident in Iran for some years.

Despite some understanding between Iran and Pakistan over the activity of Jundallah inside Pakistan — Pakistan has been surrendering arrested anti-Iran terrorists to Tehran — regional geopolitics is bound to trigger unfriendly speculation. Needless to say, Jundallah, the Pakistan-based Iranian-Baloch terrorist organisation, has acknowledged the latest attack in Sistan. Iran says Jundallah leader Andolmalik Rigi is in Balochistan; Pakistan says he is not. Both however know that nothing can be said for certain.

The map of hostilities in the region is extremely complicated and it doesn’t matter that President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani have both condemned the attack. Baloch nationalism on both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border threatens both nation-states, and solutions on both sides are complicated by the nature of the centralised states and their ideological content. The Iranian speaker of parliament has accused the United States of having instigated the attack on Iran’s most powerful Revolutionary Guard. The Iranian press quotes leaders saying the United Kingdom too is involved.

Pakistan is in trouble because it had its own Jandullah operating in Karachi for the Taliban of South Waziristan till 2004. It is now quite clear that Pakistani “Jandullah” is not the “Jundallah” outfit that is attacking inside Iran,  [Jundullah was created in S. Waziristan, making its world debut in 2004.  It was descended directly from Sipah-e-Sahaba, the anti-Shia outfit created by Pakistan's ISI (on orders from CIA), to fight against Iranian influence in Afghanistan.]

but the modus operandi of the latter borrows much from the terrorism of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. For instance, the use of suicide-bombing carries the signature of madrassa-based indoctrination even though the Sunni Baloch of Pakistan are strictly secular and take no part in killing the Shia in Balochistan.  [Elements of Sipah and other Sunni Baloch terrorists have been systematically killing local Shias since the days of Abdullah Mehsud.]

Iran has a complex code of interpretation when it comes to explaining to its people certain developments on its eastern border. At the higher level of statesmanship, it is engaged with Pakistan on what can be called the biggest energy project of South Asia, called the Iran-Pakistan Gas Pipeline project. At the domestic political level, it looks at Pakistan as a state that favours the Taliban — at the top of the list of enemies in Tehran — and aligns with Iran’s arch-enemy, the United States. This in itself gives rise to a complex imagined network of intrigue and double-dealing.

Hanging from this is the accusation that the US is funding Jundallah to create trouble in Sistan to “balance” the trouble Iran is supposedly making in Iraq. Many Pakistanis buy into this. But at the same time, Iran becomes unhappy when the US and Pakistan start thinking of “talking” to their separate Talibans. It cannot help thinking that both will somehow bring the Taliban back to power in Kabul and thus endanger the non-Pashtun population of Afghanistan as well as endanger Iran’s security on its eastern border.

There is a clear break here between what the world thinks and what Iran thinks. The world thinks that the US unwittingly strengthened Iran’s regional position by destroying two regimes: Saddam Hussein’s in the west and the Taliban’s in the east. But Tehran continues to think that the US and its allies are trying to get Iran into a challenging regional pincers movement. Unfortunately, Pakistan can hardly reassure Iran in this regard because of its declining writ of the state in Balochistan and elsewhere.

Within this extremely murky strategic thinking, Iran has acted in its own national interest. It has given shelter to “actors” from Pakistan who promised to create difficulties for the US. It has provided safe haven to runaway warlords from Afghanistan it thought could at least temporarily damage the unity of the Taliban. It is known to have “facilitated” the passage of Al Qaeda terrorists from Pakistan to Iraq in 2003, which then actually led to the massacre of the Shia there.

But in many ways, Iran promises to become as important an ally of Pakistan as China, mainly because of its role as a supplier of energy. At the same time, however, Pakistan has to retain the option of international support, including that of the Arabs — something for which Iran’s current government doesn’t care much. Hence a measure of tolerable bilateral tension. *

McChrystal Opens the Militants Floodgate Into Waziristan, Removes Six Border Posts

[As long as Pak Army operates under American rules, Pakistan is destined for total civil war, so that US Special Forces can ride to the "rescue."]

