On the one hand, the Modi government is funding the Teheek--e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), various Baloch insurgent groups, MQM militants and other groups to terrorize Pakistanis. On the other hand, it is accusing Pakistani government of sponsoring terror in Kashmir and demanding action against Kashmiri support groups headed by Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar. It appears that the "Doval Doctrine", named after India's hawkish national security advisor Ajit Doval, is designed to stretch Pakistan Army so thin that it finally collapses and paves the way for India to dominate Pakistan.
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| Indian Prime Minister Modi with NSA Ajit Doval |
Evidence of Indian Sponsorship of Terror:
Here are some of the pieces of the evidence of India's support for terror in Pakistan:
1. A 2015 London police document revealed as follows:
“Large amounts of cash have been seized from premises associated with the MQM and a significant amount of assets have been identified in the United Kingdom. All of the cash and assets are believed to represent funds provided to MQM by the Indian government or other unlawful activity."
The document said that "both Mr. (Tariq) Mir and Mr. (Mohammad) Anwar (close aides of MQM leader Altaf Hussain) stated that MQM was receiving funding from Indian government".
MQM leader Altaf Hussain has been using militants in Karachi, the economic hub of Pakistan, to launch attacks and destabilize the country.
2. Kulbhushan Yadav, a serving Indian Navy Commander, was arrested in Pakistan's Balochistan province in 2016. Yadav said his purpose was to remain in direct contact with Baloch insurgents and carry out "activities with their collaboration".
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is now openly supporting Baloch insurgency in Pakistan. The Indian support for Baloch insurgents' terrorism in Pakistan is no longer a secret.
3. Ex US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has confirmed based on US intelligence reports that "India has always used Afghanistan as a second front against Pakistan. India has over the years been financing problems in Pakistan".
4. Since 2013, India's current National Security Advisor Ajit Doval has been talking about "Pakistan's vulnerabilities" to terrorism and India's ability to take advantage of it. Here are excerpts of his speech at Sastra University:
"How do you tackle Pakistan?.....We start working on Pakistan's vulnerabilities-- economic, internal security, political, isolating them internationally, it can be anything..... it can be defeating Pakistan's policies in Afghanistan...... You stop the terrorists by denying them weapons, funds and manpower. Deny them funds by countering with one-and-a-half times more funding. If they have 1200 crores give them 1800 crores and they are on our side...who are the Taliban fighting for? It's because they haven't got jobs or someone has misled them. The Taliban are mercenaries. So go for more of the covert thing (against Pakistan)..." Ajit Doval, India's National Security Advisor
India's Pakistan Obsession:
Why is India's Hindu leadership so paranoid about Pakistan and Pakistanis? Let us examine the source of India's Pakistan phobia by looking at various statements made by analysts, strategists and Hindu leaders across the political spectrum.
Hindu RSS leader M.S. Golwalkar described as "worthy of worship" by current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi:
"Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindustan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting on to take on these despoilers. The Race Spirit has been awakening.”
Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's Defense Minister Krishna Menon:
"In Pakistan's view the Partition is only the beginning. Her idea is to get a jumping-off ground to take the whole of India.....it was from the Mughals that the British took over (India). Now the British having gone, they (Muslims) must come back (to rule all of India)"
India's ex National Security Advisor and Foreign Secretary J.N. Dixit:
"The reason Britain partitioned India was to fragment Hindu areas into political entities and ensure Pakistan's emergence as the largest and most cohesive political power in the subcontinent. Pakistan's ultimate aim is to fragment India. Pakistani invasion of Kashmir in 1948 and subsequent wars are part of this continuous exercise. The Kargil war and the proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir are the latest example of this pressure. India has not been decisive and surgical in resisting Pakistani subversion. India has voluntarily given concessions to Pakistan despite defeating it in all major conflicts. Pakistan's long term objective is to ensure that India does not emerge as the most influential power in the South Asian region. The Pakistani power structure has a powerful antagonism toward Hindu-majority civil society in India. Pakistan has sought the support of a large number of Muslim countries and Asian and Western powers (China and the US) to keep India on the defensive. Pakistan's continued questioning of Indian secularism, democracy and constitutional institutions is a deliberate attempt to generate friction within India. Pakistani support of the secessionist and insurgent forces in Jammu and Kashmir, in Punjab and in the north-eastern states of India confirms this impression."
Modi's Objectives:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government is attempting to achieve the following:
1. Deflect world attention from Indian Army atrocities in Kashmir.
2. Cover up India's proxy war of terror in Pakistan.
3. Isolate Pakistan internationally.
4. Sabotage China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
5. Bleed Pakistan by a thousand cuts to weaken it to the point where India can easily dominate the entire region.
Summary:
Indian Prime Minister Modi and his national security advisor and right-hand man Ajit Doval are sposoring terrorism in Pakistan while blaming Pakistan of terror to cover their tracks. It's important for Pakistanis to not only understand what India is doing but also make a serious effort to make the world aware of it.
Here's a short 3-minute video capturing the essence of the post:
https://youtu.be/Yb6aNq11zhc
"Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindustan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting on to take on these despoilers. The Race Spirit has been awakening.”
Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's Defense Minister Krishna Menon:
"In Pakistan's view the Partition is only the beginning. Her idea is to get a jumping-off ground to take the whole of India.....it was from the Mughals that the British took over (India). Now the British having gone, they (Muslims) must come back (to rule all of India)"
"The reason Britain partitioned India was to fragment Hindu areas into political entities and ensure Pakistan's emergence as the largest and most cohesive political power in the subcontinent. Pakistan's ultimate aim is to fragment India. Pakistani invasion of Kashmir in 1948 and subsequent wars are part of this continuous exercise. The Kargil war and the proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir are the latest example of this pressure. India has not been decisive and surgical in resisting Pakistani subversion. India has voluntarily given concessions to Pakistan despite defeating it in all major conflicts. Pakistan's long term objective is to ensure that India does not emerge as the most influential power in the South Asian region. The Pakistani power structure has a powerful antagonism toward Hindu-majority civil society in India. Pakistan has sought the support of a large number of Muslim countries and Asian and Western powers (China and the US) to keep India on the defensive. Pakistan's continued questioning of Indian secularism, democracy and constitutional institutions is a deliberate attempt to generate friction within India. Pakistani support of the secessionist and insurgent forces in Jammu and Kashmir, in Punjab and in the north-eastern states of India confirms this impression."
Modi's Objectives:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government is attempting to achieve the following:
1. Deflect world attention from Indian Army atrocities in Kashmir.
2. Cover up India's proxy war of terror in Pakistan.
3. Isolate Pakistan internationally.
4. Sabotage China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
5. Bleed Pakistan by a thousand cuts to weaken it to the point where India can easily dominate the entire region.
Summary:
Indian Prime Minister Modi and his national security advisor and right-hand man Ajit Doval are sposoring terrorism in Pakistan while blaming Pakistan of terror to cover their tracks. It's important for Pakistanis to not only understand what India is doing but also make a serious effort to make the world aware of it.
Here's a short 3-minute video capturing the essence of the post:
https://youtu.be/Yb6aNq11zhc
Related Links:
Haq's Musings
South Asia Investor Review
Can Modi Isolate Pakistan?
MQM-RAW Link
India's Pakistan Obsession
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
RK Yadav's Mission RAW
Planted Stories in Indian Media
Doval Doctrine
India's Israel Envy
Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel
71 comments:
India is doing exactly what a enemy would do.And lets not kid ourselves we are enemies.
Modi and Doval are doing their job.Just like Indira Gandhi did her job in 1971.
Man up!
@anonymous I'm glad you acknowledge that India is a ste sponsor of terrorism
@rizwan
Haman mein sab nange hai.
When you take away the rhetoric your angst is that India was successful in Bangladesh but your own strategy has backfired in Kashmir...
The Scotland Yard disowned the document linking MQM to Indian funding back in June 2016.
Scotland Yard recently dropped that case for lack of "credible evidence to pursue".
Shams: "The Scotland Yard disowned the document linking MQM to Indian funding back in June 2016"
The document I have shared was confirmed as authentic by the Scotland Yard.
Shams: "Scotland Yard recently dropped that case for lack of "credible evidence to pursue".
Most independent analysts believed the money laundering changes against Altaf were dropped for political reasons.
Money laundering charges against Muttahida Qaumi Movement founder could have been dropped for political reasons, British journalist Owen Bennett Jones who has followed the case closely said in an interview with BBC Urdu on Friday.
“Two senior leaders of the MQM confessed to the London police that India had funded them. There statements were recorded with the police. Police gave their case to the Crown Prosecution Service which faced international pressure and thought it is better to drop the case in view of public interest,” he said.
https://www.geo.tv/latest/117861-Money-laundering-charges-against-MQM-dropped-for-political-reasons-British-journalist-claims
After all, Altaf is an MI6 asset, according to ex RAW chief AS Dulat in response to a question about RAW funding MQM.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XksdR-8FaJ8
In other words, there is no end in sight to this tit for tat conflict. Recall what happened in East Pakistan. Pakistan cannot win this proxy war and it is a terrible waste of lives and treasure.
Approximately about two years ago, Baluchistan Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch said and I paraphrase, "The day Pakistan abandons its support and claims on Indian held Kashmir, all Indian interference in Pakistan will cease immediately."
I believe this too.
Sikandar: "Approximately about two years ago, Baluchistan Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch said and I paraphrase, "The day Pakistan abandons its support and claims on Indian held Kashmir, all Indian interference in Pakistan will cease immediately."I believe this too."
I disagree.
Pakistan did not create Burhan Wani whose murder by Indian military triggered the latest mass protests.
Pakistan has nothing to do with the current wave of protests in Indian occupied Kashmir.
Many objective Indian analysts acknowledge this fact.
The root of the Kashmir crisis is the brutality of 700,000 Indian soldiers against 10 million Kashmiris. But India wants to deflect world attention by blaming Pakistan.
A BBC Urdu correspondent has reported her experience of being humiliated by Indian soldiers at multiple check points similar to what the Palestinians are subjected to on a daily basis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFxbFX7CM_U
Modi will soon learn that he has no choice but to seriously deal with the Kashmir issue with Pakistan.
The best solution is still the Musharraf formula that was agreed between Manmohan Singh and Musharraf via back channel diplomacy
That Musharraf deal was cut a long time ago. Nothing came of it.
Similar deals have come and gone. The dispute is unresolvable because it is not just about a piece of land but about conflicting national identities and a case of mutual intolerance.
Ahmad: "The dispute is unresolvable because it is not just about a piece of land but about conflicting national identities and a case of mutual intolerance. "
History tells us that no issue is permanently unresolvable.
Just look at Europe's transition from centuries of conflict to a peaceful union
India and Pakistan will eventually get there hopefully without a lot more bloodshed.
Indian-administered Kashmir has been living through some of the worst violence for years. It is a dispute that goes back almost seventy years, and the latest trouble follows the recent killing of Burhan Wani, a 22 year old militant with a huge social media following. Mobile communications have been cut, landlines are unreliable, and contact with the local BBC reporter has been intermittent. But BBC Urdu presenter Aliya Nazki, herself from Kashmir, has been following developments closely.
