Kamra - Pakistan Special Weapons Facilities

Kamra - Pakistan Special Weapons Facilities

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India’s Internet Connection to China Inexplicably Cut

Indian internet connections to servers in China appear to have been cut with no ability for Indian web users to access websites hosted in China.
The breach also appears to have affected corporate email with Indian employees are unable to connect to their colleagues and friends in China. Users in India have had to use services based overseas like Gmail to connect to China.
The reason for the disruption is currently unknown. It may be related to heightening border tensions between China and India that led to two Indian military personnel being  shot and wounded after coming under fire from Chinese troops in the Indian-controlled Kerang area of Sikkim around two weeks ago.
On Monday, U.S. officials led by White House Adviser Valerie Jarrett, met with the Dalai Lama in northern India. During the two hour meeting, the officials and the spiritual leader talked about the problems of the Tibetan people and ways on how this can be resolved, reported Reuters.
The Dalai Lama is slated to tour the United States and Canada this month for a series of religious teachings and will probably meet U.S. President Obama then.
“She (Jarrett) came to brief His Holiness on President Obama’s administration’s focus on Tibet,” Tenzin Taklha, an aide to the Dalai Lama, told Reuters.
“His Holiness conveyed to Ms. Jarrett the issues that he would like President Obama to take when he visits China,” the Dalai Lama’s office said in a statement. “His Holiness… was hopeful that during his presidency (Obama) the Tibetan people can see progress in the resolution of their problem.”
Mr. Obama is also scheduled to visit China this year for talks in hopes of improving economic and diplomatic ties.

Anti-Americanism rises in Pakistani media rumor mill

For weeks now, Pakistan's media have portrayed the United States, its military and defense contractors in the darkest of light, part of an apparent campaign of anti-American vilification that is sweeping the country and, some say, putting American lives at risk.
Pakistanis are reacting to what many see as an "imperial" U.S. presence, with Washington dictating to Pakistan's military and government. Polls find Pakistanis see their nation's top donor, officially a close ally, as instead a hostile power.
Pakistan's media has been filled with stories of undercover U.S. agents, a huge U.S. Marine contingent coming to the embassy and Blackwater private security running amok.
The U.S. mission in Islamabad had to present three August briefings to Pakistani journalists to dampen highly charged stories, which could undermine relations as Washington prepares to finalize a tripling of civilian aid to Islamabad, to $1.5 billion a year.
Pakistan is a key priority for the United States because of its nuclear arms and potential usefulness in taking on al-Qaida within its borders and ending the Afghan Taliban safe haven.
"I think this recent brouhaha over the embassy expansion has been difficult to beat back," U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson said in an interview last week. She said Pakistan's media "just seems to be taken over by conspiracy theories."
Briefing Pakistani journalists last month, Ms. Patterson told them there were only nine Marines stationed to guard the Islamabad embassy and, even after an upcoming expansion, their number would be no more than 15 to 20. Press reports had put the figure at 350 to 1,000 Marines. She also stated flatly that "Blackwater is not operating in Pakistan."
Ms. Patterson wrote last week to the owner of Pakistan's biggest media group, Jang, to protest two talk shows on its Geo TV channel. She also cricitized a newspaper column by analyst Shireen Mazari in The News, a daily, saying the "wildly incorrect" column and shows compromised Americans' security.
There are 250 U.S. citizens posted at the Islamabad mission on longer-term contracts, plus another 200 on shorter assignments, the embassy said. The present embassy compound can accommodate just a fraction of them. By independent estimates, U.S. officials live in some 200 houses throughout Islamabad.
Pakistani press and bloggers also targeted U.S. aid worker Craig Davis, insisting that he is an undercover secret agent. Mr. Davis, a USAID development contractor, is based in the volatile northwestern city of Peshawar and now appears to be at risk. Last year, American Stephen Vance, another USAID contractor in Peshawar, was gunned down outside his home.
"In one or two cases," Ms. Patterson said, "these commentators have identified very specific embassy employees as CIA or Blackwater, and that very much puts the employee at danger. In at least one case, we're going to have to evacuate the employee."

Read more:http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09251/996344-82.stm#ixzz0RAjPgpTc

Anti-US drive to be continued: JI Amir

Anti-US drive to be continued: JI Amir

Nawaz Sharif new principles frustrate the military

Six months ago, Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s opposition leader, took the moral high ground in national politics, throwing his weight behind a campaign for the reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry that came within hours of toppling the government of Asif Ali Zardari, the president.
Today, Mr Sharif now finds himself under fire from well-entrenched foes – some in the presidency, others within the military hierarchy.

Aides of the president are allegedly behind the dredging up of Mr Sharif’s tainted past as a protégé of the military’s Inter Service Intelligence directorate and his alleged involvement in conspiracies to overthrow the 1988-1990 government of Benazir Bhutto, the since assassinated former prime minister.

Meanwhile, public enthusiasm for his party has begun to dwindle because of the revelations and a series of sleazy episodes involving Muslim League politicians, news of which was leaked to Pakistan’s voracious cable news networks by Mr Sharif’s erstwhile military patrons.

