Showing posts with label The Taliban. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Taliban. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Mullahs, Islamic Extremism & MI-6 - 2

How Britain's mosques foster extremism? Sectarian, conservative leadership is driving confused young Muslims into the arms of radicals Ed Husain, February 24, 2009

http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1210

How long will we tolerate this underworld in Britain?

Two years ago the Government established a Mosques and Imam National Advisory Board and included Hamas supporters to win over radicals. What has it achieved? Large numbers of British mosques are not properly registered with the Charity Commission, imam’s work with children without Criminal Record Bureau checks, and mosque buildings flout health and safety regulations. Would other schools or churches get away with this?

More than three years after the July 7 bombings, where are the citizenship classes in mosques? Or the English-language teaching for foreign imams? With such problems on our doorstep, as a community we are still focused on British policy in Palestine and Iraq at the expense of our children's education, gender apartheid at mosques, and inadequacies in language, safety and leadership. Labour politicians are only too keen to campaign for the Muslim vote in mosques in Blackburn, Manchester and Bradford while turning a blind eye to the failure that surrounds their constituents. For how much longer?

Ed Husain is co-director of Quilliam, and author of The Islamist

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5792445.ece
=====================================
How Britain's mosques foster extremism?

Dear Sultan Sahab,

That's how!

May 23, 2006 -- WMR has obtained a confidential "France Only" report of the French intelligence service, Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE), that states that the CIA and Britain's MI-6 maintained effective control of an important Al Qaeda

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20070419_130


"QUOTE"

May 23, 2006 -- WMR has obtained a confidential "France Only" report of the French intelligence service, Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE), that states that the CIA and Britain's MI-6 maintained effective control of an important Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan as late as 1995, fully two years after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, an attack that was launched with the help of Sudanese intelligence officers loyal to Osama Bin Laden. The CIA and MI-6 permitted control of training operations at Darunta, an "Arab Afghan" base located near the camp of Osama Bin Laden and used to manufacture explosives and chemical weapons and train in their use, to pass to the control of Ibn Cheikh, a Libyan leader of Al Qaeda.

The DGSE report, dated January 9, 2001, is classified "Defense Confidential" and "National (French) Use Only" states, "Besides the Maghreb enclave, the training at Darunta, which, for approximately 2 months, mainly involved the manufacture and the use of the explosives by terrorists. This training, initially provided at the camp of Khalden, in Paktia, was transferred during 1995, on the order of Ibn Cheikh, to Darunta, in order to slide [the training] from the control of the security services of certain countries, in particular the United States and the United Kingdom."

Classified French DGSE intelligence report: Al Qaeda training camp passed from control of CIA to Bin Laden in 1995.

The report continues by stating that in 1998, the training was expanded to include the use of C-4 plastic explosives and different types of detonators (electric, acid, etc.). Training also included the use of homemade explosives (like improvised explosive devices killing so many in Iraq today) and poisons such as arsenic, cyanide, gas, diamond powder, nicotine, and ricin. After Al Qaeda took control of Darunta from the CIA and MI-6, the camp was used to train Al Qaeda operatives to launch a series of deadly attacks, including the November 19, 1995 attack on the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad, the 1998 attacks on the US embassy in Nairobi, the abortive Dec. 31, 1999 "Millennium" attack on Los Angeles International Airport by Algerian Ahmed Ressam, and the attack on the USS Cole.

In 1995, James Woolsey left as CIA Director and was replaced by John Deutch. Deutch's deputy was George Tenet, who previously served in Bill Clinton's National Security Council. The National Security Adviser was Tony Lake. George Tenet The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) was chaired by Larry Combest of Lubbock, Texas and 1995 was the year Porter Goss joined the CIA oversight committee. On November 12, 2002, only a week after winning his 10th term, Combest suddenly announced his resignation from the House. Goss took over the HPSCI gavel from Combest in 1997, after serving only two years on the committee. In 1995, the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was Arlen Specter, a person whose fingerprints, like those of Goss, have been all over shady intelligence operations since the early 1960s. CIA intelligence analyst Michael Scheuer formed the CIA's Bin Laden Unit in 1996.

Two significant items emerge from the DGSE report. One is the fact that the CIA and MI-6 were dealing with a Libyan Al Qaeda member at the same time Libyan leader Muammar el Qaddafi had declared war on Al Qaeda. Unlike the United States, Libya issued an Interpol arrest warrant for Bin Laden on March 16, 1998. With this treasure trove of proof of U.S. (and British) support for Al Qaeda, Qaddafi had the U.S. and the neo-cons over the barrel. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Bush administration now considers Qaddafi (once branded as terrorist number one) to be a good friend.


"UNQUOTE"

Alastair Crooke, an agent for the British intelligence service MI6, helps out with the anti-Soviet jihad and gets “to know some of the militants who would become leaders of al-Qaeda.” [New Statesman, 4/11/2005] He also spends “years during the 1980s with Osama Bin Laden’s henchmen in Afghanistan.” [Sunday Express, 6/12/2005] Crooke, whose role is to coordinate British assistance to the mujaheddin, will later be described by CIA officer Milton Bearden as “a natural on the frontier” and “a British agent straight out of the Great Game.” Details of exactly which future al-Qaeda leaders he gets to know are not available. In the 1990s, Crooke will move to Palestine, where he will come into contact with Hamas leaders. [New Statesman, 4/11/2005]

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=amid1980scrookefutureleaders#amid1980scrookefutureleaders

Following an agreement between the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI to make more use of Arabs in the Soviet-Afghan War, recruitment of potential fighters increases significantly. The agreement was a result of CIA dissatisfaction at infighting between indigenous Afghan rebels (see 1985-1986). According to Australian journalist John Pilger, in this year, “CIA Director William Casey [gives] his backing to a plan put forward by Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, to recruit people from around the world to join the Afghan jihad. More than 100,000 Islamic militants [are] trained in Pakistan between 1986 and 1992, in camps overseen by the CIA and [the British intelligence agency] MI6, with the [British special forces unit] SAS training future al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in bomb-making and other black arts. Their leaders [are] trained at a CIA camp in Virginia.” [Guardian, 9/20/2003] Eventually, around 35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 Islamic countries will fight with the Afghan mujaheddin. Tens of thousands more will study in the hundreds of new madrassas (Islamic schools) funded by the ISI and CIA in Pakistan. Their main logistical base is in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. [Washington Post, 7/19/1992; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/23/2001] Ironically, although many are trained, it seems only a small percentage actually take part fight in serious fighting in Afghanistan, so their impact on the war is small. [New Yorker, 9/9/2002] Richard Murphy, assistant secretary of state for Near East and South Asian relations during the Reagan administration, will later say, “We did spawn a monster in Afghanistan. Once the Soviets were gone [the people trained and/or funded by the US] were looking around for other targets, and Osama bin Laden has settled on the United States as the source of all evil. Irony? Irony is all over the place.” [Associated Press, 8/23/1998] In the late 1980s, Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, feeling the mujaheddin network has grown too strong, tells President George H. W. Bush, “You are creating a Frankenstein.” However, the warning goes unheeded. [Newsweek, 10/1/2001] By 1993, President Bhutto tells Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that Peshawar is under de facto control of the mujaheddin, and unsuccessfully asks for military help in reasserting Pakistani control over the city. Thousands of mujaheddin fighters return to their home countries after the war is over and engage in multiple acts of violence. One Western diplomat notes these thousands would never have been trained or united without US help, and says, “The consequences for all of us are astronomical.” [Atlantic Monthly, 5/1996]

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a86operationcyclone#a86operationcyclone

Before April 1993: Saeed Sheikh Allegedly Recruited by British Intelligence Saeed Sheikh may be recruited by the British intelligence service MI6, according to a claim made in a book published in 2006 by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. According to Musharraf, Saeed Sheikh, who will be involved in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl (see January 23, 2002) and will be said to wire money to the 9/11 hijackers (see Early August 2001), may be recruited by MI6 while studying in London, and when he goes to Bosnia to support the Muslim cause there, this may be at MI6’s behest (see April 1993). Musharraf will further speculate, “At some point, he probably became a rogue or double agent.” [London Times, 9/26/2006] The London Times will provide some support for this theory, suggesting that Saeed will later have dealings with British intelligence (see 1999).