Aliya talks about massive demonstrations and protest marches and extended curfews.
you get stopped and searched at checkpoints where ordinary Kashmiris are humiliated by soldiers.
Nowhere do they fire live ammunition or pellets against civilians in India.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/p04787s4
US and USSR were probably the worst enemies world has ever seen, but there is no evidence that they sponsored terrorism in each other.
India's problem is different. It is an artificially created country with 18+ secessionist movements. It does not want any successful country in the neighborhood, specially an economically successful Pakistan or BD because that would encourage the secessionist movements. That is why it sponsors terrorism in Pakistan, SL, BD and Nepal. Even when Pakistan was doing economically well, Indian public was kept in dark and concepts like “Hindu rate of growth” were invented. By keeping problems alive in Pakistan it gives them chance to tell the public “see Pakistan is a mess because it separated, now you should not make the same mistake”.
G. Ali
There are secessionist movements all over the world practically in every big country. If all are given freedom we will have 2000 plus countries instead of 200 plus countries today.
UN can say whatever it wants but hardly any country is ready to hold a plebiscite in its own country just like India Pakistan Srilanka having Kashmir balochistan Jaffna secessionist demands.
Anon: "There are secessionist movements all over the world practically in every big country. If all are given freedom we will have 2000 plus countries instead of 200 plus countries today."
Here's what's unique about Kashmir that differentiates it from all other separatist movements:
1. The people of Kashmir were promised a plebiscite by India's founding father and first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
2. The people of Kashmir were promised a plebiscite by the international community in multiple UN Security Council resolutions.
3. Kashmir is being held by the force of 700,000 Indian troops deployed since 1990. NO other region of the world is as heavily militarized.
4. NO nation other than India accepts Kashmir as being "integral part of India". All international maps show it as disputed.
Thank you. I read it again. Also checked the Guardian article. As I understand it, the solution that Musharraf offered involved the following:
"He said he had a "four-point solution" to Kashmir, including a gradual withdrawal of troops, self-governance, no changes to the region's borders and a joint supervision mechanism."
This will not work. The only solution that will work is to accept the LoC as the international border. India is not going to concede that J&K is part of the Indian Union. Joint supervision with Pakistan of the entire Kashmir region is a pipe dream.
Ahmad: "This will not work. The only solution that will work is to accept the LoC as the international border. India is not going to concede that J&K is part of the Indian Union. Joint supervision with Pakistan of the entire Kashmir region is a pipe dream."
India did agree to the Musharraf formula. So your claim that "India will not agree to it" has no basis in fact. What has changed now is the ascension to power of extremist Hindu Nationalist Modi who has yet to figure out the ground realities. But he will learn as did Vajpayee before him.
Here's an excerpt from the Times of India on India-Pakistan Kashmir deal:
India and Pakistan had through "back channels" agreed to a non-territorial solution to Kashmir under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, reveals a latest WikiLeaks cable. According to the US embassy cable - dated April 21, 2009 - Singh confirmed this to a visiting US delegation, led by then House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Howard Berman in April, 2009, saying that the solution included free trade and movement across LoC.
Singh told the US delegation that Delhi and Islamabad had made great progress prior to February 2007, when President Musharraf ran into trouble. "We had reached an understanding in back channels," he related, says the cable, in which Musharraf had agreed to a non-territorial solution to Kashmir. Singh went on to add that India wanted a strong, stable, peaceful, democratic Pakistan and makes no claim on "even an inch" of Pakistani territory.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Manmohan-Singh-Musharraf-came-close-to-striking-Kashmir-deal-WikiLeaks/articleshow/9841701.cms
Agreeing to do something and actually doing it are two very different things, as you know. Lip service is common in the world of diplomacy. Musharraf left in 2008. Modi came to power recently. Why has the deal not come to pass?
Ahmad: "Agreeing to do something and actually doing it are two very different things, as you know. Lip service is common in the world of diplomacy. Musharraf left in 2008. Modi came to power recently. Why has the deal not come to pass?"
Agreeing is the first step towards doing anything.
Changes in governments have created new dynamics with new players trying to figure things out for themselves.
Once they do, they'll have no choice but to go back to the Musharraf formula.
Let's just wait and see.
Has #Pakistan’s #ISI funded insurgents in North-East #India? #RAW #Assam #Bangladesh #Kashmir http://scroll.in/article/819694/this-book-says-pakistans-isi-has-been-at-work-in-north-east-india … via @scroll_in
Faith Unity Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan by Hein Kiessling
In 1990, via the Pakistan embassy in Dhaka, the NSCN and ULFA developed contacts with the ISI. As far back as the 1960s, undivided Pakistan had supplied weapons for the Naga fighters. However, the turbulent developments in East Pakistan and the birth of Bangladesh in 1971 led to a temporary halt in this weapons pipeline. Relations were never completely broken off, however, and in the 1980s they were revitalised.
In January 1991, with the help of the ISI, several high-ranking ULFA leaders travelled to Pakistan to sign a training agreement for ULFA cadres. In the same year, two six-member ULFA groups arrived in Islamabad for training; a third 10-member group followed in 1993. The ISI’s auxiliary support for operations of this kind covered more than just the training courses in Pakistan. Well in advance, new identities and fake passports had to be procured, travel routes determined and the financing of the whole operation had to be secured. In this way, the Pakistan embassy in Dhaka became an important ISI station, the hub of its operations in North-East India.
In the ISI directorate in Islamabad, they must have been content with the results of the first training courses for ULFA fighters, since they continued through the 1990s and were extended to include other underground groups. The Indian security forces at one point arrested and interrogated a member of the NLFT, who revealed that between 1997 and 1998 some of their top brass had gone for training with the ISI in Pakistan. The detainee mentioned the names of NLFT leaders, thereby uncovering the whole structure of task distribution and kinship within the top echelons of the group.
Parallel to the Muslim resistance in Kashmir, other Islamist organisations in North-East India were also increasingly active in the 1990s. The main militant Islamist resistance groups in North-East India were: Muslim United Liberation Front of Assam, Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam, Islamic Liberation Army of Assam, United Muslim Liberation Front of Assam, United Reformation Protest of Assam, People’s United Liberation Front, Muslim Volunteer Force, Adam Sena Islamic Sevak Sangh, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Harkat-ul Jihad.
The ISI was always ready to help their friends in North-East India procure weapons. In Thailand, after the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia from the 1980s onwards, light weapons and light machine guns awaited prospective buyers, so new supply opportunities opened up. Thus in 1991 the ISI provided weapons from Thailand to a group of 240 NSCN members.
Small boats brought the cargo to Cox’s Bazaar, a port in Bangladesh, which became the hub for weapon supplies in the region. Consequently, two more deliveries were made. In week-long treks the NSCN and ULFA fighters themselves fetched weapons from Bangladesh and brought them back to their bases. On the land route there was the ever-present danger of interception by the Indian Border Security Force, the police in the individual states and by Army units. In fact the fourth delivery was ambushed and the group involved was mostly wiped out. They then switched to longer and more difficult routes, in an attempt to make their delivery paths more secure.
In the initial years of the new arms supply channel, the ISI was obliged to procure and finance the weapons. According to a prominent Naga fighter imprisoned by the Indians, in the 1990s he received three instalments totalling $1.7 million from the ISI for weapon purchases. Later on, the rebels often funded the purchase themselves. Bank robberies, tax extortions, black- mail and the drug trade supplied the means; thus terror began to be self-financing. Such weapons supply routes were running throughout the 1990s and into the new millennium, with Bangladesh as the main trans-shipment point.
Annon said :
"There are secessionist movements all over the world practically in every big country. If all are given freedom we will have 2000 plus countries instead of 200 plus countries today.
UN can say whatever it wants but hardly any country is ready to hold a plebiscite in its own country just like India Pakistan Srilanka having Kashmir balochistan Jaffna secessionist demands."
There are several fundamental flaws with these arguments. First of all Kashmir is not like any other separatist movement, it is a UN acknowledged disputed territory. Second, many countries have held referendums and allowed regions to separate. UK held referendum in Scotland, Canada in Qubec (several times) and US in Porte Rico (multiple times).
Fact is that every argument given by Indians on Kashmir are echo of what colonial powers used say to justify their occupation. I guess all colonial powers use the same language.
G. Ali
#Quetta college carnage: It’s nothing else but tit for tat. #India #Afghanistan #Pakistan #TTP #QuettaTerrorAttack
http://tribune.com.pk/story/1209570/nothing-else-tit-tat/
By Imtiaz Gul
Regardless of how you look at it, central to terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan are known instruments of destabilisation and instability i.e. TTP, IS/Daesh, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. They are the handy pawns in the proxy war that is currently underway in the region.
The only plausible explanation for such termination missions is a tit for tat strategy born out of the perception that Pakistan needs to do more to neutralise and uproot the Haqqani Network.
Until Pakistan is seen doing so, its security apparatus is likely to remain under attack – both by the international players as well as by their instruments of terror and instability.
Army chief arrives in Quetta following deadly attack
The deadly terrorist raid on the New Sariab Police Training College near Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s Balochsitan province, does not come as a surprise. The attack has so far claimed the lives of 61 security personnel, by far the largest in terms of fatalities among those carried out against Pakistan’s security apparatus.
It has been in the offing in view of the excessive bleeding of the number of unusual fatalities among the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) since early this year.
The Quetta attack is reminiscent of two attacks within six months (March /October 2009) at the Police Academy at Manawan outside Lahore; typical fidayeen (suicide) termination missions with the objective of inflicting as much damage as possible.
The latest blood-spilling can be interpreted in two ways; it’s a strike either by the Pakistani or Uzbek proponents of Daesh i.e. Lashkare Jhangvi or different splinters of the TTP. Or it is a tit for tat, reprisal attack by all those who see Pakistan’s security establishment as the patron and harbourer of the Haqqani Network, which is seen as the major source of unusual attrition within the ANSF; a staggering 3,500 losses until August this year, including nearly 2,000 in July and August alone. Sine early this month, the ANSF losses in Helmand alone have been over 150 with fighting raging in a number of districts and provinces around Helmand.
In pictures: Militants storm police training centre in Quetta
The top US commander in Afghanistan John Nicholson, however, places the blame on both sides.
“It’s still a very pours border region and we do see insurgents moving both ways across the border, some from Afghanistan to Pakistan and then of course the Haqqanis and the Taliban moving from Pakistan into Afghanistan,” said Nicholson, when asked about Pakistan’s border.
When asked whether the Afghan government had any plan to secure the border, Nicholson offered this explanation:
“The Afghan border police are present along the border but the numbers of border posts probably need to increase, the coordination procedures between the Afghans and the Pakistanis (need to improve). We are working on a bilateral basis and we are going to continue to work improve this over the next year.”
General Nicholson resonates a largely realistic ground situation, with both Kabul and Islamabad apparently helpless in preempting and preventing attacks of this kind.
