Lebanon, Next War Front, Maybe Any Day Now

[SEE: Lebanon United against US Plan to Punish "Anti-American" Media ; Israel Cuts Off Trees in Lebanon under UNIFIL Eyes ;  Israel accuses Hizbullah of planting explosives near border ; For the West, ‘Game Over’ in Central Asia]

Der Spiegel: Hizbullah Moving Cocaine Trade Profits

Via Frankfurt Airport

German investigators are probing Hizbullah’s alleged cocaine smuggling in Europe and the transfer of the profits to Lebanon via Frankfurt airport, a German magazine said.
A report in Der Spiegel magazine on Saturday said initial suspicion that Hizbullah was raising funds by smuggling cocaine was raised in May 2008 when around 8.7 million euros in cash were found in the luggage of four Lebanese men at Frankfurt airport.

A further 500,000 euros were found in the apartment of one of the suspects in the Rhineland Pfalz town of Speyer.

Two Lebanese men were arrested in October 2009 when customs officers and federal criminal police agents raided a house in Speyer, the magazine said.

According to Der Spiegel, suspicion is that family members have been regularly moving millions of euros raised in the European cocaine trade, via Frankfurt to Beirut.

Those receiving the money in Lebanon are said to be members of a family with contacts with the highest levels of the Hizbullah command, including leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

A close relative of the suspects has rejected all the allegations, the magazine said.

Adm. Mullen Claims No Troops In Yemen–What About Blackwater?

Joint Chiefs chairman tells Naval War College no plans for US

troops in Yemen

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen speaks about global security at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I. on Friday, Jan. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/Robert E. Klein) (Robert E Klein, AP / January 8, 2010)

MICHELLE R. SMITH Associated Press Writer

NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — The nation’s top military leader said Friday the United States has no plans to send troops into Yemen, and that country has made it clear it does not want U.S. ground forces there.

In an address Friday to hundreds of students at the Naval War College in Newport, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addressed issues raised by the Christmas Day attempt to bring down a Detroit-bound jet by a Nigerian man whom the FBI says told them he was trained by al-Qaida in Yemen.

Mullen said he is asked all the time if the U.S. is sending troops to Yemen, and said: “The answer is, we have no plans to do that, and we shouldn’t forget this is a sovereign country.”

Later, he told reporters he considered Yemen an emerging safe-haven for al-Qaida, and said the U.S. would broaden its support with additional diplomatic engagement.

“They’ve been pretty clear about the support that they want and what they don’t want,” Mullen said. “Their foreign minister has been very clear, that they’re not interested in forces on the ground.”

Yemeni officials said this week that it accepts help from U.S.
forces in training, intelligence and logistical support. Direct combat or large force deployments would not be acceptable, the officials said.

Speaking to CNN host Fareed Zakaria, Mullen praised Yemen’s embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

“We have great respect for the president there in terms of his, his judgment, in terms of what he needs to do,” Mullen said in an interview to air Sunday. “And right now as far as any kind of boots on the ground there, with respect to the United States, that’s just not … a possibility. He’s just, we’re not, into those kinds of discussions.”

In Newport, Mullen called Somalia fertile ground for an emerging safe-haven.

During his talk, Mullen responded to a question by an officer of the Yemen Coast Guard on how to help Yemen, saying the U.S. has worked to improve relationships with Yemen in training, education and “war-fighting support.”

“Yet we still have a long way to go,” Mullen said. “There’s clear recognition that there’s a desire between both our countries to strengthen the relationship and, in fact, create the kind of support that gets to providing the kind of help that you and your countrymen need.”

“We recognize the seriousness of the situation,” he said.

The Naval War College educates military officers from all branches of the armed services, as well as civilian government officials, and its students come from dozens of countries.

Pakistan: 10 die in suicide attack on Ansarul Islam’s base

[Hakeemullah' former sectarian turf war heats-up.  In the Khyber region, where Mehsud earned his promotion to head of TTP, the destabilization operation regains its former intensity.  Peshawar will be the ultimate victim of this conflict, once again.]

09-01-2010

By Nasrullah Afridi & Ashrafuddin Pirzada

BARA/LANDIKOTAL, (The News): A suicide bombing at the base of the militant group, Ansarul Islam, in the Tirah Valley in Khyber Agency on Friday left 10 people, including its members, dead and seven others injured.

Dr Naeem, spokesman for the Ansarul Islam, told The News that the rival militant group, Lashkar-e-Islam, led by Mangal Bagh, was involved in the suicide attack. He and other sources identified the 18-year-old suicide bomber as Abdul Baqi, son of Shargo, belonging to the Kamarkhel sub-tribe from the Tirah’s Sokht area. They claimed the bomber’s head had been found and it helped in identifying him.