The scandals have ranged from credit card theft and forgery of education certificates, which forced the party to seek the resignation of two members of parliament, to assault, kidnap and rape, although only the forgery case has been substantiated.

The parallel campaigns have dented public enthusiasm for Mr Sharif’s party and public faith in Pakistan’s fragile democracy, reviving the “both parties are thieves” sentiment that facilitated the overthrow of Mr Sharif’s government in October 1999 by Gen Pervez Musharraf, who resigned as president in September 2008.

At the heart of the parallel smear campaigns is Mr Sharif’s push to consolidate his moral leadership by pressing his party’s demand for the trial, on treason charges, of Mr Musharraf and the eliminating of clauses that he had added to the constitution.

That has brought Mr Sharif into conflict with Mr Zardari, who resents the renewed onslaught against his authority as president, which would be hugely reduced by the proposed constitutional amendments, and with the military.

While he remains the military’s civilian politician of choice because of his deep-rooted support in Punjab province, from where most of the military is recruited, the military is angry at his insistence on the persecution of Mr Musharraf, because it would erect a potentially lethal hurdle for the plotters of any future coup d’état. (Pakistan has had four in 62 years of independence.)

Hawks within the military and Muslim League alike had hoped the attacks allegedly launched by aides of the president would infuriate Mr Sharif to the extent that he would launch another campaign to force the president and, subsequently, the Pakistan People’s Party-led coalition government, out of office. 

Indeed, tensions flared last week, prompting the Muslim League to issue a 48-hour ultimatum demanding a cessation of the smear campaign against Mr Sharif, and it seemed that political chaos was imminent.

But within 24 hours of the ultimatum, the tensions between the government and opposition camps suddenly dissipated and, addressing a national convention of his party on Monday, Mr Sharif issued a definitive proclamation. “I will not support any attempt to remove the government by extra-constitutional means. Instead, I will be the one to block any such move,” he said.

The Nawaz Sharif of the 1980s and 1990s would not have hesitated to collude with the military to grab power, but eight years in exile, spent largely in Jeddah after the Saudi government brokered a deal for his release from jail, have changed him as a man and and as a politician.

Once susceptible to the conspiratorial urges of party hawks and intelligence operatives, Mr Sharif has developed a set of political principles, based upon the exclusion of the military from national politics, that overrides the temptation to exploit chinks in the Zardari armour, unless it is at the ballot box.

Those principles were at the heart of Monday’s proclamation and immensely frustrating to the military, which is straining to reassert its historical role as arbiter of political power ahead of March 2010, when Gen Pervez Ashfaq Kayani, the army chief of staff, enters the lame duck phase of his tenure with only eight months of service left.

Blackwater has begun to expand its presence in Karachi

 US private security outfit Blackwater has begun to expand its presence in Karachi port city in the backdrop of the Peshawar debacle last month when Craig Davis a suspected operative of the US company was caught red handed involved in objectionable activities.
Well-placed sources told The Nation on Monday that Blackwater, which has been operating in the region including in Afghanistan and Pakistan under different names, is believed to have hired on rent at least seven private houses in posh Defence area of Karachi port city.
Sources were not sure whether the move to hire houses was part of any long-term strategy or as a stopgap arrangement because plans were afoot to hire services of retired personnel of Pakistani law enforcement agencies to oversea various operations including logistical support to handle consignments of the US private security company.
It was further learnt from knowledgeable sources that Blackwater had acquired hundreds of acres of land near Pataro in Sindh in order to launch a supposedly Agriculture Research Institute.
Craig Davis along with some other US citizens came into spotlight in Peshawar after their Pakistani neighbours wrote a letter to the Interior Ministry demanding a thorough probe into their dubious activities.
Later Craig Davis was identified as operative of Creative Associates International Inc; a Washington- based US firm believed to be one the wings of Blackwater, now renamed Xe Worldwide. Davis, who had to leave Pakistan, is learnt to have returned again and resumed his “official” activities. 
However, despite frequent attempts, it was not immediately possible to contact the US Embassy to confirm the status of Craig Davis.

Pakistan's female fighter pilots

Six years ago an ad in the Sunday paper changed a young Pakistani woman's life and made aviation history.

The ad read: "Pakistan Air Force recruiting females cadets."

Back then Ambreen Gul was 20-years old and living in Karachi. Her mother wanted her to be a doctor. She remembers her reaction when she told her she wants to fly.

"She was like: 'You're a girl,'" says Gul. "How will you do it? How will you fly?"

The following day Gul took the first step in proving her mother wrong. She was among the first in line at the recruitment center.

For nearly six decades it was only men who had flown Pakistan's fighter jets. Today Gul is one of seven women who are trained and ready to fly Pakistan's F-7 supersonic fighter jets.

"This is a feeling that makes you proud and makes you humble also," says Gul.

Humility doesn't mean lack of confidence.

"We can do everything better than the men," explains cadet Nida Tariq.

"We're more hardworking, more consistent and more patient," adds cadet Anam Faiq.

To become a fighter pilot takes three years of training at the Air Force Academy in Risalpur, Pakistan, where the halls are lined with grainy black-and-white pictures of nearly six decades of male graduates who went on to fly for the Pakistan Air Force.