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=abefore0493saeedsheikhmi6#abefore0493saeedsheikhmi6

Early 1994: Bin Laden Allegedly Briefly Lives in London Shortly after 9/11, unnamed FBI agents will tell a British newspaper that bin Laden stayed in London for several months in 1994. He was already wanted by the US, but “confusion at British intelligence agencies allowed him to slip away.” However, it may not simply have been confusion as British intelligence has a history of not acting on radical Muslim militants in Britain. One Israeli intelligence source will tell the same newspaper, “We know they come and go as they like in Britain. In the past our government has remonstrated with the Home Office but nothing has happened.” [Daily Express, 9/16/2001] A US Congressional Research Service report completed shortly before 9/11 will similarly conclude that bin Laden visited London in 1994. He lived for a few months in Wembley establishing his de facto press office called the Advice and Reformation Committee (ARC), headed by Khalid al-Fawwaz (see Early 1994-September 23, 1998). [Guardian, 9/14/2001] The book Bin Laden: Behind the Mask of the Terrorist by Adam Robinson will also state that bin Laden visits London for three months in early 1994, buying a house near Harrow Road in Wembley through an intermediary. The house will continued to be used by ARC long after he leaves. Bin Laden even attends a football (soccer) game at Arsenal. [Robinson, 2001, pp. 167-168; BBC, 11/11/2001] There are reports that bin Laden visits Britain at other times (see Early 1990s-Late 1996) and even considers applying for political asylum there in 1995 (see Late 1995). Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, is also “said to have lived in Britain for a time after fleeing Cairo, [Egypt, in the 1980s,] but [British ministers] refused Egypt’s request to arrest and extradite him.” [London Times, 9/24/2001]

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a94osamalondon#a94osamalondon

Mullahs, Islamic Extremism & MI-6 - 1

How Britain's mosques foster extremism? Sectarian, conservative leadership is driving confused young Muslims into the arms of radicals Ed Husain, February 24, 2009

http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1210

How long will we tolerate this underworld in Britain?

Two years ago the Government established a Mosques and Imam National Advisory Board and included Hamas supporters to win over radicals. What has it achieved? Large numbers of British mosques are not properly registered with the Charity Commission, imam’s work with children without Criminal Record Bureau checks, and mosque buildings flout health and safety regulations. Would other schools or churches get away with this?

More than three years after the July 7 bombings, where are the citizenship classes in mosques? Or the English-language teaching for foreign imams? With such problems on our doorstep, as a community we are still focused on British policy in Palestine and Iraq at the expense of our children's education, gender apartheid at mosques, and inadequacies in language, safety and leadership. Labour politicians are only too keen to campaign for the Muslim vote in mosques in Blackburn, Manchester and Bradford while turning a blind eye to the failure that surrounds their constituents. For how much longer?

Ed Husain is co-director of Quilliam, and author of The Islamist

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5792445.ece

====================================================
How Britain's mosques foster extremism?

Dear Sultan Sahab,

That's how!

This article appears in the October 13, 1995 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
The SAS: Prince Philip's manager of terrorism by Joseph Brewda

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1995/2241_sas.html

On the eve of the first of six scheduled French nuclear weapons tests in the South Pacific atoll of Mururoa in September, Greenpeace, an offshoot of Prince Philip's World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), carried out a series of violent protests. A Greenpeace team somehow managed to penetrate the highly militarized nuclear test zone. French authorities revealed that the team was led by two highly trained retired professionals from the British Army's Special Air Services (SAS), its elite paratrooper and commando arm. "They are people used to operations which have nothing to do with ecology," commented the French Security Services commander on the scene.

The incident points to the fact that SAS is active in international terrorism today, and that the motives behind its deployment are different than those of its patsies. As this report will show, SAS deployment is a key component of the "afghansi."

