On the trail of Pakistan’s Taliban

The authorities in Pakistan have often seemed in cahoots with home-grown terrorists. Not any more. Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark report from Islamabad and the border badlands as a new intelligence unit gets serious about tackling the bombers.

• Adrian Levy
• The Guardian, Saturday 10 January 2009
• Article history

Special Investigation Group files. Photograph: Warrick Page

As the first reports of explosions at the Taj and Oberoi hotels in Mumbai reached Islamabad just after 9pm on November 26, Pakistan‘s counter-terrorism investigators twitched. Later that night, CCTV cameras inside Mumbai’s Victoria railway station relayed footage of a blood-spattered concourse and the faces of some of the gunmen. The guests fleeing from the hotels told TV reporters that their assailants were speaking Urdu and were hunting down British and American passport holders. Almost immediately, over the border, the Pakistani investigators began pulling out files and photographs that accompanied the “Red Book” – their most-wanted list.

US Centcom Reveals Startling Data about Pakistan’s Role in Attacks on Afghanistan

By Shaheen Sehbai

WASHINGTON: The US Central Command (Centcom) has provided startling official data of what General Pervez Musharraf’s Pakistan did for the US in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) against Afghanistan, allowing 57,800 US air attacks from Pak soil with the Pakistan economy suffering a staggering loss of US$ 10 billion.

05/19/03: (South Asia Tribune) This is the first official estimate of losses suffered by Pakistan, given by the US military high command and analysts say these figures could now be used extensively by the anti-American political forces in Pakistan to pressurize General Pervez Musharraf and his Government to explain his Taliban U-Turn and justify what Pakistan received in return.

With the upcoming visit of General Musharraf to the White House in Washington, or to Camp David in Maryland, as some Pakistani diplomats are now trying, this data will strengthen his case for more US aid as the Afghan situation has not yet fully settled as envisaged by the US. Pakistan’s strategic and military help is still a key factor in containing the anti-US elements.

The Centcom figures are far in excess of what Pakistani Government officials and experts have been claiming, the highest claim being US$ 2-3 billion. In contrast, what the US has offered to Pakistan so far, a US$ 1 billion write-off of loans, looks like as spoon of tomato ketchup in place of a full fledged state banquet.

“This is a goldmine of political ammunition for the religious right wing forces, like the MMA, to blast the US and the Musharraf Government,” one analyst said.

These figures have been revealed in a detailed review of Pakistan’s role in the operation and are specifically mentioned under the title “Effects of Operation Enduring Freedom on Economy of Pakistan” at the US Centcom web site, a huge resource about the US and coalition activities under the Command.

Crunch Time in Pakistan

Bill Roggio looks at the worsening situation in Pakistan and argues that only a determined effort against the Taliban and al-Qaeda has any hope of succeeding – and that this effort must be led by the Pakistani government itself, however difficult that would be to arrange.

October 22, 2007 – by Bill Roggio

The assassination attempt on former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who returned to Pakistan after eight years in exile to reenter politics, serves to highlight the continually deteriorating security situation inside the Pakistan. Al Qaeda, with the help of their Taliban allies, has carved out a mini state in the Northwest Frontier Province, and threaten the very existence of the Pakistani state. The current approach adopted by the Pakistani government – negotiations, limited raids, and abbreviated attacks – has failed, and Pakistan must consider fighting a counterinsurgency campaign to uproot the Taliban and al Qaeda from their havens in the Northwest Frontier Province.

Pakistani Suspected of Qaeda Ties Is Held

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August 5, 2008

NYTimes

By ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON — An American-trained Pakistani neuroscientist with ties to operatives of Al Qaeda has been charged with trying to kill American soldiers and F.B.I. agents in a police station in Afghanistan last month, the Justice Department said Monday night.

C.I.A. outlines PAKISTAN LINKS with Militants

NEW YORK TIMES

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July 30, 2008

By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON — A top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled secretly to Islamabad this month to confront Pakistan’s most senior officials with new information about ties between the country’s powerful spy service and militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas, according to American military and intelligence officials.

The C.I.A. emissary presented evidence showing that members of the spy service had deepened their ties with some militant groups that were responsible for a surge of violence in Afghanistan, possibly including the suicide bombing this month of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the officials said.

The decision to confront Pakistan with what the officials described as a new C.I.A. assessment of the spy service’s activities seemed to be the bluntest American warning to Pakistan since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks about the ties between the spy service and Islamic militants.

The C.I.A. assessment specifically points to links between members of the spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and the militant network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, which American officials believe maintains close ties to senior figures of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas.