.Mullah Omar moved to Karachi by ISI: US
WASHINGTON: The United States has come perilously close to calling Pakistan a terrorist state by alleging that the country’s spy agency ISI recently spirited Taliban leader Mullah Omar to Karachi to save him from American drone attacks in Quetta.
In the most direct charge of its kind, current and former US intelligence officers are saying on background that the one-eyed leader and illiterate leader of the Afghan Taliban, ''has fled a Pakistani city on the border with Afghanistan and found refuge from potential US attacks in Karachi with the assistance of Pakistan's intelligence service.''
Washington believes that Omar was in and around Quetta, Balochistan, where he presided over the so-called Quetta shura under the protection of the Pakistani military and the ISI, which considers him an asset ready to be deployed in Afghanistan once the US (inevitably, Pakistan believes) leaves the country. Pakistan denies the charge, but in the last three months the US has relentlessly repeated the charges, unsubtly hinting that it might expand its drone attacks to Balochistan to target Omar.
On Friday, the Obama administration pretty much went public with the charges, with two senior intelligence officials telling the Washington Times that at the end of Ramzan last month, ISI helped Omar travel to Karachi, where they said he inaugurated a new senior leadership council.
''The development reinforces suspicions that the ISI, which helped create the Taliban in the 1990s to expand Pakistani influence in Afghanistan, is working against U.S. interests in Afghanistan as the Obama administration prepares to send more US troops to fight there,'' the paper said.
The disclosure was backed by one former CIA analyst, Bruce Riedel, who said Mullah Omar had been spotted in Karachi recently and that the ISI decided to move him further from the battlefield to keep him safe from US drone attacks. There are huge madrassas in Karachi where Mullah Omar could easily be kept, Riedel said.
One such school is the Jamia Binoria, which is believed to be the alma mater of many extremists. According to a 2005 Pakistani estimate, Karachi has more than 800 madrasses.
The latest US charges recalled one of the biggest scandals of the Bush administration’s War on Terror, when Washington allowed a secret airlift by Pakistan of hundreds of its military and intelligence personnel trapped in Kunduz, Afghanistan, where they were helping the Taliban against US.
In his book, Descent into Chaos, Pakistani journalist historian Ahmed Rashid says the request for a minor airlift to extricate cornered Pakistani personnel was made by Pervez Musharraf to President Bush, but it was approved by vice-president Cheney, who kept it secret from other departments.
''Musharraf said Pakistan needed to save its dignity and its valued people. Two planes were involved, which made several sorties a night over several nights. They took off from air bases in Chitral and Gilgit in Pakistan's northern areas, and landed in Kunduz, where the evacuees were waiting on the tarmac,'' Rashid writes.
According to Rashid, hundreds, perhaps as many as one thousand ISI officers, Taliban commanders, and foot soldiers belonging to the IMU and al-Qaida personnel boarded the planes. What was sold as a minor extraction turned into a major air bridge. Frustrated US Special Ops Forces who watched it from the surrounding high ground dubbed it "Operation Evil Airlift."
It was later revealed that India’s then National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra remonstrated to Washington about the operation but the protest was ignored.
Rashid quotes a senior US diplomat as admitting that "Musharraf fooled us because after we gave approval, the ISI may have run a much bigger operation and got out more people. We just don't know. At the time nobody wanted to hurt Musharraf, and his prestige with the army was at stake. Clearly the ISI was running its own war against the Americans and did not want to leave Afghanistan until the last moment."
The Obama administration looks less inclined to allow Pakistan to continue playing its double game and pressure is increasing on Islamabad almost every day to give up its support to terrorists. CIA chief Leon Panetta is in the region this week, the latest in the unending line-up of US officials who have been travelling to Pakistan to persuade it to stop backing terrorists.
Times of India
In the most direct charge of its kind, current and former US intelligence officers are saying on background that the one-eyed leader and illiterate leader of the Afghan Taliban, ''has fled a Pakistani city on the border with Afghanistan and found refuge from potential US attacks in Karachi with the assistance of Pakistan's intelligence service.''
Washington believes that Omar was in and around Quetta, Balochistan, where he presided over the so-called Quetta shura under the protection of the Pakistani military and the ISI, which considers him an asset ready to be deployed in Afghanistan once the US (inevitably, Pakistan believes) leaves the country. Pakistan denies the charge, but in the last three months the US has relentlessly repeated the charges, unsubtly hinting that it might expand its drone attacks to Balochistan to target Omar.
On Friday, the Obama administration pretty much went public with the charges, with two senior intelligence officials telling the Washington Times that at the end of Ramzan last month, ISI helped Omar travel to Karachi, where they said he inaugurated a new senior leadership council.
''The development reinforces suspicions that the ISI, which helped create the Taliban in the 1990s to expand Pakistani influence in Afghanistan, is working against U.S. interests in Afghanistan as the Obama administration prepares to send more US troops to fight there,'' the paper said.
The disclosure was backed by one former CIA analyst, Bruce Riedel, who said Mullah Omar had been spotted in Karachi recently and that the ISI decided to move him further from the battlefield to keep him safe from US drone attacks. There are huge madrassas in Karachi where Mullah Omar could easily be kept, Riedel said.
One such school is the Jamia Binoria, which is believed to be the alma mater of many extremists. According to a 2005 Pakistani estimate, Karachi has more than 800 madrasses.
The latest US charges recalled one of the biggest scandals of the Bush administration’s War on Terror, when Washington allowed a secret airlift by Pakistan of hundreds of its military and intelligence personnel trapped in Kunduz, Afghanistan, where they were helping the Taliban against US.
In his book, Descent into Chaos, Pakistani journalist historian Ahmed Rashid says the request for a minor airlift to extricate cornered Pakistani personnel was made by Pervez Musharraf to President Bush, but it was approved by vice-president Cheney, who kept it secret from other departments.
''Musharraf said Pakistan needed to save its dignity and its valued people. Two planes were involved, which made several sorties a night over several nights. They took off from air bases in Chitral and Gilgit in Pakistan's northern areas, and landed in Kunduz, where the evacuees were waiting on the tarmac,'' Rashid writes.
According to Rashid, hundreds, perhaps as many as one thousand ISI officers, Taliban commanders, and foot soldiers belonging to the IMU and al-Qaida personnel boarded the planes. What was sold as a minor extraction turned into a major air bridge. Frustrated US Special Ops Forces who watched it from the surrounding high ground dubbed it "Operation Evil Airlift."
It was later revealed that India’s then National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra remonstrated to Washington about the operation but the protest was ignored.
Rashid quotes a senior US diplomat as admitting that "Musharraf fooled us because after we gave approval, the ISI may have run a much bigger operation and got out more people. We just don't know. At the time nobody wanted to hurt Musharraf, and his prestige with the army was at stake. Clearly the ISI was running its own war against the Americans and did not want to leave Afghanistan until the last moment."
The Obama administration looks less inclined to allow Pakistan to continue playing its double game and pressure is increasing on Islamabad almost every day to give up its support to terrorists. CIA chief Leon Panetta is in the region this week, the latest in the unending line-up of US officials who have been travelling to Pakistan to persuade it to stop backing terrorists.
Times of India
posted by madtom at 2:10 AM
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