The Murder of Zia

From: The Bear Trap (Afghanistan’s Untold Story)

The Crash

When the camouflage-painted Pakistan Air Force C-130 transport aircraft hit the ground it did so at an angle of 65 degrees. It was nose-diving, flaps up, wings level, landing gear up and locked, with all four engines functioning normally. It impacted at 190 knots. After a brief moment a monstrous ball of orange flame consumed it as the fuel tanks exploded. Both clocks in the flight deck later showed 3.51 PM exactly on a clear, bright day, a few miles north of the small garrison town of Bahawalpur. Precisely five minutes earlier it had lifted off at the start of its 70-minute flight to Islamabad. After some two minutes of terror all on board had the merciful relief of instantaneous oblivion.

It was 17 August, 1988. Moments before Hafiz Taj Mohammad, who was walking towards his field near the village of Dhok Kamal, near the Sutlej River eight miles north of Bahawalpur, heard the roar of engines and looked up. He watched incredulously as the lumbering plane, which was still rising steadily through 5000 feet, suddenly dropped its nose to fly almost straight at the ground, before, with some superhuman effort, it climbed again. Then, as though its strength had finally gone, it plunged down to extinction. To the man below there was no outward reason, no missile, no mid-air explosion, no fire, no engine trailing smoke, nothing to forewarn of such a disaster.

Dead were the President of Pakistan, General Zia-ul-Haq, and the man who might have succeeded him had he survived, General Akhtar Abdul Rahman Khan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Gone were the two most powerful men in Pakistan, the head of state and the man who for eight years until 1987, and headed the ISI. At a stroke the Afghan resistance fighters, the Mujahideen, had lost their two most influential champions. Dead were the US Ambassador, Mr. Arnold Raphel, who had known the President for twelve years, and Brigadier-General Herbert Wassom, the US Defense Attachй in Islamabad. Dead also were eight Pakistani generals with their staff, and the crew—thirty-one persons in all.

Disquietingly, neither President Zia nor General Akhtar should have been abroad the plane. Both had been persuaded against their wishes to attend a demonstration of a solitary American M-I battle tank, which the US was keen to sell to the Pakistan Army. It was not a function that required their presence. Such a comparatively low-level event would normally have been handled by the Vice Chief of Army Staff, General Mirza Aslam Beg. It was the first time Zia had left the heavy security of his official residence since he had dismissed the government of Prime Minister Junejo three months before.

It was only on 14 August that Zia had finally given in to the pressure from his former military secretary and Defence Attachй in Washington, Major-General Mehmood Durrani, now commanding the armoured division. He insisted that the President’s presence was diplomatically desirable, and would give added weight to the Pakistani delegation. After all Zia had retained the post of Chief of Army Staff. Against his better judgement he agree to go.

Similarly, General Akhtar had no intention of going to Bahawalpur until a mere twelve hours beforehand. His change of mind was brought about by the persistent phone calls of a former director in ISI, to the effect that Zia was about to make some controversial changes in the military hierarchy about which Akhtar should know. Akhtar consulted with the President, asking for an urgent meeting. Zia, who was then committed to the tank demonstration trip, suggested Akhtar accompany him as they could discuss things on the aircraft. The fate of both was sealed.

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The callsign of the President’s plane was PAK 1, but the actual aircraft he would use was not selected until shortly before the flight. Usually two of the C-130s based at the Air Force base at Chaklala, a few miles from Islamabad, were earmarked. Then, once the decision was taken, the VIP passenger capsule could be rolled into the aircraft and secured shortly before take off. This was a 21-foot-long by 8-foot-wide plywood and metal structure weighing 5000 pounds, which was fitted out to give some comfort, including an independent air conditioning and lighting system, to an otherwise notoriously uncomfortable aircraft interior. The second aircraft, PAK 2, would follow PAK 1 as a backup. There was routine security search of both planes prior to departure. For this flight there was a problem. The airstrip at Bahawalpur was small and could only accommodate one C-130, so PAK 2 would land 150 kilometers away at Sargodha. Once the President left Chaklala there was no possibility of his changing aircraft.

There would, however, be two other smaller planes on the airfield. The first was the Cessna whose task was to circle the vicinity of the airport as a precaution against missile-armed terrorists. This had been routine practice since an unsuccessful missile attack six years earlier. Then there was the eight-seater plane of General Beg who, as the official host, had to get the small jet that would take him and the ambassador south would be parked at Multan. If the crash was sabotage the two Americans were not part of the target.

The actual demonstration, in front of so much Army brass, was a big embarrassment to the Americans. The much-vaunted Abrams tank failed to score many hits and the billion dollar deal evaporated in the enervating heat.

While the President and the senior officers ate lunch at the officer’s mess PAK 1 sat on the tarmac, baking in the sun. An armed military guard was on duty around the aircraft, but there had been a minor fault with a cargo door so the seven crew technicians worked on it. The pilot, Wing Commander Mash’hood Hussan, who had been personally selected by Zia, together with his co-pilot, navigator and engineer, arrived back at the plane for pre-flight checks in advance of the passengers. These four men would be seated on the elevated flight deck, which was separated from the VIP capsule by a narrow door at the top of three steps, on the left side of the aircraft.

Zia, with his party, arrived at around 3.30 p.m., and knelt towards Mecca before saying his farewells. He had persuaded both the senior US officials to join him for the return flight. They did so with no apparent concern. General Beg made excuses when the President tried to prevail upon him to board PAK 1. He would use his own plane as he had business to attend to at Lahore. It was a known practice of Zia’s to fly with the maximum number of top generals or officials to minimize the risks of a sabotage plot. Shortly before departure two crates of mangoes arrived for the VIPs, which were loaded in the rear without any check, together with a case of model tanks.

Strapped into the sofa and easy chairs inside the VIP capsule were Zia, Akhtar, Afzaal (Chief of the General Staff), Raphel, Wassom, and the President’s military secretary, Brigadier General Najib Ahmed. Zia, Raphel and Akhtar sat close together so they could chat during the flight, although conversation is difficult as the C-130 is an excessively noisy aircraft. At 3.46 p.m. PAK 1 lifted off after the Cessna security plane reported nothing untoward. On the flight deck the take off routine had been uneventful, with clear communications to the control tower. The fact that the aircraft lacked either a black box flight recorder or a cockpit voice recorder would later be the subject of censure, but at lift off none of the crew or passengers had the slightest hint of the catastrophe that was little more than two minutes away. Mash’hood gave his arrival time at Islamabad over the radio as the plane pulled up onto the sky and began to turn on to its correct course.

On the ground General Beg’s pilot was preparing to take off; at Sargodha PAK 2 was airborne, as was the Cessna. All were on the same radio frequency as PAK 1, so all heard the ground controller request PAK 1’s estimated position, and the response, “Stand by”. Then nothing, no mayday call, total silence, despite the increasingly frantic calls from the control tower as it was realized that something was radically wrong.

To the passengers the horror of the sickening plunge, with bodies hanging by their safety belts, unable to move, screams drowned by the uninterrupted roar of the engines, was indescribable. Then, the sudden, few fleeting moments of relief as the plane seemingly came under control and started to climb again, with the occupants lolling in the opposite direction or jammed hard back into their seats. But, finally, yet another terrifying dive as PAK 1 gave up the struggle to survive.

The Culprits

In Judicial terms it was either misadventure or murder. When the news broke, the chances of finding any Pakistani who believed it was an accident were a million to one against. Zia was a man with umpteen enemies. There has been at least six previous attempts at assassination, including a near miss by a missile fired at his plane. Probably his most uncompromising opponents within Pakistan were the Bhutto family. Zia had, despite the international outcry to commute it, confirmed the death sentence on the present Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s father—this, to the man who, as prime minister, had personally picked Zia, then the most junior lieutenant-general, for promotion of Chief of Army Staff over the heads of his seniors. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had made a decision that, three years later, he would pay for with his head. On 4 April, 1979, he was hanged in Rawalpindi jail. Thereafter the family feud was unrelenting. Zia imprisoned Benazir Bhutto and her mother, banned Bhutto’s political party, and had his sons Shah Nawaz and Mir Murtaza convicted of serious crimes in absentia. In exile Mir Murtaza established an anti-Zia terrorist group named Al-Zulfikar (The Sword) in Kabul, where it shared offices with the PLO. From there, and Damascus, it carried out a campaign of killing and sabotage which, in 1981, included the hijacking of a Pakistan International Airlines passenger jet. Then, in 1985, Shah Nawaz died a painful death in sinister circumstances in Paris, it being rumoured that he had been poisoned by Zia’s agents. There was, and still is, an implacable hatred between these two families. Benazir Bhutto claimed the crash was ‘An act of God’, before going on to win the general election three months later, to become Pakistan’s first woman prime minister.

Zia was a military man who, along with Akhtar, was the last officer to have been commissioned from the Indian Military Academies just before the partition of India in 1947. Once in politics he would often boast that “The Armed Forces are my constituency” and he never vacated the post of Chief of Army Staff that Bhutto had given him. But even within the military he had few friends. He quickly developed an uncanny knack of spotting potential rivals for power. These were removed from the scene by sacking, or posting to positions well away from the political centre at Islamabad. His only role as Chief of Army Staff had been to vet the promotions and postings of all officers to the rank of major-general or above. Numerous disgruntled Service chiefs were secretly delighted that Zia was dead.

Potential assassins were not restricted to Pakistanis. Ever since Zia had backed the Mujahideen in their struggle against the Soviets and their Afghan allies, Pakistan had been swamped with KHAD agents bent on undermining his government by a terror campaign of bombing civilians. KHAD is the Afghan secret police organization, trained and advised by the KGB. At the top of its hit list was President Zia, closely followed by General Akhtar. The Soviets were withdrawing from Afghanistan solely because Zia and given sanctuary to the Mujahideen and had, for nine years, been arming, training and advising them in a bloody guerrilla war that had cost the Soviet military 13,000 lives. The USSR blamed Pakistan for continuing to encourage and supply the Mujahideen in their attacks during the withdrawal, which was half-completed at the time of the crash. It had gone so far as to warn Pakistan, through the US Ambassador in Moscow, that it intended to teach Zia a lesson.

Then there was India. Pakistanis and Indians had slaughtered each other on three separate occasions, in 1947, 1965 and 1971. India’s Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandhi was convinced that Zia was supplying weapons to Sikh terrorists. They had murdered his mother, and now several thousand armed Sikh insurgents were active in India. Zia was accused of meeting their leaders, and giving shelter and training to the guerrillas inside Pakistan. To counter this, Delhi had established a special branch of its Intelligence Service, with the unpretentious title of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), specifically targeted on Pakistan.

Even the US government shed few genuine tears at Zia’s death. It was the State Department’s belief that Zia had outlived his use fullness. With the Soviets leaving Afghanistan, the last thing the US wanted was for communist rule in Kabul to be replaced by an Islamic fundamentalist one. American officials were convinced that this was Zia’s aim. According to them his dream was an Islamic power block stretching from Iran through Afghanistan to Pakistan with, eventually, the Uzbek, Turkoman and Tajik provinces of the USSR included. To the State Department such a huge area shaded green on the map would be worse than Afghanistan painted red.