The training is often intensely physical. Here, equal opportunity means equal treatment.

If they are not good enough as per their male counterparts, we don't let them fly," says commanding officer Tanvir Piracha.

Some of Pakistan's female pilots wear hijabs. Others prefer to go without the Muslim headdress. Most say changing the misconception of Muslim women is just as important as serving their country.

"Islam gives equal opportunity to females. Whatever we want to do we can," says pilot Nadia Gul.

"To tell you the truth I've been given equal opportunity or I suppose more than men have been given," says Air Force cadet Sharista Beg.

Air Force officials say fighter pilots are playing a vital role in the fight against the Taliban. They're training in counterinsurgency, collecting aerial intelligence and targeting militant strongholds in the treacherous mountains of Pakistan's tribal region along the Afghan border. Ambreen Gul says her goal now is to fly in combat.

"I would give my life for my country," she says.

But women rarely fly in combat anywhere in the world and it's never been done in Pakistan. It's another barrier Gul plans to break.

Musharraf's quit part of negotiated settlement

 Pakistan President Asif Zardari disclosed for the first time that his predecessor Pervez Musharraf had resigned as part of a negotiated settlement guaranteed by "international and local" stakeholders, according to local media reports Tuesday.
    "All international and local powers, which have stakes in the region, were guarantors of General (r) Pervez Musharraf's negotiated resignation," local newspaper Daily Times quoted the president as saying.
    Though the president did not say much on the issue during an informal chat with senior journalists in iftar-dinner he hosted Monday, he tacitly conceded that Musharraf could not be tried under Article 6 of the Constitution for high treason as was being demanded by some opposition parties, especially the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). "I had been hoping that he (Musharraf) would play golf," he added.
    Zardari said that had the stockholders agreed on the trial it would have been possible to pursue, adding that now parliament could make a decision in this regard, according to the private TV channel ARY News.
    When a journalist asked whether army chief Ashfaq Kayani was also one of the negotiators and guarantors, the president asked, "Why do you want to bring him (Kayani) in this debate?"
    The president avoided responding to a question when specifically asked whether Pakistan People's Party (PPP) government would try Musharraf. "The PPP never recognized him (Musharraf) as the country's president," Zardari said.
    On July 31, Pakistani Supreme Court ruled that Musharraf's decision to impose emergency rule and dismiss dozens of senior judges in 2007 was unconstitutional.
    Musharraf's rival and chief of the opposition PML-N Nawaz Sharif has been demanding of the government to put Musharraf on trial for suspending constitution and high treason.
    Musharraf took power in Oct. 1999, following a nonviolent military coup which toppled the government of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. In Aug. 2008, Musharraf resigned from the post of President under impeachment pressure from the coalition government.

Do Not Link Us With Afghanistan

The US could shift its focus on Afghanistan towards the eastern provinces, the Guardian has suggested.

Senior military officials are said to believe that the Taliban’s ability to find sanctuary across the border with Pakistan may have however, prompted this change of tact.

The primary focus of the US strategy in Afghanistan could shift towards the eastern provinces bordering Pakistan and away from the country’s south, where British forces are heavily engaged, under a plan being finalised by commanders, the newspaper reported.

Senior military officials are said to believe that the Afghan Taliban’s ability to find sanctuary and support across the border, in addition to the suspected presence of Al Qaeda in Waziristan, has necessitated a bigger effort in the East.

However, any move by Gen Stanley McChrystal, the US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, to concentrate firepower and resources away from Helmand, in the south, could be resisted by British commanders leading an increasingly lethal struggle with insurgents there, the Guardian said.

Cause for concern: Additional US military pressure along the eastern border would also be cause for concern in Pakistan, where US drone attacks on Al Qaeda and Taliban targets in Waziristan are blamed for the growing instability in the country.

We decide: Asked whether Islamabad was being urged by Washington to launch more Swat-style offensives on its side of the border, a senior Pakistani official insisted Islamabad, not the US, would decide.

“Waziristan is part of Pakistani territory,” the official said. “We will decide what happens there, and when it happens,” he said.

US officials, speaking during a recent visit to the region by ‘AF-PAK’ envoy Richard Holbrooke, said particular attention should be paid to Jalaluddin Haqqani and other insurgent leaders in Afghanistan’s eastern mountains.

According to an account in the Washington Post, Major General Curtis Scaparrotti, US commander of forces in the East, said Haqqani “is the central threat” in the area and “he’s expanded his reach”.

This month, McChrystal presented the broad outline of his Afghanistan strategic review to Obama, placing greater importance on the need to protect Afghan civilians and increase security as a means of encouraging political and economic development.

Eyewitnesses recount scene at Karachi stampede

Eighteen people were suffocated to death during a stampede here on Monday as poverty-stricken women battled for a free bag of flour being distributed by a philanthropist in Khohri Garden. The dead reportedly include a number of children as well.