The organisation’s members said the bomber wanted to bomb the Friday prayers. They claimed the alertness of the Ansarul Islam’s volunteers foiled the bomber’s plan to kill a large number of people.

Eight people, mostly Ansarul Islam members, were killed initially but later the death toll rose to 10 when more injured succumbed to their injuries. Some of the dead were identified as Dr Jamal, Qamar Gul, Masood, Malik Khan, Sheikh Gul, Shaukat Khan, Umar Khan and Mubarak Khan. The Lashkar-e-Islam group hasn’t yet commented on the attack.

Military approach in Yemen may backfire: experts

Two Yemeni soldiers operate at a checkpoint in the streets of Sana’a, Yemen, on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2010. (AP / Nasser Nasser)

By Ian Munroe, CTV.ca News Staff

It’s a pattern that governments fighting Islamic extremism don’t want to see repeated — success cracking down on militants in one country boosts terrorism elsewhere.

In Afghanistan, for example, the U.S. invasion prompted al Qaeda’s leadership to seek shelter in the tribal areas of Pakistan, beyond the reach of the central government in Islamabad.

Similarly, experts say al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, the group that claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound flight on Dec. 25, was formed in Yemen partly because of Saudi Arabia’s success at abolishing militant groups next door.

Saudi authorities have been waging a campaign to rehabilitate, imprison or kill suspected extremists since a wave of terrorist attacks wracked the country in 2003 and 2004. But some militants fled south to Yemen, where AQAP was created last January.

“There was a balloon effect,” said Letta Tayler, a terrorism and counterterrorism researcher with Human Rights Watch. “It’s a much more hospitable environment for al Qaeda than Saudi Arabia was following the crackdown.”

The American military had been helping Yemen combat al Qaeda before Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian who had taken Arabic classes in Yemen, allegedly tried to detonate a bomb on board Flight 253.

Earlier in December, the U.S. military assisted with two air strikes on Yemeni territory. They were reportedly aimed at suspected al Qaeda leaders and killed several dozen civilians. The second strike took place a day before Abdulmutallab boarded a flight to Detroit.

The U.S. also provided nearly US$70 million in military aid to Yemen in 2009. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, has said the Department of Defense will double that amount this year.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that his government, along with the U.S., will help Yemen fund a new counterterorrism force.

Later this month, the British capital will also host two simultaneous international conferences, one on Afghanistan and the other on Yemen.

Tayler said that countries seeking to combat radicalization in Yemen would do well to learn from U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, NATO’s top commander in Afghanistan.

To defeat the Taliban and keep al Qaeda from returning to Kabul, McChrystal has recommended that U.S. troops use “courageous restraint.”

“At the end of the day, the success of this operation will be determined in the minds of the Afghan people,” McChrystal said last month. “It’s not the number of people you kill. It’s the number of people you convince. It’s the number of people that don’t get killed. It’s the number of houses that aren’t destroyed.”

As with Afghanistan, experts say there’s no easy solution to countering al Qaeda in Yemen.

Joost Hiltermann, deputy program director with International Crisis Group’s Middle East and North Africa arm, warned that military intervention could weaken the central government, allowing al Qaeda more free rein there.

“In a situation as fragile as in Yemen, to put a major external military force could be fatal,” Hiltermann told CTV.ca. “The country may not be able to sustain it.”

Complex problems

Yemen is a semi-mountainous country on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula with a fast-growing population of some 22 million people.

One of the least developed countries outside sub-Saharan Africa, the UN Human Development Index estimates that 35 per cent of Yemenis live in poverty. Malnourishment is a common affliction for children and nearly half the population is illiterate.

Oil, which brings in three-quarters of the national income, is running out. Tourism was touted as a possible alternative revenue generator (Yemen houses four UNESCO heritage sites). But visitor numbers have dropped due to attacks on foreigners, and political instability.

About 150,000 people have been displaced by a civil war that has been raging intermittently near Saada, in the north of the country, since 2004. The Yemeni government has been accused of indiscriminate bombing in the conflict, which Hiltermann says “is clearly escalating.”

In the south, a secessionist movement flared up last spring, bringing hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets.

“The bottom line is, the country’s in chaos,” Tayler said. “There are no prospects for youth and most citizens are concerned about how to get the next meal.”

As Yemen’s troubles mount, President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s government is losing more control. His reach, which doesn’t extend to many parts of the country, is weakening further.

Marisa L. Porges, an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who advises on counterterrorism for the U.S. Department of Defense, travelled to Yemen in the fall.

“There are so many domestic problems that al Qaeda isn’t a top priority,” Porges said by phone from Washington.

“In private conversations, many officials say ‘we’re already there — the state has failed.’” she added. “This is the pervading sense now.”

