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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistan asks US for details on Taliban |
| 2009-10-02 |
| [Dawn] The United States should provide information about top militants in Pakistan, a government minister said on Thursday, as Washington stepped up pressure on Islamabad to go after Taliban leaders. That will lead them to figuring where the leaks are and plugging them... The United States, struggling to contain rising insurgent violence in Afghanistan, says top Islamist militants, including Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, are in Pakistan. US ally Pakistan rejects that. "No, no! Certainly not!" 'They have given only apprehension that some of the Taliban like Mullah Omar and all that, they might be in Quetta,' Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters. "It's only a silly rumor that they meet at 1121 Street of the One-Eyed Houri in room 108 at 3pm on Thursdays and Saturdays..." The United States says an Afghan Taliban shura, or leadership council, headed by Omar is centred in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta. 'We categorically told them that they are not in Quetta, and if they have any real-time information, they should give it to us and we will take action,' Malik said. "But we happen to know they're in Karachi this week..." The US commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, said in an assessment leaked last week the Afghan insurgency was clearly supported from Pakistan. Picked right up on that, didn't he? 'Senior leaders of the major Afghan insurgent groups are based in Pakistan, linked to al Qaeda and other violent extremist groups, and are reportedly aided by some elements of Pakistan's ISI,' McChrystal said, referring to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Probably we know who the ISI officers are... McChrystal identified the Quetta shura as the biggest threat to the US-led mission in Afghanistan. That being the Mullah Omar branch of the Taliban. The Haqqani shura, operating out of Wana, can pretty much be considered a part of al-Qaeda now, with Zawahiri in regular attendance. The Washington Post said this week U.S. officials were expressing concern over the ability of Omar and his lieutenants to launch attacks into Afghanistan from sanctuaries around Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province. US ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson told the Washington Post this week the Quetta shura was 'high on Washington's list'. Not that there have been any drone zaps we've heard of... The deputy chief of the US mission in Pakistan, Gerald Feierstein, told a group of Pakistani reporters that Omar and his command centre were in Baluchistan, a news agency reported. 'We have already expressed our reservations to Pakistan. Their movement is unacceptable and we expect full cooperation from the Pakistan government in this regard,' the Online news agency quoted Feierstein as saying. Good Gawd. I hope he's not holding his breath... Feierstein also said al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun lands on the Afghan border, the news agency said. When he's not traveling. Beardless. In a neat business suit. With a UAE passport. As "Mr. Abdullah"... The United States stepped up its attacks by pilotless drones on militants in northwestern Pakistani border sanctuaries last year as the Afghan insurgency intensified. But Feierstein said no proposal for expanding drone strikes to Baluchistan was under consideration, Online said. That's too bad... He also said the ISI 'as an institution' had no links with the Taliban but 'some elements' were Taliban sympathisers. The ISI 'as an institution' still hasn't given up on the "strategic depth" idea. The "some elements" that deal with the Talibs are a regular, if classified, part of the organization. The rogue element idea mighta worked in 2002, but seven years later it doesn't hbold water. Seven years -- a third of a 20-year career -- is enough time to dump the rogue elements. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 Just feed them the list of the ISI leadership. Let them do the cleaning themselves. Yep, yep, it's him and him and him and his brother. Really and truly. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-10-02 08:54 |
| #1 Yes, please give us details - enough so that we can reconstruct the metadata & figure out who's been doing such a great job identifying & locating these top militants. We want to arrange for these |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2009-10-02 08:07 |