On whose side is US anyway?

US vacates checkposts ahead of SWA operation

By Qudssia Akhlaque

ISLAMABAD: The US-led Nato forces vacated more than half a dozen key security checkposts on the Afghan side of the Pak-Afghan border just ahead of the major Pakistan Army ground offensive (code named: Rahe Nijaat) against Taliban-led militants in the volatile tribal area of South Waziristan, it is learnt.

It is feared that the American decision will facilitate Afghan Taliban in crossing over to Pakistan and support militants in striking back at the Pakistani security forces in the troubled tribal area.

Sources close to the NWFP government and military strategists involved in the planning of S Waziristan operation told The News over the weekend that the Americans vacated eight security checkposts on the Afghan side of the border just five days before the Army operation. Four of these close to South Waziristan including one each at Zambali and at Nurkha, and four in the north in the area of Nuristan where American forces recently came under violent attacks by the militants.

Latest reports indicate that the Americans have also removed some posts close to North Waziristan, which could encourage even more Afghan Taliban fighters to cross over to the Pakistan side. This has raised many eyebrows in government and military circles with points being made about “conflicting interests” and dubious American designs.

The NWFP government, civilian and military officials in the provincial capital have been astonished by this move and more so intrigued by its timing. Alarmed and concerned about its likely adverse affect on the military operation in S Waziristan where the Pakistani troops reportedly comprising 28,000 soldiers are expected to face fierce resistance from the heavily armed Taliban-led militants, the NWFP government recently alerted the relevant authorities in Islamabad about it.

Pakistan has now taken up this matter with the Americans and conveyed its serious concern about vacating the checkposts at this crucial juncture. Notably the security checkposts on the Afghan side of the border are already almost a third of what Pakistan has on its side.

Recent communication intercepts by Pakistani intelligence outfits have revealed that Taliban commander in Nuristan Qari Ziaur Rehman has invited TTP leader Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, former deputy of late Baitullah Mehsud, to come to Nuristan and operate from there if he finds space in Wazristan shrinking.

Experts believe the American move of vacating security checkposts on the Afghan side close to Pakistan’s border could undermine the military action by Pakistan Army. While on one hand it could offer an easy escape route to some militants, it is believed that this would facilitate movement of Afghan Taliban into Pakistan side to join hands with the al-Qaeda-backed local Taliban and other locals as well as foreign militant groups against the military action there.

Some observers see it as a tactical move by the US to ward off pressure from its own forces in Afghanistan that have been under severe attacks by the Afghan Taliban. Hence they want to provide them unhindered passage to Pakistan side, as it would help shift the main theatre of war from Afghanistan to inside Pakistan. Americans themselves have been saying that 70 per cent of area in Afghanistan is out of their control.

The Pakistani Tabiban in S Waziristan backed by al-Qaeda are joined by a large number of foreign militants including a battalion of Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens and Arab fighters. According to military sources the toughest resistance is expected from an estimated 1,500 battle-hardened Uzbek fighters, equipped with highly sophisticated weapons. “The Uzbek fighters face a do or die situation with the all-out army action in the hostile mountainous area,” a senior government representative maintained.

The uninterrupted flow of sophisticated arms and funding to the foreign militants in S Waziristan has also lured many criminals to join hands with them in challenging the writ of the state, defence experts say. The presence of various foreign and local militants in the rugged terrain of South Waziristan is estimated at between 15,000 and 20,000.

Officials in the military and civil bureaucracy are cautiously optimistic about the outcome of the operation. “Either these militants will run to Afghanistan, settled areas or stand and fight to the end,” is how one key NWFP government representative summed it up.

A seemingly more realistic view from a key office holder in Peshawar is: “We are half way in containing insurgency and hopefully by end of the year major military operations will be over and 2010 will be the year of consolidating the gains made in recovering the lost ground.”

