tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post3136460524701486475..comments2024-03-27T15:36:44.737-07:00Comments on Haq's Musings: Has Justice Been Served in Afia Siddiqui's Conviction?Riaz Haqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-57229008173551147812014-08-21T22:41:57.431-07:002014-08-21T22:41:57.431-07:00The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) re...The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) reportedly called for the release of a female Pakistani scientist with ties to al-Qaeda in exchange for James Foley.<br />According to the New York Times, Isil sent through a "laundry list" of demands to the United States which included the release of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, an MIT-trained neuroscientist currently incarcerated in a prison in Texas.<br /><br />In the United States Dr Siddiqui is considered an al-Qaida courier and fundraiser involved in bomb making, but in Pakistan and Afghanistan, she is seen as an Islamic ‘damsel in distress’ who has been persecuted for her faith.<br /><br />Their demand taps into feelings of ‘Muslim righteousness’ felt widely throughout the two countries, said Michael Semple, a leading expert on the Taliban and former European Union representative in Kabul.<br />Sympathy for Dr Siddiqui over her arrest, detention and extradition to the United States is so widespread in Pakistan that its government offered to swap her for a CIA contractor who shot dead two alleged robbers in a Lahore street in 2011.<br />Dr Siddiqui, a US-trained neuroscientist, was arrested in Ghazni, Afghanistan in 2008 and found to have documents on chemical weapons, dirty bombs and viruses indicating she was planning attacks against American enemies.<br />When she was interviewed by American soldiers and FBI officers the following day she allegedly grabbed a rifle left on a table and shot at her interrogators. She was treated for gunshot wounds suffered in the struggle and later sent to the United States where she was convicted of attempted murder and jailed for 86 years.<br />A call for her release would indicate Isil has a contingent of Taliban veterans from Afghanistan and Pakistan, a leading terrorism expert told the Telegraph on Thursday.<br />Isil’s demands for her release would be tactical and strategic, Mr Semple said. “One explanation is that people from the Afghan-Pakistan theatre have transferred to Iraq and Syria and her cause is part of their baggage.<br />“The strategic explanation is that it’s a good cause, she is a damsel in distress. Isil is trying to mobilise people in righteous condemnation of [what they see as] oppression of the Muslim nation at the hands of the West,” he explained.<br /><br />Dr Ghairat Baheer, the son-in-law of Afghan insurgency leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, said he believed he had been held by the Americans at Bagram jail at the same time as Dr Siddiqui and that she was “mentally disturbed”.<br />“Muslims all over the world, but especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan, have great sympathy for her, regardless of her case, because she is a lady and she was mentally disturbed. The sympathy for her is natural and should be appreciated,” he said.<br />Palwasha Khan, a former member of the Pakistan National Assembly’s foreign affairs committee, said the country’s religious right had exploited her treatment as a woman.<br />“The facts behind her incarceration remain murky and undisclosed to date. The anti-West sentiment in Pakistan also helped in evoking great sympathy towards her and respective governments failed to bring the real facts to light”, she said.<br /><br />http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/11048239/Aafia-Siddiqui-the-Pakistani-female-scientist-on-Isils-list-of-demands.htmlRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-56759405264517477992014-04-19T10:51:45.359-07:002014-04-19T10:51:45.359-07:00Here's wikileaks.org leaked emails of intellig...Here's <a href="https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/16/1644311_re-pakistan-journalist-vanishes-is-the-isi-involved-.html" rel="nofollow">wikileaks.org</a> leaked emails of intelligence analysts at Stratfor about "journalist" Saleem Shahzad:<br /><br /><i>On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.<br /><br />Re: Pakistan Journalist Vanishes: Is the ISI Involved?