61 killed, at least 165 injured as militants storm police training centre in Quetta
What is clear though is that the Haqqani Network remains central to the Afghan-American narrative as much as the Indian narrative on the Lashkare Taiba/Jamaatud Dawa. Islamabad has given the Haqqanis, similar to the Afghan Taliban, shelter in Pakistan’s western tribal region. As a result, many American soldiers have been killed by the network.
In 2011, the Haqqanis attacked the US Embassy in Kabul. The network was also blamed for the 2008 bombing of the Indian mission in Kabul that killed 58 people – and since it hit India, it was “perfectly alright” with Pakistani intelligence, the Forbes Magazine wrote in August this year.
Good time to understand the hereditary hatred the brahmin elite have for Pakistan, very informative as always! This article by Andrew Korybko tackles this as well but focuses more on the consequences of indian behaviour as a result of its insecurity.
'INDIA’S GEOPOLITICAL HATE FOR PAKISTAN IS SABOTAGING THE NORTH-SOUTH CORRIDOR'
http://katehon.com/article/indias-geopolitical-hate-pakistan-sabotaging-north-south-corridor
Militants return to #Pakistan, hitting #China’s economic plans #CPEC #QuettaAttack
http://gulfnews.com/news/asia/pakistan/militants-return-to-pakistan-hitting-china-s-economic-plans-1.1918611
Quetta: A militant attack in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province has shattered government claims it has been successful in its fight against terrorism.
Striking along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Quetta, three armed men wearing suicide vests broke into a police academy late on Monday in a deadly assault that has since been claimed by the Daesh via a statement published on its Amaq news agency.
“These attacks are aimed at destabilising Balochistan and to create problems for CPEC, which certain countries don’t want to see as a success story,” said retired Brigadier Asad Munir, a defence analyst who served in Pakistan’s tribal regions.
Pakistan claims to have largely defeated militants who had wrecked the nation’s economy by violent strikes in past two years and killed thousands of people since the South Asian nuclear power joined the US war on terror in 2002.
But such brazen strikes indicate the battle is not over.
“The numbers and the way they were martyred, it has made all efforts of yours and security agencies futile,” Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told newly graduated police officers in Islamabad hours after the attack.
China’s reaction to the attack was low-key, suggesting its economic projects were not the target of the militant attack.
“It’s unrealistic to expect Pakistan’s domestic security situation to undergo fundamental changes in the near future,” said Zhao Gancheng, director of the Centre for South Asia Studies at the state-backed Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. “The attack on the police training academy last night was a reflection of Pakistan’s internal security risk; it happened in the province that the CPEC passes, but didn’t target the CPEC.”
China will cautiously push ahead with its projects and provide a boost in support for Pakistan’s military, he said.
The attack on the academy is the second worst in Pakistan this year, since a suicide bomber killed 70 people in Quetta’s government-run hospital in August.
Security authorities blamed Al Qaida-linked Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al Alami for the attack, state-run radio reported citing Balochistan’s paramilitary force chief. By Tuesday afternoon, Daesh claimed responsibility.
The former security chief of Pakistan’s tribal regions, Mahmood Shah, cast doubt on the Daesh claims, saying Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al Alami has a history of attacks in Balochistan and were trained by Al Qaida for urban fighting.
“The government has got to chalk out a new security plan for Quetta, Balochistan as militants keep coming and attacking it,” he said. “You want to have CPEC there and raising just a force isn’t enough.”
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who aims to boost country’s economy to 7 per cent before his terms ends in 2018, condemned the attack and expressed concern over the safety of cadets.
Pakistan is banking on China’s $46 billion investment into the corridor that runs from China’s western part to Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan to boost and develop the country’s economy.
Gen (R) David H. Petraeus' remarks on security challenges facing the new US administration at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a British security think tank in London:
"There's no question there's communication between the ISI and various militant groups in FATA and Balochistan (Haqqanis, Taliban, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, etc) but some of it you'd do anyway as an intelligence service.....there may be some degree of accommodation that is forced on them (Pakistanis) because of the limits of their (Pakistan's) forces.... I looked very very hard then (as US commander in Afghanistan) and again CIA director at the nature of the relationship between the various (militant) groups in FATA and Baluchistan and the Pakistan Army and the ISI and I was never convinced of what certain journalists have alleged (about ISI support of militant groups in FATA).... I have talked to them (journalists) asked them what their sources are and I have not been able to come to grips with that based on what I know from these different positions".
Some people say Pakistan is a frenemy...it is just very very difficult to pin down (blame on Pakistan) and it's even more difficult to figure out how to exert leverage that in a meaningful way resolves the issue There was a period when we cut off all assistance (to Pakistan) and ties and held up F-16s that we were supposed to deliver for a while and that did not help our influence there (in Pakistan). It's a very very tough situation and it may be among the top two or three challenges for the new administration right up there with Syria".
https://youtu.be/XcqJt6hHXQc
Dangerous Doval Doctrine: #Balochistan vs #Kashmir | Frontline. #India #Pakistan #Modi #BJP http://www.frontline.in/the-nation/balochistan-vs-kashmir/article9373742.ece …
The pursuit of a tit-for-tat diplomacy will not get India anywhere because Balochistan and Kashmir are not on a par, legally and politically. The time has come for India to drop the Baloch card and work for the settlement of Kashmir. By A.G. NOORANI
“PAKISTAN’s vulnerabilities are many times higher than us [sic]. Once they know that India has shifted gear from defensive mode to defensive-offence, they will find that it is unaffordable for them. You may do one Mumbai, you may lose Balochistan,” Ajit Doval, now Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s National Security Adviser, said at the 10th Nani Palkhivala Memorial Lecture at Sastra University, Thanjavur, on February 21, 2014. This was three months before he became NSA and the Manmohan Singh government was still in power.
The shock this Doval Doctrine of “defensive-offence” induced precluded any cool analysis of its implications (see the writer’s “The Doval doctrine”, Frontline, November 13, 2015). Doval was advocating a diplomacy of tit for tat with full knowledge of the perils it entailed, not least among them being the risk of matters getting out of hand in the retaliatory ladder of escalation. This becomes apparent when one moves from the doctrine to the specific, Balochistan.
Whoever perpetrated the Mumbai attacks committed a dastardly crime. But at no time did India ever allege that Pakistan’s top leaders were complicit in it. Is it not a wholly disproportionate retaliation to secure the detachment of one of Pakistan’s four provinces? Would its leaders, civil and military, sit back with folded hands when this is being attempted? And the Great Powers in the “Security Council”, especially China, which now has a stake in Balolchistan? And, pray, how does Doval propose to detach Balochistan? By military invasion? Far from it. Our “intelligence commando” has other plans whose elements are no secret. He proposes to do this by fomenting subversion through covert action. He could not possibly have made the claim (“you may lose Balochistan”) unless India had acquired significant “assets” there—as they are called in the idiom of covert operations—over the years. They cannot be acquired instantly. It is these existing assets, acquired, trained and funded over the years, which emboldened Doval to speak as confidently as he did.
#India's #Modi Quietly Okays #Balochistan Specialist's Appointment as Next #RAW Chief to Wage #Terror in #Pakistan http://defencenews.in/article.aspx?id=149455 …
From Indian Defense News dated Dec 5, 2016
Special Director of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) A K Dhasmana is likely to be appointed as the next chief of the country’s external intelligence agency. The 1981-batch Madhya Pradesh cadre IPS officer’s domain of expertise is considered to be Balochistan, counter-terrorism and Islamic affairs. He also has a vast experience on Pakistan and Afghanistan. He has served in key capitals, including London and Frankfurt and has also handled SAARC and Europe desks. The post of the RAW chief is falling vacant on January 31, 2017, with the incumbent retiring after a two-year stint. The RAW chief has a fixed tenure of two years unless the government extends the service length or the appointee. Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) Special Director A K Dhasmana is likely to be appointed as the next chief of the country’s external intelligence agency.
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Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) Special Director A K Dhasmana is likely to be appointed as the next chief of the country’s external intelligence agency. He is considered to be an expert in Balochistan affairs.
In his Independence Day speech this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said, “I want to express my gratitude to the people of Balochistan, Gilgit and PoK for the way they whole-heartedly thanked me.... People of a distant land I haven’t even seen....When they thank the Indian PM, it’s an honour for the 125 crore people of the country...”
Implicit in the statement was a veiled threat to the Pak political and military leadership that India too can needle them for the state-sponsored atrocities in these areas held by Islamabad and target that country’s unity and integrity. The PM’s statement came in the backdrop of brazen Pak stance to dedicate its Independence Day to freedom of Kashmir and stoking violence in J&K following Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani’s death. This was the first time an Indian PM raised the Balochistan issue.
Dhasmana is also known to enjoy National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s confidence. He will replace present RAW chief Rajinder Khanna.
India has been pussyfooting on human rights violations in Balochistan though Pakistan has been exploiting the ‘K’ word to the hilt at different international fora.
Officials close to Dhasmana said he is a go-getter and has an extensive network in the region. Through his vast experience and elaborate asset base in the region, he was able to stall the construction of Gwadar port by about six years, a senior agency said.
Meanwhile, the race for the top post in another key covert agency Intelligence Bureau (IB) is also gaining pace with the tenure of current Director Dineshwar Sharma ending on December 31. Three contenders—Special Directors SK Sinha and Rajiv Jain and Mumbai Police Commissioner Dattatray Palsalgikar—are in the fray.
http://www.newindianexpress.com/thesundaystandard/2016/dec/03/baloch-specialist-to-helm-raw-1545349.html
#Pakistan winning war against #Terrorists. #Taliban #TTP #FATA #Karachi #MQM.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/pakistan-is-winning-its-war-on-terror/
Violence has not just dropped a bit. It is down by three quarters in the last two years. The country is safer than at any point since George W. Bush launched his war on terror 15 years ago.
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The Taleban had long treasured a secure basis in Karachi, as had religious terror groups. That was a conventional crime industry specialising in kidnap, drug smuggling and extortion (every business had to pay protection money to gangs).
Pakistan’s politicians tolerated this. Pervez Musharraf, the army chief and president, was often accused of allowing the armed wing of Karachi’s largest political party, MQM, to operate with complete impunity.
This policy continued under Musharraf’s civilian successor, Asif Zardari, whose Pakistan’s People’s Party governed Karachi in coalition with MQM from 2008 to 2012. Five years ago we walked around gangster-infested Liyari town in Karachi’s port area with the local mafia don, Uzair Baloch. Baloch (now in jail) told us he could speak to Zardari whenever he wanted. The violence just rose and rose, until Zardari’s replacement Nawaz Sharif ordered his cabinet to Karachi and gave the state’s paramilitary arm, the Rangers, unlimited powers. This was the moment when political tolerance of violence ended.
We interviewed Major-General Bilal Akbar, director-general of Sindh Rangers for the past two-and-a-half years, at his HQ in the south of the city; he has since transferred to be the Pakistani army’s chief of general staff. After asking us to pass on his regards to Nick Carter, head of the British army (with whom he used to play bridge every Friday night when they were both stationed in Kabul), he explained the security situation.
In 2013 there were 2,789 killings in Karachi. In the first 11 months of 2016 there were 592. In 2013 there were 51 terrorist bomb blasts. Up to late November this year, there were two.
Three years ago, Karachi suffered from an orgy of kidnapping for ransom. There were 78 cases in 2013, rising to 110 the following year. This year, there have been 19.
[Alt-Text]
Some 533 extortion cases were reported in 2013; in 2016, only 133. Sectarian killing is sharply down: while 38 members of the Shia minority (who are brutally targeted in Pakistan) were killed in 2013, that figure was down by two thirds in 2016.
Major-General Bilal told us: ‘We have apprehended 919 target killers from the militant wings of political parties since September 2013. They confessed to over 7,300 killings. The daily homicide rate in the city is less than two now. It used to be ten or 15, and during ethnic clashes we could lose 100 lives a day.’
Just three years ago, according to the Numbeo international crime index, Karachi was the sixth most dangerous city in the world. Today it stands at number 31 — and falling.
Six months after he ordered the Rangers into Karachi, Nawaz Sharif took an even more momentous decision. The prime minister, whose initial instinct had been to negotiate with the Taleban and oppose the use of force, yielded to advice from his generals. He sent the army into North Waziristan, the Taleban stronghold on the Afghan border.
North Waziristan had not just provided a base for the Taleban leadership. It was a centre for the manufacture of explosives, suicide vests and military equipment, and for training camps, as well as drawing in foreign fighters from al-Qaeda. It was the epicentre of terrorism in Pakistan, which is why this intractable and remote area had been left alone by the army for so long.
In June 2014, General Raheel Sharif (now a national hero, and no relation of prime minister Sharif) took charge of a massive military offensive, Zarb-e-Azb. Taleban groups responded with a series of atrocities of which the most grotesque was the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, in which a reported 140 children were killed.
The Spooks of Pakistan
How could bin Laden’s ‘secret’ compound in Abbottabad have gone undetected? Was the ISI deceitful or merely incompetent? Maxwell Carter reviews “Faith, Unity, Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan” by Hein Kiessling.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-spooks-of-pakistan-1483660934
The ISI was established in 1948, the year after Harry Truman signed the National Security Act, which authorized the CIA to coordinate, evaluate and disseminate American intelligence. The nascent Pakistani government created the ISI within months of partition, partly to address the mistakes of the First Kashmir War with India, and partly, Mr. Kiessling suggests, to tend the dying embers of the “Great Game,” the contest between Great Britain and Russia for primacy in Central and South Asia. Maj. Gen. Walter Joseph Cawthorne, an Australian holdover from the Raj, drew up its organizational structure. The original mandate of the ISI, which was initially comprised of Muslims formerly in the Indian Intelligence Bureau, was restricted to reconnaissance in India and Kashmir.
A domestic remit wasn’t long in coming. General Ayub Khan’s military coup in 1958 expanded the ISI’s responsibilities to monitoring and suppressing internal dissent. Even so, Ayub favored its peer organizations, the Intelligence Bureau and Military Intelligence, referring to the ISI witheringly in his diary: “ISI were nearly asleep . . . we are babes in intelligence.” The ISI’s blunders under Ayub included misjudging support for his opponent in the 1965 election; failing to uncover various anti-Ayub conspiracies; and, above all, its Bay of Pigs-style “fiasco,” Operation Gibraltar.
In 1965, the ISI plotted to send “groups of armed men, disguised as freedom fighters, to infiltrate Kashmir and carry out a campaign of sabotage in the territories under Indian occupation.” Gibraltar (along with its second phase, code-named Grand Slam) was calamitous, exposing Pakistan’s logistical and military shortcomings. The 17-day conflict brought “only significant losses and no territorial gains,” writes Mr. Kiessling.
The ISI survived the resulting military inquiry and redoubled its internal efforts for General Yahya Khan, who deposed Ayub in 1969, and his successor, Z.A. Bhutto, who assumed the presidency in December 1971. Both would live to regret the ISI’s domestic intriguing. Once again, in 1970, its election predictions proved inaccurate: The Awami League’s near-sweep in East Pakistan (contemporary Bangladesh) led to civil war and Yahya’s early retirement. The ISI would subsequently be linked by the Pakistani press to Bhutto’s overthrow and, later, to his infamous hanging in 1979 at the behest of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the Islamist general who ruled from 1977-1988.
The ISI’s greatest undertaking took shape under Zia. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 brought the CIA and ISI into strategic alignment. Over the next decade, the CIA provided arms and funds, while the ISI recruited, coached and handled mujahedeen insurgents. The Soviets were expelled in 1989, but creeping distrust and Zia’s mysterious plane crash in 1988 marred the outcome. By then, the CIA had become disaffected by ISI corruption, and Pakistan’s civilian leadership post-Zia—namely the freshly elected prime minister, Z.A. Bhutto’s daughter, Benazir—was out of the loop.
Chuck Hagel’s Indian Problem
Said allied nation is funding attacks on Pakistan in Afghanistan in previously unreleased 2011 speech
http://freebeacon.com/politics/chuck-hagels-indian-problem/
Secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel suggested in a previously unreleased 2011 speech that India has “for many years” sponsored terrorist activities against Pakistan in Afghanistan.
“India has over the years financed problems for Pakistan” in Afghanistan, Hagel said during a 2011 address regarding Afghanistan at Oklahoma’s Cameron University, according to video of the speech obtained by the Free Beacon.
The controversial comments mark a departure from established United States policy in the region and could increase tensions between the Obama administration and India should the Senate confirm Hagel on Tuesday, according to experts.
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Hagel’s 2011 remarks at Cameron University were released to the Free Beacon under the Oklahoma Open Records Act. The university had initially stated that Hagel would have to personally authorize the speech’s release, though no authorization was ultimately granted.
Ex-Pakistan #Taliban Spokesman Ehsanullah Says #India, #Afghanistan Targeting #Pakistan via #terrorist proxies #TTP
https://www.voanews.com/a/ex-pakistan-taliban-spokesman-claims-india-afghanistan-target-pakistan/3826095.html
A central leader and ex-spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Ehsanullah Ehsan, has alleged Afghan security forces and their intelligence agency, NDS, together with the Indian spy agency are supporting cross-border terrorist attacks against Pakistan.
The militant leader in a video confessional statement released by the Pakistan Army, said he was also participating in anti-state activities from sanctuaries on the Afghan side of the border and surrendered himself "voluntarily" to Pakistan army.
There was no immediate reaction from the Afghan government and Indian officials to the allegation leveled by Ehsan against them, though both Kabul and New Delhi have previously denied Islamabad's allegations of funding terrorist attacks on Pakistani soil.
When Pakistani security forces unleashed counter-militancy operations in the border region of North Waziristan (in June, 2014), Ehsan said militants fled to neighboring Afghanistan where they established contacts with the Afghan intelligence agency, NDS (National Directorate of Security), and through them with operatives of the Indian spy agency, RAW (Research and Analysis Wing).
“They supported them (Pakistani Taliban), funded them, and even assigned possible targets [for attacks in Pakistan],” Eshan asserted, adding that anti-Pakistan militants have established their “special committees” in Afghanistan for maintaining contacts with the NDS.
He went on to allege that the Afghan spy agency also issued national identification cards, called ‘tazkira,’ to members of the Pakistani Taliban to facilitate their infiltration into Pakistan to undertake subversive activities in the country.
A Pakistan military spokesman announced last week that Ehsan surrendered himself to security forces but would not say where and how they got hold of the militant leader.
Pakistani officials have described his arrest/surrender as a major success in counter terrorism operations and hope information gleaned from Ehsan will help further degrade Pakistani Taliban's activities in the country.
Before surrendering to authorities, Ehsan was mainly acting as spokesman for the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar faction of the Pakistan Taliban.
He claimed responsibility on behalf of his group for a number of deadly attacks in Pakistan, including an Easter suicide bombing of a crowded park in Lahore that killed killed at least 70 people, including Christians and Muslims.
It was not clear from the video whether Ehsan was speaking under duress.
The United States last year designated Jamaat-ul-Ahrar as a terrorist group for claiming responsibility for attacking a U.S. diplomatic mission in northwestern Pakistan.
#TTP's Ehsanullah Says #India & #Afghanistan Sponsor #Terrorism in #Pakistan https://youtu.be/pl69fVbGC1w via @YouTube
April 13 #US #MOAB bombing killed 13 #India's #RAW agents in #Afghanistan: #Pakistan FO
https://tribune.com.pk/story/1394957/india-sponsors-perpetrates-terror-fo/
Indian media reports suggested that some Indian nationals were also among the fatalities. The reports claimed that these Indian citizens were, in fact, Da’ish militants.
Former spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan rips apart TTP in confession video
However, Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria has a different story to tell. At his last weekly media briefing, the spokesperson had said he would get back with details when asked to confirm reports of presence of RAW agents in Afghanistan.
Now, Zakaria claimed that 13 RAW agents were killed in the US bombing in Nangarhar province close to the border with Pakistan.
“Your reference to the presence of 13 agents of Indian intelligence agency RAW among those who died by the bombing on a terrorists’ sanctuary vindicates our claim that India is using Afghan soil against Pakistan,” Zakaria said.
The presence of RAW’s agents should also be seen in the backdrop of revelations made by Ehsanullah Ehsan, the former spokesperson of terrorist groups TTP and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, who turned himself in last week, Zakaria added.
“India clearly stands exposed as a state sponsoring and financing terrorists. Confession of Kulbhushan Jadhav and now revelations by Ehsanullah Ehsan are irrefutable proof against India. We have raised the issue of Indian involvement and terror financing in Pakistan at the UN and with other countries.”
He further said that Pakistan had always highlighted to the international community that India was using Afghan soil against Pakistan and it had been repeatedly stated by those in India in position of authority and responsibility that their effort was to squeeze Pakistan from the eastern and western borders.
Kulbhushan Jadhav’s mother appeals to Pakistan for his release
“The international community should take note of Indian state sponsorship of activities of subversion, terrorism and financing of terrorists against Pakistan.”
Turning towards the current unrest in Kashmir, the spokesperson said India has waged war against unarmed and defenceless Kashmiris through state terrorism.
“Indian occupation forces forcibly barged into camps of schools and colleges in Pulwama on April 15. Ever since, students – including girls from primary to college levels all over Kashmir valley – have been demonstrating with pro-freedom and anti-India slogans. Over 150 students have been injured in the brutal use of force, pellets and teargas shells fired by Indian occupation forces.”
To hide grave human rights abuses and crimes against humanity, Indian occupation forces have imposed a ban on Internet services in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK). Indian media has quoted an Indian official in IOK that “no amount of brute and lethal force could deter these girls”.
Spokesperson Zakaria termed the recent decision of the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh to ban holidays such as Jumatul Widah and Eid Milad-un-Nabi as discriminatory treatment meted out to minorities, especially Muslims, in India.