On the very day of the disaster the Pakistan Chief of Air Staff ordered a Board of Inquiry set up to inquire into the circumstances of the crash, assess damage and costs, apportion blame (if any) and make recommendations to avoid similar occurrences in the future. Air Commodore Abbas Mirza presided, with three other senior Pakistan Air Force (PAF) officers sitting as members. To provide technical advice and expertise six USAF officers were hurriedly flown from Europe to join the inquiry. They were led by Colonel Daniel Sowada.

For two months the Board deliberated and sifted evidence. Witnesses were interviewed, while exhaustive laboratory tests were carried out regarding the aircraft structure, instruments engines, propellers, and flight controls, both in Pakistan and the USA, with the full cooperation of Lockheed, the aircraft’s manufacturers. One after another possible causes of the crash were eliminated with meticulous care. Crew fitness, fatigue and stress were ruled out. There had been no pilot error. Adverse weather was not a factor, nor was fuel contamination. No in-flight fire had occurred prior to impact; the aircraft was structurally intact when it hit the ground; there was no metal fatigue; engines and propellers were functioning normally, as were hydraulic fluid, electrical power and control cables. No evidence of a high-intensity internal explosion was found. Finally, no missile or rocket had been used to down the plane. The inevitable conclusion—a criminal act of sabotage had killed thirty-one people.

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The board was of the opinion that the crew in the cockpit had been instantaneously and simultaneously incapacitated by the use of a chemical agent such as fast-working nerve gas. The presence of an odourless and colourless gas would not alarm the crew, so they would not don helmets and masks to breathe oxygen. It was established that none of the flight crew was wearing helmets at the time of the crash. The Board commented that such a chemical agent could have been packed in a small innocuous container such as a drink can, thermos flask or gift parcel, and smuggled onboard without arousing suspicion.

It was not possible to substantiate the type of gas used as ‘no proper autopsies on the flight deck crew were carried out’. Only the body of Brigadier Wassom was examined before the authorities at the military hospital at Bahawalpur were ordered not to perform autopsies. He had been in the VIP capsule, not on the flight deck, and all that could be deduced was that he had not suffered injuries from any explosion prior to impact. Neither had he breathed in any toxic fumes, as would have been the case with a fire before the plane hit the ground. The instructions not to perform autopsies came as a shock, as it was a routine procedure. Later, it was stated that all the bodies had been completely destroyed in the fire, rendering autopsies impossible. When General Akhtar’s family wanted to see his body before burial, they were refused, on the grounds that it was totally disintegrated, with nothing of any substance left.

The reason was not believed. Witnesses at the crash site said that, while the passengers at the rear of the aircraft were virtually totally destroyed, this was not the case with the senior officers in the capsule or the crew in the cockpit. The condition of Wassom’s body did not prevent thorough examination. Zia’s Holy Koran survived, charred but easily recognisable, as did Akhtar’s uniform cap, together with his personal file cover with its crest, and the words ‘CHAIRMAN JCSC’ still clearly readable. A US official was to announce that the bodies were not available for autopsy as Muslim custom requires burial within 24 hours. While this is true in normal circumstances, it never applies within the Services, as shown by the Army medical staff at Bahawalpur when they automatically made preparations to proceed.

The Board had no members qualified to undertake criminal investigations, but they did record that, “although 31 death certificates have been received no physical body count was carried out at the wreckage site or in the hospital. The possibility of someone not boarding the aircraft at Bahawalpur cannot be ruled out”.

Although the ISI was initially tasked with investigations, its efforts appeared less than enthusiastic. Service personnel at Bahawalpur were surprised that they were not subjected to rigorous interrogation. The discovery of a murdered policeman nearby was not successfully investigated, while the efforts of interrogators to extract a confession from the pilot of PAK 2 were bizarre, as well as unrewarding. A recent killing of a Shiite leader had been blamed by his followers on Zia. Both the pilot of PAK 2 and co-pilot of PAK 1, Flight Lieutenant Sajid, were Shiites, so it was suggested that the PAK 2 pilot had persuaded Sajid deliberately to crash the plane in a suicide mission. Only when the Board of Inquiry showed that such actions would have been physically impossible was the unfortunate man released.

So it was an act of mass murder. The likely method was pinpointed by the Board, although the culprits remained unidentified. As explained above, many people, organizations, even nations, had powerful personal or political motives for wanting Zia removed. What has gone before are the facts as far as I have been able to ascertain them; what follows are my own comments on how it might have been done.

First, I will deal with the point sometimes made that the violent roller-coaster movements of the aircraft indicated a last despairing attempt by somebody to fly the plane. If it had been a crew member he would certainly have shouted some warning over the radio, but there was absolute silence. Assuredly the crew were incapacitated. Afterwards it was suggested that the voice of Brigadier Najib Ahmed had been heard calling out to the captain, and that he had managed to get into the cockpit where his cries had been picked up on the radio as the pilot’s hand was still locked to the switch. One version of this theory has Najib actually trying to control the aircraft. I believe this is nonsensical. Once PAK 1 got out of control there was no way anybody could physically leave his seat and struggle forward, climb the steps, open the door and get onto the flight deck. Finally, there is no mention of anyone hearing Ahmed’s voice in the Board of Inquiry’s report. Had such a thing happened it would have been there. The erratic climbing and plunging has another explanation. According to a Lockheed C-130 expert, if this type of aircraft flies unattended its nose rises steeply, a mechanism in the tail reverses this and the plane dives. The plane over-corrects, again with the same results. This might occur several times before a crash. The technical term for this pattern is ‘phugoid’.

I believe the primary air was to assassinate Zia. The original plan may have been to murder Akhtar as well, and at the same time, but I doubt it. It was really asking a lot to kill them simultaneously. Akhtar was detested by many senior officers, he was near the top of KHAD’s his list, and he was assumed by many to be ready to step into Zia’s position if he died. Perhaps it was part of the plot to get him on board PAK 1 that afternoon, but if so it was a very last-minute arrangement. On balance I feel his death was probably regarded as an unexpected bonus by the killers.

Certainly the use of a plane crash was selected as the means because the chances of evidence to incriminate the plotters surviving would be minimal even if it was later established as sabotage. The use of ultra-sophisticated poison gas, capable of killing four crewmembers simultaneously, points to the involvement of at least one intelligence agency. The problem would be the source of the gas. Pakistan would be unlikely to have it, but the KGB and CIA would surely have access. Both KHAD and RAW could have obtained it through their Soviet contacts. If the conspirators were among the Pakistan military then it is conceivable that the CIA could have supplied it, albeit for another purpose.

Also highly probable is the involvement of the Pakistan military, certainly at comparatively junior level, probably at senior as well. Neither the KGB nor KHAD or RAW could have halted the autopsies at a military hospital. With military involvement, the obtaining of the President’s flight schedule becomes comparatively simple, as does getting around security at airports, and the actual planting of the device inside an aircraft.

The planners must have been getting desperate as week after week passed without Zia showing any inclination to use his plane. The tank demonstration was not likely to interest him without considerable persuasion, and was probably used as a last resort. The problem was to convince him to go without making him suspicious. Quite possibly somebody convinced General Durrani, the tank division commander, that Zia’s attendance would add to the importance of the event, and was in Durrani’s own interests. His subsequent success in inducing the President to go could have been entirely innocent.

We must assume that the lethal gas device had already been obtained while awaiting an opportunity, and the person destined to plant it given his instructions. He was undoubtedly in the military, probably a technician within the Air Force, possibly, if my theory is correct, from No.6 Squadron PAF. This is the unit that operates the C-130 transports out of Chaklala a few miles south of Islamabad. A decision had to be taken as to when to plant the gas. Once it was confirmed that Zia would fly to Bahawalpur the choice lay between doing it there or at Chaklala, when it was clear exactly which aircraft would be PAK 1.

Most theories suggest the planting of the device was done at Bahawalpur, but I believe it much more likely to have been Chaklala. At Bahawalpur there would be no Air Force personnel except the crew, so none of them would do it—unless they were willing to go down with the plane. How could the plotters be sure an Army man could get on the guarded aircraft? The device had to be put in the cockpit which involved climbing up the steps, through the door, on to the flight deck. This was virtually impossible for a soldier, and certainly did not happen with the mango delivery. The crew working on the cargo door perhaps? But they were to fly back to Islamabad. Neither they nor the security guard would allow a soldier or civilian into the aircraft, let alone go climbing up into the cockpit. I cannot say with absolute certainty it was not done at Bahawalpur, but if it was it was a highly risky operation with the odds against success.

At Chaklala an intelligence agency would have an easier task in infiltrating the permanent Air Force staff. Access to the C-130s was part of the everyday duties of the technical or maintenance personnel. A perfect opportunity occurred when the VIP capsule was rolled up inside PAK 1. It identified the aircraft and, with the bustle of activity in strapping it to the floor and pre-flight checks, nobody would have questioned anybody going into the cockpit, perhaps changing a fire extinguisher or inserting the device in an airvent. If the sabotage was carried out at Chaklala then it would have needed two devices to set it off—a timer and an altitude device. The timer would be set to activate the altitude switch. With the former a four-hour time lapse would be safe, allowing for one hour before the plane took off, just over an hour’s flight, and then as PAK 1 sat on the strip at Bahawalpur the altitude device would be armed. All that was needed would be the climb to the required height, then inside the cockpit the deadly gas would escape. If Chaklala was the scene of the sabotage then it was a double-arming device that was used, otherwise PAK 1 would have crashed shortly after take-off and suspicion would have been focused on the Air Force base personnel.

The plot worked flawlessly, except for one major calamity: both the US Ambassador and the military attachй died. Certainly, whoever carried out this multiple murder had not intended these two senior Americans to be among the victims. There was no way of knowing that Zia would invite them to join him for the journey at the last minute. The conspirators were appalled. They anticipated the most thorough, penetrating and wide-ranging investigation, which would undoubtedly uncover their identities. It never happened. The final phase of this merciless terrorist act was the US cover-up.

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The Cover-up

The State Department would have much preferred an accident, some sort of technical failure, pilot error, anything rather than sabotage. If it was murder of two high-ranking US officials then the American public would expect, indeed demand, to know the culprits. For such an outrageous act of terrorism the outcry against the perpetrators would be loud and long. The government would probably find it impossible to silence the clamour to exact retribution. Depending on who had done it, exposure could mean the ruin of US policy objectives in the area, and elsewhere in the world.

Supposing the KGB, or their surrogates in KHAD, were responsible, how would revealing the USSR as the organizer of mass murder, of the assassination of a head of state, affect the build-up of goodwill between East and West? How could the US avoid a major outbreak of hostility between themselves and the USSR ? Almost certainly the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan would be reversed. The implications of Moscow being to blame were unnerving.

Similarly, the dilemma was almost as serious if the plotters were within the Pakistan military. If investigation uncovered a clique of anti-Zia generals the American people would be outraged that, after all these years of massive support to the Pakistan Armed Forces and the Mujahideen, they had killed a US ambassador and a brigadier-general. It would be futile to say they hadn’t intended to! US-Pakistan relations would be in ruins. Aid would have to be curtailed, the military might be forced into prolonged presidential rule, the democratic elections scheduled for November would be abandoned, and with them the prospect of the more acceptably moderate Benazir Bhutto becoming prime minister. As I have said earlier, the US was not sorry to see Zia go. The State Department was happy to see the Soviets out of Afghanistan, but decidedly unhappy with the likelihood of, as the US perceived it, Zia backed fundamentalists talk over in Kabul. Nor did it like his determination to have nuclear weapons. By mid-1988 Zia was becoming a liability rather than an asset to the US.