<br />Released on 2012-03-08 09:00 GMT<br /><br />Email-ID 1644311<br />Date 2011-06-01 15:50:16<br />From burton@stratfor.com<br />To sean.noonan@stratfor.com, hoor.jangda@stratfor.com, secure@stratfor.com<br />The most interesting aspect is the killing of a journalist. Fine line<br />between an investigative journalist and spy. When you rattle around<br />topics nobody wants aired, you pay the price. Truth tellers always get<br />shot. Its much easier to lie or make up stories. <br /><br />On 6/1/2011 8:46 AM, Sean Noonan wrote:<br /><br />http://www.amazon.com/Bloodmoney-Novel-Espionage-David-Ignatius/dp/0393078116/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306935919&sr=8-1<br /><br />i don't think we're going anywhere with this SSS thing, though it is<br />interesting. <br />On 6/1/11 8:41 AM, Fred Burton wrote:<br /><br />The poor bastard went down the rabbit hole and was neutralized. <br /><br />ISI is fully infiltrated by sympathizers and operatives. So, he was<br />killed by ISI. Will we find a smoking gun? No. Will anybody care<br />about this dude? Not really. The Agency lost an asset. Life goes<br />on. There is a reason the CIA set up unilateral operations in<br />Pakistan. <br /><br />Suggest everyone read David Ignatius new book on CIA NOC and front<br />company operations in Pakistan. Once again, he has gotten dead<br />right. <br /><br />On 6/1/2011 8:06 AM, Sean Noonan wrote:<br /><br />the question, though, is still who did it. <br /><br />It means very different things if it is the ISI, the traditional<br />military, or the jihadists. Then a question of who within those<br />groups can also mean different things. Not saying we can answer that<br />very easily, but who specifically killed who (with the support of<br />who) would explain if there is an issue or not. Operating between<br />the intelligence services and jihadists is a very, very dangerous<br />place- so it's not all that surprising that these deaths occur. And<br />as tensions go up, so will those deaths. But we would have to know<br />the same people were involved in the deaths to really know what 'the<br />issue' actually is. <br />On 6/1/11 7:59 AM, Kamran Bokhari wrote:<br /><br />The issue is not the man himself (though I am personally spooked<br />out because I knew him and we met not too long ago and he wrote on<br />my fb wall a day before he went missing). Instead the issue is the<br />growing number of deaths of people who have been supportive of<br />jihadists. Recall KK and Col Imam and now Triple-S. The other<br />thing is that each of these 3 people were with the ISI at one<br />point. A former army chief confirmed to me that SSS was at one<br />point on the payroll. Each of these guys had a falling out with<br />the official ISI but maintained links deep within the service.<br />These guys have also had ties to jihadists of one type while<br />pissing off other more radical types.--.... </i><br /><br />https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/16/1644311_re-pakistan-journalist-vanishes-is-the-isi-involved-.htmlRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-85264512545476250712013-07-26T14:29:15.049-07:002013-07-26T14:29:15.049-07:00Here's a Fox News report on possible release o...Here's a <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/07/26/pakistan-may-seek-to-trade-hero-afridi-for-al-qaeda-linked-terrorist/" rel="nofollow">Fox News</a> report on possible release of Aafia Siddiqui in exchange for release of Dr. Afridi who helped the CIA in tracking Bin Laden:<br /><br /><i>Pakistan is preparing a proposal to swap the doctor who helped the CIA pinpoint Usama bin Laden for a notorious female neuroscientist and suspected Al Qaeda operative being held at a federal prison in Texas, FoxNews.com has learned.<br />The exchange would involve Dr. Shakil Afridi, the pro-America doctor whose vaccination ruse helped establish the terror kingpin’s presence in an Abbottabad compound prior to the Navy SEAL raid that killed him, and Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. Siddiqui is a U.S.-trained neurosurgeon who left Massachusetts after 9/11 and resurfaced in Afghanistan where she was arrested for trying to kill U.S. soldiers.<br />Khalid Sheikh Muhammed told U.S. authorities Siddiqui was an Al Qaeda courier and operative. A State Department spokesman acknowledged that Pakistan has been eager to get Siddiqui extradited, but said no deal is in the works.<br />“The government of Pakistan requested her transfer to Pakistan in 2010,” spokesman Patrick Ventrell said. “However we are not aware of a recent request from Pakistan to discuss her case, nor the case of Afridi.”<br />Siddiqui is currently serving a sentence of 86 years at a maximum security prison in Fort Worth, Texas. She has denied the charges and role with Al Qaeda.<br />A Pakistani Interior Ministry official who requested anonymity told FoxNews.com the prisoner exchange is still being drafted. The official said it would take at least a month before the newly formed task force constituted by Pakistan’s Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan can finalize an agreement to present to the Obama administration and discuss the terms of a deal.