CIA confronts Pakistan

Image via Wikipedia

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top Central Intelligence Agency official travelled to Islamabad and confronted senior officials with evidence of ties between Pakistan's spy agency and militants operating in that country's tribal areas, the New York Times reported in Wednesday editions.

The CIA envoy presented information linking members of Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) with some militant groups responsible for a string of attacks including the suicide bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul this month which killed 58 people, the newspaper said.

The report, based on accounts by U.S. military and intelligence officials, described the decision to confront Pakistan over ISI's activities as the bluntest warning to Islamabad since shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

It was published a day after Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani visited the White House and made a commitment to U.S. President George W. Bush to secure Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

The New York Times said the CIA assessment specifically raised links between ISI members and the militant network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, believed by the U.S. intelligence community to have close ties to senior al Qaeda figures in Pakistan's tribal areas.

The Haqqani network and other militants operating in the tribal areas along Pakistan's Afghan border are thought to be behind increasingly deadly attacks inside Afghanistan, the newspaper said.

Gilani told PBS television in Washington on Tuesday the ISI was a "great institution" and said reports some members of the agency were sympathetic to the militants are "not believable."

"We would not allow that ... because the ISI is directly working under the Prime Minister," he told the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer in an interview.

(Reporting by Paul Eckert, editing by Alan Elsner)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/UKNews1/idUKN2939191820080730

http://snipurl.com/37hc8

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jalalludin Haqqani

Baitullah Mehsud BOTTLED UP.He ...Haqqani

Saraj Haqqani, son of veteran warlord Jalalludin Haqqani and

believed to have connections with al-Qaida.



Mujahideen commander Jalaluddin Haqqani (here shown with his son Nasrudin) operates in eastern Afghan provinces and North Waziristan. Facilitates attacks against US and Afghan troops and commands thousands of men.

G

Related articles by Zemanta

• C.I.A. Outlines Pakistan Links With Militants
• Clipping Pakistan Spy Agency's Wings?
• Taliban says ISI helping them.
  

Leave Taliban alone, Afghan president

Image via Wikipedia

Leave Taliban alone, Afghan president tells West

Karzai says US and British troops are undermining his authority and stopping insurgents from laying down their arms

• Jason Burke
• The Observer,
• Sunday April 27 2008

About this article

Close

This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday April 27 2008 on p35 of the World news section. It was last updated at 00:00 on April 27 2008.

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has called on British and American troops to stop arresting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, saying that their operations undermined his government's authority and were counter-productive.

Well Gee I just don't know what to say? I just didn't expect him to defect to the Taliban.

The stinging attack, made in an interview with the New York Times published yesterday, is the latest in a series of rows between Western governments with troops in Afghanistan and the elected leader of the country. Western diplomats expressed surprise at the Afghan leader's criticism and the Foreign Office played down the row yesterday.

'We fully support the Afghan government and continue to work with it, President Karzai and the international community in the interests of the Afghan people and the long-term peace and stability of Afghanistan,' said a spokesman.

Karzai is facing re-election next year and may be hoping to bolster flagging support with a populist stance.

Is he playing for the Taliban vote? Is that a viable electorate?

However, in recent months relations have deteriorated seriously, with Western officials openly doubting the ability of the Afghan president, who was heavily backed by the US and the UK in 2001 after the fall of the Taliban regime, to manage rampant corruption and combat drug trafficking in the war-wracked southwest Asian state.

Karzai said he wanted American forces to stop arresting suspected Taliban members and their supporters, saying that fear of arrest and their past mistreatment were discouraging them from coming forward to lay down their arms.

Yes arrest offends their little beheading sensibilities.

'It has to happen,' he said. 'We have to make sure that when a Talib comes to Afghanistan ... he is safe from arrest by the coalition.'

'We have to make sure that when a Talib comes to Afghanistan ... he is safe from arrest by the coalition.' isn't that what they are doing in Paki?

So the Taliban will be safe from arrest in Afghan and Paki.

Both Afghan and Paki have taken a wild wolf into the house and hope they can train it before it eats them.

Karzai is the closest thing they have to a wolf trainer, born Pushtun, speaks Pushtun, Dari, Urdu,English and French.

Briefly supported the Taliban in 2000 before they went extreme fundamentalism then he turned against them.

His father, Abdul Ahad Karzai was killed by the Taliban in Quetta.

I want to give him the benefit of doubt but would like to know the Goal.

Does he know where this road leads. G

Efforts at winning over Taliban fighters or sympathisers are mired in confusion: Nato allies in Afghanistan are divided over the exact nature of the amnesty or 'reconciliation programme' for insurgents. British policy, despite official insistence that 'there are no negotiations with the Taliban', is to weaken the radical Islamic movement by splitting off foot soldiers tempted by money or misled by tribal chiefs, religious leaders and ideologues from a 'hardcore' of leaders.