Confronting al Qaeda

AQAP launched several attacks last year, including an attempt to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism chief, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, and two attacks against South Korean tourists and dignitaries — all using suicide bombers.

But the attempted Dec. 25 airliner attack seems to represent the group’s first plot against a target outside the region.

While that incident focused the international community’s attention on AQAP, experts say it will be hard if not impossible to keep such groups off Yemeni territory without addressing the country’s other problems.

Jane Novak, an American analyst and expert on Yemen, warned that President Saleh may simply use military aid from the U.S. to oppress his opponents, while the country goes down.

“It’s such a complex situation,” she said. “It’s very difficult in Yemen to find anyone there to work with.”

Convincing Saleh, who has ruled the country for three decades, to implement political reforms could help make the country less hospitable for terrorist groups by boosting loyalty to the government, Novak said.

“Basically in Yemen they consider (the Saleh regime) a tyranny, and an incompetent one as well,” she said. “To reduce the instability, the ungoverned regions, they need to somehow force power-sharing and the respect for civil rights.”

Tayler echoed that view, saying policies that reduce oppression and boost faith in the government are needed to fight al Qaeda there effectively.

“You need a holistic approach,” Tayler said. “Otherwise, the counterterrorism policy will simply backfire — whether it’s Pakistan, whether it’s Yemen, whether it’s Afghanistan.”

Image of the Beast

By:  Peter Chamberlin

Up until now, the United States has been able to exert control over most of the earth just by controlling the narrative that reflects popular opinion about the war on terror.  Whatever government spokesmen or reporters have said happened on a particular day, was what really happened; it was validated by popular consent.  The ability to shape people’s thoughts and opinions is a power that every tyrant has dreamed about.  Global trust in the good intentions of the people of the United States moves individuals and entire nations to give American leaders the benefit of the doubt, even when common sense cautions against it.

Until fairly recently, popular opinion did not often call into question the American or allied version of events.  Widespread civilian “collateral damage” from air strikes and disagreements between the Pakistani and American military have opened the door to questions about the very nature of this war and the leadership, or lack thereof, displayed by Western decision-makers.

The US has decided that to win the war in Afghanistan, it must attack its closest ally in the war, because allegedly, Pakistan is the state sponsor of the Afghan Taliban.  The Pak Army refuses to fight all the militants in Pakistan at one time, because their numbers are so great and tribal connections run so deep that it would be suicidal.  American leaders claim that such a nationwide Pakistani offensive is the only way that the war can be won.  Pakistan, on the other hand, maintains that the US, India and Israel are the state sponsors of the “Pakistani Taliban” terrorist outfit which is waging war against the people of Pakistan.  Since the United States controls the narrative, the whole world holds Pakistan accountable for all the terrorism in the world, no matter whether it is true or not.

Now is a good time to question American motives and CIA dishonesty as the primary source of problems in this war.  Obama’s minor investigation into agency shortcomings demonstrated during the underwear bombing incident, the destruction of the CIA drone center in Khost and the scathing NATO report on US intelligence shortcomings (“Fixing Intel”), on the heels of the Eric Holder investigation of CIA torture—all of these ongoing problems scream of an out-of-control spy agency.  We have entrusted the CIA to lead this intelligence-driven war and time after time, but the egomaniacal spooks have consistently dropped the ball.

But the CIA has done much worse than merely fumbling their appointed tasks, they have demonstrated malice and outright criminality in their multi-layered covert war, which goes far beyond targeting any real or imagined enemy, as the plan moves forward to wage war against the entire human race, in order to accomplish their Imperial goals.  Obama touched on the problem indirectly when he said someone “took their eye off the ball,” but he did not pursue the idea to its obvious conclusion—a lot of people “took their eyes off the ball,” all at the proper time to make the “al Qaida” plan work.  Clearly, there are assets in key security positions who facilitated the Yemen attack, just as there were complicit facilitators who made the 911 attacks happen.  It is no coincidence that there seem to be crossovers between militant groups and the security agencies which are tasked with pursuing them.  This is because the militant groups are all children of various intelligence agencies, most of them working under contract for the CIA, knowingly or not, at some point.

Pakistan is allegedly the “epicenter of terrorism,” but if that was true, then why do most terror attacks in the world happen in Pakistan?  Do not forget that the CIA provides 50 percent of the ISI’s budget.  The ISI is a primary American contractor, as is India’s RAW.  Western popular opinion fully accepts the American/Indian narrative, that only Pakistan sponsors terror.  This ignores revelations by former Indian spy chiefs, who have confirmed that India did sponsor thousands of terrorists within Pakistan in the past, under a program called “Counterintelligence Team X,” but this allegedly ended in 1998.