<br />Though a formal extradition agreement between Pakistan and U.S. does not exist, former Pakistani President Pervaiz Musharraf has been accused of secretly handing over several alleged terrorists during his nine-year term.<br />A Pakistani TV network claims to possess confidential documents in which the U.S. demands that Pakistan admit Siddiqui is a terrorist and that the sentence she was given in the U.S. was justified. Such declarations, if actually requested, would be key to any potential swap to assure she serve the remainder of her sentence in Pakistan. <br />However, reports in Pakistan say the government there is reluctant to release Afridi, especially without the U.S. acknowledging what Pakistani officials say is his illegal conduct. He was sentenced by a tribal court to 33 years in jail without the possibility of bail on widely disputed charges of colluding with terrorists...</i><br /><br /><br />Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/07/26/pakistan-may-seek-to-trade-hero-afridi-for-al-qaeda-linked-terrorist/Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-28580147942222349362010-10-17T23:29:01.973-07:002010-10-17T23:29:01.973-07:00Here is a NY Times Op Ed by Nobel Laureate Paul Kr...Here is a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/opinion/15krugman.html?scp=13&sq=foreclosures&st=nyt" rel="nofollow">NY Times</a> Op Ed by Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman on questions about rule of law in US foreclosures crisis: <br /><br /><i>The accounting scandals at Enron and WorldCom dispelled the myth of effective corporate governance. These days, the idea that our banks were well capitalized and supervised sounds like a sick joke. And now the mortgage mess is making nonsense of claims that we have effective contract enforcement — in fact, the question is whether our economy is governed by any kind of rule of law.<br /><br />The story so far: An epic housing bust and sustained high unemployment have led to an epidemic of default, with millions of homeowners falling behind on mortgage payments. So servicers — the companies that collect payments on behalf of mortgage owners — have been foreclosing on many mortgages, seizing many homes.<br /><br />But do they actually have the right to seize these homes? Horror stories have been proliferating, like the case of the Florida man whose home was taken even though he had no mortgage. More significantly, certain players have been ignoring the law. Courts have been approving foreclosures without requiring that mortgage servicers produce appropriate documentation; instead, they have relied on affidavits asserting that the papers are in order. And these affidavits were often produced by “robo-signers,” or low-level employees who had no idea whether their assertions were true.<br /><br />Now an awful truth is becoming apparent: In many cases, the documentation doesn’t exist. In the frenzy of the bubble, much home lending was undertaken by fly-by-night companies trying to generate as much volume as possible. These loans were sold off to mortgage “trusts,” which, in turn, sliced and diced them into mortgage-backed securities. The trusts were legally required to obtain and hold the mortgage notes that specified the borrowers’ obligations. But it’s now apparent that such niceties were frequently neglected. And this means that many of the foreclosures now taking place are, in fact, illegal.<br /><br />This is very, very bad. For one thing, it’s a near certainty that significant numbers of borrowers are being defrauded — charged fees they don’t actually owe, declared in default when, by the terms of their loan agreements, they aren’t.<br /><br />Beyond that, if trusts can’t produce proof that they actually own the mortgages against which they have been selling claims, the sponsors of these trusts will face lawsuits from investors who bought these claims — claims that are now, in many cases, worth only a small fraction of their face value.<br /><br />And who are these sponsors? Major financial institutions — the same institutions supposedly rescued by government programs last year. So the mortgage mess threatens to produce another financial crisis. </i>Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-26209777517266583702010-02-07T09:01:46.368-08:002010-02-07T09:01:46.368-08:00riaz