Though unlikely, it was conceivable that some minor political faction or terrorist group. like Al-Zulfikar, had somehow achieved the impossible. The problem was, once serious investigations started there was no knowing what unwelcome worms might emerge from the can as the lid was lifted. Testifying before the House of Representatives Judiciary Sub-Committee on Crime in June, 1989, Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage justified the lack of any serious investigations into the sabotage by claiming note 1 , “hopefully moving Pakistan in a more democratic manner…. The military in Pakistan as well as their presidency just being decapitated, we were very alarmed there might be some backsliding”. In other words they were quite prepared to write off Ambassador Raphel’s and Brigadier Wassom’s murders if that meant not rocking the boat.

None of this soul-searching would have been necessary if no Americans had died—particularly such senior ones. The whole business was complicated by the fact that as recently as 1986 Congress had passed a law that gave the FBI the legal right, indeed the duty, to inquire into terrorist acts overseas that involved attacks on US citizens. It is often referred to as the ‘Long Arm’ law.

The State Department did four things immediately after the crash which, taken together, point unerringly at a cover-up. First, within hours, it sent a team of purely technical airforce advisers to assist the PAF Board of Inquiry. Secondly, it did not insist, through its embassy, on autopsies on the bodies of the victims, particularly the crew, but rather allowed them to be buried knowing that essential evidence as to how the crash was caused was being buried with them. Thirdly, it sent a Deputy National Security Adviser, Robert Oakley, to take over Raphel’s post. He could be relied upon to sit on the lid of the can. Later, in June, 1989, he told a highly sceptical sub-committee that when he attended the National Security Council meeting to decide on the US response to the crash, he simply forgot all about the ‘Long Arm’ law. This, despite the fact that he had personally lobbied hard to get it passed. Fourthly, and most importantly, it vetoed the FBI’s request clearance and on 21 August had been given it verbally, but, within hours, it had been withdrawn—probably on the instructions of Oakley, who was by then in Islamabad.

General Beg, who had just avoided dying with his President, had circled the burning wreckage in his own aircraft before flying straight to Islamabad. There troops were alerted, key points protected, and a crisis cabinet meeting called. But there was no military takeover. Beg accepted immediate promotion to Zia’s old post of Army Chief of Staff, while the civilian chairman of the Senate, the 73-year-old Ghulam Ishaq Khan, took over as head of the interim government. The November election would go ahead.

Almost certainly the military authority that halted the autopsies will never be named, nor will the details of the collusion that must have taken place so swiftly between the Pakistani authorities and the US Embassy in Islamabad. It was not until ten months later that congressional pressure finally forced the State Department to allow three FBI investigators to go to Pakistan. As Congressman Bill Mclollum (R. Fla.) said, “At this late date, can the FBI find out what actually happened in Pakistan ? I don’t know. But we intend to find out what happened at the State Department”. The FBI team seemingly lacked enthusiasm for the task. It was reported that ‘awkward’ questions were not asked; the agents appeared disinclined to investigate evidence that conflicted with the statement that the bodies were too badly burned to permit autopsies and, with their schedule arranged by the Bhutto government, were apparently more interested in sightseeing than cross-questioning witnesses. According to a Washington Times source they only left Islamabad for tourist trips. Their attitude made it quite clear that they were following instructions not to stir the pot.

There was much hypocrisy in high places at the funeral on 20 August, 1988. India had sent its President and declared national mourning at home, the Russian Ambassador laid a wreath with solemn ceremonial, while US Secretary of State George Schultz called Zia a ‘martyr’ and assured the Mujahideen fundamentalist Leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, that the US would do all it could to ensure their success in freeing Afghanistan. The funeral had both a military and an Islamic flavour. Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis gathered near the gold-plated Faisal Mosque to watch the coffin, covered in the national flag and flowers, and carried on the shoulders of soldiers, arrive for the final rites. Prayers were followed by the measured boom of a 21-gun salute.

There was genuine sorrow and foreboding among the three million Afghan refugees encamped just inside the Pakistan border. There was a great sense of loss among the Mujahideen, for Zia and Akhtar had been the architects of their successes in the field. Now, with the Soviets withdrawing, with victory in sight, continued, uninterrupted support would be indispensable for the final push to Kabul. As the reader will discover the Mujahideen were to be bitterly disappointed.  (Read HERE)

Incessant Targeting Of Pakistan

No sooner did Pakistan arrest leading Afghan Taliban figures, conspiracy theories surfaced in the US media in an attempt to malign Pakistan. Indians and their apologists in US were at the forefront of this campaign. Far from appreciating Pakistani stand, strong signs exist that CIA continues its double game against Pakistan. Despite statements to the contrary, Washington continues to bet on the puppet regime of President Asif Ali Zardari.

By SHIREEN M. MAZARI

Wednesday, 24 February 2010.

The Nation

WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The US duplicity in its dealings with Pakistan continues unabated and I have always maintained that the scale of their enterprise in destabilizing Pakistan can only be understood by finding linkages in seemingly unconnected events and publications.

Just when the Pakistan military has taken a strong position on its military operations in FATA and the pull towards dialogue with the tribals is becoming evident, the US subversive activities against Pakistan are becoming more overt, and old CIA connections are taking centre stage again including so-called “experts” on Pakistan! Let us look at some recent developments and see the linkages.
First, after incessant cries from ignorant US officials and even more ignorant but imperialist minded media, of Pakistan not doing enough against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, when the Pakistanis captured a leading Taliban commander, suddenly the Americans – and their media and officialdom do have close connections – through their media led forth a new chant of why Pakistan had arrested this man! There were conspiracy theories that immediately began floating that somehow Pakistan arrested this Taliban commander to disrupt the dialogue that Karzai is seeking with the Taliban because Pakistan wants to remain in control of any such dialogue. Talk about bizarre assumptions! So, as some of us have always maintained, in the eyes of the US, Pakistanis will always find themselves in a position of “damned if we do and damned if we don’t.” It is time therefore to wash our hands off this whole US-led misguided “war on terror” and evolve our own strategies to deal with our own problem of violence and extremism which is multidimensional and cannot be straitjacketed into merely a Taliban framework.

Nor is this all. A new campaign has begun in the US, published first in the Wall Street Journal where two American lawyers, David Rivkin and Lee Casey – both of whom served in the Justice Department during the Reagan and George Bush administrations – have accused Pakistan’s Chief Justice Chaudhry of being “the leading culprit in an unfolding constitutional drama.” Supporting Zardari, the lawyers make all manner of unsubstantiated accusations against Pakistan’s chief justice. What seems to have upset these Americans is the CJ’s popularity being far greater than Zardari’s in the eyes of the Pakistani people – by their own admission! But then the American anger at the CJ is understandable because he has fought the cause of the Pakistani people especially through the Missing Persons issue – many sold to the US – while President Zardari and his loyalists have continued to plead the US cause. But it should be unacceptable to any self-respecting Pakistani to have their CJ referred to in such a derogatory fashion. Look how Holbrooke reacted when Pakistanis protested at the miscarriage of justice in New York in the Dr Aafia case, despite the fact that the US has a record of such miscarriages of justice against African Americans and minorities, especially Muslims post 9/11.

A third line of attack is the revival of the Baloch separatist issue with that old Pakistan basher Selig Harrison reviving his fortunes again and taking the lead in targeting the Pakistani state. He first took up this passion when the Soviets went into Afghanistan and led the chorus of how Pakistan was not doing enough of the US bidding in Afghanistan. He was an “Afghan” expert at the time but once Afghanistan receded into the background he became a “Balochistan” expert and now he is deeply involved in aiding Baloch separatists in Iran and Pakistan. Various platforms have been used by him and the latest is the ongoing conference in Bangkok, Thailand, supposedly sponsored by an unknown group calling themselves the Baloch Voice Foundation (BVF) and supported by the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO) based in The Hague and, of course, Selig Harrison! The BVF interestingly is funded by the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation which, according to information available on the internet, is controlled by Freedom House which in turn is linked to the CIA.
The venue of the conference also raises suspicions about CIA involvement since the US government has used Thailand for many conferences dealing with South Asian issues. Also, the fact that Iranian Baloch separatists have been included shows the US connection even more glaringly. In any case, despite our government’s usual mysterious silence on this issue, some Pakistanis have been protesting about the conference in Bangkok. After all, why should Thailand allow its territory to be used for a Baloch separatist conference? Would Thailand like Pakistan to allow a similar exercise in relation to its internal matters, in Islamabad?
More to the point, as happens when different agencies’ sponsor different groups, infighting has broken out amongst the Balochs. Munir Mengal, founder of Baloch Voice TV, is supposedly the organizer of this conference. He is also the man who claimed that a host of Pakistani Baloch women had been jailed in Balochistan but when Nawab Raisani had the jails checked during his efforts to free the abducted UN official last year, this claim proved incorrect. As a result of this conference, internal battles have come to the fore between the Washington-based American Friends of Balochistan, the Dubai, London and Moscow (no doubt remnants from the Soviet days) based activists and the so-called Government of Balochistan in Exile which claims it is based in Tel Aviv, Israel. This is not surprising, given the different sponsors of the different groups! A further blow to the conference has come from the fact that supporters of Khair Bux Marri have boycotted the event.
This is not the first conference of its type but it is interesting to see how the Blood Borders US agenda of creating a state of Balochistan from Iranian and Pakistani territories is now being given shape and separatists from both countries are being brought together. As always, Selig Harrison is playing his questionable role!
Nor is this the only targeting of Pakistan and Iran together. In the coming days we should gear up for a new nuclear related hype building up in the US media. Unfortunately, Dr Khan’s “letters” have been purchased by a leading US newspaper and will be used to target Iran. In the process Pakistan will also be targeted – killing two birds with one stone, so to speak. Would that our government undertake some proactive measures with the Iranians to deflect this new campaign but it hardly seems likely. So we need to brace ourselves once again for an onslaught against our nuclear capability and accusations of proliferation at a time when the US continues to proliferate to Israel and, post the 123 Agreement with India, to this South Asian aspiring hegemon.

Now who says there are no linkages targeting Pakistan and Iran?

Dr. Mazari is a renowned defense analyst and the Editor of The Nation. She can be reached at callstr@hotmail.com

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

Worse Than the Taliban.

[L I, worse than the Taliban.]

Lashkar-e-Islam holds public execution of tribesman

PESHAWAR: The Lashkar-e-Islam organised the public execution of a tribesman after pronouncing him guilty of double murder at a self-styled Islamic court, tribesmen said on Tuesday.

The execution took place in the Tirah Valley of the Khyber Agency, which straddles a main supply route for the US and Nato soldiers fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Members of the militia captured tribesman Younas Khan in late September, accusing him of killing two cousins in a family row.

“Younas confessed to killing of his two cousins,” a local tribesman told AFP by telephone from Bara. “On Monday, he was shot dead according to Shariah,” he added. Hundreds of tribesmen gathered to watch the execution, tribal elders said

“He was killed according to the law of retaliation, blood for blood,” a tribal elder said. A relative of the two murdered cousins shot dead the tribesman at the invitation of Lashkar-e-Islam on Monday, another tribal elder told AFP. Officials accuse the Lashkar-e-Islam of kidnapping for ransom in Peshawar, harassing locals and running torture centers and private jails.