'We fully support efforts to bring disaffected Afghans into society's mainstream, providing they renounce violence and accept Afghanistan's constitution,' said the Foreign Office spokesman. 'We have always said there is no military solution in Afghanistan - a fully comprehensive approach is needed ... and that will involve reconciliation of those Taliban prepared to integrate into the new Afghanistan.'

However, Washington is more sceptical of such efforts, and has been fiercely critical of some British tactics aimed at winning over key Taliban commanders in the past, as has Karzai himself.

Karzai also attacked the number of civilian deaths inflicted by the coalition. Although levels of 'collateral damage' inflicted by Nato operations have dropped substantially, deaths still continue. Two women and two children were killed recently in an air raid by Nato troops on a suspected Taliban position after a firefight. Up to 9,000 civilians have died since 2001.

'I want an end to civilian casualties,' the Afghan president said in the interview. 'And as much as one may argue it's difficult, I don't accept that argument.'

Relations between Karzai and London were strained last month by the Afghan premier's rejection of Lord Paddy Ashdown, the favoured candidate to take up a post as 'aid tsar' in Kabul with a brief to coordinate the international aid flowing into the country. Karzai blocked the appointment amid negative local press coverage, a historic popular distrust of the British and advisers' fears of a potential crackdown on corruption.

With casualties and costs mounting and little obvious progress, Western governments are looking increasingly for an exit from Afghanistan, where 94 British servicemen have been killed since 2001. 'Nato now wants a way out which is not failure,' said Mike Williams, of London's Royal United Services Institute. 'They need to redefine the situation which will allow them to leave without failing.'

A key problem for policymakers is 'battle fatigue' among Western populations. 'We are going to get bored of the war long before the Taliban are,' said one Nato official

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Karzai will loose the election, the average Afghan knows the Taliban for what it is, Karzai just removed himself from office, who is next in line?

What in hell is Karzai thinking?
The Taliban will come in and just lay down their arms if they feel no threat/power?
I don't understand his Taliban Paradigm.
Taliban will cut Karzai throat first chance they get.
DAY after I posted about Taliban willing to cut his throat,
Taliban attacked him.
Video: Karzai Escapes Unharmed After Taliban Attack


USA could accept the Taliban in Afghan and Paki if they
killed off al Qaeda, otherwise with a nuclear issue in the offing
USA will have no alternative that to go back to war in Paki and Afghan
to take out al Qaeda.

al Qaeda cannot have a safe haven any where in the world to launch attacks against the rest of the world.

The shape of this paradigm is a no brainer, the diplomats must see this.
Safe haven is a non starter.

al Qaeda's silence on these TALIBAN negotiations is DEAFENING.

USA force will continue to be applied against al Qaeda and the Taliban
unless the Taliban gives up al Qaeda.
Biny doesn't trust the Taliban, when he was in trouble in Tora Bora he split his forces, separating the Taliban off from himself.

al Qaeda's developing new Survival Paradigm.

al Qaeda continues to experience heavy losses and fears USA Military and are allowing the negotiations with their tacit silence/approval.
al Qaeda is concerned with survival, huge losses in Iraq and Afghan and
Paki, loss of key cadre.

Intel is on their tails, they know who is tracking them and their time is limited. Its a matter of time before their hide aways are visited by a rain of hellfire rockets.

al Qaeda is looking for a way out, breathing space, some R&R.
Top al Qaeda cadre have been in a very Black covert security operation for six years, and its getting heavy and they are short money, men and suicide bombers, and webmasters. And Biny is in terminal stages of his disease.

Olde Zee's load is too heavy and showed signs of desperation in his last
town hall meeting, with weak arguments that run counter to the Koran
and logic and reason. al Qaeda's killing of Moslems women children blowing up mosques and market places has roused Allah's anger.
Watch what happens.


Gerald
Anthropologist

Update: Is the Taliban evolving a new paradigm?

Negotiate PEACE with Afghan and Paki so the Taliban and al Qaeda have a safe base of operations, in these states to conduct terrorism?

WE quit suicide bombings in your countrys and WE don't get arrested, and get immunity for past acts. And a free hand to operate outside your borders.

G

.

Iran's secret nuke

Image by azrainman via Flickr

Do satellite photos show Iran ballistic missile facility?
New report says site is being used to develop missiles with 4,000 mile range.
By Arthur Bright

posted April 11, 2008 at 10:00 am EDT

A new report by The Times of London says that satellite photographs of a site in Iran indicate the location is being used to develop a ballistic missile that could reach most of continental Europe.

The Times writes that the photographs show the launch site of a Kavoshgar 1 rocket that Iran tested on February 4. Tehran claimed that the rocket was intended to further a nascent Iranian space program, but The Times says that the photos suggest otherwise.