It will be waste of time as none of the inte...riaz<br /><br />It will be waste of time as none of the intelligence agency whether that of pakistan or usa will tell the truth.<br /><br />Probably she is the lesson for people who tried to have double role with two or three intelligence agencies.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-3495538768700049022010-02-05T20:36:14.826-08:002010-02-05T20:36:14.826-08:00Further please read the bhutto saga as explained i...Further please read the bhutto saga as explained in pakalert.wordpress.com. It will bring out the dynamic of money given by usa in the politics and military of pakistan.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-60617035057546593372010-02-05T20:33:10.012-08:002010-02-05T20:33:10.012-08:00Riaz
Whatever short coming which has been highlig...Riaz<br /><br />Whatever short coming which has been highlighted in the articles are facts. However it is an insufficient argument as it is the norm of the intelligence to eleminate even the suspect agent of them doing double act. Actually if that person would a coutries citizen he can be tried for treason. Further you must know the famous wording "all are equal but some are more equal" is the practice of west and the GCC countries.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-30240996898400726932010-02-05T16:50:46.316-08:002010-02-05T16:50:46.316-08:00Sounds reminiscent of what happened with that Jord...Sounds reminiscent of what happened with that Jordanian Doctor "double agent"....who killed CIA officers in a suicide bomb...Riaz you should know when details are left out it doesn't serve purposes of the accusers who have some role in it..consider what Saddam and Chemical Ali were accused of and who supplied them with these chemicals....<br />see:<br />http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/040.htmlMayrajnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-5031905394200789742010-02-05T16:47:22.064-08:002010-02-05T16:47:22.064-08:00Vishal: "I wish you had reserved a fraction o...Vishal: "I wish you had reserved a fraction of that criticism for the conditions surrounding your own country."<br /><br />Your reading of my blog and your responses are highly selective. You get very upset at any criticism of India, but you take for granted even the harshest of my criticism of Pakistan, of which there is plenty on my blog. <br /><br />For example, I have repeatedly criticized Pakistan's narrow ruling elite, called them incompetent and corrupt, and taken them to task for the plight of the poor, the women and the children of Pakistan. None of this registers with you. But any criticism of India deeply angers you, as obvious from this and many other comments you have been making on this blog.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-39942034519461850742010-02-05T16:39:41.300-08:002010-02-05T16:39:41.300-08:00Here we go again - conspiracy theory number n+1.
...Here we go again - conspiracy theory number n+1. <br /><br />She'd been trolling Islamist literature while she was at Brandeis. It's easy to believe the assertion of her going hardcore Al-Q (through marriage and other means) between 2003 and 2008. Pointing to he MIT and Brandeis background shouldn't obscure the fact that she went cuckoo after 9/11. <br /><br />Why every little becomes a national pride issue for Pakistanis is baffling. If it's not the KL-bill then it's the IPL "snub"; or Dr Aafia. Stephen Colbert referred to Muslims as the "thinnest-skinned billion people on the planet". Show us it's not so.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-43455595613893247172010-02-05T15:49:22.490-08:002010-02-05T15:49:22.490-08:00Mr Riaz, it's surprising how extreme are your ...Mr Riaz, it's surprising how extreme are your views while presenting the deficiencies of India starting from literacy to food and health-care and even your so called accounts of Indian IT being run by code-coolies, when as a Pakistani-American those could have been a little less of your concerns. <br /><br />I wish you had reserved a fraction of that criticism for the conditions surrounding your own country. Not that this blog's readers would derive any pleasure out of it, but just as a duty of a good blogger, who can make an impact by his views. <br /><br />Here, you have a woman who is tortured for years and betrayed by his own countrymen. <br /><br />May I ask, that why you do not care to ask the questions as to :<br /><br />1) Why was she handed to US at first place? <br /><br />2) Why did Pakistan choose to take money, in exchange of sending its own citizens to US cells? (It still does, to kill its own people)<br /><br />3) While Pakistan plays a servile role under US, what people like you siting in US can do to make a change. You point to the Harper magazine article, but not a single article bringing out the role of Pakistan's own agencies in all this. <br /><br />Alas, it seems you are too busy, counting the hungry and uneducated people in India, but care to look the other way when it comes to something more drastic at home. That leaves me both puzzled and bemused.Vishalnoreply@blogger.com