SAS has a special role derived from the fact that it operates outside the British government command structure, and is directly beholden to the Sovereign. Formed in 1941 by Lt. Col. David Stirling, it has always drawn on the highest levels of the Scottish oligarchical families for its officer corps. Stirling himself was from the Fraser family (the Lords Lovat), one of the oldest and wealthiest of the Scottish Highland families.

Closely associated with the royal family throughout his career, Stirling served as the "Goldstick" at Queen Elizabeth's 1952 coronation. The Goldstick is the royal household official solemnly mandated with securing the Sovereign's protection. Until his death in 1990, Stirling was a principal military adviser for Prince Philip's World Wide Fund for Nature, the royal family's most important private intelligence agency, and an organization bankrolled by his uncle, Lord Lovat, and his cousin, the Hongkong banker Henry Keswick. Together with its numerous private security company spinoffs, SAS is the military arm of the WWF.

SAS methods and procedures

According to the British Army handbook, the SAS is "particularly suited, trained, and equipped for counter-revolutionary operations," with a specialization in "infiltration," "sabotage," "assassination," as well as "liaison with, organization, training, and control of friendly guerrilla forces operating against the common enemy." From its inception in World War II, Special Air Services was detailed to run sabotage behind enemy lines and to organize popular revolt, at first in North Africa, and then in the Balkans, where another Stirling cousin, Fitzroy Maclean, ran British operations.

At the end of the war, SAS was disbanded, but it was soon revived to crush the Malay insurgency in Malaysia, and the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya. The principle employed was to take over the insurgency from within, and use it to destroy the native population. In his 1960 book Gangs and Countergangs, Col. Frank Kitson boasted that the British were covertly leading several large-scale Mau Mau units, and that many, if not all Mau Mau units had been synthetically created by the colonial authorities. As a result of this practice, 22 whites were killed during the insurgency, as compared to 20,000 natives.

Based on this principle, SAS emphasized recruitment of natives, as it received increasing responsibilities for overseeing counterinsurgency within the postwar empire, as well as organizing insurgencies elsewhere. In New Zealand, 30% of SAS was drawn from the indigenous Maori tribes, later supplemented by Sarawak tribesmen from Indonesia. By the 1960s, New Zealand SAS was active throughout Southeast Asia, organizing tribal revolts against the Burmese government, and stirring similar movements in Northeast India. Similarly, SAS squadrons based in Rhodesia ran the 1960s tribal separatist insurgency in Zaire. They later recruited and deployed natives in terrorist raids in Mozambique and Zambia.

Today, there are three known SAS regiments, comprising 4,500 highly trained commandos in total. Training exercises for 15-man teams simulate terrorist assaults, in order, it is said, to "know the mind of the terrorist." Such teams are often sent abroad, to train British Commonwealth and other military units in the techniques of terrorist assault, as well as the use of tribal auxiliaries in covert warfare. Through such means, SAS has built an extensive terrorist control capability, especially in its former colonies. Its soldiers currently serve officially in some 30 countries.

'Private' means 'Her Majesty's'

In order to facilitate its role as a disavowable arm of royal household covert operations, SAS has spun off a series of private security and mercenary recruitment firms led by its retired or reserve-status officers. Among these are Keenie Meenie Services, whose name is taken from the Swahili term for the motion of a snake in the grass. During its heyday in the 1980s, KMS shared offices with Saladin Security, another SAS firm, next door to the 22nd SAS Regimental HQ in London. The firms were run by Maj. David Walker, an SAS South American specialist; Maj. Andrew Nightingale of SAS Group Intelligence; and Detective Ray Tucker, a former Arab affairs specialist at Scotland Yard.

Others SAS firms include:

Kilo Alpha Services (KAS), run by former SAS Counter-Terrorism Warfare team leader Lt. Col. Ian Crooke;


Control Risks, run by former SAS squadron leader Maj. Arish Turtle; and


J. Donne Holdings, run by SAS counterespionage specialist H.M.P.D. Harclerode, whose firm later provided bodyguards and commando training for Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.
SAS operations under KMS label have been particularly important. In 1983, Lt. Col. Oliver North hired KMS to train the Afghan mujahideen, and simultaneously, to mine Managua harbor in Nicaragua, and to train the Nicaraguan Contras. At the same time, KMS was detailed to provide personal security for the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar, a close associate of then Vice President George Bush, who helped supply tens of billions of Saudi dollars for "Iran-Contra" operations internationally.

