[Dawn] Within five weeks of the Abbottabad raid that killed the late Osama bin Laden, ... who doesn't live anywhere anymore... a CIA drone has cut short the life of Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri, a top al Qaeda commander and possible successor to its slain founder.
"Welcome to Hell, Mr. Kashmiri. We've had to put you in the third tier between two unnamed non-entities, I'm afraid. With the crowd that's been sent down here lately from your part of the world we're all just having to make do."
A veteran of all four 'Jihads' waged in South Asia -- two in Afghanistan, one in India and one in Pakistain -- Kashmiri was a quintessential Jihadi whose life followed a trajectory that encompasses the history of project jihad in Pakistain. Starting his career from the Afghanistan war, he rose to a legendary status in the Kashmir insurgency before returning to the Pak-Afghan border to join al Qaeda and finally turning the gun on his own people and military.
We do not know how he was recruited to fight in Afghanistan but we can guess that he was enlisted by a religio-political party like the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) that was actively involved in the process. As a young man in his twenties, Kashmiri showed his promise on the front by becoming a mining expert -- a skill that helped him become an instructor to the Mujahideen.
Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the former head of JI, once explained to me that the real significance of Afghan Jihad against the Soviets lay in the fact that it was Ummul Jihad (Mother of many Jihads). Amongst the numerous children of the Afghan Jihad, the Jihad in Kashmir was the first born. In 1992, the Mujahideen overran Kabul and the Beautiful Downtown Peshawar Accord was signed for power sharing. Around this time, Kashmir became the most important Jihadi battleground. The JI, once again leading the recruitment drive, came up with an innovative slogan that captured the dominant Jihadi spirit of the time: "Ham Jashn-e-Kabul mana chukay, ab aao chalo Kashmir chalain" (We have celebrated our victory in Kabul, Let's go to Kashmir now).
Though a number of Afghan veterans like Kashmiri moved to the new warfront, the Kashmir Jihad produced a whole new crop of Jihadis, comprising mostly of school or college drop-outs from lower middle class background. Contrary to the JI slogan, the Jashan (festival) in Kabul did not end the bloodshed. Nor did it end the Jihad in Afghanistan that continued simultaneously. In fact, the Jihad heated up on a third front with sectarian becoming rife in Pakistain.
That old "Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind" stuff. Comes back to bite every time.
Some Jihadi organisations worked on all the three fronts and Kashmiri was affiliated with one such organisation.
He joined the Kashmir chapter of Harkatul Jihad-i-Islami (HJI), headed by Qari Saifullah in 1991, and later formed his own 313 Brigade within HJI after he fell out with the latter. These organisations alongside some other jihadi outfits were so close to the Taliban that their fighters were called the Pak Taliban or Punjabi Taliban while serving in Afghanistan. In Pakistain, many of them actively indulged in sectarianism.
In Kashmir, the Jihadis were faced with a very large and ruthless army and they were often able to outdo the enemy in ferocity. A Lashkar-e-Taiba (LT) fighter once explained to me smilingly how it was useful to mutilate and disembowel the body of an India solider to "instill fear in the heart of the infidels". I also met a young fighter at the annual congregation of LT who was named Abu Haibat (father of terror) because he had brought from Kashmir the ultimate Jihad trophy -- the severed head of an India solider.
According to news reports, Ilyas Kashmiri also ambushed an Indian post and brought back the head of an Indian solider after a village on the Pak side of the Line of Control was attacked by Indian soldiers. This, according to Hamid Mir, the famous journalist and anchor, turned him into a blue eyed boy of General Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ...
But clearly no less vicious.
who also gave him a cash award for bravery.
With 9/11 and subsequent US attack on Afghanistan, the story of Jihad and life of Kashmiri took a decisive and a whole new turn. The tap on Kashmir Jihad was turned off without making any effort to integrate thousands of young men who had been militarily trained, who were ideologically motivated and who lacked any marketable skills to start new lives. Alongside his 313 Brigade and many other fighters, Kashmiri joined hands with al Qaeda, vowing to fight USA and the state of Pakistain. He soon rose to a level of prominence and notoriety that he had never enjoyed before.
The list of attacks in which Kashmiri's hand is suspected is long. He was accused of trying to murder Musharraf in 2003 and later his name was linked to numerous attacks in Pakistain and abroad including an attack on the US consulate in Bloody Karachi and the Mumbai attacks in 2008. Once considered an asset himself, days before his death Kashmiri inflicted the most serious peace time damage to Pakistain's defence assets by organising an attack on the PNS Mehran in Bloody Karachi. According to US officials, he was al Qaeda's military operations chief in Pakistain and carried a head money of $5 million.
Though his links with the Special Services Group remain unverified to date, it is ironical that Kashmiri, who joined a CIA-sponsored jihad in Afghanistan in the 80s, was killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a CIA drone on June 3, 2011. Leaving behind a path of death and destruction, Kashmiri will go down in the annals of history as the home boy of terrorism.
