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| India-Pakistan |
| Al-Qaeda now in control of Pakistani Islamist, jihadi groups |
| 2006-02-16 |
| Al-Qaida is now reliant on Pakistani militants and groups, a U.S. terror expert said Wednesday. ABC terrorism analyst Alexis Debat discussed the recent "Pakistanization" of al-Qaida at the Nixon Center, a Washington think tank. He said recent developments required intelligence analysts to reassess the way the terrorist group functioned. "The (al-Qaida) organization has filtered through those Pakistani groups and is now reliant on them," Debat said. "The militant community has evolved in a very interesting way. It's become a little al-Qaida in itself. If you look at a lot of developments of the past several years you'll see that those militant groups have a very important place in al-Qaida." This is not the first time al-Qaida has been linked to or even dependent upon Pakistani militants to support their mission, Debat said. "In the '90s most of the volunteers trained in al-Qaida's camps were Pakistani," he said. "Beginning in '97 '98 '99, the trainers were Pakistani. The Pakistanization of al-Qaida was very strong back then." Debat said al-Qaida also had "roots not only in the militant community but in the mainstream community in Pakistan." He said al-Qaida operatives had been apprehended in safe houses owned or run by local government officials affiliated with Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's largest religious political party. "This holds a very fundamental challenge. We're not talking about just deep roots, we're talking about the main Pakistani society and political community," he said. Debat said that evidence suggested al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden spends part of the year hiding in Pakistan. He also said that the Pakistani militant community had acted as a subcontractor of al-Qaida in several of its operations including an assassination attempt on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and the July 2005 bombings in London. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #9 Minus 200 million from that one billion kafirs The Indian mulsim population may be 200 million now. There are quite credible allegations that the Indian goverment is monkeying around with census data. Publishing the fact that the muslim population has grown to 200 million would cause serious backlash among the majority hindu community. hint : 15 percent in 1946 and there was partition |
| Posted by: john 2006-02-16 18:02 |
| #8 All else being equal, if AQ has to be somewhere, Pakistan is about as good a place as any. Except for the nuclear bomb bit, that is. That there are a billion or so nuclear-armed infidels right next door is kind of handy. And Mushie fully understands his predicament, even if his more 'religious' countrymen do not. That's why he has given us as much cooperation as he has - it is not as much as we would like, but he would certainly prefer to do nothing at all. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2006-02-16 13:03 |
| #7 Yep, the BCCI report is still online, along with a few other interesting articles that are embarassing to our current government. See it here. http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/ |
| Posted by: Danielle 2006-02-16 12:29 |
| #6 Debat said al-Qaida also had "roots not only in the militant community but in the mainstream community in Pakistan." He said al-Qaida operatives had been apprehended in safe houses owned or run by local government officials affiliated with Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's largest religious political party. "This holds a very fundamental challenge. We're not talking about just deep roots, we're talking about the main Pakistani society and political community," he said. The Pakistani's sought their nuclear program because they felt it was necessary to be a respectable player in the world, appealing to the mainstream to not be "backwards". Same appeal the MM's make to the Iranian public defend their nuke program. AQ Khan took the mission on behalf of all Muslims upon himself and exported the technology gratis, but it was all origianlly financed by the now defunct BCCI bank. HQ in Dubai, it also had many powerful and moneyed US investors. The Congressional Report, authored in part by Sen John Kerry, concludes far more remained to be investigated, but it never was. Besides embarrassing, I'm afraid some powerful Americans could be indicted for their greedy orgy with the Paks,and by association, with Al Qaeda. The report used to be a PDF file available on the Net, but I haven't checked lately...very interesting, explaining why some in our own government seem to be hindering the release of these new WOT tapes and documents. I suspect Bin Laden knows full well who the pimps are and has a measure of protection, as most will always act out of self-interest and protect their own hinies. Do you think it is a coincidence that the BinLaden Group funded Gore in Saudi, the UAE gets control of our ports, or that Dubai's growth puts Las Vegas to shame? |
| Posted by: Danielle 2006-02-16 11:13 |
| #5 John, Paskistan is a Muslem country---and that should be enough for any reasonable person. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2006-02-16 10:14 |
| #4 Perhaps Pakistan's standing as a loyal ally in the War on Terror is not as firm as heretofore? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-02-16 08:56 |
| #3 Al Qaeda Terrorist training camp inside Rawalpindi - the HQ of the Pak army Testimony to begin in Calif. terror case The Pakistani government denied any of the camps exist. Prosecutors, however, said they have satellite images "of a location consistent in appearance with the militant training camp that Hamid Hayat ultimately confessed that he attended," according to the 60-page trial brief filed Tuesday night. |
| Posted by: john 2006-02-16 06:20 |
| #2 evidence of foreign intelligence backing for the 9/11 hijackers Sheikh is also the man who, on the instructions of General Mahmoud Ahmed, the then head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wired $100,000 before the 9/11 attacks to Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker. 9/11 report sidesteps Pakistan On Oct. 9, 2001, the Pakistani daily Dawn reported the ISI director-general, Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed, was fired after FBI investigators established a link between him and a $100,000 wire transfer to 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta in the summer of 2000. This report was also carried by the Wall Street Journal. Paul Sperry, Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.com, wrote in his Jan. 30, 2002, column that Dennis Lormel, who until the end of 2003 led the FBI's terrorist finance investigations, confirmed this transaction. There is more evidence of ISI's command role of al-Qaida camps and facilities. In his March 24, 2004, testimony to the 9/11 commission, President Clinton's national security adviser Samuel Berger averred that the August 1998 U.S. cruise missile attacks aimed at killing Osama bin Laden "also killed apparently a number of Pakistani intelligence officials who were at the camps at the same time." It seems the United States was aware that Pakistani intelligence controlled and operated al-Qaida camps and possibly directly liaised with Osama bin Laden himself. Given this and the tight monitoring by the ISI of Pakistani hub cities like Karachi and the fact that many of the 9/11 plotters and hijackers actually transited through Pakistan, when and what did Pakistan's intelligence operatives know about the 9/11 attacks? |
| Posted by: john 2006-02-16 06:10 |
| #1 Pakistan: The Myth of an Islamist Peril Frederic Grare argues that the risk of an Islamist takeover in Pakistan is a myth invented by the Pakistani military to consolidate its hold on power. In fact, religious political parties and militant organizations are manipulated by the Pakistani Army to achieve its own objectives, domestically and abroad. |
| Posted by: john 2006-02-16 05:59 |