“We have seen numerous examples of what’s happening in India in terms of persecution of minorities like Muslims, Christians or Dalits. This has become a matter of concern for the international community.”
#Pakistan captures #Taliban leader blamed for three bombings in #Balochistan. #CPEC #India #TTP http://po.st/qrFGqB via @ChannelNewsAsia
Pakistan has arrested a Taliban militant leader authorities describe as the "mastermind" behind three major attacks in Baluchistan, a spokesman for the government of the restive southwestern province said on Wednesday.
Militant and separatist violence has long riven Baluchistan, which has rich reserves of natural gas, copper and gold, and is at the heart of a US$57-billion Chinese-funded "Belt and Road" trade and development initiative.
Pakistan blames neighbours Afghanistan and India for fomenting an ethnic insurgency in the province, besides aiding the Pakistani Taliban, a movement separate from, but allied with, the Afghan Taliban aiming to topple the Afghan government.
The arrested man, Saeed Ahmed Badani, was among the planners of three attacks in 2016 that killed more than 180 people, the spokesman, Anwar ul Haq Kakar, told Reuters.
"He was involved with a team in all the attacks, but I can describe him as a mastermind, because he was the lynchpin in providing targets and facilitating suicide bombers," he said.
During interrogation, Badani confessed to receiving funding from Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies, the province's home minister, Safraz Bugti, told a news briefing on Tuesday.
The arrested militant leader had also encouraged an attack by a suicide bomber last year on a provincial hospital that killed at least 70 people, Kakar added.
"He encouraged and convinced the suicide bomber in the lawyers' attacks because he was his madrassa mate, he knew him since childhood," Kakar added, referring to a religious school the two attended.
A large portion of Baluchistan's small legal community was wiped out in the attack that targeted a hospital treating the president of the Baluchistan Bar Association after he was shot the same morning.
Read more at http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/pakistan-captures-taliban-leader-blamed-for-three-bombings-in-restive-southwest-8879592
Can #Pakistan’s Banned Organizations Rejoin the Mainstream? #JuD #JeM #ASWJ @Diplomat_APAC http://thediplomat.com/2017/06/can-pakistans-banned-organizations-rejoin-the-mainstream/
“Though Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD) is not listed as a political organization but it is a political entity, we want to register JuD as a political party. We played a positive role in the politics and we want to continue it,” said Hafiz Masood in Islamabad on March 27 this year.
Masood, brother of JuD chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, was speaking in a closed-door session on “Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Different Brands of Militants.” The discussion, organized by the think tank Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies (PIPS), centered on the reintegration of banned outfits like Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD), Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), and Ahle-Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ).
Later, during a press briefing on April 26, the spokesman of the Pakistan Army, Major General Asif Ghafour, released a confessional video statement from Ehsanullah Ehsan, the former spokesman of the banned Jamat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a splinter group of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
In April last year, he handed over two deradicalization plans to Nawaz Sharif, prime minister of Pakistan. The first proposal was to be implemented through the Ministry of Interior (MoI) and the other was under the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA). There was a role assigned to at least six different government departments in the proposed plan.
The proposal was to segregate different kinds of extremist on the basis of their history and nature of involvement in militancy. Some individuals are associated with the welfare work of banned outfits and some are part of the propaganda arm, while others actually take up arms against the state. Therefore, each individual would be reviewed according to his level of involvement in militant activities.
Pakistan is not the only country trying to develop a mechanism to rehabilitate militants. Deradicalization plans for repentant militants already exist in the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Yemen, Morocco, and Jordan adopted such plans much earlier. Pakistan has another significant example: neighboring Afghanistan, where Hezb-i-Islami has announced it will shun violence and join mainstream politics in the country. The United Nations lifted its ban on the Hezb-i-Islami chief, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, in February this year. The historic move was a result of a deal that was brokered between the Afghan government and Hekmatyar.
Pakistan is also running at least two deredicalization centers – Sabaon and Mashal – in the Sawat area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Explaining the rationale of new proposed deredicalization program, retired Lt. Gen. Amjad Shoaib said that in January 2004, under orders from General (retd.) and then-President Pervez Musharraf, camps of banned outfits were dismantled and the militants were flushed out. It was a big blunder; for two years these men had been motivated and trained to wage jihad and then suddenly they were asked to vacate the area. “Those elements perceived that Pakistan betrayed the cause of Kashmir and [that’s when] Punjabi Taliban was formed. At that time nobody thought of starting a deradicalization program,” Shoaib explained.
Shuja Nawaz, a fellow at the Washington, DC-based South Asia Center of the Atlantic Council does not see rapid movement toward these goals given the lack of careful consideration of the deradicalization and de-weaponizing of Pakistani society. He believes that ties between these shadowy jihadi groups and the political system prevent firm actions. Nawaz, who author of the book Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within, says, “Mainstreaming can only occur when wider actions alter the school systems and curricula and to remove the vestiges of Ziaist [referring to General Zia-ul-Haq] policies and systems in both the civil and military are effected. That needs political gumption, a rare commodity in Pakistan today.”
India should realise that it has entered a very venerable phase in its history, the four states in the Deep South have started talking about breaking away from the rest of the country, those four states are the powerhouses of present day India and I am sure they will get help from Sri Lanka, Pakistan and China to achieve their goals, my Indian friends should remember what happened in Yugoslavakia, when the central governments policies are based on hate then there is only one logical conclusion. Since India has come under the rule of Modi the hate for the muslims Christians, Sikhs and Dalits has gone through the roof. India the most racist country in the world due to its Hindu caste system will break up and I hope I'm here to apload such an event. When that does happen all of India's neighbours will rejoice.
#India journalist Thapar's tough questions re #KulbhushanJadhav: fake name #passport, #India's #Iran abduction claim
https://www.dawn.com/news/1328538
Simply but aptly titled “The mysterious Mr Jadhav”, well-known journalist Karan Thapar has written a hard-hitting article about the Indian spy who has been sentenced to death by a military tribunal in Pakistan.
The sub-head coined for the piece — published on Friday on the website of the Indian Express — was equally instructive in that it succinctly summed up what kind of an article it was. This standfirst said: “The case of the Indian sentenced in Pakistan offers more questions than answers.”
Mr Thapar said he was intrigued by Kulbhushan Jadhav’s story. So he began reading about it, but the more he read about it the more he became confused. “Alas, all I’ve ended up with is questions. The more I learn, the more they multiply,” he wrote.
The first thing that troubled the Indian journalist was why Jadhav had two passports, one in his own name and the other one in the name of Hussein Mubarak Patel.
“According to the Indian Express, the second passport was originally issued in 2003 and renewed in 2014. The passport numbers are E6934766 and L9630722,” he wrote.
When the journalist contacted the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), he was told that the answer could be obtained only if Indian officials managed to gain access to Jadhav. Mr Thapar responded to the suggestion by writing: “But why not check the records attached to the passport numbers? Surely they would tell a story?”
The Indian government claimed that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran and forcibly brought to Balochistan. Mr Thapar said that New Delhi did pursue the matter with Iran. “But, as the MEA spokesperson admitted, they don’t seem to have responded or, perhaps, even conducted an investigation yet. We seem to have accepted that. Odd, wouldn’t you say?”
The Indian journalist went on to ask what was so special about Jadhav that only he was kidnapped by the Pakistani sleuths and not any other Indian living in Iran. “After all, there are 4,000 Indians in Iran — and no one else has been abducted.”
The Indian journalist quoted A.S. Dulat, a former chief of RAW, as saying unhesitatingly that Jadhav could be a spy. “As he put it, if he was the government, he would hardly admit it,” he wrote.
Turning to the disappearance of Lt Col Mohammad Habib in Nepal, the Indian journalist said: “Was Jadhav convicted and sentenced to pre-empt India from claiming it had caught a Pakistani spy? And now, is an exchange of ‘spies’ possible?”
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-mysterious-kulbhushan-jadhav-death-sentence-by-pakistan-double-passport-hussein-mubarak-patel-spy-4621558/
The mysterious Mr Jadhav
The case of the Indian sentenced in Pakistan offers more questions than answers
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-mysterious-kulbhushan-jadhav-death-sentence-by-pakistan-double-passport-hussein-mubarak-patel-spy-4621558/
First, why does Jadhav have two passports, one in his own name and another in the name of Hussein Mubarak Patel? According to The Indian Express, the second passport was originally issued in 2003 and renewed in 2014. The passport numbers are E6934766 and L9630722. When asked, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson would only say that India needs access to Jadhav before he could answer. But why not check the records attached to the passport numbers? Surely they would tell a story?
Additionally, The Times of India claims that since 2007, Jadhav has rented a Bombay flat owned by his mother, Avanti, in the name of Hussein Mubarak Patel. Why would he use an alias to rent his own mother’s flat?
Perhaps Jadhav changed his name after converting to Islam? But then, why did he deliberately retain a valid passport in his old name? Indeed, why did the government let him, unless he deceived them?
Second, the government claims Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran and forcibly brought to Balochistan. A former German ambassador to Pakistan, Gunter Mulack, at least initially suggested this was true — but has the government pursued the matter with Mulack?
If it has, that hasn’t been reported, nor has what he revealed.
However, we did pursue the matter with Iran, but, as the MEA spokesperson admitted, they don’t seem to have responded or, perhaps, even conducted an investigation yet. We seem to have accepted that.
Odd, wouldn’t you say?
If Pakistan did abduct Jadhav, don’t we need to ask why? Doesn’t that raise the question of what was so special about him that made them do this? After all, there are 4,000 Indians in Iran — and no one else has been abducted.
Third, both The Indian Express and Asian Age suggest that Jadhav has links with the Pakistani drug baron Uzair Baloch. Did he play dirty with him and get caught in a revenge trap set by the drug mafia? Given that Jadhav was arrested a month after Baloch, this could be part of the explanation.
Finally, The Indian Express has reported that between 2010 and 2012, Jadhav made three separate attempts to join the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW). The paper suggests he also tried to join the Technical Services Division. What more do we know about this? Even if the media doesn’t, surely the government does? A. S. Dulat, a distinguished former chief of R&AW, has unhesitatingly said Jadhav could be a spy. As he put it, if he was the government, he would hardly admit it.
Just a few days before Jadhav’s sudden conviction and death sentence, the Pakistani media claimed a retired Pakistani army officer, Lt. Col. Muhammad Habib Zahir, had gone missing in Lumbini, close to the Indian border. The Pakistani media is convinced he’s been trapped by R&AW. Was Jadhav convicted and sentenced to preempt India from claiming it had caught a Pakistani spy? And now, is an exchange of ‘spies’ possible?
I’m not sure who will answer these questions, and perhaps it would not be proper for the government to do so, but whilst they hang in the air, the mystery surrounding Jadhav will only grow.