KMS has a long history in the Arab and Muslim world. One of its first known assignments, back in the 1970s, was to aid Oman in repressing a revolt in its province of Dhofar. Oman remains a de facto British colony; its officer corps is dominated by British officers on secondment. KMS has also worked in Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, all of which are de facto British colonies, and all of which include numerous former SAS officers in their security apparatus. The current security chief in Bahrain, Ian Henderson, for example, was an SAS officer in Kenya during the Mau Mau period. The Omani chief of security is a former SAS officer, as is the case in Dubai, where KMS official Fiona Fraser, another Stirling relative, resides.

These oil sheikhdoms are key hubs for British covert financial operations internationally. Dubai, for instance, is the center of the illegal flow of gold to Asia, while Kuwait has been a major bankroller of Afghan and Pakistan opium cultivation. The emirates' gold trade, which is integral to the drugs-for-arms trade, is overseen by the British Bank of the Middle East, a Dubai-based subsidiary of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp., a centuries-old leading financier of the opium trade dominated by Stirling's cousins, the Keswicks. Abu Dhabi, similarly, was the headquarters of the Bank of Commerce and Credit International, the now-defunct narco-bank. BCCI, which was run by WWF activist and funder Hassan Abedi, was a major conduit for bankrolling the Afghan War.

The relations of these SAS firms with the Iran-Contra narcotics trafficking, emerged dramatically in August 1989, when reports surfaced in the British and Italian press that the Colombian Cali Cartel, historically most closely tied to the George Bush machine, had hired SAS veterans to assassinate Pablo Escobar of the rival Medellín Cartel. On Aug. 16, three days after the story broke, Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán, a fierce opponent of the drug trade, was assassinated, some Colombian government sources say, by these British mercenaries. Among the individuals identified as working for the Cali Cartel were Col. Peter McAleese, a former SAS officer in Malaysia; Alex Lenox, a former member of the SAS Counter-Terrorism Warfare task force; and David Tomkins, a veteran of Afghanistan.

WWF's 'Operation Lock'

In 1988, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, a co-founder of the WWF with Prince Philip, established a special hit squad within the WWF under the name of "Operation Lock," officially charged with stopping the poaching of elephants and rhinos in South Africa's national parks. Operation Lock hired Kilo Alpha Services (KAS), the private security firm led by Lt. Col. Ian Crooke. Crooke was a commander of the 23rd SAS Regiment, a part-time unit composed of reserve officers and soldiers frequently employed in SAS private security firms. His brother Alastair, the British vice consul in Pakistan, helped oversee the arming of the Afghan mujahideen.

Operation Lock is the secret behind the fratricidal warfare in South Africa between the African National Congress (ANC) and the Inkatha, which killed 10,000 people between 1990-95. KAS supervised the commando training of Zulu followers of Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi's Inkatha, who were employed as game wardens and guards in several South African national parks. It also undertook the training of opposing Xhosa tribal followers of Nelson Mandela's ANC, in different parks. Beginning in 1989, these commando teams began what has since been referred to as "third force" killings: the slaughter of ANC and the rival Zulu cadre in such a way as to implicate each other.

In August 1991, Zimbabwean Minister for National Security Sydney Sekerayami accused KAS of "being a cover for the destabilization of southern Africa." In 1993, his government's investigations determined that the 1992 Boipatong anti-Zulu massacre was carried out by the "Crowbar squad," a Namibian anti-poaching unit created and trained by KAS.