Bravest Man In Pakistan Is a Woman–Sherry Rehman

[SEE: One Mumbai not enough: Hafiz Saeed ;  Kashmiri Militants Threaten Attacks Over Water Rights]

“What is the point of our innocent civilians and soldiers dying in a borderless war against such terrorists when armed, banned outfits can hold the whole nation hostage in the heart of the Punjab’s provincial capital?”–Sherry Rehman.

MNA asks Punjab to rein in Jihadis

ISLAMABAD: The alleged Punjab government patronage of the regrouped banned Jihadi outfits has given a wake-up call to the federal government that is piqued at their holding of public rallies for getting votes in the Punjab by-elections.

Raising the issue on a point of order in the National Assembly on Tuesday, Sherry Rehman lashed out at the way banned Jihadi outfits were being allowed to stay freely in the Punjab. She said they could not be allowed to hijack the country’s foreign policy and national security.

The same issue was raised by PML-Q legislator Sheikh Waqas Akram on Monday when he questioned the visit of Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah to a Madrassa of a banned religious outfit.

Former information minister Sherry Rehman said it was not just an issue where sectarian groups were being patronised for an election campaign, but also how they were holding rallies all over Lahore, brandishing their weapons and propagating their terrorist ideologies with total impunity.

Sherry said it was shocking to see how banned terrorist organisations were allowed to challenge the writ of the state to hijack the country’s domestic and foreign policy and preach hatred against non-Muslims and moderates. “What is the point of our innocent civilians and soldiers dying in a borderless war against such terrorists when armed, banned outfits can hold the whole nation hostage in the heart of the Punjab’s provincial capital,” she asserted.

“What right do these groups have to tell us they will wage Jihad in the region, when this parliament and this government have decided otherwise? Pakistan is going up in flames, challenging an unprecedented enemy with bravery and commitment, but here we see militants and terrorists openly thumbing their nose at not only the Punjab government but also our security agencies and our federal government as well,” she remarked.

Sherry said the federal government should urgently seek to assist the Punjab government if they lacked the capacity to book such criminals. “There is much talk about the rule of law in the country. Well, my question is who gives them the right to decide what is Jihad and what is not? Who gives them the right to flout the law of the land so openly? Are there two sets of laws for these people,” she asked, adding: “Nobody can silence parliament, and nobody should be allowed to ignore the law of the land.”

Earlier, Minister for Labour and Manpower Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah said the government was taking concrete measures to overcome extremism in the country and bring harmony among various sects.

Responding to points of order, he said the federal government had taken notice of the activities of a Punjab minister, who had been allegedly found involved in promoting and patronising sectarianism in the Jhang district.

He said the Punjab government had been asked to investigate the matter and take appropriate measures in this regard. The minister said the armed forces were engaged in combating terrorism and in these critical times, there was a need for promoting religious harmony instead of supporting extremists.

Anti-Taliban Militia In Peshawar

Pak Taliban behead three ‘US spies’ in North Waziristan

Armed members of Amn Jirga or private militia formed to fight against Taliban and al-Qaida militants, patrol in the area where their leaders came under attack in the suburb of Peshawar, Pakistan on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010.

MIRAMSHAH: Taliban militants have beheaded three men including two Afghans in Pakistan’s lawless northwest tribal belt, accusing them of spying for the United States, officials said Wednesday.

The headless bodies were found dumped by the roadside in the Mir Ali area of the tribal North Waziristan district, which borders Afghanistan, local police officer Muneer Zaman said.

“Their throats were cut last night and the bodies were dumped early Wednesday,” he told AFP from the region’s main town Miramshah.

A note placed near the bodies said the men were beheaded because “they were US spies – anybody found engaged in espionage will meet the same fate”.

A security official confirmed the killings, saying the beheaded Afghans were refugees while the local man was an ordinary Pakistani tribesman.

Militants frequently kidnap and kill tribesmen, accusing them of spying for the Pakistani government or US forces in Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters are leading an insurgency.

The latest killings come as the United States intensifies missile attacks by unmanned aircraft targeting mostly North Waziristan, a bastion of the Taliban and fighters linked to the Al-Qaeda network.

Washington says the tribal regions, where Pakistani security forces are also battling militants, have become a safe haven for extremists.

Now, the Hekmatyar Option.

[Is it the first manifestation of the new Pakistan-constructed paradigm for Afghanistan?  Given that Hekmatyar was Pakistan’s favorite during the anti-Soviet war and his warm relations since then, is he the Army’s choice to replace all the Afghan Taliban former negotiators recently arrested?   We shall see.]

Hekmatyar announces peace plan

KABUL: Hezb-e-Islami Chief Gulbadin Hekmatyar Wednesday announced a peace plan to steer the country out of the present Afghan crisis.
Talking to Geo News, Hekmat’s nephew Feroz Hekmatyar said the Hezb decided July of the current year for withdrawal of the foreign troops, adding the troops withdrawal should be completed within six months and the security should be handed to Afghan military and police.
Muhammed Feroz said the plan offers the present government to continue functioning until the next elections and ensuing establishment of new government.
He further told that seven-member National Security Council comprising different Afghan castes would be set up, adding the Council will have powers for the decisions.
Feroz said the plan demands the presidential, national and provincial elections be held simultaneously with a ceasefire among all factions.
All political prisoners should be released and the groups involved in crimes should be presented to the courts, according to Hekmatyar’s peace plan revealed by his nephew.

911 Truth Goes Mainstream

EXPLOSIVE NEWS

By Jennifer Harper INSIDE THE BELTWAY

A lingering technical question about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks still haunts some, and it has political implications: How did 200,000 tons of steel disintegrate and drop in 11 seconds? A thousand architects and engineers want to know, and are calling on Congress to order a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center.

“In order to bring down this kind of mass in such a short period of time, the material must have been artificially, exploded outwards,” says Richard Gage, a San Francisco architect and founder of the nonprofit Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

Mr. Gage, who is a member of the American Institute of Architects, managed to persuade more than 1,000 of his peers to sign a new petition requesting a formal inquiry.

“The official Federal Emergency Management [Agency] and National Institute of Standards and Technology reports provide insufficient, contradictory and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers’ destruction. We are therefore calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials,” Mr. Gage adds.

The technical issues surrounding the collapse of the towers has prompted years of debate, rebuttal and ridicule.

He is particularly disturbed by Building 7, a 47-story skyscraper, which was not hit by an aircraft, yet came down in “pure free-fall acceleration.” He also says that more than 100 first-responders reported explosions and flashes as the towers were falling and cited evidence of “multi-ton steel sections ejected laterally 600 ft. at 60 mph” and the “mid-air pulverization of 90,000 tons of concrete & metal decking.”

There is also evidence of “advanced explosive nano-thermitic composite material found in the World Trade Center dust,” Mr. Gage says. The group’s petition at www. ae911truth.org is already on its way to members of Congress.

“Government officials will be notified that ‘Misprision of Treason,’ U.S. Code 18 (Sec. 2382), is a serious federal offense, which requires those with evidence of treason to act,” Mr. Gage says. “The implications are enormous and may have profound impact on the forthcomingKhalid Shaikh Mohammed trial.”

Blackwater Took Hundreds of Guns From U.S. Military, Afghan Police

Senate Inquiry Shows Contractor Signed for Rifles Using ‘South Park’ Alias.  “Cartman” is now armed to the teeth.

By SPENCER ACKERMAN

Eric Cartman of South Park (Photo courtesy: Comedy Central)

Employees of the CIA-connected private security corporation Blackwater diverted hundreds of weapons, including more than 500 AK-47 assault rifles, from a U.S. weapons bunker in Afghanistan intended to equip Afghan policemen, according to an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee. On at least one occasion, an individual claiming to work for the company evidently signed for a weapons shipment using the name of a “South Park” cartoon character. And Blackwater has yet to return hundreds of the guns to the military.

A Blackwater subsidiary known as Paravant that until recently operated in Afghanistan acquired the weapons for its employees’ “personal use,” according to committee staffers, as did other non-Paravant employees of Blackwater. Yet contractors in Afghanistan are not permitted to operate weapons without explicit permission from U.S. Central Command, something Blackwater never obtained. A November 2008 email from a Paravant vice president named Brian McCracken, obtained by the committee, nevertheless reads: “We have not received formal permission from the Army to carry weapons yet but I will take my chances.”

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As a result of Blackwater’s disregard for U.S. military restrictions on contractor firearms, four employees of Paravant — which held a subcontract from defense giant Raytheon to train Afghan soldiers — under the influence of alcohol opened fire on a car carrying four Afghan civilians on May 5, 2009, wounding two. That incident, occurring less than two years after Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, prompted the committee’s investigation.“In the fight against the Taliban, the perception that the Afghans have of us is critical,” Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the committee, told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “It’s clear to me that if we’re going to win that struggle, we need to know that contractor personnel are adequately screened, they’re adequately supervised and they’re adequately held accountable.” Levin will hold a hearing on Blackwater’s Afghanistan contracts Wednesday morning.

The committee’s investigation points to the contrary. Blackwater personnel appear to have gone to exceptional lengths to obtain weapons from U.S. military weapons storehouses intended for use by the Afghan police. According to the committee, at the behest of the company’s Afghanistan country manager, Ricky Chambers, Blackwater on at least two occasions acquired hundreds of rifles and pistols from a U.S. military facility near Kabul called 22 Bunkers by the military and Pol-e Charki by the Afghans. Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of all U.S. military forces in the Middle East and South Asia, wrote to the committee to explain that “there is no current or past written policy, order, directive, or instruction that allows U.S. Military contractors or subcontractors in Afghanistan to use weapons stored at 22 Bunkers.”

On one of those occasions, in September 2008, Chief Warrant Officer Greg Sailer, who worked at 22 Bunkers and is a friend of a Blackwater officer working in Afghanistan, signed over more than 200 AK-47s to an individual identified as “Eric Cartman” or possibly “Carjman” from Blackwater’s Counter Narcotics Training Unit. A Blackwater lawyer told committee staff that no one by those names has ever been employed by the company. Eric Cartman is the name of an obnoxious character from Comedy Central’s popular “South Park” cartoon.

Blackwater personnel invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination when approached by the committee to explain the weapons acquisitions from 22 Bunkers, according to committee staff. Sailer, who is still deployed to Afghanistan, told the committee that he thought Blackwater was signing for the weapons to train Afghan police, a task it has never conducted.

Not all of the guns received from Blackwater have been returned to the Afghan government — and, according to committee staff, many only began to be returned after staff approached the company for an explanation. “It was represented to us that all the weapons had been returned” to 22 Bunkers, Levin said. “That is not true. Hundreds of them were not returned.” Asked if that meant Blackwater lied to Congress, Levin replied, “They misrepresented the facts, and I’d like to leave it at that.”

Raytheon did not renew Paravant’s contract for training the Afghan army, which expired in September. Blackwater still holds a contract with the State Department worth millions of dollars to protect diplomats in Afghanistan. While that contract expires this year, Politico reported on Tuesday that Blackwater, now renamed Xe Services, might acquire a new multimillion-dollar contract from the Defense Department to train Afghan police — the same police force that Blackwater’s weapons diversions from 22 Bunkers deprived of hundreds of pistols and rifles.

This is not the first time Blackwater has faced allegations of diverted weapons. In 2007, company employees came under federal investigation for improperly shipping hundreds of weapons to Iraq, some of which are believed to have been sold on the black market and acquired by a Kurdish terrorist group. A Blackwater statement at the time said allegations that the company was “in any way associated or complicit in unlawful arms activities are baseless.” The New York Times reported in November that the company is negotiating with regulators over “hundreds of millions of dollars in fines” associated with the illicit weapons shipments.