"Your neighbour is your natural enemy and the neighbour's neighbour is your friend" this was the basic thought behind Kautilya's Mandala theory. Kautilya gave this theory for foreign relations and diplomacy.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Mandal-theory-of-Kautilya
Ex-Indian Army chief admits sponsoring terrorism in Balochistan
https://www.thenews.com.pk/archive/amp/461946-ex-indian-army-chief-admits-sponsoring-terrorism-in-balochistan
Recently retired Indian Army chief General Vijay Kumar Singh has admitted that India sponsored bomb blasts in Pakistan and doled out money to the separatist elements in Balochistan, a disclosure downplayed by the Indian media so far.
Buying silence of Kashmiri leaders in Indian held Kashmir and phone tapping inside India were also part of the sensitive report.The ex-army chief reveals this in an inquiry report prepared by India’s DG military operations shining light on activities of an army unit raised after the Mumbai attacks.
VK Singh last month announced a political alliance with BJP leader Narendra Modi who was responsible for the massacre of the Muslims in Indian Gujarat.A portion of the explosive report indicting the former army chief of terrorist activities inside Pakistan was downplayed by the Indian media that largely used ‘neighboring country’ as a reference and instead highlighted its parts relating to his activities of phone-tapping inside India and buying silence of politicians in Indian-held Kashmir through loads of cash.
The dirty tricks sanctioned by the top Indian general were carried out by Tactical Support Division (TSD), an Indian army unit raised after Mumbai attacks on the directives of the Defence Minister and National Security Adviser Shev Shankar Menon in order to “perform a particular task to secure borders and internal situation in the country.”
TSD consisted of six officers, five JCOs and 30 men and operated out of an unmarked two-storeyed building within the Delhi Cantonment dubbed the ‘Butchery’, that was a refurbished slaughterhouse of colonial times, The India Today reported.
“The division was headed by Colonel Munishwar Nath Bakshi, a tall, flamboyant intelligence officer in his early 40s, better known by an unusual nickname, ‘Hunny’,” it said.As the inquiry body was set up to investigate, Col Bakshi, a confidante of Gen Singh, got himself admitted in a mental hospital pretending that he was under serious mental stress.
Former Army Chief VK Singh allegedly used TSD, a clandestine collective of handpicked military intelligence personnel, to settle scores on both sides of the contentious Line of Control (LOC) between Pakistan and India, reported The India Today, in its October 7 edition.
Between October and November 2011, India Today reported this month, TSD had claimed money “to try enrolling the secessionist chief in the province of a neighbouring country” and “Rs1.27 crore (Indian currency) to prevent transportation of weapons between neighbouring countries”. In early 2011, TSD claimed an unspecified amount for carrying out “eight low-intensity bomb blasts in a neighboring country”, according to this weekly Indian magazine.
The Hindustan Times earlier reported about the covert operation inside Pakistan by TSD and quoted its former official stating it was assigned to nab Hafiz Saeed of Jamaatud Dawah but didn’t mention TSD’s involvement in terrorist activities in Pakistan as has been revealed through inquiry board.
Since there was no explicit mention of Pakistan, it didn’t emerge on the radar of Pakistani media. The News spoke to different journalistic sources in India privy to details who confirmed that it was about Pakistan.
India’s Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Vinod Bhatia, who headed a Board of Officers’ inquiry under the direct orders of Gen Bikram Singh, current army chief, to review the functioning of the TSD submitted the report in March this year to the Indian government. While report is not being publicised, however, TSD was closed in December 2012.
Dirty Tricks: A politically ambitious general and a bungling govt put national security at risk
Former army chief Vijay Kumar Singh allegedly used the Technical Support Division (TSD), a clandestine collective of handpicked military intelligence personnel, to settle scores on both sides of the contentious Line of Control (LOC) between Pakistan and India.
Organising eight bomb attacks in a neighbouring country. Subsidising secession on enemy territory. Sponsoring 'friendly' ministers to destabilise an indigenous state government. Eavesdropping on senior government functionaries including India's defence minister. Former army chief Vijay Kumar Singh allegedly used the Technical Support Division (TSD), a clandestine collective of handpicked military intelligence personnel, to settle scores on both sides of the contentious Line of Control (LOC) between Pakistan and India. It was a secret war conceived by a reckless general between 2010 and 2012. And even 16 months after his unceremonious retirement, the general has not stopped fighting. Now the target is the Government, which is matching the general's tricks with its own. The collateral damage of the dirty war between the two is national security.
Barely 24 hours after his I-know-it-all proclamation on national television on September 23, that the Army had "transferred funds to all ministers in Jammu and Kashmir since 1947", Singh scurried for cover. His comments triggered a firestorm of indignant counter-allegations all the way from Delhi to Srinagar. The payouts, he insisted, were not "bribes" or for "political purpose", but part of the larger initiative to promote stability in the insurgency-ridden state. On September 27, just hours before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was to meet his counterpart Nawaz Sharif in New York, the tenuous peace was shattered yet again when terrorists struck with twin attacks on a police station and an army post in Jammu killing 12 persons including four soldiers and two policemen. The attack underscored ground realities in India's most sensitive state. The general's clarifications, an almost surreptitious monologue delivered to select reporters on the lawns of his Sector 30 home in Gurgaon, are however only a brief pause in his long shoot-and-scoot war that has simmered since the Government refused to amend his date of birth in 2011. This would not only have given him 10 more months in office but also changed the expected line of succession for the Army's top job.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/general-vk-singh-bungling-government-national-security-at-risk/1/312040.html
#Mattis tells #India to moderate its support of #TTP #terrorism in #Pakistan. #Afghanistan #talibans #RAW
by Bharat Karnad in Hindustan Times
http://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/afghanistan-pakistan-and-the-f-16-mattis-has-to-hardsell-these-issues-on-his-visit-to-india/story-qvL9NS6wgl17sy756hE2WN_amp.html
"...as a former head of the US Central Command Mattis appreciates Pakistan’s indispensability as base for military operations to bring the Taliban in Afghanistan to their knees. But Islamabad has insisted that India’s role in Afghanistan be restricted and complained about the Indian support for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) accused by Islamabad of terrorism in Pakistan. The RAW-TTP link was publicly revealed in April this year by its former commander, Ehsanullah Ehsan.
Mattis’ request that India moderate its support for TTP will put Delhi in a fix because TTP is useful as an Indian counterpart of the Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Toiba, and Jaish-e-Mohammad deployed by the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in Jammu & Kashmir. Severing relations with TTP will mean India surrendering an active card in Pakistan and a role in Afghanistan as TTP additionally provides access to certain Afghan Taliban factions. This, together with the Abdul Ghani regime’s desire for India’s presence and the tested friendship with Abdul Rashid Dostum and his Tajik-dominated ‘Northern Alliance’, ensures that no solution for peace in Afghanistan can be cobbled together without India’s help.
Mattis’ returning home empty-handed will not hurt relations with the US at all because there’s China; and the US needs India to strategically hinder it."
RAW: India’s External Intelligence Agency
India’s primary espionage agency and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) have long been at odds in a long-standing battle for influence.
Backgrounder by Jayshree Bajoria
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/raw-indias-external-intelligence-agency
Since its inception in 1968, RAW has had a close liaison relationship with KHAD, the Afghan intelligence agency, due to the intelligence it has provided RAW on Pakistan. This relationship was further strengthened in the early 1980s when the foundation was laid for a trilateral cooperation involving RAW, KHAD, and the Soviet KGB. Raman says RAW valued KHAD’s cooperation for monitoring the activities of Sikh militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Sikhs in the Indian state of Punjab were demanding an independent state of Khalistan. According to Raman, Pakistan’s ISI set up clandestine camps for training and arming Khalistani recruits in Pakistan’s Punjab Province and North West Frontier Province. During this time, the ISI received large sums from Saudi Arabia and the CIA for arming the Afghan mujahadeen against Soviet troops in Afghanistan. “The ISI diverted part of these funds and arms and ammunition to the Khalistani terrorists,” alleges Raman.
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As a result, India established a dedicated external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing. Founded mainly to focus on China and Pakistan, over the last forty years the organization has expanded its mandate and is credited with greatly increasing India’s influence abroad. Experts say RAW’s powers and its role in India’s foreign policy have varied under different prime ministers. RAW claims that it contributed to several foreign policy successes:
the creation of Bangladesh in 1971;
India’s growing influence in Afghanistan;
the northeast state of Sikkim’s accession to India in 1975;
the security of India’s nuclear program;
the success of African liberation movements during the Cold War.
Over the last forty years the organization has expanded its mandate and is credited with increasing India’s influence.
RAW’s first leader, Rameshwar Nath Kao, led the agency until he retired in 1977. Many experts, including officers who worked with him, credit Kao with RAW’s initial successes: India’s triumph in the 1971 war with Pakistan, and India’s covert assistance to the African National Congress’s anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. “To a large extent, it was Kao who raised RAW to the level of India’s premier intelligence agency, with agents in virtually every major embassy and high commission,” writes Singh. But the organization has been criticized for its lack of coordination with domestic intelligence and security agencies, weak analytical capabilities, and complete lack of transparency.
Why the latest episode of Priyanka Chopra-starrer ‘Quantico’ has enraged Indian fans
The fifth episode of Season 3, which was aired on June 1, shows a Hindu terrorist.
https://scroll.in/reel/881520/why-the-latest-episode-of-priyanka-chopra-starrer-quantico-has-enraged-indian-fans
It’s been a rough month for Priyanka Chopra’s Quantico. In May, the ABC network cancelled the American drama series in the light of steadily dwindling ratings. Now, the latest episode of show’s the third and last season has angered Indians for a plot twist involving a Hindu terrorist.
In “The Blood of Romeo”, which was aired on June 1, Chopra’s Alex Parrish and her team at the Federal Bureau of Investigation learn that a nuclear physics professor at the Hudson University has stolen Uranium 235 from the institute’s premises, which can only mean one thing – a nuclear explosion is being planned in Manhattan.
As this happens days before a scheduled India-Pakistan peace summit over the Kashmir issue in New York, the needle of suspicion immediately points to Pakistan.
Soon, FBI learns that Elizabeth Nutting had stolen the uranium under duress – her family has been abducted by a group of men and will be killed if she doesn’t help them make the bomb. CCTV footage directs them to Adnan Hamaja, a Pakistani student at Nutting’s university. As the agency continues to investigate the Pakistani terror angle, Parrish finds a rudraksh chain on the neck of one of the terrorists. This leads her to conclude that it was all a plan by Indian nationalists to frame Pakistan in a nuclear attack, thereby scuttling the talks and winning the United States of America over to their side for good.
On Twitter, several Indians expressed outrage at the insinuation that an Indian could be a terrorist. In particular, they took umbrage at the fact that Chopra, whose international stardom has made her a quasi-ambassador for India for her fans at home, could seemingly malign her own country.
Quantico: The Muslim writer targeted in Indian episode controversy
By Brajesh Upadhyay
BBC News, Washington
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44458171
A Bangladeshi American writer with no role in scripting a controversial Quantico plot implicating Indian nationalists in terrorism is the target of vicious attacks - including rape and violence - on social media platforms.