Destabilizing Sri Lanka

In 1983, Sri Lankan President Julius Jayawardene asked the U.S. and British governments to help him suppress the insurrection led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, Tamil Tigers). The British government authorized KMS to train the Sri Lankan Army in counterinsurgency, and to lead Army units fighting the LTTE. For its part, the United States set up an "Israeli interests" section at its embassy in Sri Lanka, also charged with training the Sri Lankan Army. But simultaneously, KMS and the Israelis were secretly training the LTTE too, at training camps in Israel and elsewhere. The Sri Lankan civil war rapidly increased in intensity. In 1991, the LTTE was implicated in the murder of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

An article in the Western Mail in Wales at the time noted: "A band of mercenary soldiers recruited in South Wales is training a Tamil army to fight for a separate State in Sri Lanka. About 20 mercenaries were signed up after a meeting in Cardiff, and have spent the last two months in southern India preparing a secret army to fight the majority Sinhalas, in the cause of a separate Tamil State in Sri Lanka." According to recent Indian press reports, the LTTE is now being equipped with Stinger missiles diverted from former Afghan mujahideen stocks.

The afghansi

Throughout the 1980s, SAS was on the ground in Pakistan as a lead agency training the Afghan mujahideen. SAS expertise in "sabotage," and "liaison with, organization, training, and control of friendly guerrilla forces," was, of course, much in demand when Islamic volunteers with plenty of fervor, but no military training, began arriving in Pakistan from all over the world. In camps throughout Pakistan, these youth and their Afghan refugee counterparts, were turned into commandos, and sent into Afghanistan to fight. In reality, the Afghan operation was always deployed against all nation-states in the region, not just the Soviet Union.

Oman was a particularly critical base of SAS operations into Afghanistan throughout the 1979-89 war. According to the recent unauthorized biography of Mark Thatcher, son of the former British prime minister, Oman's extensive SAS community served as the principal British arms-shipping center for the mujahideen.

The sultan of Oman, Qaboos bin Said, was installed on the throne in 1970, in an SAS-orchestrated coup that deposed his father. The head of the coup effort was Brig. J.T.W. ("Tim") Landon, who had been an intimate of Qaboos since the 1950s, when both had attended the British military academy at Sandhurst. The newly installed sultan showed his gratitude to his old school chum by making Landon his equerry, special adviser, and chief military counsellor. Landon built up Oman's military as one of the best-armed small forces in the world. The arms purchases were handled by another former British Army officer, David Bayley, who set up a purchasing office in the Omani capital of Muscat. Another active figure in the British military community in Oman was Lt. Col. Johnny Cooper, a founder of SAS.

Landon enjoyed intimate ties to both Mark Thatcher and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher throughout the 1980s, and this further facilitated Oman's key role as a weapons conduit to the Afghan mujahideen. A look at a map of the Arabian Sea and the Indian subcontinent shows that Oman is a stone's throw away from the Pakistani port of Karachi, the major weapons-importing point (and heroin-exporting point) for the Afghan rebels.

Ironically, another strong player in Oman during this period was one of the American CIA figures who most closely followed the British SAS model: Theodore G. Shackley. Shackley had directed the CIA's "secret war in Laos" during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and had written a book, The Third Option, spelling out the SAS approach to training and controlling local insurgent armies as surrogates. Much of the Laos "secret war" had been financed by the sale of Golden Triangle opium. Shackley was a pivotal behind-the-scenes player in George Bush's "secret parallel government" apparatus that ran the Afghan, Nicaraguan, Angolan, and other covert operations.

When Shackley left the CIA, he went on retainer with a shadowy Dutch oil trader named John Deuss, who developed a special relationship with Sultan Qaboos that was almost as tight as the Omani's ties to Brigadier Landon.

Typical SAS uses of these afghansi include:

Punjab: In 1984, Sikh separatists assassinated Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, following a several-year bloody insurgency in Punjab. Many of the Sikh terrorist leaders had fought in Afghanistan. The Sikh terrorist groups active in Punjab, such as Babbar Khalsa, were trained abroad by SAS veterans in British Columbia, Canada, and Britain. Many of these Canadian Sikh leaders also oversaw western arms smuggling to Pakistan for the war in Afghanistan.