In January, Blackwater’s founder, Erik Prince, confirmed to Vanity Fair that his 12-year-old company — which has earned more than a billion dollars through government contracts in the past decade — was involved in a nascent terrorist assassination program run by the CIA, among other CIA activities. “I’m paying for all sorts of intelligence activities to support American national security, out of my own pocket,” Prince told the magazine. Additionally, The Nation recently reported that Blackwater assists the Joint Special Operations Command with the terrorist manhunt in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including with the operations of JSOC’s armed unmanned drones.

Levin said his inquiry had uncovered “inadequate oversight by the Army over this contract.” The Florida-based Army office supposedly overseeing the contract did not even have a contracting officer representative in Afghanistan when the Paravant employees shot at Afghan civilians on May 5, 2009. Yet as early as December 2008, concerned Raytheon personnel informed that Army office that Paravant personnel were carrying unapproved weapons. An officer in Afghanistan responsible for training Afghan soldiers told the committee, “We should have had better control.”

Additionally, Blackwater personnel in Afghanistan, including those involved in both the May shooting and an earlier improper weapons discharge from December 2008, have been cited for, among other infractions, drug and alcohol abuse and, in one case, an “extensive criminal history.”

Wednesday’s hearing is expected to receive testimony from current and former Blackwater/Paravant officers, including Brian C. McCracken, the former Paravant vice president who now serves as Raytheon’s chief Afghanistan program officer; Fred Roitz, a Blackwater vice president; and John Walker, a former Paravant program officer.

A Mind of Crime

[If genetic psychopathy is often a result of brain abnormalities does that mean that they are not responsible for their own criminal behavior?  If criminal behavior is mostly a product of biological and environmental causes beyond individual control, is "crime" anything more than a mental illness?  SEE:  Twilight of the Psychopaths, by Dr. Kevin Barrett]

How brain-scanning technology is redefining criminal culpability.

By: Michael Haederle

Will the new neuroscience undermine our legal system? Brain-scanning technology is redefining criminal culpability.

Kent Kiehl, a prominent neuroscientist hired to study an admitted murderer named Brian Dugan, had already been under cross-examination in the hushed, wood-paneled suburban Chicago courtroom for more than an hour when a brain diagram, hatched with X’s, was projected on a screen. The X’s marked areas where Kiehl had discovered abnormally low grey matter density in Dugan’s brain. In a curious meeting of law and neuroscience, those X’s would help jurors decide whether he should be executed or sentenced to life in prison. Did the way Dugan’s brain had developed leave him spring-loaded for violence? Or had he chosen freely when he abducted, raped and killed a 10-year-old girl in 1983?

Defense attorneys had brought in Kiehl and other experts to prove that Dugan was a psychopath incapable of experiencing normal emotions like remorse, in hopes the jury could be persuaded to sentence him to life in prison, rather than death.

Kiehl has interviewed and used new technologies to scan the brains of more imprisoned criminals than anyone else in the world. Here, he was asking jurors to accept that the brains of some criminals are simply different from the norm and that those differences should be considered during sentencing. “There are abnormalities in his brain function,” the tall, broad-shouldered Kiehl told the jury. Psychopaths make choices, he acknowledged, but “those choices are not necessarily informed by emotion in the same way ours are.”

The hearing last fall marked the first time Kiehl, an expert in functional magnetic resonance imaging brain scans, had testified in court, and his presentation may well have been the first time fMRI had been used in this way. It was also a classic example of the conflicts that arise when law and neuroscience — disciplines that make competing claims about human nature — intersect, as they increasingly do.

The law sees people essentially as rational actors, capable of forming intentions, weighing the consequences of their actions and controlling their behavior. As old as civilization itself, the law is inherently conservative, circumscribed by rules and precedent, and rooted in ancient notions of morality and justice. The law is clear: Those who break the rules we have collectively agreed upon make a choice, and those poor choices should be punished. Change in the law usually comes slowly and incrementally, in an orderly interplay of legislation and appellate decision-making that may embrace changing social and scientific norms long after they have gained currency elsewhere.

Neuroscience, on the other hand, is a runaway train of change. Armed with high-tech investigative tools like fMRI, diffusion tensor studies and positron emission tomography(PET) scans, neuroscientists over the past 30 years have made increasingly provocative — and to many, unsettlingly broad — assertions about who we are and how our brains operate.

A core tenet of the new neuroscience is that there is no single place inside our brain where free will is exercised and a kernel of “self” resides. Instead, the science suggests, the mental states we experience are like a mirage, arising from highly complex interactions of myriad brain systems involving electrical signals that are governed by the laws of physics. It is a highly mechanistic model that many believe ultimately denies that free will is truly free.

Meanwhile, neuroscientists are detecting ever-more-subtle differences in brain functioning with their scans. They can see the telltale signs of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. Now Kiehl has added psychopathy to the list of conditions that can be observed in the scans.

Where the law would have us assume that nearly everyone has the capacity to judge and control his or her behavior, neuroscience is saying that isn’t necessarily true.

This scientific assertion raises profound questions: If all our mental states can ultimately be reduced to neuro-physiological brain states, and there is really no such thing as free will, how can people be held accountable for criminal behavior? What would it even mean, in neurological terms, to form an intention or act according to reason? “It’s really an old idea,” observes Joshua Greene, a Harvard University psychologist, philosopher and neuroscientist who studies law and morality. “This goes back to the pre-Socratics. Once people got the idea, ‘What if it’s just atoms, it’s all just physical stuff?’ they asked, ‘How do we make sense of choice? How do we make sense of responsibility?’”

Most people don’t ponder such questions too deeply until a case arises involving addiction, brain damage or other mental impairment, because then a person’s ability to control his behavior is called into question. “You very quickly get into these philosophical problems, where you say, ‘OK, why do we want to say the psychopath is still responsible?’” Greene said.

These theories of brain function and neuroimaging techniques are already making themselves felt in many areas of the law, as scientists produce enhanced brain images that are dramatically highlighted with vivid hues indicating areas of heightened or suppressed brain activity. Many legal experts agree the influence of neuroimaging is bound to spread. Suppose a neural scan could determine whether someone was in a vegetative or minimally conscious state? What if an fMRI could objectively measure the degree of pain and suffering someone was experiencing in a personal injury case?

Neuroimaging might even be used to measure a criminal’s risk of recidivism or, conversely, the extent of his rehabilitation. And the time may not be far off when a neural scan will substitute for conventional lie detectors. Right now, the question is whether they can be used to establish — or rule out — a criminal state of mind.  (Read HERE)

Army says gunbattle kills 6 in Indian Kashmir

PARVAIZ BUKHARI The Associated Press

SRINAGAR, India — A two-day gunbattle between Indian security forces and suspected Islamic insurgents has killed three army soldiers and three militants in the Indian portion of Kashmir, an official said Wednesday.

The fighting began early Tuesday near Sopore town, 35 miles (55 kilometers) northwest of Indian Kashmir’s main city Srinagar. The soldiers and two suspected rebels were killed later the same evening, said Lt. Col. J.S. Brar, the Indian army spokesman.

Another suspected rebel was shot dead on Wednesday, he said. There was a lull in fighting Wednesday afternoon but government troops have not declared the battle over yet.

It began after government troops received a tip that rebels were hiding in the town’s Chinkkipora area and were attacked with hand grenades when they surrounded the area, Brar said.

Kashmir is split between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan. They have fought two wars over its control and they claim the territory in entirety.

Anti-India sentiments run deep in the disputed majority Muslim region, where more than a dozen rebel groups have been fighting for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with neighboring Pakistan since 1989.

India accuses Pakistan of arming and training Muslim militants. Islamabad denies the charge, saying it only gives moral and diplomatic support to the rebels.

The latest fighting comes a day ahead of talks between the top diplomats of the two countries, the first such meeting in 15 months. The talks are seen as the first step toward the resumption of a peace process that was put on hold after terror attacks that left 166 dead in Mumbai in 2008.

Witness for the prosecution

Hafiz Saeed, head of the “JuD aka LeT” (a Security Council description) figures, in popular perception, as the symbol of all that ails Indian security today: jihadi violence, Pakistani malice, US doublespeak and Indian helplessness.Curiously, in Pakistan too, Saeed is the man they pick up after every serious incident of terror in India. He was held under preventive detention after the December 2001 attack on Parliament, after the July 2006 Mumbai train blasts, and after the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. The Lahore high court struck down each detention. Was the court left with any other option? Was any other legitimate course open to the government of Pakistan? The answers, respectively, are no and yes.

The orders of detention and the manner of justification offered for these by the Pakistani government virtually invited the writs of release. The preventive detention of 2008, in particular, was adopted instead of a viable terror law prosecution — which would have even precluded Saeed’s release on bail

Saeed was detained in December 2008 under the Maintenance of Public Order Act (MPO). (This was just after the UN Security Council had declared the JuD to be but an alias of the LeT.)  Pakistan has not formally proscribed the JuD by naming it in the first schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 (ATA).  Ordering his release, the court said this: “so far as the Resolution is concerned there is no matter before us about the vires and the government can act upon the same in letter and spirit if so advised. But relying on the same, the detention cannot be maintained as it was even not desired thereby,” according to Dawn on June 3, 2009.

Without formally banning an organisation, the consequences of illegality cannot, naturally, be visited upon its members. Answers, however, were still available to be given to the court. Sections of the ATA extend the ban on a listed organisation to cover its operations under any other name. But the government did not assert that the JuD was merely another name under which the already-proscribed LeT was operating. Besides, to sustain the detention, which was under the MPO, it was sufficient, but necessary to show that Saeed was a threat to public safety. Instead, a blatantly untenable ground was pleaded — which was, consequently, rejected. Reportedly, the court was verbally told that the JuD had al-Qaeda links. Association with a banned organisation, when made out, is a case for a criminal prosecution and not really one for preventive detention, although the two are not mutually exclusive.

The court’s suggestion that the government could take appropriate action on the Security Council resolution was not followed either “in letter” or “in spirit”. Without either formally proscribing the JuD or declaring it to be impliedly banned as a front for the LeT or the Al-Qaeda, FIRs were lodged on September 16, 2009 in Faisalabad under provisions that relate to support for a “proscribed organisation”. It should have been evident to the meanest intelligence that they were doomed to be quashed. The court was bound by the earlier view (and one of a larger bench) that the JuD had not been shown to be a “proscribed organisation”. Sure enough, the court quashed the FIRs, quoting the earlier case. Those FIRs also, reportedly, recorded Saeed’s open threats to organise jihadi violence against foreign nations. This was a separate offence under the ATA, but that fact was neither mentioned in the FIR nor pointed out to the court.

The ATA defines a “terrorist act” so broadly as to include even the threat of action “designed to create insecurity”, “intimidate the public” or “to advance a sectarian, communal or ethnic cause.” The action threatened may be death, grievous injury or destruction of property. The threat of sectarian violence is a cognisable offence of terrorism by virtue of Pakistan’s loosely worded terror legislation. It is punishable with life, or at least, imprisonment of over ten years; bail is barred in any ATA offence that carries a punishment of ten years. In October 2009, the law was widened to include the intimidation of foreign agencies. Saeed’s reported February 5, 2010 speech at Muzaffarabad would clearly be one such instance.