Whatever the outcome, observers believe that operation in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan became inevitable. “It became imperative to go for a military operation in South Waziristan to regain the lost space that has been used as training ground for planning and executing attacks targeting key security installations of Pakistan including the GHQ,” the Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said earlier shortly after the launch of the operation.

Despite several attempts on Sunday The News was unable to get an official version from the Pakistan Army Spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas on this alarming development. However, when the US Embassy Spokesman Richard Snelsire was contacted by this correspondent and his attention was drawn to the question of vacated checkposts he remained non-committal. When a confirmation was sought and he was asked what had prompted this move, Snelsire said he had no clue about it. “I do not have information on that, and that is outside our purview,” he noted, adding that he had not seen any reporting on that.

Iran Warns U.S., U.K. of Retaliation After Attack

Monday, October 19, 2009

AP

Deputy commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s ground force, Gen. Noor Ali Shooshtari is seen.

The chief of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard said Monday that a Sunni rebel group blamed for a deadly attack on the force was linked to U.S., British and Pakistani intelligence, an Iranian news agency reported.

"Behind this scene are the American and British intelligence apparatus and there will have to be retaliatory measures to punish them," Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari said.

The reaction comes after a homicide bomber killed five senior commanders in the Guard and at least 37 others in an area of southeastern Iran that has been the focus of a growing Sunni insurgency.

Earlier Monday, an Iranian MP raised the prospect of a possible military operation into Pakistan against the group blamed for the attack on the Guard.

"There is even unanimity that these operations (could) take place in Pakistan territory," the ISNA news agency quoted MP Payman Forouzesh as saying.

The official IRNA news agency said the dead included the deputy commander of the Guard’s ground force, Gen. Noor Ali Shooshtari, as well as a chief provincial Guard commander for the area, Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh. The other dead were Guard members or local tribal leaders. More than two dozen others were wounded, state radio reported.

The headquarters of Iran’s armed forces blamed the bombing on "terrorists" backed by "the Great Satan America and its ally Britain," Fars News Agency said Sunday.

"Not in the distant future we will take revenge," Iran’s statement read, according to Reuters. Iran’s forces claim the country "will clear this region from terrorists and criminals."

"The global arrogance, with the provocation of its local mercenaries, targeted the meeting of the Guard with local tribal leaders," said the Guard statement read out on state TV.

The United States, however, condemned the attacks on Sunday and denied any involvement.

"We condemn this act of terrorism and mourn the loss of innocent lives. Reports of alleged U.S. involvement are completely false," U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in a brief statement.

The Revoutionary Guard commanders were inside a car on their way to a meeting with local tribal leaders in the Pishin district near Iran’s border with Pakistan when an attacker with explosives blew himself up, IRNA said.

Iran’s state-owned English language TV channel, Press TV, said there were two simultaneous explosions: one at the meeting and another targeting an additional convoy of Guards on their way to the gathering.

The region’s top prosecutor was quoted by the semi-official ISNA news agency as saying the Sunni rebel group Jundallah claimed responsibility for the blast.

There was no immediate statement directly from the group.

The group accuses Iran’s Shiite-dominated government of persecution and has carried out attacks against the Revolutionary Guard and Shiite targets in the southeast.

That campaign is one of several ethnic and religious small-scale insurgencies in Iran that have fueled sporadic and sometimes deadly attacks in recent years — though none have amounted to a serious threat to the government.

The Guard commanders targeted Sunday were heading to a meeting with local tribal leaders to promote unity between the Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.

In April, Iran increased security in Sistan-Baluchistan Province, at the center of the tension, by placing it under the command of the Guard, which took over from local police forces.

The 120,000-strong Revolutionary Guard controls Iran’s missile program and has its own ground, naval and air units.

Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, condemned the assassination of the Guard commanders, saying the bombing was aimed at disrupting security in southeastern Iran.

"We express our condolences for their martyrdom. … The intention of the terrorists was definitely to disrupt security in Sistan-Baluchistan

The Associated Press contributed to this report.