Meanwhile, several unconscious women were rushed to the emergency ward of the Civil Hospital in Karachi. The incident sparked anger among women and their relatives gathered at the hospital, many of whom had come from far flung areas of the city such as Kaemari, Machhar Colony, Surjani Town among others. They blamed the government for failing to facilitating the distribution of flour.

However, government officials present at the hospital said the philanthropist, Chaudhry Iftikhar, had not contacted the Saddar Town administration or the local police for any arrangements in the area and began distributing the flour in a narrow lane Khohri Garden that caused the women to suffocate.

‘I am sure even he had no idea what this could lead to. Had he sought the government’s help, these deaths could have been avoided,’ said Sharmila Farooqui, Adviser to CM Sindh during her visit to the hospital. She further added that Chaudhry Iftikhar has been arrested and that the Chief Minister has promised a compensation of Rs0.1 million for the families of the victims.

The presence of several ministers, including the Sindh Health Minister Dr Sagheer Ahmed, however, failed to comfort the injured women who blamed them for the state they were in.

‘I would have never come here to get flour if the inflation rate was not as high. The price hike this year has made it difficult for us to feed our large families and the government does not seem to care. Every day I stand in long queues to purchase atta (flour) at Rs10 per kg, but return home empty-handed. Today, when I heard that free flour was being distributed by someone, I immediately rushed to try my luck here as well,’ said Amina, a maid at a government school in Lyari.

 

‘As soon as I reached out to get a bag of flour, two women jumped on my back and I fell down. The crowd stepped on me and I couldn’t breathe for a while and then fell unconscious. My neighbour brought me to the hospital.’

There were others who witnessed the deaths during the stampede, especially when the police resorted to baton-charging to control the crowd.

‘When the police arrived on the scene, they began controlling the situation by hitting women with sticks. That is when the crowd got even more out of control,’ 18-year-old Noorun Nissa, an eyewitness told Dawn.com.

‘My hand and leg got stuck and I could feel someone stepping on my foot. It felt very heavy. When I managed to move some women out of my way, I saw dead bodies of children lying in my feet. I don’t know where their mothers were,’ she recalled.

Noor is one of the six sisters in her household and her father, a tailor, is the sole breadwinner of the house. ‘Women in our Baloch community are not permitted to work so there is nothing we can do to support our family financially. It is becoming increasingly difficult to make ends meet that is why I thought this was an opportunity. After hearing about the deaths of over 18 women, I am at least glad I survived and only sprained my ankle.’

Amina added that although this is her yearly routine, the turnout of women in bachat bazaars is much more this Ramazan. ‘I don’t just have my family to feed but that of my sisters as well who are widows and live with me. I visit these bachat bazaars every year to buy essentials at subsidised rates and end up making a lot of friends as I stand in a queue. This year I noticed that women were not only from poverty-stricken areas like Lyari and Machhar Colony but other low and middle-income localities of the city as well.’

Since men are away from home during the day, it is mostly women who end up spending most of their day outside utility stores. When asked if she would think of heading to a free ration stall after Monday’s episode, Amina said: ‘Yes I will. It is the woman’s responsibility to look after the family. And I will do anything to feed my children,
even if I have to risk my life.’

An old woman Mariam was lying in a state of semi-consciousness with a drip pierced into her arm. ‘I don’t know how it all started. I was inside the room located on the first floor of the building, while my sister was waiting outside for me when all of a sudden women started pushing and screaming.

'The force of the pressure was so much that I broke my ribs. It’s a miracle that I survived somehow, though I saw other women inside being crushed to death before my eyes. Only a while back, things were normal and I was waiting after receiving my token for the free rations that were being distributed. But, sadly I got no rations despite having waited since morning. And now I’m here in a hospital bed.’

Shoe-throwing journalist about to be released

The man who hurled his shoes at President George W. Bush here nearly a year ago in a brazen act that turned the little-known Iraqi journalist into a hero for many in the Arab world and crystallized the seething anger felt by many Iraqis for the consequences of the American invasion, was freed on Tuesday from a Baghdad jail.
Zaidi, who had originally been sentenced to three years in prison for assaulting a visiting foreign leader, spent nine months in jail and, according to his brother, would likely leave Iraq now, fearing for his life.
“He is free,” said his brother, Uday Zaidi, in a brief telephone conversation. The family is scheduled to hold a press conference in Baghdad later Tuesday to discuss the details of his imprisonment and his future plans.
Unlike the fanfare that greeted his arrest and trial, the Iraqi government sought to downplay his release, barring the family from meeting him at the gates of the prison where he was held and, instead, quietly escorting him to his family’s residence in the capital.
A journalist for the independent Iraqi television station, Al Baghdadia, Mr. Zaidi, 29, was attending a December press conference that Mr. Bush was holding on his final visit to the country his administration had invaded six years earlier.
As stunned members of the White House press corps and other Iraqi journalists looked on, Mr. Zaidi rose from his seat and shouted in Arabic: “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!”
He then whipped one of his shoes straight at Mr. Bush’s head, narrowly missing him when the president quickly ducked.