Sharbari Zohra Ahmed was on Quantico's writing team for just the first season and directly involved in scripting only two episodes - one independently and the other as a co-author.
Despite pointing this out repeatedly on her timeline, Hindu nationalists have trolled her relentlessly, many accusing her of being part of an Islamist propaganda against "peace-loving" Hindus.
One comment on Twitter said: "Care to explain your wildest fantasy while you wrote Quantico with Indians being masterminds of an attack? Does this stem from a deep-rooted bias, hate, anti-Hindu, pro-Islam conditioning of your fragile mind?"
Hyper-nationalist TV news anchors first accused the lead actor, Priyanka Chopra, of insulting India while also pointing fingers at a Bangladeshi American with "vested interests".
Ahmed says she hoped that once they realised she had nothing to do with the episode, the fury would die down. But it did not.
"The level of hysterics crescendoed very quickly," she says, adding, "It has grown really vitriolic with threats of rape and violence even toward people supporting me."
She says the angry voices cast her as the Muslim agent of a "diabolical anti-Indian and anti-Hindu propaganda machine that is deliberately spreading hate through this show".
"All they had to do was search Google or look at the screen credits to find out the facts," she says.
From Indian analyst Praveen Sawhney
(India's) Ajit Doval worst NSA: he built larger than life image of himself. He stuffed NSC with policemen. He identified terrorism as threat because it is his comfort level; real threats LAC & LC. He advised surgical strike & air strike without war fighting capabilities. Do I say more?
https://twitter.com/PravinSawhney/status/1128284888568778752
Sanitization of Haqqanis & #Pakistan-#US relations. New York Times published an Op Ed by Haqqani Network leader Sirajuddin Haqqani. No other group better exemplifies #America's long history of playing sides to suit itself. #afghanpeacedeal @AJEnglish https://aje.io/d73dc
The (NY Times) newspaper's decision to publish the article, provocatively titled "What We, the Taliban, Want," jolted not only ordinary readers and US foreign policy hawks, but also Washington's biggest detractors abroad. As the criticism mounted, The Times' opinion editors issued a statement to try and justify their decision to give a platform to Haqqani.
"Our mission at Times Opinion is to tackle big ideas from a range of newsworthy viewpoints," they stated. "We've actively solicited voices from all sides of the Afghanistan conflict, the government, the Taliban and from citizens. Sirajuddin Haqqani is the second in command of the Taliban at a time when its negotiators are hammering out an agreement with American officials in Doha that could result in American troops leaving Afghanistan. That makes his perspective relevant at this particular moment."
What the Times did not mention, however, was the extent to which the Haqqani question has prickled the relationship between the US and Pakistan - a major non-NATO ally historically accused by many in Washington of not doing enough to facilitate American objectives in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Back in 2011, following an attack on the US embassy in Kabul believed to be perpetrated by the Haqqanis, the then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, called the network a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), ratcheting up pressure on Pakistan to eliminate the network and paving the way for more American drone strikes in the country.
Mullen's assertion caused widespread anger and disappointment in Pakistan. In the years that followed, consecutive civilian governments in Pakistan maintained that the infrastructure supporting the network had shifted to Afghanistan and that scapegoating Pakistan for American failures in an interminable war next door was disingenuous and unjust.
For many in Pakistan, no other political group better exemplifies America's long history of playing sides to suit its own strategic objectives. Few American diplomats today care to recount that the Haqqanis started as Washington's closest allies in Afghanistan; that the network's founder Jalaluddin Haqqani was a CIA darling kept flush with money and weaponry, including shoulder-fired Stinger missiles that would ultimately down Soviet aircraft. Fewer still have any compunction over the diplomatic arm-twisting meted out to Pakistan, including the cutting off of vital Coalition Support Fund aid, for allegedly not doing enough to combat the group.
As the US continued to pressure Pakistan for not doing enough to curtail the Haqqani Network's activities in Afghanistan, the grievances against Washington's regional policies started to pile up in in the country. Many in Pakistan came to believe that the US was scapegoating Islamabad to camouflage the deeper contradictions in its military strategy against the Taliban. And they had ample reason to hold this view. In 2015, for example, the US and the Haqqanis came face-to-face during the ill-fated "Murree talks" between the Taliban and the Afghan government. Conveniently, the US raised no objections to the Haqqanis being in the meeting.
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On his recent visit to India, President Trump took a softer line on Pakistan, reflecting the hard work that both sides have put into resuscitating the relationship from its worst days....
For Pakistanis, that alone is a welcome shift, even if an official public apology for taking the flak for the Haqqanis, takes time.
Pakistan know where Kulbhushan Jadhav came from. Pakistan knows India RAW agents work under cover at Chabahar. It’s not possible that this is happening without IRG approval. Pakistan has demanded action by Teheran against Baloch Terrorists https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1RW0EQ.
The Baloch insurgents who killed 14 people along Pakistan’s coast this week are based in neighboring Iran, Pakistan’s foreign minister said on Saturday, heightening tensions ahead of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s trip to Tehran on Sunday.
Relations between Iran and Pakistan have been strained in recent months, with both sides accusing each other of not doing enough to stamp out militants allegedly sheltering across the border.
A new umbrella group representing various insurgent outfits operating in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province bordering Iran claimed responsibility for the attack on Thursday, when 14 passengers were killed after being kidnapped from buses on southwestern Pakistan.
The militants checked the identity cards of passengers, singled out some of them, and then kidnapped and killed them. The Baloch Raji Aajoi Saangar (BRAS) umbrella group said it targeted Pakistani navy and Coast Guard officials traveling on buses.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said his country was angry about the attack and called for Iran to take action against BRAS militants.
“The training camps and logistical camps of this new alliance...are inside the Iranian border region,” Qureshi told reporters in Islamabad.
Qureshi said he spoke to his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and conveyed to him the “anger of Pakistani nation”.
Iranian officials could not be reached for comment. Iran’s state news agency IRNA confirmed the two men spoke.
#karachiterrorattack : #Pakistan Government accuses foreign powers. UN Security Council condemns deadly attack on Pakistan’s financial hub and urges all states involved to bring perpetrators to justice. #Afghanistan #India #Iran #BLA #Balochistan @AJENews https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/pakistan-deadly-attacks-armed-group-violence-200703183448617.html
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has condemned Monday's deadly attack on Pakistan’s financial hub.
A banned separatist organisation called the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the assault on the Karachi Stock Exchange.
Baloch leaders accuse the federal government of neglect and depriving the resource-rich province for decades.
#India’s #RAW recruited 3 warlords in #Afghanistan, including Ahmad Shah Masood, says 'RAW: A History of India’s Covert Operations' by investigative journalist Yatish Yadav. He doesn’t disclose the names of 2 other warlords still in #Afghan politics
https://www.deccanherald.com/national/raw-had-recruited-three-warlords-in-afghanistan-says-book-868599.html
At least three RAW spies involved in covert action in Afghanistan have claimed that Afghan armed forces were "demoralised and divided, remained practically inactive" during the Soviet army’s December 1979 invasion, the book, which will be released on Monday said.
The book also claims that the US knew about the Indian activities in Afghanistan and the Americans launched propaganda against the RAW with stories appearing with Washington dateline, which said that the US supply of arms was a "sort of punishment" to India for failing to oppose the Soviet Union on Afghan soil and the Soviet-Vietnam interference in Cambodia.
RAW also feared, the book said, that the Taliban would not waste time in killing former President of Afghanistan Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai once they gained dominance in the war. An Indian spy recalled the message the RAW sent to Najibullah,
who was staying at the UN mission in Kabul, to leave the country but he refused outrightly. Another effort was made through a reluctant Massoud, but Najibullah rejected the offer once again, arguing that the Taliban may not attack him.
#Pakistan NSA @YusufMoeed says #India linked to #terrorists killing #Pakistanis. “Malik Faridoon who masterminded the attack from Jalalabad (in #Afghanistan) was in touch with handlers at the Indian consulate as children were massacred in broad daylight" https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/was-india-involved-in-the-2014-pakistan-school-attack-40581
Imran Khan’s national security advisor says Islamabad has concrete evidence showing New Delhi’s link with the attack, one that left 144 children dead.
India was involved in the 2014 deadly terrorist attack on a military-run school in Pakistan in which 144 children, between the age of 8 and 18, were killed, a top Pakistani official said on Tuesday.
Islamabad has spent years gathering data, which shows New Delhi had a hand in the assault on the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar as well as some other terrorist activities, claims Moeed Yusuf, who is Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s National Security Advisor.
Even though Pakistan and India have repeatedly accused each other of backing terrorists and militants, Yusuf made fresh revelations in an interview with Indian journalist Karan Thapar of The Wire.
“Malik Faridoon who masterminded the attack from Jalalabad (in Afghanistan) was in touch with handlers at the Indian consulate as children were massacred in broad daylight,” he said.
“The same person was treated in New Delhi in 2017.”
Yusuf said Pakistan has obtained a record of eight phone calls including the numbers used by the Indian handlers to orchestrate the attack.
This revelation came in response to Thapar’s question about the 2008 Mumbai carnage in which 166 people were killed and for which New Delhi blames Islamabad.
#Pakistan NSA @YusufMoeed: #India behind at least 4 high-profile terrorist attacks in Pakistan; 'We have evidence to the T' #terrorism https://www.geo.tv/latest/313067-india-behind-at-least-4-high-profile-terrorist-attacks-in-pakistan-we-have-evidence-to-the-t
India behind Chinese consulate, PSX and Gwadar 5-star hotel attacks
Kulbhushan Jadhav "has been caught with his pants down"
India recently spent $1 million to bring about TTP, 4 other militant organisations' merger in Afghanistan
Kashmiris should be made 3rd party in any India-Pakistan talks
This was the first interview by any Pakistani government official to Indian media after India's illegal attempt to annex occupied Kashmir by revoking Article 370 of the Indian constitution.
Holding India responsible for terrorist attacks in Pakistan, Yusuf said that New Delhi had used a consulate "in a neighbouring country" to launch attacks on a five-star hotel in Gwadar, the Chinese consulate in Karachi and the Pakistan Stock Exchange.
He further said that India recently spent $1 million to merge the Tehreek-e-Taliban-Pakistan (TTP) and four other terrorist organisations in Afghanistan under the supervision of RAW officials.
Read more: Attack on Chinese consulate in Karachi foiled; 2 policemen martyred
Yusuf said that Aslam alias Achu, a militant involved in the attack on the Chinese consulate, had undergone treatment at a hospital in New Delhi, which was proof of India's involvement in the matter.
He told Thapar that the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan was using think-tanks as a front to funnel money to terrorists in Balochistan.
The national security adviser also said that Pakistan had evidence that the mastermind of the APS massacre was in contact with an Indian consulate and that he had the phone number of the handler as well.
"We have evidence to the T," he was quoted as saying by The Wire.
Pakistan fighting war in India’s hinterland without weapons. That’s sixth-generation warfare
Pakistan Army needs one more coup or mutiny. This time for its reforms.