Contrary to Indian and American statements, India is still a primary state sponsor of terrorism within Pakistan, but Western apologists help hide that fact, because the CIA is a partner in the current operations.  In the past, India’s RAW and the CIA have been adversaries.  Up until the era of the India/US nuclear agreement that hostility prevailed between the agencies.

The ongoing controversy over American spy David Headley is not the only public embarrassment that RAW has suffered at the CIA’s hands.  In 2004, RAW spy chief Rabinder Singh was caught obtaining documents for the CIA and meeting with a female agent at a local motel.

He escaped to the US, where he was located in New Jersey in 2006.  The Indian government tried to extradite him, appealing the charges against him, he claimed that he quit the agency and fled to the United States after being ordered to “participate in an assassination plot against a senior religious Sikh leader.”

Sometime after the extradition papers were filed, the following document was posted on the Internet.  That document, called Summer Offensive Report was on the operations of “Counterintelligence Team X,” Singh had formerly ran the “Counterintelligence Team J,” which terrorized the Sikhs in Punjab.  The Report gives no clue as to who ran the “X” Team, but the name Alok Tiwari comes-up in another paper, titled “Operation Blue Tulsi.”

The Summer Offensive Report claims to describe Indian/Israeli operations against Pakistan in 2004, centered around the town of Wana. A new operation did begin in Wana that year, the beginning of the “Pakistani Taliban” (TTP) project.   That operation began with the killing of Nek Muhammad on June 17.  Arguably, it probably began in with the Ilyas Kashmiri attack upon Musharraf.  After being picked-up by the security services, the former Pakistani Special Forces commando/militant was captured was allegedly tortured until his release in early ’04.  The experience left him a shattered man and he retired from the jihad until 2007.

The guided missile attack that killed Nek set in motion the events that would bring Baitullah Mehsud to power.   He inherited a ready-made army from his cousin Abdullah Mehsud, which formed the hardcore Uzbek center of the TTP.  After his sudden release from Guantanamo to Afghanistan in 2002, Abdullah suddenly amassed thousands of Uzbek and Northern Alliance fighters and became endowed with millions of dollars in cash and tons of the most advanced weapons.

Until now, researchers have consistently charged that the Pakistani Taliban were sponsored by India and Israel, but have had nothing to prove this other than photos of tons of Indian/Israeli/American arms.  The following from Summer Offensive Report reinforces those charges:

“The summer offensive includes establishment of 57 training camps in Occupied Kashmir, East Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Assam to train and launch terrorists inside Pakistan. Trainees are generally drawn from the Indian hatched dissident groups of Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM), Jiye Sindh Mohaz (JSM), Jiye Sindh Students Federation (JSF) and Balochi nationalists and other nationalist groups from various parts of Sindh, Balochistan and Tribal Areas.

For Pakistan RAW centers at London, Dubai, Iran, and South Africa operate against Pakistan jointly with Israeli MOSSAD.

India has opened Consulates (IOC’s) in Kandahar, Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat, besides having an oversized diplomatic mission in Kabul.

Kandahar and Jalalabad are near the borders of Pakistan, which insinuates many things. The ongoing Wana operation is being fed cash, weapons and ammunition indirectly by RAW operatives under cover of Al-Qaeda. MOSSAD and AMMAN have also contributed heavily towards the funding and material requirements for these operations. The direct result of this was the effective slaying of 121 Pakistani regular infantry soldiers on Nov 8^th’2004, just 3 days after the infusion of war material and assistance in logistics and planning operations of the tribals by operatives of RAW.

The summer offensive of RAW includes working on ethnic, regional, parochial and secular themes, which include Sindhu Desh Movement in Sindh, Saraiki Movement in Punjab, Tribal Balochis in the name of Greater Balochistan and taking advantage of Northern Alliance Government in Afghanistan and using its tentacles at Kabul, Jalalabad, Khost, Kandahar and Spin Boldak, the tribals in Waziristan and Balochistan are continuously being kept activated for fomenting trouble – while Taliban and Al-Qaeda are getting the blame and Pakistan gets the rap for “not doing enough” by US and “FRIENDLY” Afghan authorities.

After the Indian consulate in Karachi was wound up. RAW started maintaining contacts in their sources/links in Pakistan through their consulates at Zahidan and Dubai. Most of the staff at Indian Consulate in Zahidan is from intelligence/security organisations including RAW, Intelligence Bureau and Military Intelligence. The sizeable cover staff in their Embassy at Dubai under the pretence of tourist traffic. The set-ups are dedicated units mainly responsible for promoting ethnic unrest in Pakistan. They continue to provide financial and material support to various regionalist/sectarian parties in Sindh and Balochistan

UAE is being used as a launching pad for terrorist activities in Pakistan. Agents are getting hold of young, disgruntled elements and after carrying out their proper brainwashing, they are dispatched to Dubai. Indian Consulate in Dubai is issuing temporary passport to these activists for getting training/briefing. After completion of their formal training, they are launched into Pakistan to carry out their terrorist/sabotage activities.”