Before anyone could react, Mr. Zaidi, only 12 feet from Mr. Bush, had his other shoe in hand and shouted once again: “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!”
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, standing at the podium next to Mr. Bush, stuck a hand in front of the president’s face to help shield him, and, once again, Mr. Bush ducked and was not struck.
Mr. Zaidi was wrestled to the ground and rushed out of the room.
It was reported that he was repeatedly kicked by Iraqi security guards outside the room and even as his wailing was heard inside, Mr. Bush first joked that he could report that the shoe was a size ten. Then he played down the episode, saying it was a sign of democracy.
“That’s what people do in a free society, draw attention to themselves,” he said.
The incident, which was broadcast across the globe, immediately captured the imagination of many both inside and outside Iraq.
From Libya, where he was awarded a Medal of Freedom, to Syria, where banners of praise were unfurled on street corners and his photo was shown on state television all day, Mr. Zaidi was lionized.
There was even an offer from a wealthy Saudi Arabian citizen to buy one of the shoes for $10 million. It is unclear where the shoes actually are at the moment, but an Iraqi security official said he believed they are still being held by the government.
Despite the reaction in the wider Arab world, the incident proved fraught in Iraq itself.
The fact that Mr. Zaidi, who is a Sunni, might choose to leave Iraq is a testament to the lingering doubts about security and sectarian divides in the country.
For the government of Mr. Maliki, the episode was a deep embarrassment.
But given Mr. Zaidi’s cult hero status, it proved difficult to figure out the best way to handle the case.
For several months, government officials wrangled over the question of what charges Mr. Zaidi should face and whether Mr. Bush’s trip should even be considered a state visit since his press conference took place in the Green Zone, which was then still controlled by the American military.
In the end, he was charged with assault against a foreign head of state. His initial sentence of three years in prison was reduced to one year in April and he was released early because of good behavior, Iraqi officials said.
His detention before his trial, as well as the treatment he received by the members of Mr. Maliki’s security detail when he was arrested, were hotly debated in a tumultuous session of Parliament that led to threats of resignation by the body’s speaker.
And while Mr. Zaidi certainly captured the anger of many Sunni Arabs who feel that they have lost standing in the new Shiite-led government, even that emotion is complicated by the fact that for many Sunnis, American forces have increasingly been viewed as their protectors in some ways.
At his trial, Mr. Zaidi explained his motivations.
“In that moment, I saw nothing but Bush, and I felt the blood of the innocents was flowing under his feet while he was smiling that smile,” Mr. Zaidi said in court, wearing an Iraqi flag scarf that a relative had given him. “I felt that this person was the reason for the killing of my people and I am a part of these people, so I tried to pay him back even a small or a simple part of what he committed.”

US military bases 'will destabilize Pakistan'

The following is a transcript of a Press TV interview with Pakistan's former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Hamid Gul.

Q: The US is planning to establish military bases inside Pakistan. Can you expand on that?

A:They are expanding the embassy and they are bringing in security staff, in the garb of security staff which is not according to the diplomatic norms. And I think the Chinese are objected to that. The Chinese ambassador held a press conference here in Islamabad about a week or ten days ago and he said that, for instance, this is infringement of Pakistan's sovereignty and secondly that we have also struck at expansion of embassy but we trust Pakistan's security apparatus to look after us and why are the Americans are doing that. So I think this is a quite big indicator that the Chinese are concerned about our security and so should be everybody else because we know that these security contractors which are being brought like the old Blackwater now under the name of, the new name of Xe and there is the Extreme Dynamic company and there are several others. They are recruiting people from here at very high wages. They are mostly the ex-servicemen, ex-Army officers and men. And besides we think that there are special forces who operate into the garb of locals but basically are American agents and it is a cross mix of the CIA which is known as Delta Force, which is the Marines and the Navy Seals and the Orange Force, which means the Orange Force are actually the hired killers. They are either recruited locally or from abroad or brought in from America and they speak the local lingo. They wear the same dress. And they sort of grow beard, etc. So this is a very dangerous move they are making. So that is the basis on which I said. Besides, I have feared that the new policy which Obama will probably announce in March next year as they have already said so. That is going to be taking bases on long leases in Afghanistan because of the weak Karzai government which is likely to emerge after the announcement of the polling results. And secondly, they are making a tremendous investment in Afghanistan. They are bringing in troops again as security guards but really they are the hardened, trained military men. There are already three thousand five hundred of them and one thousand more are coming. So slowly and gradually, the Indians are moving into this area. The same model is going to be, I think, applied rather at a limited scale in Pakistan because of these security arrangements they are making. They have an excuse. They are trying to create an excuse. They have announced for Pakistan over a period of five years 7.5 billion dollars that is 1.5 billion dollars per year and so far for this year they have disbursed only 174 million dollars which is nothing to the government. There is still the money they are making it quite open that it is going to be spent directly by the Americans in Pakistan in various areas. So they are going to set up a large intelligence network inside Pakistan. And for that the excuse is that because we are spending this money directly on projects, therefore we need the security guards and we are bringing in the contractors. But in reality, what I fear is that, they really want to go for Pakistan's nuclear assets. They are inching close to those nuclear assets day by day. They are getting very close and I am sure they are, because of their intelligence tentacles there, they are trying to gather information so that whatever surgical operation they have to carry out against our nuclear assets in connivance with Israel and India those will be totally taken out and nothing will be left in the hands of Pakistan. And there is plenty of evidence to suggest this because they have been saying in the past that the end game of war against terrorism is going to be in Pakistan. And that is what disturbs us the most because now they are saying that Taliban are in control of 80 percent of Afghanistan and that al-Qaeda is no longer present in Afghanistan but that a large number of al-Qaeda people are present inside Pakistan and if we think that they are there then we have a right to strike them and we will. That is what the last statement, a very categorical statement made by Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen that was very alarming because he very categorically said that if they find that there are targets inside Pakistan, al-Qaeda targets, then we will strike them. So it is a preparation which is being made. A psychological conditioning which is being done of the international communities, the real powers as well as the Pakistani nation and the Pakistani government.