Kashmir: In May 1995, Kashmiri separatists occupying the Charare-e-Sharif mosque burnt it down, after a three-month Indian Army siege. "India should remember that the fire of Charare-e-Sharif will not be confined to Kashmir alone, but will burn Delhi and Bombay," the leader of Harkat-ul-Ansar threatened following the incident. The group is composed and led by former Afghan mujahideen, and is an offshoot of the "Islamic fundamentalist" Jamiati Islami of Pakistan which received millions of dollars from the West during the Afghan War.

If Pakistan "continues to interfere in India's internal affairs, we shall have no option but to accomplish the unfinished task of vacating Pakistan-occupied Kashmir," the Indian home minister threatened, claiming that Pakistan oversaw the incident. Pakistan's Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto convened a special cabinet meeting to review Pakistan's military preparedness in response, claiming Indian responsibility for the affair.

But there is another "third force" at work. The Kashmiri groups demand that Pakistani-occupied Kashmir, and not just Indian Kashmir, be "liberated," to form an independent State. The creation of an independent Kashmir would fragment and destroy Pakistan, while massively eroding the strength of India.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Benazir Bhutto: Before her death - 13


Major General Retd. Naseerullah Babar

Maulana Fazl ur Rehman [JUI-F]

The Taliban
American Backed Chief Martial Law Administrator Pakistan General Pervez Musharraf [1999-2008]

Benazir Bhutto

As per a news article [appeared today in the The News International the link is at the end]

"She has successfully conveyed to the Western governments and the public that she was ready to work with Musharraf in the fight against terrorists who were bent upon converting Pakistan into a Taliban society.“My party would not have allowed the Taliban to become such a huge force that they would need to sign a peace treaty,” she said." [1].

But history tells us something else on PPP-Taliban Axis particularly in reference to that Cuththroat in PPP Major General Retd. Naseerullah Babar and Taliban. Even the interview of Nawaz Sharif given to ARYONE AND LATER GEO was better than the bunkum of Benazir Bhutto at least we know for shure that where Nawaz Sharif
stands.

"QUOTE"

"The policy for the support of the Taliban was apparently conceived by Gen. (retd) Naseerullah Babar, the Interior Minister during the PPP regime and had the support of the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) led by Maulana Fazalur-Rehamn which controlled the bulk of those Deeni Madressahs in the NWFP and Baluchistan.The transporters, drug mafias, other extremist Sunni organisations like the Sipah-i-Sahaba,(SSP) Lashka-e-Jhangvi,(LJ), Tehreek-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-Mohammadi, (TNSM) also supported the policy. The Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and the foreign office were apparently divided and were late converts to the policy. Gen. (retd) Naseerullah Babar was the in-charge of the Afghan policy during former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhuttto's rule (1971-77) and had masterminded the arming of the Afghan opposition led by Hikmatyar and Ahmed Shah Masood against Sardar Daud's regime (1973-1978). With Benazir Bhutto in power in 1993, he was entrusted with the task of reopening the route to Central Asian Republics through Afghanistan. He negotiated with the Afghan warlords to open the Quetta-Chaman-Kandahar-Herat route to Turkmenistan. The Pakistani convoy was stopped by the warlords in September 1994, which was freed by the Talibans. Many observers believe that Pakistan, having seen the potential of the nascent movement of the Taliban, began to support the movement which paved the way for their swift victories in Afghanistan.

The Deeni Madressahs led by the JUI (F) provided the manpower. Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman, a close ally of the PPP who had been made the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee of Foreign Affairs, also played a key role in garnering the support for the Taliban in the corridors of power. Various Pakistani governmental organisations like the PTCL, Railway, PIA and Ministry of Communications provided the infrastructural assistance to the Taliban. The ISI began to provide military supplies, logistical support, technical know how and the extensive knowledge of the Afghan situation.Apparently, the ISI and the foreign office were reluctant to support the Taliban in the beginning because of their potential implications for the broad-based political settlement in Afghanistan, however, fastly changing ground realities in the favour of Taliban forced them to shift their policies and throw their weight in the favour of the Taliban.