About the content:

I checked the Fata timeline and found the following—The Report claimed that “121″ soldiers were killed near Wana in a large attack sometime between Nov. 4 and 8, 2004–the timeline doesn’t list anything like that, but it does report that 140 soldiers and scouts were killed in or near Wana between March 16 and Dec. 9, 2004.

Beginning in November, the Report list dozens of rocket, mortar and land-mine/IED attacks around Wana.

The report author claims that the Indian embassy in Zeheden is the source of attacks in Iran, attacks that have probably been attributed to “Jundullah.”  Jundullah did begin around Wana in ’04.  The Report also mentions Amman, Jordan as a participant with Israel in the Wana effort.  The suicide bomber who recently targeted the CIA drone base in Khost, Afghanistan was a Jordanian intelligence officer, related to King Abdullah, from the same hometown as “al Qaida in Iraq” leader Abu Musab Zarqawi.  The Jordanian attacker was sent by Hakeemullah Mehsud, the commander of the Tehreek e-Taliban Pakistan, from Wana.  It was a revenge attack for the killing of Baitullah.

more about “CIA Khost Bomber and Hakeemullah Mehsud“, posted with vodpod

Another document, which continues the alternative narrative since 2006 is the report titled, “Operation Blue Tulsi,” which began in early 2001, marking the start of Israeli/Indian operations against and within Pakistan.

By mid 2001 eyebrows were being raised over R&AW and Mossad’s cooperation and in July 2001 Janes Information Group reported that RAW and Mossad are cooperating to infiltrate Pakistan to target important religious and military personalities, journalists, judges, lawyers and bureaucrats. In addition, bombs would be exploded in trains, railway stations, bridges, bus stations, cinemas, hotels and mosques of rival Islamic sects to incite sectarianism. At the same time the Balochistan Liberation Army rose out of dead like a second incarnation and Balach Marri a Moscow graduate declares himself as the leader of BLA. Within weeks in Balochistan numerous training camps sprouted with each camp reported to be training up to a hundred militants. Agents from RAW, Mossad and CIA operating in Afghanistan started moving in.

In mid 2001 reports appeared that Special Operations Division of Mossad, also known as Metsada, specializing in assassinations and sabotage, has been based in India since May 2001 to train RAW operatives and Mossad and Shin Bet or Shabak were operating a number of teams in Indian Held Kashmir and were also operating a delicate spy network from Indian soil. In July 2001 RAW increased its budget for Indian consulates in Afghanistan by nearly 10 times.

Late in 2002 US and India signed an agreement on cooperation in disarming Pakistan’s nuclear assets and the two-player offensive team of OperationBlueTulsi found a third partner in the form of CIA. As a result of this deal Abdullah Mehsud was freed from Guantanamo Bay and returned to Pakistan with millions of dollars in cash.

By mid 2004, the government had ample evidence that BLA and some Baloch leaders were conspiring against the government, aided by foreign countries.

On 13 August 2004, the Chief Minister of Baluchistan, Jam Muhammad Yousaf is quoted by The Herald (Sep 2004-Karachi) as saying: “Indian secret services (RAW) are maintaining 40 terrorist camps all over the Baloch territory”.

Jan. 1, 2005 was the starting date. The local agents got the signal and the operation started with the ominous rape of a female doctor in Sui on 2 January 2005.

As expected the incident created headlines all around and culprits not being found created a widespread indignation. This was shortly followed by the firing of hundreds of small rockets at gas installation in Sui on 7 January 2005 which put a hole in the supply of gas to the rest of the country for an entire week.

Starting March 2007…,the numbers of ‘Pakistani Taliban’ in Swat surged and just their ammunition and their military hardware did. Some of this hardware was more advanced to what the Pakistani soldiers used.

A portion of this military hardware ended up in the ill-fated Lal Masjid. While intelligence and military were busy keeping Musharraf’s seat safe in Pakistan, a new political game started in the UAE.

Rehman Malik enthusiastically started pursuing the goal of National Reconciliation Ordinance. He became instrumental in the final deal between Benazir Bhutto, US and Pervez Musharraf and NRO.

Near the end of 2007, the intelligence and the military were convinced that a conspiracy had been hatched in the country with the sole aim of removing Musharraf from power.

The Assassination of Benazir Bhutto, simultaneous riots throughout the country, terrorist activities occurring in every province, all of this had considerable similarities to the Bush Administration-backed Color Revolutions. In order to keep Musharraf in power the government kept giving into one demand after the other. As a result Rehman Malik becomes head of Interior Ministry, Yusuf Raza Gilani becomes the Prime Minister of Pakistan and sweeping changes are made in the security and intelligence community. Still, the government saw the war finally over when in one move Gilani puts ISI under the Interior Minister on 27 July 2008.