Q:Do you think the Americans are trying to disintegrate Pakistan through this process?

A:I know the Indians are playing games inside Baluchistan. They are trying to create subversion and acts of sabotage are occurring every day. And they are trying to destabilize Pakistan. But disintegration is a very strong word. I do not think this words needs to be used. But I think they are trying to destabilize Pakistan at the moment so that it feels weak and economically has to go begging on its knees to Americans and ask for succor and help. And in that process they will want to expect certain concessions with regards to nuclear power and also with regards to setting up their facilities here in Pakistan.

Q:And the United States who wants to use Pakistan as a front against China, Iran and other countries in the region.

A:No, I do not think Pakistan can be [used for this purpose]. Even if Pakistan is very weak and is lost hypothetically, I do not think they will pluck out all the nuclear assets of Pakistan. It is not possible. I think the Americans should think twice before they attempt this because a frustrated Pakistan can do a lot of damage. But off course they have designs against Iran. They have designs against China. But, at the moment, I do not see Pakistan being used as a proxy for America against China or Iran for that matter.

Q:You talked about Blackwater. What role these contractors have been playing in the region? Mr. Aslan Beik said on a television interview in Pakistan that Blackwater has played a role in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and Rafik Hariri in Lebanon.

A:I do not know about Aslan Beik's statement but what I think is that Blackwater has a very bad record. They were operating in Iraq and they were guilty of many acts of misconduct and killings and rape and kidnapping and also pillage of property but this was settled at that time because I think North Carolina indicted them and they were banned. But now they have started operating under a new name, a new title of Xe Worldwide Services. So, as far as this issue is concerned, I think this comes out from some report from Seymour Hersh, the famous American journalist. He has supposed to have said that Dick Cheney's agency Blackwater had something to do with the assasination of Benazir. So that is what I know.

Q:You earlier said that American is going to establish military bases in Peshawar and there was a hotel which was bombed in the city and it is said that the hotel was going to be used by the Americans as their base. Can you comment on that?

A:Yes, that is right, because initially they were trying to come in the days of Pervez Musharraf. I think he had entered into some kind of agreement for them to allow 750 people from Blackwater to claim Frontier Corps which is a paramilitary force operating on our border with Afghanistan. And they were to set up this in a fort in Peshawar. Then their presence was reported in this hotel. And this was bombed and it was commonly believed, although no official reports have ever come out, that two floors of that hotel had been occupied by Blackwater basically, I mean, this security contractor. But some people suggested that the marines were also there. It is possible that they were the special forces because, when we say marine, it formally becomes the Armed Forces of America. But the Special Forces are known to have been operating in this area for some time now and they were the ones who created probably some of the trouble in Swat valley where the Pakistani army is still engaged in operations.

Q:If you wanted to put it in one sentence, what is America's long-term goal that it is seeking in Pakistan?

A:Well, long-term goal for America is that they want to keep Pakistan destabilized; perhaps create a way for Baluchistan as a separate state and then create problems for Iran so that this new state will talk about greater Baluchistan and, I think, a Baluch leader in London held a press conference and he talked a greater Baluchistan and he talked about the Kurd areas, he talked about Iranian Baluchistan and he talked about the Pakistani Baluchistan. So it appears that the long-term objectives are really to fragment all these countries to an extent that they can establish a strip that would be pro-America, pro-India, pro-Israel. So this seems to be their long-term objective apart from denuclearizing Pakistan and blocking Iran's progress in the nuclear field.

Pakistanis Want US Declared ‘Hostile State’(By Atif F Qureshi. PKKH)

Wherever the Americans go, their policies spread poison. Under the pretext of ‘freedom and democracy’ US policy-makers trample over weaker nations, placing and replacing puppet rulers on a whim and propagandising against all aspirations for true independence. (Stephen Kinzer’s Overthrown is a must book to read in this context).
With total control of global media, and their weapons of mass distraction, they are able to crush resistance at the very root – before it even forms in the mind. Just as Noam Chomsky said, “If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged”.
Yet in spite of the ‘fasad-fil-ardh’ that America has unleashed around the world, we still see an unseemly obsession with all things American. Suffering from a mass psychosis akin to Stockholm-syndrome, even nations traumatised and brutalised by America see only America as possible salvation. Clearly, American propagandists have done their work well.
Not in Pakistan. In what can only be described as a clear and hopeful sign that this nation is awakening, recent polls have revealed that the Pakistani public categorically denounces American policies. A recently conducted poll by PakistanKaKhudaHafiz.com revealed that 89% of over 1,000 participants were of the opinion that the United States should be declared as a hostile state.