This article starring:
Abu Haibat
Lashkar-e-Taiba
Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri
al-Qaeda in Pakistan
Qari Saifullah
Harkatul Jihad-i-Islami
Qazi Hussain Ahmad
Jamaat-e-Islami
Posted by: Fred ||
06/08/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Kashmiri's "death" by drone strike remains in hot dispute between US + PAK authories, espec given ...
To wit,
* DEFENCE FORUM INDIA > HUJI RELEASE [post-mortem]PHOTO OF ILYAS KASHMIRI AFTER DEATH, BUT IT ISN'T HIM.
Uh, uh, OOOOOPPPPPSIES .....
Death Pic is revealed to actually show the body of one ABU DERA ISMAEL KHAN, a member of LeT whom died during the now-infamous 26/11 = Mumbai incident agz Indjuh, + NOT Ilyas Kashmiri.
* ION INDIAN DEFENCE FORUM > PAK ISI GAVE ARMS TO KASHMIR TERRORISTS, RANA TELLS FBI, as they were about to go over the Pak border into India.
* SAME > PAKISTAN REJECTS CALL FOR GREATER ACTION AGZ LeT LEADERS.
ARTIC = LeT has 000's of trained Cadres, most of whom will likely be uncontrollable by Islamabad iff their Leaders were arrested or killed. PROSECUTION OF TOP = HIGH-PROFILE JIHADIST LEADERS BY ISLAMABAD LIKELY TO INDUCE CIVIL WAR IN PAKISTAN, HENCE ISLAMABAD = PAK GOVT. PREFERS TO MONITOR + "GUIDE" LeT [etc. MilTerr Groups] TOWARDS PEACE-ORIENTED EFFORTS IN LIEU OF CAPTURING OR KILLING THEIR LEADERS.
The PAK Govt had better keep in that mind that Kashmiri was repor in process of forming a "DEATH SQUAD" [new "Lashkar-e-Osama" Group] to avenge Osama's killing, + THAT THE SQUAD/S/GROUP'S FIRST BATCH OF TARGETS WERE PAKISTANI, NOT AMERICAN.
#1
ACORN insiders acknowledge a reconstituted ACORN will emerge in time to help the reelection campaign of President Obama, who used to work for ACORN.
#10
Just a guess, Iblis, but maybe the Democratic House funded them, and the subsequent Republican House de-funded them?
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/08/2011 18:37 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Bobby:
Would have been my guess too, but where was the scandal when a Dem House started funding the same ACORN people doing the same things under a different name? Sorry I missed it.
[Dawn] "What I can say is there is a 98 per cent chance he is dead," Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Näwaz Shärif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. said in an official statement confirming Illyas Kashmiri's death.
Kashmiri, seen as one of the world's most wanted beturbanned goon, was reportedly killed in a drone strike earlier this week. Has nobody asked Mr. Malik the method of deducing such a percentage? Apparently the corpse and DNA report amount for the remaining 2 per cent. (Since there are way too many perils of wisdom frequently coming in from Mr Interior Minister, let's just call them "malikisms")
"The Corps Commanders were informed about the decision to reduce the strength of US military personnel in Pakistain to the minimum essential," stated a blurb by the ISPR three days after Bin laden was bumped off less than two kilometers away from the premier military academy.
Strength of US military personals in ... Pakistain? You read that right. After years of condemnations of the drones, hue and cry over illusory sovereignty, ISPR tells us, that too in a blurb after al Qaeda's chief gets bumped off right under their noses, that there are in fact American boots on the ground. Shock? Horror? Cries of illusory sovereignty?
"The drones are given out as an instrument to fight terror. Yet, as we have repeatedly said these attacks constitute a violation of Pakistain's illusory sovereignty and are counter-productive," Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... remarked during his speech in the Parliament, on the death of the late Osama bin Laden. ... who knows that it's like to live in the belly of a whale only he's not living... Not to forget that the speech focusing on taking the Parliament and the nation in confidence on speculations surrounding bin Laden's death was in English. I'm not quite sure who the Prime Minster's target audience was.
Wait..What's that about drones and illusory sovereignty when the ISPR just informed us that there are in fact American troops on ground in Pakistain?
"They were wearing black clothes like in Star Wars movies, one with a boom jacket...." You guessed that one. Malikism again. Interior minister Rehman Malik, in an official statement after 17-hours of shootout at PNS Mehran, that killed 10 security personnels and destroyed two highly expensive P-3C Orion aircraft.
"The unfortunate and tragic death of Syed Saleem Shahzad is a source of concern for the entire nation but the incident should not be used to target and malign the country's security agencies," said an ISI official on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the job. An anonymous statement, when they should have been making public announcements condemning the allegations and disassociating themselves from the severe criticism and blame for the killing of a journalist. This statement however, is neither a condemnation nor an obituary -- I assume we are just supposed to take their word for it.
"Yes, there has been an intelligence failure. It is not only ours but of all the intelligence agencies of the world," unanimous statement, echoed from the Prime Minister to the Foreign office to the ISPR -- possibly the only statement that could have made more sense had it not been spoken from a defensive fence.
The fact that American forces attacked Afghanistan and still continue to rage war while Osama rested comfortably in a compound in Abbottabad reflects inexcusable failure of intelligence on CIA's part, but that doesn't and shouldn't absolve us from our own failures.