The entire Wana-centric destabilization plan can be seen in the so-called Tehreek Taliban Pakistani movement, the Punjabi-Taliban influence and the leadership succession.  In addition, it traces the roots of the entire “Islamist” psyop that grew from CIA/ISI operations against the Soviets and the Iranians.  Anti-Shia sectarian terror outfits were formed in Pakistan, then sent into Afghanistan, where they slaughtered both Soviets and Shiites.  After the Soviet defeat, they turned against the Iranian-sponsored Northern Alliance troops, before being fought to a standstill by the forces of legendary rebel leader

Ahmed Shah Mahsoud.

(Mahsoud was eliminated by a suicide bomber on September 10, 2001, his forces taken over by Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum with the aid of one Amrullah Saleh, who is now the head of the Afghan secret police (NDS) and might be working for Iran.)

In ’07 the British operation in Helmand, Afghanistan, which had been centered around recruiting the brother of militant Mullah Dadullah, Mansoor was merged with the Indian/American/Israeli hotbed of terrorism in S. Waziristan.  Baitullah was promoted to top dog in the militant hierarchy, as Benazir Bhutto was killed and Mansoor Dadullah took the blame.  The Afghan Taliban transferred Dadullah’s forces to Mehsud, conferring legitimacy upon the operation, Mullah Omar not yet realizing that Baitullah was really anti-Taliban.

Mehsud’s Swat operation under radical disc jockey, Mullah Fazlullah, was the opening front of the Wana-trained forces against the Pakistani Army.  It is no coincidence that there was not a single Predator attack against Fazlullah’s forces, and all drone attacks from that point on were against Baitullah Mehsud’s main adversary, Mullah Nazir in Wana.  Nazir was the head of the Pak Army supported tribal lashkars who had run the Uzbeks of Mehsud out of Wana.

In 2008 Bush signed a secret order authorizing operations inside Pakistan and the Pakistani Army secretly acquiesced to American Predator show attacks upon former Guantanamo alumni.  This provided a means to keep up the show for the American audience.  It also opened the door to covert commando strikes in conjunction with action by the Pakistani Taliban.

The rest is history.  On August 6, 2009, Baitullah Mehsud was mistakenly killed by an American guided missile, tracking a Pakistani-planted transmitter.  It is likely that the CIA was tricked into killing Pakistan’s primary enemy.  Ten days later, the tribal rival of Mehsud, Maulvi Nazir, who very likely had planted the tracking device,  is killed by black-clad Special Forces type commandoes near Wana; probably payback from the United States.

The “AfPak” zone of conflict is a land of smoke and mirrors intended to put-on a show and simultaneously obscure the action on the ground.  Beginning in 2007, the action obscured was a covert Indian/American war upon the people of Pakistan.

All the usual voices will chime in here, saying—“We didn’t create al Qaida; we didn’t sponsor Abdullah Mehsud, or Baitullah; we don’t create terrorists”!  No matter how much they yell, the truth remains to be seen in these militants and their actions.  After his release from Guantanamo, Abdullah Mehsud did not kidnap or kill Americans; he went straight after America’s greatest competitor, the Chinese.  Likewise, in the case of Abu Musad al-Zarqawi, the leader of “al Qaida in Iraq,” after his release from Jordanian prison, his victims were usually Iraqi Shiites, not Americans.  After being captured, abused and then released, both of these guys went after our enemies, no matter what the press has reported otherwise.  Were they brainwashed, “Manchurian candidates,” or were they merely paid-off?   US Rep. Mark Kirk has raised the issue that most of the militant leaders in southern Afghanistan were formerly held at Guantanamo and Bagram.  Is that also a coincidence, or by design?  “Islamists” are primarily a product of the intelligence agencies.

American/Israeli/Indian/Iranian/British hands are all extremely dirty after taking a walk on Dick Cheney’s “dark side” in Pakistan and they owe a heavy penalty to both Pakistan and Afghanistan for what they have done there.  It is high time to drag all the spooks out of their closets and air their dirty linen to the world.  Only such a complete CIA housecleaning as this will redeem the United States of America in the eyes of the world.  Anything less would do no good at all, and would also be a grave insult to those who have fallen in our poisonous shadow.

peter.chamberlin@hotmail.com

CIA attack ‘revenge for Mehsud’