Personally, I disapprove of altering normal procedure and restricting judicial discretion, which terror laws are prone to doing; but, clearly, many governments do not share my view. So, despite the claim that India has not given it enough evidence on Saeed, it does seem that Pakistan has, on its own, enough of law and fact to effectively contain him without pleading the excuse of judicial obstruction.

Pakistan has claimed a right to try cross-border offenders in its territory, instead of extraditing them.

Extradition, despite various UN resolutions, remains a sovereign prerogative. The exercise of the option to try the offenders, however, implies the duty to unearth the necessary evidence and seriously prosecute all those who are implicated. Pakistan is trying five men for the terrorist conspiracy behind the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, including Lakhvi, said to be a deputy of Hafiz Saeed. A proper investigation should then have yielded material on Saeed.

Dialogue with Pakistan must factor in the quality of the Lakhvi prosecution as well as the options left out in dealing with Saeed, a man whom Pakistan has acknowledged to be a terrorist.

The writer practices in the Supreme Court of India

One Mumbai not enough: Hafiz Saeed

IST, ET Bureau

NEW DELHI: Barely days before the Indo-Pak engagement, Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed has surfaced, inciting jihad against India. At a ‘Kashmir solidarity’ rally in Lahore, Saeed, accused by India of masterminding the Mumbai terror attack, was back at spewing venom against India saying jihadis were willing to go a long way for liberating Kashmir. The leader of the banned outfit, who clearly timed his rally ahead of the Indo-Pak talks, told a huge gathering of his supporters that jihad was the only option left as India would never let go of Kashmir. Threatening India with dire consequences he further said that India would suffer the same fate over Kashmir as the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the US reverses in Afghanistan. Tapes of the rally, which have been accessed by a television channel, showed Saeed’s supporters waving Klashnikovs and shouting anti-India slogans. The rally was taken out by JuD and is seen as a clear instance of the Pakistani establishment’s reluctance to take steps against the group, which has been proscribed by the UNSC as a front for the Lashkar-e-Toiba. In his public rant, Saeed also dismissed the Mumbai terror attacks saying “ek Bombay kya hota hai’’. He even went to the ridiculous length of suggesting that India and Pakistan should renegotiate the Partition of India and discuss the creation of Bangladesh. Saying that the London conference on Afghanistan signaled the defeat of the US and allied forces, he said India would suffer a similar fate in Kashmir. With the Mumbai terror attacks forming the core of Indian concerns on terror, New Delhi is sure to raise the matter of Saeed openly inciting terror against India. Foreign secretary Nirupama Rao had said in London on Monday that India was disturbed by the calls for jihad that were being brazenly made against India even in the face of New Delhi’s attempt to establish a channel of communication with Islamabad. Saeed’s call for jihad also comes in the backdrop of the Pakistani government’s stated intention of introducing Kashmir as the core issue in the foreign secretary level talks. Though New Delhi has said all issues could be raised, it has also said that the meeting would not be a forum for conflict resolution. The Indian side in an effort to put pressure on Pakistan over terror has been saying that the future of talks depends on Pakistan’s action against terror. But Saeed inciting jihad in Lahore just ahead of the talks is not seen as boding well for the India-Pakistan engagement.

Pak delegation arrives in India for talks

NEW DELHI: Pakistani delegation has arrived in India to take part in negotiations over a range of issues with the neighbouring country, Geo News reported Wednesday. Talking to media at airport before leaving for India, Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir said all issues including water problem will be brought under discussion in the bilateral talks. He said no change has been made in the delegation. Pakistan wants the negotiation process to move forward to reach some final conclusion, Bashir said, ‘There is no set agenda for the talks; instead, the dialogues would be held on open agenda.’ On query about Indian interference in Balochistan, the Foreign Secretary said the issue was mulled over in Sharm el-Sheikh and the terrorism was declared as the common problem; accordingly, Balochistan issue would also be on the table. Salman Bashir said such issues also would be incorporated in the negotiations that would benefit both the sides. (Last updated at 1550)

THE GAME CHANGER

[The author of the following article seems to have an extraordinary grasp of the real situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  He shares my own inability to understand why Pakistan would seal its own fate by "conjoining" with America as it collapses economically, or why all the Taliban arrests when Pakistan seeks to become trusted mediator.  It seems like Pakistan's fate has always been balanced on the edge of apparent contradictions.]

Zafar Hilaly (former ambassador)

Just about every American, except Obama, who has anything to do with Pakistan and could find a seat on a plane or hitch a ride has been here to cajole, prod, threaten, and inveigle Pakistan to do America’s bidding in Afghanistan. Even Richard Armitage was fished out from one think tank or the other.

Such saturation tactics have paid off. An army that has been assigned the near impossible task of fighting on two fronts, at opposite ends of the country, while keeping an eye on the squabbling politicians and a judiciary that wants to run the country, has decided to bite the bullet. Recent developments suggest that we are now squarely in the American camp despite the reservations of many.

There were indications, which some of us missed, that conjoining with the Americans was in the works. The arrest of the Taliban high ups; the near perfect targeting of militants by American Drones in Waziristan revealed the quality and depth of the intelligence cooperation that now exists. Likewise, the remarkably successful operations in the two Waziristans. Although exclusively Pakistani affairs they were much aided by special devices not obtainable earlier.

All of which also explains why the American lexicon has changed when depicting Pakistan’s current role in the war.  Even the abrasive Holbrooke was over the moon in his praise of Pakistan and Hilary Clinton likewise. The Pentagon quartet of Gates, Mullen, McCrystal, Pertraeus are no less profuse and so too the ex Pentagonian Jones, now advising Obama. And, to be fair, America has backed praise with action.

We expect quick release of Coalition Support Funds of almost $2 billion that are due, beginning next week with an instalment of $360 million. Sixteen F-16s are expected by July and perhaps more to follow. Drones of a type more potent than what were on offer are on offer. And, just possibly, down the road, a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement similar to that concluded with India, at least, that is what Christiane Fair, who in her earlier incarnation was a Pakistan basher, has proposed. Meanwhile, the civilian package will be speeded up with the visa issue close to resolution and perhaps augmented with dollops more dollars.

Such good news was accompanied by a caution from the American Ambassador, “nanny” Patterson, who could not resist scolding us for our over reliance on foreign assistance (talking to the FCCI in Karachi), but that is her wont. She once insinuated to a Benazir Bhutto who was justifiably alarmed about her security that she should calm down and get on with the business of cooperating with Musharaf.

Never downcast, Mullah Omar, raising the telescope to his blind eye is telling the world, that the horizon holds no danger for the Taliban though inwardly he must be seething at the arrest of his henchmen in Karachi and Quetta. It marks a turnaround from earlier policy which, even by Afghan standards, must appear stunning. The fact that there may have been an unspoken agreement from the Musharaf era allowing the “friendly” Taliban unmolested access to Pakistan no doubt compounded Mullah Omar’s rage.

Actually, the recent arrests of Baradur and the shadow Taliban Governors, Salam and Mir Mohammed may prove game changers. Some say that it is a ploy meant to appease the Americans AND to convey to the Taliban the message that in the current attempts to broker a settlement Pakistan means to be heard by them or else; and that eventually the arrested officials will be released. Be that as it may, it is unlikely to succeed. The Americans will want us to “catch more” and will keep an eye on Baradur. Besides the blow to Taliban vanity will not be easily appeased. The Taliban only forgive an enemy against whom they cannot strike back, whereas Pakistan is an easy target. In any case, for them war is just God’s way of teaching geography. They will not stop warring or seeking revenge for their imprisoned countrymen.

Talk of Pakistan retaining a mediatory role after the arrests appears naïve and, so too, our policy of treating the TTP and the Afghan Taliban as distinct entities; or, for that matter, the Jaishes and Lashkars and al Qaeda as being apart from the Taliban. Just as we have conjoined with the Americans, notwithstanding important differences in perceptions, so will these groups with each other, despite their contrasting agendas.

Increasingly, it appears, McCrystal’s desire, expressed to the media in January, that Pakistan and America “develop a joint campaign plans so that we approach the entire problem together” is being realised; so too his conviction that Pakistan and America undertake “joint military action against the Taliban (by) launching coordinated attacks on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border” such as, presumably, the successful air strike by the PAF against militants on our side of the border on 20 February which reportedly accounted for thirty of them.

India must be delighted that the Americans have finally managed to pit Pakistan against the Afghan Taliban. And, because America, Karzai, India and Pakistan now have a common enemy logically Pakistan cannot object to India being allotted the task of training Karzai’s army. But, of course, Pakistan will object; if only because logic is the first casualty when it comes to handling India. A pity because given the volatile ethnic composition, divided tribal loyalties and a rate of desertion that is the highest in the world, training the Afghan army is a Sisyphian endeavour which one can only wish on an enemy.

Now that we seem embarked on a war that may well span a generation, and have unpredictable and unintended consequences, one can only hope that those who have brought us to this pass have not only the measure of their enemy but also of their ally. It is not that America will cut and run, although America has announced that she will begin to withdraw soon and often that amounts to much the same thing. But, more importantly, whether the American commitment to fund the war, provide the weaponry required and share the long term economic cost that it will entail for Pakistan, will be honoured by a Washington that is increasingly mired in debt. On that score one can only hope that our leaders have read the tea leaves correctly.

The consequences of a war that has every possibility of intensifying could be traumatic for Pakistan. Terrorism has virtually destroyed Pakistan’s economy. Foreign investment has plummeted. Foreigners have vanished. Nearly all five star hotels face huge losses and brave words will not prevent eventual closure if the current situation continues. It is conceivable, therefore, that as the energy shortfall and water scarcity takes hold, food prices soar and joblessness grows and poor governance continues public disquiet, already fairly high, will spill over on to the streets, in which case the mix of our travails could prove lethal.

Most wars have an outcome. There is a victor and a vanquished, except Afghan wars. In Afghan wars the enemy will flee when confronted by an overwhelming force but will return to attack when the odds are better. One is never able to say whether one is winning the war or not.

But assuming we prevail; our victory will be of little consequence unless the Taliban and their murderous allies are defeated not only in Pakistan but also in Afghanistan. And, frankly, it is impossible to countenance a Taliban defeat in Afghanistan at the hands of the rag tag army Karzai will have at his disposal. Actually, what is more probable, nay certain, is the defeat of Karzai’s forces at the hands of the Taliban once the Americans depart. Where does that leave Pakistan? Stuck between an unfriendly Afghanistan under the Taliban and a hostile India, which is precisely where we do not want to be. Hence the reason why, some felt, that a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan, preceded by an American withdrawal, was the best solution for all concerned especially Pakistan.

We have made this task infinitively more difficult for our selves by aligning so closely with the departing Americans and being unable to resist their urgings for joint action against the Afghan Taliban. Our only alternative now, it appears, is to decisively win the ideological and military battles against the united Taliban and other extremists at home and hope that someone will do the same in Afghanistan. And, meanwhile, to re think the basis of our six decades old mind set towards India which has been thus far, but no longer, our sole strategic pre occupation.

Afghanistan observer sees disappointment

[Afghanistan, like Iraq, is a failure because it has offered no solution except--"FORCE, FORCE, FORCE..."  The military solution of overpowering the people, forcing a government chosen by the military upon them, then "validating" the whole process with sham exercises in "democracy" is a hypocritical attempt to force nations to completely relinquish their free wills.  Karzai is no better for the Afghan people than Chalabi was for the people of Iraq.  Why should the people of Afghanistan accept such Imperial domination, they have never done so in the past.  Once we admired them for that trait.]