Analysis of the photographs taken by the Digital Globe QuickBird satellite four days after the launch has revealed a number of intriguing features that indicate to experts that it is the same site where Iran is focusing its efforts on developing a ballistic missile with a range of about 6,000km (4,000 miles).

A previously unknown missile location, the site, about 230km southeast of Tehran, and the link with Iran's long-range programme, was revealed by Jane's Intelligence Review after a study of the imagery by a former Iraq weapons inspector. A close examination of the photographs has indicated that the Iranians are following the same path as North Korea, pursuing a space programme that enables Tehran to acquire expertise in long-range missile technology.

Geoffrey Forden, a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that there was a recently constructed building on the site, about 40 metres in length, which was similar in form and size to the Taepodong long-range missile assembly facility in North Korea.

The Times adds that the rocket launched from the facility in February was based on Iran's Shahab 3B missile, which is in turn based on North Korea's Nodong missile. Geoffrey Forden, a member of the UN team monitoring Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in 2002 and 2003, noted that while the test rocket did not indicate any significant advances in Iran's missile technology, the launch site had "very high levels of security and recent construction activity" and appeared to be "an important strategic facility."

If the Iranian facility is indeed developing a long-range ballistic missile, it would explain NATO's decision last week to move ahead with the missile shield program supported by the US. The Christian Science Monitor reported last week that the Bush administration scored a key success by persuading NATO to approve the missile shield, which is meant to protect against missiles like those that Iran is linked to.

NATO members all supported the US position on missile-shield defense, which is to be deployed in the Czech Republic and Poland. "There is a threat ... and allied security must be indivisible in the face of it," read the statement on missile defense.

But Iran has denied any hostile intent behind its rocket program. While Tehran has not yet commented on the Times report, after the February test of the Kavoshgar 1 rocket it stated its intent to use the technology for launching satellites, reported The New York Times.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad... said on state-run television: "We need to have an active presence in space. We witness today that Iran has taken its first step in space very firmly, precisely and with awareness."

Iran has said that it wants to put satellites into orbit to monitor natural disasters and to improve telecommunications, as well as for security reasons.

Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar said Iran would launch its domestically made satellite, called Omid, meaning Hope, in June, Fars News reported.

But US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called the launch "troubling," noting that "the kinds of technologies and capabilities that are needed in order to launch a space vehicle for orbit are the same kinds of capabilities and technologies that one would employ for long-range ballistic missiles."

Much of the concern of both the US and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, stems from evidence found on a laptop stolen by an Iranian in 2004 and turned over to US intelligence services. Among other documents on the laptop, investigators found "drawings on modifying Iran's ballistic missiles in ways that might accommodate a nuclear warhead," reported The Washington Post in February. But the problem is proving that the documents are legitimate.

U.S. intelligence considers the laptop documents authentic but cannot prove it. Analysts cannot completely rule out the possibility that internal opponents of the Iranian leadership could have forged them to implicate the government, or that the documents were planted by Tehran itself to convince the West that its program remains at an immature stage....

British intelligence, asked for a second opinion, concurred last year that the documents appear authentic. German and French officials consider the information troubling, sources said, but Russian experts have dismissed it as inconclusive. IAEA inspectors, who were highly skeptical of U.S. intelligence on Iraq, have begun to pursue aspects of the laptop information that appear to bolster previous leads.

"There is always a chance this could be the biggest scam perpetrated on U.S. intelligence," one U.S. source acknowledged. "But it's such a large body of documents and such strong indications of nuclear weapons intent, and nothing seems so inconsistent."

Despite the possibility of Iran developing a long-range ballistic missile in time, Mr. Forden says that they likely still have a long way to go. ArmsControlWonk.com, a blog on WMDs and national security, cites Forden's observations about the flaws revealed by the February launch .

Iran's February 4th launch of a Shahab-3 just keeps on getting more and more interesting; that is if you are interested in just how good of a missile the Shahab/No'dong is. Video from Iran's television show that there is a failure of the missile's thrust vector control system nineteen seconds into its powered flight. At that point, there is a brief flaring at the very end of the missile and an object is seen flying off for several seconds, until it leaves the video's frame as the camera continues to follow the missile. Tellingly, it doesn't just drop off the missile but is given quite a transverse boost.

Forden says that the debris indicates that the missile's graphite jet vanes, used to steer the rocket in flight, are being "eaten away" by the rocket exhaust. Such a problem can knock a missile severely off course, he adds.

So what does this mean for missile proliferators in general and Syria and Iran (and North Korea since they are all involved in the development of these missiles) in particular? It means that they are still having a hard time producing graphite tough and pure enough to be used in large missiles. It also indicates that a top priority for their missile engineers will be to develop other thrust vector control mechanisms.

SOURCE:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Reactions to Irans actions:
World Intelligence Agencys Paradigm indicates:
Possibility of Iranian nuclear counterstrike:

G

.