Al-Balawi had apparently been recruited by Jordanian intelligence before the CIA Khost base attack The suicide bomber who killed eight people at a US base in Afghanistan said he was carrying out the attack in response to the death of Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban leader killed by a US drone. In a video released to Al Jazeera on Saturday, Hammam Khalil al-Balawi is shown shooting a gun as he describes how the attack would target US and Jordanian intelligence agents. Seven American CIA officers were among the dead when al-Balawi, a “double agent” recruited by Jordanian intelligence services to inform on al-Qaeda, blew himself up at the base in Khost, a province bordering Pakistan. “This is a message to the enemies of the Umma [nation], to the Jordanian intelligence and the CIA,” al-Balawi said in his video. The eighth victim of the suicide attack was a Jordanian intelligence officer, identified by Jordan’s state news agency Petra as Captain Sharif Ali bin Zeid. Mehsud retaliation Al-Balawi said in the video: “We say that we will never forget the blood of our Emir Baitullah Mehsud, God’s mercy on him. “To retaliate for his death in the United States and outside the United States will remain an obligation on all emigrants who were harboured by Baitullah Mehsud.” IN DEPTH Video: Mehsud’s death sparked CIA attack Video: The many faces of the CIA base bomber US spies in Afghanistan ‘ignorant’ Inside Story: Is the CIA losing Afghanistan? Mehsud was the leader of the Pakistani Taliban umbrella organisation, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, and was blamed for numerous suicide bombings and other attacks in the country. He was initially reported dead after a missile fired by a US drone hit his house in the Zangar area of South Waziristan on August 5 last year, but it was not until later that month that the group acknowledged his death. Hakimullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban commander who succeeded Baitullah Mehsud as the leader of the umbrella group, is shown sitting next to al-Balawi in Saturday’s video. “God willing his successor the Emir of Pakistan’s Taliban Hakimullah will go on the same methodology and the same path until we achieve victory or meet the same fate like that of Hamza Abdul Muttaleb,” al-Balawi said. Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Swat valley, said that the video showed “there was clearly a link between the Pakistani Taliban, headed by Hakimullah Mehsud, and some of the al-Qaeda elements operating in the area”. “This was a video that was expected, everyone was told al-Balawi had recorded a message before he went on this mission.” Double agent Al-Balawi, who had been brought to the base in eastern Afghanistan by car from across the border in Pakistan, is believed to have offered the CIA new information on the whereabouts of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda second in command. He had apparently duped his employers into believing that statements he had made in the past on websites about wanting to die as a martyr were part of his cover. Mehsud is believed to have died in a US drone attack in South Waziristan in August last year In a September 2009 posting on a website run by al-Qaeda, according to SITE, al-Balawi wrote: “If [a Muslim] dies in the cause of Allah, he will grant his words glory that will be permanent marks on the path to guide to jihad, with permission from Allah. “If love of jihad enters a man’s heart, it will not leave him even if he wants to do so. Indeed, what he sees of luxurious palaces will remind him of positions of the martyrs in the higher heaven.” Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Kabul, said that al-Balawi’s video message would provide the Afghan government with “more ammunition” with which to criticise their counterparts in Pakistan. “This is definitely something that is going to put more pressure on the Pakistanis in the future and will definitely make the Afghans and the Americans change their strategy as far as dealing with eastern Afghanistan.” The attack in Khost was the worst single loss of life for the CIA since the bombing of the US embassy in Beirut in 1983.

CIA Khost Bomber and Hakeemullah Mehsud

Mehsud’s death sparked CIA attack

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US-Pakistan bickering gets ugly as ISI fingers American diplomats

Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN WASHINGTON: The wheels seem to be coming off US-Pakistan relations with the once close allies squabbling publicly even as Islamabad is whipping up hysteria over the so-called Indian threats and American machinations to weasel out of its obligation to combat home-grown terrorism. The simmering discord between Washington and Islamabad came to a boil this week when the US ambassador to Pakistan publicly complained about harassment of American diplomatic personnel by Pakistani authorities and obliquely hinted that Islamabad risked losing US aid and projects if they continued to deny visas to US officials and space for the US mission to fulfill its multi-billion assistance program. Ambassador Anne Patterson’s warning at a business meeting in Karachi was followed up by a rare public admonition of Pakistan from the US mission in Islamabad in which it expressed concern about the ”continued provocative actions and false allegations against US personnel working to implement the new partnership between the leaders of Pakistan and the United States.” The wording of the statement suggested that the US believes there is a growing militaristic constituency in Pakistan that is now operating independently of the civilian government. The blog Politico put it rather more bluntly under the headline, “Pakistan’s ISI steps up harassment of US Embassy,” reporting that the ISI had even been putting pictures (with addresses) of US diplomatic personnel in Urdu newspapers” putting their lives in danger. “Several times recently the RSO (Regional Security officer) at the Embassy has had to contact folks in their offices during the day, and tell them that they can’t go home to their house tonight because of the unwanted attention caused by the ISI/Journalist provocations. Station and Embassy have complained to ISI – but no acknowlegement (not surprising) and no abatement of the activity (worrisome),” it quoted an Af-Pak hand as saying. Egged on by a hysterical section of the media promoting wild conspiracy theories, hard-line elements in the police and military have been detaining US vehicles and personnel, often accusing them of not carry proper diplomatic papers and registration and carrying weapons. US vehicles and personnel typically do not display diplomatic registration or identity so they cannot be identified by terrorist hit squads. One Pakistani newspaper called “Nation,” which specializes in rabid conspiracy theories, ran a Wall Street Journal correspondent out of the country recently by alleging he was a CIA agent, recalling the horrible tragedy which befell his predecessor Daniel Pearl. The same paper has carried many stories about the alleged suspicious activity of US diplomats. In a stern warning to Pakistan, the US Embassy called for ”immediate action” by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which it said ”has responsibility to facilitate proper arrangements under which a foreign mission may operate with full security.” The mission also asked Pakistani officials ”to implement immediately the mutually agreed upon procedures for the issuance of license plates to US. Mission vehicles and to cease these contrived incidents involving US Mission vehicles and personnel.” In the same toxic spirit, hard-line sections in Pakistan have also willfully contrived to distort remarks by the Indian Army chief Deepak Kapoor to drum up hysteria over the alleged Indian threat. Familiar policy formulations by the Indian general that New Delhi has to prepare for a war under a nuclear overhang because of Pakistani provocation under nuclear cover, has been conflated to ”Indian General threatens Pakistan with nuclear war” (despite India’s professed policy no-first-use of nuclear weapons). In the most recent instance, Kapoor’s remarks about the need for India developing capability to fight a two-front war has been translated to ”Indian General threatens Pakistan and China with war.” While a few Pakistani analysts have responded soberly to the new doctrines being discussed in New Delhi, most commentators, including current and former generals, diplomats, and military frontmen, have reacted hysterically to what would be considered doctrinal deliberations in any mature society. The idea behind the whipping up of mass hysteria against US and India in what is now being dubbed ”Paranoidistan” appears to be a ploy by hard-line elements in Islamabad to disengage from fulfilling its bilateral and international obligations to tackle terrorist elements. With each terrorist incident, Pakistan is coming under increasing pressure from US to give up its obsession with the non-existent threat from India and focus on confronting its home-grown threats eating away at the country. The Pakistani military has signaled clearly that it does not subscribe to the US prescription, and General Kapoor’s outline of new Indian doctrines has come in handy for this escape act. After distorting Gen Kapoor’s remarks and generating a sulfurous discourse in the media, the Pakistani military high command and the civilian cabinet defense committee both met last week to assert that ”Pakistan would never allow its security to be jeopardized.” Pakistan’s beleaguered president Asif Ali Zardari, under pressure from the army, also joined this military-ISI generated hysteria by promising a 1000-year confrontation with India over Kashmir. None of this has escaped the attention of Washington, which this week dispatched yet another high-powered Congressional delegation led by former presidential candidate John McCain to talk sense to Pakistan. McCain was unrelenting in response to the familiar Pakistani protests against drone attacks, bluntly insisting that the ”(drone) attacks are imperative to defeat the enemy,” and ”with an improved decision making process the civilian causalities are totally minimized.” The US delegation also heard protests from the Pakistani leadership about security measures introduced by Washington for screening Pakistani nationals among citizens of 13 other state sponsors of terrorism and ”countries of interest.” But with new arrests in the Najibullah Zazi case and developments in the CIA forward base bombing case both revealing links to Pakistan, US threshold for Islamabad’s antics is diminishing all the time even as Pakistan is seen as a state sponsor of terrorism in all but formal designation. In fact, Pakistan – or Paranoidistan, as some officials refer to it in private – becomes the immediate focus of attention after any terrorist attack, including ones like the Christmas Day bombing attempt of an airplane in Detroit, where there was no immediate Pakistani link. ”The fact that this particular person was not trained in Pakistan does not change the fact that the inspiration for all of this comes from al-Qaida, and al-Qaida’s leadership is based in the remotest areas on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border,” US special representative to Af-Pak Richard Holbrooke, who will head to Islamabad next week, said at a meeting on Thursday. Separately, John Brennan, President Obama’s assistant for counterterrorism, said al-Qaida in Yemen, which trained the Christmas Day Nigerian bomber, ”is an extension of the terror outfit’s core coming out of Pakistan.”

Hakeemullah and His Human Guided Missile

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TV shows CIA bomber with Pakistani Taliban leader

Reuters
Saturday, January 9, 2010; 2:53 AM

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – A Pakistani television station showed on Saturday what it says was the double agent who killed CIA agents in Afghanistan with PakistanTaliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud.

Private television station AAJ showed a video of the bomber speaking in English with Mehsud sitting beside him. It said the video was made before the attack.