'The whole world' as the statement puts it, isn't reeling from this global war on terror like we are, 180 million people suffering the consequences of decisions they had no control over. Fighting a war they had never opted for; and still being mulled over as living time bombs waiting to explode. We are but invisible victims, such are our woes.
Amid all the chaos, the shame, the grief, irresponsible, inaccurate and dubious official statements cause inconsiderable damage to global percep
Posted by: Fred ||
06/08/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
"What I can say is there is a 98 per cent chance he is dead"
Given that it's Pakistan, I'd say it's more like a 2% chance.
#2
"Illusory sovereignty" > Maybe its just me, but every time I see or read this phase on the Net IMO it sounds like Pakistan's Govt. is trying hard NOT to admit that THEY HAVE NO SOVEREIGNTY, HAVE SUBJECTIVE OR SURREAL SOVEREIGNTY, OR HAVE DUBIOUS SOVEREIGNTY???
Not "clear" sovereignty, not "indisputable" or "absolute" or "concise",not even "allusory"???
[KELLY'S HEROES ODDBALL = "DON'T HIT ME WID DEM NEGATIVE WAVES [Vibes] SO EARLY IN THE MORNING" here].
#4
ION DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > PAKISTAN ALLEGEDLY HELPED BIN LADEN TO GET US AID.
ARTIC = Islamabad felt alone + abandoned by the US-NATO/West after the defeat + withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, + the follow-on fall in 1992 of the post-Soviet secular Kabul Govt [Najibullah] by the Hekmatyr Network - PAK WAS LEFT TO DEAL WID VARIOUS DOMESTIC, REGIONAL ANTI-GOVT,ANTI-PAK MILITANT FACTIONS + "INDIA" THREAT, ETC. BY ITSELF, + MISSED US = US-NATO LEADERSHIP + $$$. Hence Islamabad decided to get the best of all worlds + chose to covertly foster Internat Terror while simul protecting the major MilTerr Personages, Groups [e.g. OBL]+ while post-911 also using the US-NATO to get rid of lessor or troublesome MilTerrs + also contain India.
HMMMMM, HMMMMM,about the only thing missing in this Artic is how PAK truly sees + positions itself in the emerging SHIA-IRAN-VS-SUNNI-SAUDI-ARABIA struggle for the control of Islam + by extens the Islamic/Muslim World. PAK MAY BE AN ALLY OF THE KSA, BUT LIKE IRAN IT WANTS TO BE A "GREAT STATE/POWER" [Regional, Global] EVEN IFF IT ULTIMAT MEANS CHALLENGING THE KSA'S AUTHORITY, OR IRAN'S, ETC. FOR THAT MATTER.
Muslim PAK's national desire to dominate South Asia vee Hindu India [ + Afghanistan = India, Central Asia] has always been part of the Indo-Pak equation.
Hating the United Stateswhich funds Islamabads army and nuclear program to the humiliating tune of $3 billion a yearPakistan takes its twisted, cowardly revenge by harboring the likes of the late Osama bin Laden. But the hypocrisy is mutual, and the shame should be shared.
Christopher Hitchens. Just the first paragraph, for a taste of exactly how the gentleman did not mince words this time. And if you have time, read what he wrote after a post-9/11 research trip to Pakistan here -- five pages of Hitchens' observation.
Salman Rushdies upsettingly brilliant psycho-profile of Pakistan, in his 1983 novel, Shame, rightly laid emphasis on the crucial part played by sexual repression in the Islamic republic. And that was before the Talibanization of Afghanistan, and of much of Pakistan, too. Let me try to summarize and update the situation like this: Here is a society where rape is not a crime. It is a punishment. Women can be sentenced to be raped, by tribal and religious kangaroo courts, if even a rumor of their immodesty brings shame on their menfolk. In such an obscenely distorted context, the counterpart term to shamewhich is the noble word honorbecomes most commonly associated with the word killing. Moral courage consists of the willingness to butcher your own daughter.
#1
Compare wid FREEREPUBLIC > MEN SHOULD BE ALLOWED SEX SLAVES + [non-Muslim] FEMALE PRISONERS COULD DO THE JOB - KUWAITI WOMAN POLITICIAN.
Apparently, back in the 1980's + 1990's when Lefty female US-Western Activists were hailing the "universal" liberation of women + women's rights, they never visited or traveled to Pakistan or Kuwait, etc.
versus
* INDIAN DEFENCE FORUM > IN PUNJAB, A CHRISTIAN [Politician-Legislator] CANNOT PRESENT THE PROVINCIAL BUDGET, as is a serious affront to Muslim-dominated local Govt = Muslim Politicos.
"PAYING THE TAX" + BEING A LOYAL, LAW-ABIDING, COMMUNITY-MINDED LEADER DOTH NOT EQUALITY/PARITY WID MUSLIMS MAKETH???
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[Dawn] Within five weeks of the Abbottabad raid that killed 
Punjab
Pervez 
[Dawn] "What I can say is there is a 98 per cent chance he is dead," Interior Minister 