Gen. (Retd.) Naseerullah Babar and the military officers in ISI were motivated by the Pushtun ethnicity and viewed Talibans as the “Pushtun proxies” They wanted to revive the Pushtun fortunes in Afghanistan. It was first time that Kabul was being controlled by the Tajiks and it was painful for the Pushtuns to see Kabul under their control. The JUI (F) the JUI (S) and other extremist Sunni organisations like SSP, LJ,TNSM viewed Taliban's victories as the Deobandi's revolution and expected the same kind of revolution in Pakistan.The transporters' lobbies in Pakistan considered Taliban as a god-given saviour who were instrumental in removing the barriers on the roads in Afghanistan. They were sick of paying to the multitudes of Afghan warlords, who had virtually paralysed their business. The drug dealers also saw their vested interest in supporting the Taliban as they only demanded the tax on their product and had little qualm about the international concerns regarding drug controls.Consequences of the PolicyApparently, the policy of support for the Taliban appeared well suited for Pakistan's strategic, economic and political interests. The Talibans were controlling more than 90 per cent of Afghanistan and had pushed their rivals, Northern Alliance, to the wall.

They had been recognised by Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. and were in the process of negotiating their recognition with the United States. However, there were serious long-term negative consequences of this policy for Afghanistan, Pakistan, the regional countries and the rest of the world, which had not been properly thought through while formulating the policy.The policy of support for the Taliban alienated other Afghan ethnic groups to the degree where the goal of a broad-based government became impossible to achieve. The very nature of the Taliban regime and their policies created severe problems for Pakistan as its polity, economy, and foreign policy began to be affected by the Taliban policies. The non-compromising attitude of the Taliban regime created difficulties for Pakistan with the United States and Saudi Arabia, eventually leading them to turn against Taliban. The ideology of Taliban alarmed Iran, Russia, Central Asian republics who began to support anti-Taliban forces actively.

First important lesson is that if the pros and cons of significant decisions are not thought through, the country has to suffer the consequences of the policy. Contrary to the widely held perception about the dominant role of the ISI in the making of the Afghan policy, the policy of the support of the Taliban was in fact conceived by Gen. (Retd.) Naseerullah Babar, the Interior Minister during the PPP regime (1993-1996). The Taliban policy was a civilian initiative possibly against the wishes of the ISI and the foreign office who wanted to continue the policy of seeking a broad-based settlement. However, the Pushtun element within the PPP, and later the military was able to push their way through to top echelon of power and succeeded in making it a Pakistan's policy with disastrous consequences for Afghanistan and Pakistan and the regional countries. It is surprising that the decision-makers overlooked the nature of Taliban's ideology, their social base, their implications for the Afghan society and their possible impact for Pakistan. Taliban's extremely narrow vision of Islam put them in clash with all the non-Pushtun minorities of the Afghan society pushing them into the arms of the foreign powers, stirred the wave of Talibanisation in the NWFP and Blauchistan leading to increasing conflict and violence in the Pakistani society and sent shockwaves in the regional countries, Iran, China, Russia and Central Asia republics.Secondly, their appeared a lack of coordination at the decision-making level among the different bodies. Interior Ministry, Parliamentary Committee, the Political Parties and Different lobbies had their own agenda. The ISI and the Foreign Office had their own policies. The ISI remained divided and continued backing both Hikmatyar and Taliban till the fall of Kabul in 1996. [2]

"UN-QUOTE"

Sources and References.

1- I want a deal with Musharraf: Benazir [1]

By Rauf Klasra

Monday, April 16, 2007, Rabi-ul-Awal 27, 1428 A.H.

http://thenews.jang.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=7179


2- Development of Pakistan's Foreign Policy:Case Study No.3 Case Study on Pakistan's Recognition of Taliban [2]


http://www.ghalib.com/democracy/Foreign%20Policy/cs_fp_No3.pdf


3- The Taliban, the US and the resources of Central Asia By Peter Symonds 24 October 2001 [2]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/oct2001/tal1-o24.shtml


4- Afghanistan — not so great games [2]

Columnist Hamid Hussain does a detailed analysis of the present situation

http://www.defencejournal.com/2002/april/games.htm