This only reinforces another scientifically conducted poll conducted by the Al-Jazeera network that found that over 70% of Pakistanis held America to be the greatest threat to the sovereignty and independence of Pakistan – even greater than arch-rival and eternal enemy India.
So great is this a problem for the Americans that when their Generals in the region are quizzed by journalists, they are more likely to be asked about the ‘battle for hearts and minds’ rather than actual battles. But in spite of the feigned concern in Washington, the widespread anti-Americanism is not too great a concern for US policymakers. After all, as far as the US is concerned, only Pakistan’s puppet leaders need be pro-US – the rest of Pakistan can go to hell. But in this lies the problem for the US. As the farcical reality of Pakistan’s democracy is becoming increasingly clear to the public at large, they are turning their ire not just on their puppet leaders, but on their foreign puppet-masters. And this does not bode well for US’s future plans for the region.
This anti-US mood in Pakistan is nothing new. It is a mode of thought that is familiar to most Pakistanis – and with good reason. US-Pak relations have always been fractious – not based on mutual trust and respect but on mutual suspicion and necessity. Every Pakistani, from street sweeper to industrialist, knows of the infamous incident in the early 1990’s when the US failed to deliver to Pakistan dozens of F16 fighter jets that Pakistan had already paid for – and not content with humiliating a proud nation enough, in a final salvo, they instead delivered of all things – wheat. The Pakistani public were not impressed to say the least.
But that is old hat. More recently, America has committed a litany of errors that can only lead an objective person to conclude that not only does the US not have Pakistan’s interest to heart, but they are only interested in marginalising and destabilising Pakistan through any means possible. The Pakistani people are not blind. They see the chicanery clearly:

• The ’surge’ in American troops in Afghanistan accompanied a ’surge’ in terrorism in Pakistan. While the Afghan Taliban never threatened Pakistani sovereignty, since 2001 thousands of innocents have been killed in a wave of suicide bombings in Pakistan that ‘coincidently’, only began after the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in 2001.
  
  
• The deliberate spread of the Afghan occupation into Pakistan and the treatment of both nations as a single theatre or ‘battlefield’ called AfPak. The notion that both nations are to be treated the same even though one is war-torn and primitive while the other has a sophisticated civic society is laughable, but the idea that American forces can strike into Pakistan with impunity is enough to make the average Pakistani’s blood boil.
  
  
• Wave after wave of callous and imprecise drone attacks. These achieve practically nothing while only murdering innocent civilians and riling up the Pakistani public who despair at their feckless government for being complicit in continual violations of the nations sovereignty and dignity.
  
  
• Since 2001 the US has turned a blind eye towards Indian Intelligence operations from inside Afghanistan designed to destabilize Pakistan. According to a report published in September 2008 by Brig (R) Asif Haroon Raja, India has 14 consulates in Afghanistan from which RAW is operating. In Wakhan, Badakshan province, RAW is operating a madarssah, where clerics from India are brainwashing local Afghans, Uzbeks and Tajiks. Their students are then infiltrated into Pakistan where they readily carry out suicide missions and other operations.This blatant infiltration into Afghanistan by the Indian intelligence apparatus has provided safe haven from which Indian agents attack and destabilize Pakistan’s tribal areas and NWFP.In another recent report from Foreign Affairs magazine, by Christine Fair of RAND Corporation gives us the inside:

“Having visited the Indian mission in Zahedan, Iran, I can assure you they are not issuing visas as the main activity! Moreover, India has run operations from its mission in Mazar, Afghanistan (through which it supported the Northern Alliance) and is likely doing so from the other consulates it has reopened in Jalalabad and Qandahar along the border. Indian officials have told me privately that they are pumping money into Baluchistan. Kabul has encouraged India to engage in provocative activities such as using the Border Roads Organization to build sensitive parts of the Ring Road and use the Indo-Tibetan police force for security. It is also building schools on a sensitive part of the border in Kunar–across from Bajaur." (Pakistan’s Tribal Area where Pakistan Army had to carry out a major operation to eliminate TTP militants).

• The continual barking by American officials for Pakistan to “DO MORE!” in spite of the fact that no nation has done or sacrificed more to combat terrorism in its own self-interest. The number of soldiers martyred, treasure spent and tears of widows and orphans shed is testimony to the truth that those who claim that Pakistan is half-hearted in this effort are liars.
  
  
• The CIA-sponsored democratic farce whereby American engineered its puppets to sieze the reigns in Pakistan’s recent elections. For those who still deny that the Pakistani elections were engineered, think for a moment how is it possible that the most corrupt and despised man in Pakistan’s entire history, Asif Zardari would become the president of Pakistan if the elections were truly and fairly democratic?
  