By Tom Evans, CNN

(CNN) — As the top NATO commander in Afghanistan publicly apologized for the latest civilian deaths in the war, one of his former advisers said Tuesday the Afghan people have “crystallized their frustration” on the issue of civilian casualties.

“It’s crystallized a disappointment with the international intervention that’s been growing since about 2003,” said Sarah Chayes, who just completed one year of service as an adviser to Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his staff in Kabul.

“I actually think the issue is broader,” she told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “And so the impact on the Marjah (offensive) is really going to depend on what else happens in that operation.”

Chayes was referring to the joint U.S., British, and Afghan offensive in Helmand province in which 15,000 troops are trying to take control of a town and the surrounding area from Taliban fighters.

Despite military efforts to avoid civilian casualties, several dozen have been killed recently by NATO bullets and bombs. In the past two weeks alone, more than 50 Afghan civilians are believed to have been killed in more than half a dozen U.S. and NATO military operations.

McChrystal on Tuesday released a video message to the Afghan population apologizing for an incident Sunday in which 27 civilians were killed in an air strike.

“I have made it clear to our forces that we are here to protect the Afghan people,” he said. “I pledge to strengthen our efforts to regain your trust to build a brighter future for all Afghans.”

Chayes — a former National Public Radio journalist who for several years lived among the Afghan population in Kandahar province — said the tolerance for civilian casualties among Afghans has gone down in recent years. “I remember early cases of civilian casualties where I was actually surprised at the level of tolerance for it on the part of the people I was living amongst,” she said.

“But it was because they felt that the international intervention was really doing something for them … or they still held out the hope that it would.”

She said the view of Afghan people on civilian casualties depends on issues such as whether they believe they are being governed by a responsive and respectful institution and whether they are seeing any prospects for economic improvement. “You need to protect the population and earn the population’s trust,” she said.

Chayes strongly criticized Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s approach to tackling corruption in government, saying his administration is operating like a “criminal syndicate.”

“Why I talk about a criminal syndicate is because it’s not just ad hoc, people making up their ends of the month. It’s because their superiors purchase their office.”

She said the re-election of Karzai last year has not made any difference, despite his promise to crack down on graft.

“If you read carefully some of the statements made by President Karzai in his inaugural address and in response to some of the issues about corruption … he’s actually not really promising any action,” she said.

“He’s saying, yes, corruption is a problem, but it’s not an issue of removing individuals, it’s an issue of changing the legal framework.”

Chayes said the coalition’s biggest mistake in the war has been its failure to ensure the Afghan people are truly represented by their government.

“By not leveraging the government to respond to the needs of its people, we force them back into the arms of the Taliban,” she said. “How Afghanistan turns out is going to have a major impact on how a lot of people (around the world) make up their minds about radical Islam.”

Human Hunting Season–Israel’s Special Rights

[The rest of the human race is already in an uproar over the idea of the CIA hunting people down and abducting them, based on the claim that they are "terrorists."   Now we have in-your-face Zionist spokes-people like "Zippy" demanding that the otherwise moral people of the world accept the immorality of Israeli special rights to carry-out targeted assassinations anywhere they want.  The idea is to establish two sets of acceptable norms for the human race, one for Israel and one for the rest us, based on past Jewish suffering.  Israel's constant droning tune (that the world should rejoice in Israeli brutalities and successes against "terrorism" every time we learn of another Mossad hit, since we are all fighting the same war) is pure garbage.  Israel has turned all of the Palestinian territory into a killing zone.  Anyone within the zone who attempts self-defense, by any means, in the face of the Israeli war machine, is a "terrorist."  Now we see that same Israeli hunting license is valid throughout the entire world.

The good people of the earth will not tolerate Israel hunting Hamas leaders down like animals, just because we once accepted Jewish Nazi-hunters.  Hamas, or Hezbollah, or even Iran, are NOT Nazis, no matter how much Netanyahu bellows the claim in the Knesset.  The more that Israel makes these ridiculous claims and continues to act in the outrageous manner that it has chosen, the more the thinking people of the world will begin to see who the real monsters and "fascists" really are.]

Opposition leader praises Hamas commander killing

FILE – In this Monday, March 30, 2009, file photo, then Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni gives a farewell speech at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. Israel’s parliamentary opposition leader Tzipi Livni has praised the assassination of a Hamas commander, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai last month, as good news for those fighting terrorism, which is the first such comment from a top Israeli official. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File) (Bernat Armangue – AP)

JERUSALEM – Israel’sparliamentary opposition leader on Tuesday praised the assassination of a Hamas commander in Dubai last month, in the first such comment from a top official.

Tzipi Livni of the centrist Kadima Party said the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was good, but she did not indicate who was behind the killing.

“The fact that a terrorist was killed, and it doesn’t matter if it was in Dubai or Gaza, is good news to those fighting terrorism,” she said at a conference of the Jewish Agency board of governors in Jerusalem.

Israel has refused to comment on assumptions that a Mossad team carried out the assassination. Dubai police have released pictures and passports with names of Israelis, saying the forged passports were used by the hit squad.

The Israelis have said they were victims of identity theft. Britain, Ireland and Germanyhave called Israeli ambassadors in for explanations about the forged passports, but Israel has not accepted responsibility.

Israel has come under withering criticism from some quarters in Europe and elsewhere in the wake of the killing of al-Mabhouh, who was found dead in his Dubai hotel room on Jan. 20. Dubai security cameras picked up 18 members of what the country’s police commander said was a hit team, adding that he was virtually certain Mossad was to blame.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was grilled about Israel’s alleged role in the killing when he met European foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday. In a statement, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that as long as there is no evidence beyond media reports linking Israel to the killing, the minister felt “there is no need to relate to the matter.”

In the only Israeli government comment to date, Lieberman said last week, “Israel never responds, never confirms and never denies.” He added, “I don’t know why we are assuming that Israel, or the Mossad, used those passports.”

Livni, a former foreign minister, served in the Mossad in the 1980s. In her address Tuesday, she rejected criticism of the assassination of al-Mabhouh, who Israel says was behind the kidnapping and killing of two soldiers in 1989 and more recently was in charge of obtaining rockets for Hamas militants in Gaza.

“The entire world must support those fighting terrorism,” Livni said. “Any comparison between terrorism and those fighting it is immoral.”

‘Mercenary trade association’ to meet in Miami on post-quake Haiti opportunities

‘Mercenary trade association’ to meet in Miami on

post-quake Haiti opportunities

An industry group representing private security firms will meet in Miami next month to discuss business opportunities for its members in post-earthquake Haiti, deepening concerns among some observers about the growing privatization of disaster assistance.

The International Peace Operations Association – labeled the “mercenary trade association” by journalist and Blackwater/Xe watchdog Jeremy Scahill — is co-sponsoring the March 9 and 10 gathering with Global Investment Summits, a London-based company that describes itself as “a provider of business summits that transcend the boundaries of the traditional conference model” with a focus on “the promotion of trade and investment within countries that are vast in economic potential.”

All profits for the event — titled “Haiti: Resources for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance” — will go to benefit the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. Former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have been invited to take part in the conference, along with representatives of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and nongovernmental organizations including the American Red Cross and Save the Children.

The IPOA was founded in April 2001 to support the growing private military industry. Blackwater — the troubled North Carolina-based private military firm now known as Xe — was a member of the group until 2007, leaving after the association launched an investigation into a massacre of unarmed civilians in Iraq by Blackwater guards. Current member companies include DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, both based in Virginia.

IPOA Director Doug Brooks told the Inter Press Service that the first contacts his member companies got in Haiti were from journalists looking for security services:

Likewise, the private military contractor, Raidon Tactics, has at least 30 former U.S. Special Operations soldiers on the ground, where they have been guarding aid convoys and providing security for “news agencies,” according to a Raidon employee who told IPS his company received over 1,000 phone calls in response to an ad posting “for open positions for Static Security Positions and Mobile Security Positions” in Haiti.

Naomi Klein, author of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” told IPS that “Haiti doesn’t need cookie cutter one-size fits all reconstruction, designed by the same gang that made same such a hash of Iraq, Afghanistan and New Orleans — and indeed the same people responsible for the decimation of Haiti’s own economy in the name of ‘aid.’”

Brooks’ responded: “If Scahill and Klein have the resources, the capabilities, the equipment, to go in and do it themselves then more power to them.”

But Patrick Elie — Haiti’s former defense minister under Jean-Bertrand Aristide and an advisor to current President René Préval — shares some of Scahill’s and Klein’s concerns, telling IPS:

“These guys are like vultures coming to grab the loot over this disaster, and probably money that might have been injected into the Haitian economy is going to be just grabbed by these companies and I’m sure that they are not only these mercenary companies but also the other companies like Halliburton or these other ones that always [come] on the heels of the troops.”

* * *

Meanwhile, the international community is promoting a plan to expand Haiti’s low-wage garment assembly industry as the road to recovery, with the Obama administration encouraging retailers to buy from Haiti at least 1% of the clothes they sell.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk unveiled the initiative at a recent Las Vegas apparel industry conference, where he was joined by officials from Gap Inc. and North Carolina-based Hanesbrands.

But as a recent Associated Press story pointed out, the Haitian garment industry does not necessarily provide a living wage to its workers. It offered the example of Jordanie Pinquie Rebeca, who earns $3.09 for eight hours of work piecing suits that JoS. A. Bank Clothiers will sell for $550 each.

Despite having the very sort of job the U.S. is promoting for Haitians, Rebeca — who lost her apartment in the earthquake — sleeps on the street and has little to eat.

By Sue Sturgis

Kashmiri Militants Threaten Attacks Over Water Rights

[When Jihadis talk politics something is clearly wrong.  In Pakistan, an extremely weird idea has formed—that “jihad” is an acceptable idea, that it is just politics by other means.—It is not.  As long as men such as the following Lashkar leaders can openly threaten terrorist attacks upon the country’s neighbors, without being arrested and prosecuted for it, then Pakistan is an aberration—a true threat to the world.  Where the closest thing to the law tolerates incitement to violence, revenge killings and even terror bombings, then there is no law.  “Shariah” that teaches such immoral thoughts to young people is not from God.  There is nothing “holy” about it.]