  
• Even though our ‘popularly elected’ politicians are in the pocket of the Americans, they remain frustrated that certain institutions in Pakistan remain out of their reach. The black propaganda targeting Pakistan’s patriotic armed forces, intelligence services and nuclear weapons arsenal reveals their obvious intent. Well-aware that these are the only institutions that truly have Pakistan’s interests to heart, the public do not appreciate the Am-Brit campaign to malign them.
  
  
• The so-called Indo-US civilian nuclear deal that makes a blatant mockery of the non-proliferation accords, rewarding Indian intransigence and arrogance at the expense of Pakistan’s national security.
  
  
• The exposure of blatant double-standards is evident as America turns on the weapons tap for India, whom it wishes to turn into its 21st century ’slave soldier’ in order to counter China, while Pakistani officials are left dangling and must debase and humiliate themselves in order to ensure the delivery of a trifling number of F-16’s and helicopters to fight the same enemies that America is sponsoring.
  
  
• The shielding, protection and nurturing of anti-Pakistan insurgent groups on Pakistani soil by the CIA. The so-called ‘Baluchistan Liberation Army’ (Read: Finding Clarity in the Baluchistan Conundrum, by Talha Mujaddidi ) and ‘Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan’ are only a few of many. All these groups base their insidious operations from inside Afghanistan – which is occupied by the US.

In spite of their indirect control over our media, America will never win the ‘battle of hearts and minds’ in Pakistan. Even though the rise of the so-called ‘free media’ in Pakistan has brought to the fore a variety rentashills and rentagobs, self proclaimed pseudo-intellectuals who solemnly insist that Pakistan cannot resist Pax Americana (Pox Americana would be more appropriate), the people are not so gullible as to believe it. They see the example of Iran and Venezuala, which although not ideal states by any means, at least demonstrate that those who resist American hegemony can still survive and even prosper.
Where there are pockets of resistance, this only demonstrates the existence of an honourable people who are not prepared to compromise on their dignity. The recent polling is cause for great hope. It proves what was never in doubt – the Pakistani population will not stand for these US violations of Pakistan’s sovereignty and national interest for much longer.
We know that we fear Allah more than we fear America, but the nation must now realise another profound truth – salvation does not lie in continued cooperation and debasement in front of America, but only in faith in Allah and is His Messenger (SAW). It is time for this nation to throw off its shackles and re-declare its independence.

Blackwater involved in Bhutto and Hariri hits: Mirza Aslam Beg (ret.)

Pakistan’s former chief of army staff, General Mirza Aslam Beg (ret.), has said the U.S. private security company Blackwater was directly involved in the assassinations of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. 

Blackwater later changed its name and is now known as Xe.

General Beg recently told the Saudi Arabian daily Al Watan that former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf had given Blackwater the green light to carry out terrorist operations in the cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, and Quetta.

General Beg, who was chief of army staff during Benazir Bhutto’s first administration, said U.S. officials always kept the presence of Blackwater in Pakistan secret because they were afraid of possible attacks on the U.S. Embassy and its consulates in Pakistan.

During an interview with a Pakistani TV network last Sunday, Beg claimed that the United States killed Benazir Bhutto.

Beg stated that the former Pakistani prime minister was killed in an international conspiracy because she had decided to back out of the deal through which she had returned to the country after nine years in exile.

Beg also said he believes that the former director general of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence was not an accomplice in the conspiracy against Benazir Bhutto, although she did not trust him.

The retired Pakistani general also stated that Benazir Bhutto was a sharp politician but was not as prudent as her father.

On September 2, the U.S. ambassador to Islamabad, Anne W. Patterson, intervened with one of the largest newspaper groups in Pakistan, The News International, to force it to block a decade-old weekly column by Dr. Shireen Mazari scheduled for publication on September 3 in which Mazari, the former director of the Islamabad Institute of Strategic Studies, broke the story of Blackwater/Xe’s presence in Pakistan.

The management of The News International dismissed one of the country’s most prominent academics and journalists due to U.S. pressure. She joined the more independent daily The Nation last week as an editor.

On September 9, in her first column in The Nation, Dr. Mazari wrote:

“Now, even if one were to ignore the massive purchases of land by the U.S., the questionable manner in which the expansion of the U.S. Embassy is taking place and the threatening covert activities of the U.S. and its ‘partner in crime’ Blackwater; the unregistered comings and goings of U.S. personnel on chartered flights; we would still find it difficult to see the whole aid disbursement issue as anything other than a sign of U.S. gradual occupation. It is no wonder we have the term Af-Pak: Afghanistan they control through direct occupation loosely premised on a UN resolution; Pakistan they are occupying as a result of willingly ceded sovereignty by the past and present leadership.”

According to Al Watan, Washington even used Blackwater forces to protect its consulate in the city of Peshawar.

In addition, U.S. journalist Seymour Hersh has accused former U.S vice president Dick Cheney of being involved in the Hariri assassination.

He said Cheney was in charge of a secret team that was tasked with assassinating prominent political figures.

After the assassination of Rafik Hariri in 2005, the U.S. and a number of other countries pointed the finger at Syria, although conclusive evidence has never been presented proving Syrian involvement in the murder. 

American Secret Army Blackwater Operational in Pakistan

Future of USA & India