A terrorist leader in Pakistan has warned about Pune blasts

[

4: A leader of the rechristened Lashkar-e-Toiba had apparently mentioned Pune as a possible target for attacks while pouring vitriol on India from Islamabad on February 5, a little over a week before the bakery bombing and a day after India made public the fresh peace initiative.
Indian security agencies, jolted to their feet by the benefit of hindsight, are now putting under the microscope the speeches of Abdur Rahman Makki, the deputy and brother-in-law of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed.
India considers Saeed the principal perpetrator of 26/11. Saeed is also the founder of the JuD, a charity front of the Lashkar formed after it was banned.
The Indian government is now analysing the content of two speeches Makki made this month on Pakistani or Pakistani-controlled soil. The first was made in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on February 4 on the occasion of “Kashmir Solidarity Day”.
The Muzaffarabad conference was said to have been addressed by Hizb-ul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, Al-Badr leader Bakht Zamin, United Jehad Council general secretary Sheikh Jamilur Rehman, JuD leader Abdul Aziz Alvi and former ISI chief Hamid Gul.
The second speech was made in Islamabad on February 5, a day after India announced its offer to Pakistan for foreign secretary-level talks. The talks are scheduled for February 25.
In Islamabad, Makki mentioned Delhi, Pune and Kanpur as three cities where terror strikes could take place because India was denying water to Pakistan. He said that at one time, jihadis wanted only the liberation of Kashmir but with India denying Indus water to Pakistan, attacks on Delhi, Pune and Kanpur were justified.
Makki also referred to the proposed talks, according to Indian intelligence agencies. “Whenever our jihad in Kashmir nears success, India becomes ready for talks,” Makki said, adding that a dialogue with India would not get Pakistan anything. He said while the Lashkar had been banned, the Shiv Sena was allowed to operate freely.
Official sources in Pakistan said they were not aware of the content of Makki’s speeches. Other sources said extremists like Makki survived on rabid speeches and if every threat in such diatribes were taken seriously, security agencies would be buried under an avalanche of alerts.
But Indian Intelligence Bureau sources said they viewed the speech as a reflection of a decision, possibly taken by the handlers of the JuD in the ISI and the Pakistan Army, to engineer more and more attacks in India beyond Kashmir.
The sources claimed that phone conversations intercepted 10 days ago had also suggested that the attacks would be widened to cover more areas outside Kashmir. The conversations took place apparently among Col. Rashid of the Pakistan Army, an unidentified brigadier with the ISI and Lashkar operatives.
Date : 15/02/2010. News by Newsofap.com

4: A leader of the rechristened Lashkar-e-Toiba had apparently mentioned Pune as a possible target for attacks while pouring vitriol on India from Islamabad on February 5, a little over a week before the bakery bombing and a day after India made public the fresh peace initiative.
Indian security agencies, jolted to their feet by the benefit of hindsight, are now putting under the microscope the speeches of Abdur Rahman Makki, the deputy and brother-in-law of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed.
India considers Saeed the principal perpetrator of 26/11. Saeed is also the founder of the JuD, a charity front of the Lashkar formed after it was banned.
The Indian government is now analysing the content of two speeches Makki made this month on Pakistani or Pakistani-controlled soil. The first was made in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on February 4 on the occasion of “Kashmir Solidarity Day”.
The Muzaffarabad conference was said to have been addressed by Hizb-ul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, Al-Badr leader Bakht Zamin, United Jehad Council general secretary Sheikh Jamilur Rehman, JuD leader Abdul Aziz Alvi and former ISI chief Hamid Gul.
The second speech was made in Islamabad on February 5, a day after India announced its offer to Pakistan for foreign secretary-level talks. The talks are scheduled for February 25.
In Islamabad, Makki mentioned Delhi, Pune and Kanpur as three cities where terror strikes could take place because India was denying water to Pakistan. He said that at one time, jihadis wanted only the liberation of Kashmir but with India denying Indus water to Pakistan, attacks on Delhi, Pune and Kanpur were justified.
Makki also referred to the proposed talks, according to Indian intelligence agencies. “Whenever our jihad in Kashmir nears success, India becomes ready for talks,” Makki said, adding that a dialogue with India would not get Pakistan anything. He said while the Lashkar had been banned, the Shiv Sena was allowed to operate freely.
Official sources in Pakistan said they were not aware of the content of Makki’s speeches. Other sources said extremists like Makki survived on rabid speeches and if every threat in such diatribes were taken seriously, security agencies would be buried under an avalanche of alerts.
But Indian Intelligence Bureau sources said they viewed the speech as a reflection of a decision, possibly taken by the handlers of the JuD in the ISI and the Pakistan Army, to engineer more and more attacks in India beyond Kashmir.
The sources claimed that phone conversations intercepted 10 days ago had also suggested that the attacks would be widened to cover more areas outside Kashmir. The conversations took place apparently among Col. Rashid of the Pakistan Army, an unidentified brigadier with the ISI and Lashkar operatives.
Date : 15/02/2010. News by Newsofap.com

4: A leader of the rechristened Lashkar-e-Toiba had apparently mentioned Pune as a possible target for attacks while pouring vitriol on India from Islamabad on February 5, a little over a week before the bakery bombing and a day after India made public the fresh peace initiative.
Indian security agencies, jolted to their feet by the benefit of hindsight, are now putting under the microscope the speeches of Abdur Rahman Makki, the deputy and brother-in-law of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed.
India considers Saeed the principal perpetrator of 26/11. Saeed is also the founder of the JuD, a charity front of the Lashkar formed after it was banned.
The Indian government is now analysing the content of two speeches Makki made this month on Pakistani or Pakistani-controlled soil. The first was made in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on February 4 on the occasion of “Kashmir Solidarity Day”.
The Muzaffarabad conference was said to have been addressed by Hizb-ul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, Al-Badr leader Bakht Zamin, United Jehad Council general secretary Sheikh Jamilur Rehman, JuD leader Abdul Aziz Alvi and former ISI chief Hamid Gul.
The second speech was made in Islamabad on February 5, a day after India announced its offer to Pakistan for foreign secretary-level talks. The talks are scheduled for February 25.
In Islamabad, Makki mentioned Delhi, Pune and Kanpur as three cities where terror strikes could take place because India was denying water to Pakistan. He said that at one time, jihadis wanted only the liberation of Kashmir but with India denying Indus water to Pakistan, attacks on Delhi, Pune and Kanpur were justified.
Makki also referred to the proposed talks, according to Indian intelligence agencies. “Whenever our jihad in Kashmir nears success, India becomes ready for talks,” Makki said, adding that a dialogue with India would not get Pakistan anything. He said while the Lashkar had been banned, the Shiv Sena was allowed to operate freely.
Official sources in Pakistan said they were not aware of the content of Makki’s speeches. Other sources said extremists like Makki survived on rabid speeches and if every threat in such diatribes were taken seriously, security agencies would be buried under an avalanche of alerts.
But Indian Intelligence Bureau sources said they viewed the speech as a reflection of a decision, possibly taken by the handlers of the JuD in the ISI and the Pakistan Army, to engineer more and more attacks in India beyond Kashmir.
The sources claimed that phone conversations intercepted 10 days ago had also suggested that the attacks would be widened to cover more areas outside Kashmir. The conversations took place apparently among Col. Rashid of the Pakistan Army, an unidentified brigadier with the ISI and Lashkar operatives.
Date : 15/02/2010. News by Newsofap.com

Target killings: BHC directs PPO to furnish complete details

Wednesday, February 24, 2010
By Muhammad Ejaz Khan

QUETTA: The Balochistan High Court (BHC) while directing to issue notices to the secretary prosecution, government of Balochistan, ministry of interior and deputy attorney general on Monday directed the provincial police officer (PPO) to furnish complete detail of target killing incidents.
The bench comprising Chief Justice Mr Justice Qazi Faiz Isa and Mr Justice Muhammad Noor Meskanzai heard the suo moto action, which was subsequently converted into a constitutional petition, on target killings in the province.
Showing displeasure on the performance of police, the court directed the PPO to devise a system so that measures could be taken against the target killings and other heinous crimes and that system of intelligence should also be improved.
The learned court directed the PPO to furnish complete details of targeted killings that have taken place including the names of police stations, number of FIRs, progress in investigations and those arrested on the date of next hearing ie March 10.
The court also directed the PPO to ensure that all the target killings cases and heinous crimes were actively persuaded and perpetrators brought to book. The PPO stated that certain cases could not be detected on account of not having available equipment including GSM Locator. He added that the police force of other provinces have such locators and if the same was made available to Balochistan police it would go a long way in locating and detecting criminals.
The court directed the chief secretary Balochistan to look into the matter and if he comes to the conclusion that the same was required, he should arrange through resources of the Balochistan government for provision thereof, however, if such resources were not available with the provincial government he should contact the federal government in this regard.
The court observed that lack of such equipment was, however, no excuse for the police not detecting and pursuing criminals with available resources. The court directed the PPO to put in place a system, if it did not already in existence, for monitoring the progress of heinous crimes including target killings. The court directed that the investigation officers should also be made conscious of their duties. The PPO was directed to encourage honest and efficient officers and take action against inefficient and corrupt officers.
The court also directed the PPO to improve the working of intelligence-gathering network and supervise the same with a view to improve the same. During the hearing, PPO informed that a large number of posts are lying vacant in the senior cadre of the police and said that these had to be filled by the Establishment Division, Government of Pakistan. It appears that the officers who are nominated to serve in Balochistan manage to have their posting orders revoked. Such state of affairs is extremely regrettable. Secretary establishment division has to fill, along with the particulars of officers, who have been appointed against such posts. The court further directed to provide the names of all those officers who have managed to withdraw or cancel their orders for service in Balochistan and to report whether any action had been taken against such officers, and if not, reasons thereof.
When the DB enquired from the PPO whether the police stations were connected via computer networks, he said that pursuant to a project of the federal government, computers had been provided to a large number of police stations however the connectivity was not made as yet. The court directed to issue notice to DG Police Research Bureau, Government of Pakistan, who was directed to submit report that as to why the said connectivity has not been made as yet and to expedite the same and also submit report with regard to Tetra communication system.
The PPO pointed out that Forensic lab that has been approved and sanctioned had not yet been set up in Balochistan. The DG asked the police research bureau to submit his report in this regard as to why the same was not installed as yet.
Chief Secretary Balochistan Ahmed Bukhash Lehri, Secretary for Home Akbar Durrani, PPO Javed Shah Bukhari and other officials were present in the court. The president of High Court Bar Association, Balochistan Bar Association and Vice President Supreme Court Bar association were appointed as amicus to assist in this matter. The court adjourned the hearing till March 10.

Turkey army issues warning after ‘coup plot’ arrests

The head of Turkey’s army has insisted coups are a thing of the past

Turkey’s army has warned of a "serious" situation after 40 senior military figures were arrested over an alleged plot to topple the government.

All top generals and admirals met at the military headquarters to evaluate the investigation, the military said.

Police were questioning the suspects over the so-called "sledgehammer" plot which reportedly dates back to 2003.

Former heads of the air force and navy were among those detained in raids in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.

The men arrested include the former air force chief Ibrahim Firtina, former navy chief Ozden Ornek, and several other generals and colonels, both serving and retired, Turkish media outlets reported.

General Ilker Basbug, the head of the army, dismissed the allegations, insisting coups in Turkey are a thing of the past.

The army has overthrown or forced the resignation of four governments since 1960 – the last time in 1997.

Justify a coup?

The investigation follows reports published in the liberal Taraf newspaper, which said it had discovered documents detailing a 2003 plot to bomb two Istanbul mosques and provoke Greece into shooting down a Turkish plane over the Aegean Sea.

The aim of the operation was allegedly to undermine the Turkish government and justify a coup.

The army has said the plans were actually part of a planning exercise at a military seminar, and not a coup plot.

The alleged plot is similar, and possibly linked, to the reported Ergenekon conspiracy, in which military figures and other staunch secularists allegedly planned to foment unrest, leading to a coup.

Dozens of people are already on trial in connection with that case.

Many Turks regard the cases as the latest stage in an ongoing power struggle between Turkey’s secular nationalist establishment and the governing AK Party.

The AK Party has its roots in political Islam, and is accused by some nationalists of having secret plans to turn staunchly secular Turkey into an Islamic state.

The government rejects those claims, saying its intention is to modernise Turkey and move it closer to European Union membership.