By Major General Amarjit Singh, VSM (Retd) commanded a Division in the Northern Sector
https://theprint.in/opinion/pakistan-fighting-war-in-indias-hinterland-without-weapons-sixth-generation-warfare/529243/
The next generation of warfare moves away from the customary objectives of territory, destruction of war-waging capability, and capturing prisoners. The overarching goal of overpowering the will of the enemy will still be the ultimate objective, but the method adopted will aim to impact the mind of the populace with the use of a number of psychological means to alter its core cultural values and beliefs. Western civilisation lays importance to life and wealth whereas a radicalised civilisation values ‘faith’ over life and the way it is lived.
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The ends of warfare have shifted from a territorial concept of physical domination to the domination of minds of the population. The Arab Spring is an example of a well-orchestrated psychological campaign. The domination of the mind is by terror, coercion or through psychological bribery. The weapons and strategy of this kind of war are totally new and the country that can deploy these at the earliest will be the future power of the world. Hard weapons have been replaced by weapons of the mind and information. The narrative of the war itself will be the most lethal weapon.
Military analysts have already started writing about the sixth generation of warfare. The demonstration of this war by Pakistan can be seen by the number of minds it controls in Kashmir and how it is capturing the minds of radical Muslims in other parts of India. The de-militarisation of Siachen demonstrates the neighbour’s capacity to influence the leadership and the intellectuals of India. Pakistan is now fighting the ‘war’ in India’s hinterland and making use of the fault lines that exist within the country to de-stabilise it internally, so that in the end, India becomes incapable of responding to an invasion from within for the capture of Kashmir.
Few countries have understood the emergence of this new warfare. The US understood it after burning its fingers in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia has been studying this concept for the last 15 years and has demonstrated its prowess in Crimea and Chechnya, and through the purported meddling in the last US elections. The Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov had said in 2013 that “The role of non-military means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, they have exceeded the power of weapons in their effectiveness”. Russia’s forethought and strategic culture of being a great power is reflected in its recent victories in the new war of information and irregularity. Russia is now the third pole in the hybrid war that the US is fighting against the radicals in the Middle East and Afghanistan. China, very strategically, has unveiled its prowess in this new type of warfare and is engaged with the US in a new Cold War where it is not the threat of nuclear weapons that is paramount, but the economy.
#Pakistan says it has evidence of #India sponsoring #terror attacks. FM Qureshi: "We have irrefutable facts that we will present before the nation and international community" #CPEC #Balochistan #Karachi #Peshawar #Modi #Terrorism https://aje.io/xsjzn via @AJEnglish
Pakistan says India is sponsoring “terrorism” aimed at destabilising the country and targeting its economic partnership with China, accusations top Pakistani officials delivered at a news conference.
Pakistan and India routinely accuse each other of targeting the other, but this was a rare time Pakistani officials said they prepared a mountain of evidence to back up the allegations against their South Asian rival.
In a joint news conference on Saturday in the capital Islamabad, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, along with military spokesman Major-General Babar Iftikhar, said Indian intelligence agents were operating out of neighbouring Afghanistan to plan attacks within Pakistani borders.
“India was allowing its land to be used against Pakistan for terrorism,” said Qureshi, adding that New Delhi was also planning attacks from “neighbouring countries”.
Qureshi said Pakistan is sending its evidence to the United Nations demanding India be censured, warning “without international intervention it is difficult to guarantee peace in nuclear South Asia”, a region where both India and Pakistan possess nuclear weapons.
“We have irrefutable facts that we will present before the nation and international community through this dossier,” the minister claimed.
The news conference comes a day after Pakistan’s military said five civilians and an army soldier were killed by shelling from Indian troops across the highly militarised border that separates the Pakistani and Indian sides of Kashmir.
The disputed border in the Himalayan region is a source of long-standing conflict between the two powers.
Iftikhar, who heads the media and public relations office for Pakistan’s armed forces, presented some of the dossier’s evidence purporting to show India’s involvement in attacks within Pakistan, including bank receipts showing funding and photos showing alleged perpetrators of attacks inside the Indian consulate in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
He also played an audio clip purporting to record a conversation between an Indian intelligence official and Allah Nazar, who is the top leader of Baloch separatist fighters in southwest Pakistan.
Iftikhar added Indian intelligence agents were especially targeting Chinese development projects that have come with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
He alleged the attackers who led a deadly assault on a luxury hotel in the southwestern city of Gwadar in October 2016 were in telephone contact with Indian intelligence handlers before and during the assault.
Chinese companies operate the Pakistani city’s key port facilities and it is considered a keystone of major Pakistani-Chinese trade projects.
The military spokesman also accused India of sponsoring banned organisations including UN-designated “terrorist” groups Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, and Allah Nazar’s Baloch Liberation Army.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s foreign ministry, Gran Hewad, said on Saturday Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is planning to visit Afghanistan next week.
The foreign ministry said this will be Khan’s first visit to Kabul as Pakistan’s prime minister. It was not mentioned whether he would raise Pakistan’s allegations of Indian interference.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi accused India of spreading terrorism, Qureshi claimed that RAW had given 80 billion rupees to ruin China’s dream project. Presentation of the Islamabad dossier
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and army spokesman, backed by sharp retaliation from the army in Jammu and Kashmir, accused India of spreading terrorism in Balochistan. Qureshi claimed that under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, Indian intelligence agency RAW donated Rs 80 billion and prepared 700 terrorists to destroy the Dream Project’s China-Pakistan economic corridor.
Pakistan’s foreign minister, who referred to terrorists operating in Jammu and Kashmir, presented the dossier on alleged Indian terrorism on Saturday. Qureshi said India gave 80 billion rupees to ruin the CPEC. India has formed a militia of 700 who will continue to target CPEC in Balochistan. India tried to spread nationalism there ahead of the Gilgit-Baltistan elections. Even after the elections, India’s intention is not noble.
https://bcfocus.com/pakistani-dossier-on-indian-terrorism-india-gave-80-billion-rupees-to-destroy-cpec-raw-prepared-700-terrorists-pakistan-pakistan-shah-mehmood-qureshi-presents-dossier-on-indian-terrorism-attribut/
Dear Sir
Thanks for sharing this useful and informative post, yes it is true, even some news channels in Pakistan have confirmed that BJP Government setup a cell worth US$ billion. The aim and objective of the people who are working in this cell is to sabotage the CPEC project.
Sir
I want to ask an important question, this question is coming to my mind many times.
Is it true that if lets suppose the issue of Kashmir is resolved between India and Pakistan successfully, then are you sure that rivalry between India and Pakistan will come to an end?
Can you pls throw some light on this?
Regards,
#Pakistan says India was behind June bomb blast in #JoharTown #Lahore. It killed 3, hurt 24. #Probe finds that the man who carried out the attack is an Indian citizen living in #India and works for that country’s #RAW intelligence agency. #terrorism
https://apnews.com/article/india-pakistan-lahore-0628c7d26e00e7d8a419c9d8cbd68f17
KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan’s national security advisor has accused India of orchestrating last month’s deadly car bombing in the eastern city of Lahore, saying Sunday that an investigation has shown it was organized by an Indian intelligence operative.
In a news conference in Islamabad, Moeed Yousuf said the probe showed that the man was an Indian citizen living in India who works for that country’s RAW intelligence agency. He did not name the alleged mastermind.
“Through the forensic analysis, electronic equipment, which has been recovered from these terrorists, we have identified the main mastermind and the handlers of this terrorist attack. And we have no doubt in informing you that the main mastermind belongs to RAW, lives in India and is an Indian citizen.” He said Pakistan will continue its efforts to expose India’s sponsorship of such attacks internationally.
The explosion took place outside the residence of anti-India militant leader Hafiz Saeed, who himself has been designated a terrorist by the U.S. Justice Department and has a $10 million bounty on his head. India accuses Saeed of helping mastermind the deadly 2008 attacks in Mumbai that killed nearly 170 people at several occasions including the luxury Taj Hotel. He was unharmed in the powerful explosion in Lahore’s Johar Town neighborhood that killed three and wounded 24.
India and Pakistan routinely accuse the other of carrying out clandestine attacks on the other’s territory. Saeed is a highly wanted suspect in India, and Pakistan has been criticized by India and the United States for not taking stronger actions against him.
Punjab police chief Inam Ghani said all those involved in the bombing have been arrested, including an Afghan who lived in Pakistan and actually parked the explosives-laden car at the site of blast.
Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi couldn’t be reached for comment.
___ Ashok Sharma in New Delhi contributed.
Mr.Ahmed
You said:
In other words, there is no end in sight to this tit for tat conflict. Recall what happened in East Pakistan. Pakistan cannot win this proxy war and it is a terrible waste of lives and treasure.
My comment:
If Pakistan would not have won this proxy war which was started by India then why Indian government and Indian media is so obsessed with Pakistan army and ISI? As far as I know out of 100% of the news which are shown on Indian news channels, more than 70% of the news is related to Pakistan army and ISI.
If Pakistan can't win this proxy war of India ,then why Indians are having the phobia of Pakistan army and ISI?
Chinese State Publication Global Times warns India
#China warns #India after latest #terrorist attack in #Gwadar , #Pakistan:
“China will not only support Pakistan to strike a heavy blow to these terror forces, but also warn all the external forces to stay away from those terror forces” #CPEC #TTP #BLA
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202108/1232068.shtml
In this region, some US and Indian intelligence forces keen to infiltrate into Pakistan have held a hostile attitude toward China's BRI. Blocking the development of the BRI has become their main target to contain China's rise.
And, the terror attack that targeted Chinese engineers who worked for the Dasu hydropower project is said to be fueled by the Indian intelligence agency.
The intentions of the international forces must have influenced and incited terror forces in Pakistan. It is highly likely that those forces collude with and support terrorism in Pakistan. China must be prepared for a long-term fight, together with the Pakistani government, against terrorism in Pakistan. China needs to resolutely support the Pakistani government to crack down on terrorism.
In addition, we'd like to urge the new government in Afghanistan to strike the terrorist forces that were groomed in Afghanistan but now active in Pakistan. This is a window through which China could observe the new government of Afghanistan.
Terror forces in Balochistan, especially the notorious Balochistan Liberation Army, have conducted the most attacks on Chinese nationals in Pakistan. And, the Pakistani Taliban is a vital threat too.
China will not only support Pakistan to strike a heavy blow to these terror forces, but also warn all the external forces to stay away from those terror forces. Once China obtains evidence that they support terrorist forces in Pakistan, China will punish them.
#Beijing warns: "Some #US & #Indian #intelligence forces keen to infiltrate into #Pakistan....#China will not only support Pakistan to strike a heavy blow to these #terror forces, but also warn all the external forces to stay away from those terror forces" https://www.newsweek.com/china-losing-pakistan-calls-america-india-enemies-opinion-1622297
Op Ed Gordon Chang
As China makes gains in Afghanistan, the regime is suffering severe setbacks in neighboring Pakistan, where resentment against Chinese interests is widespread.
Two suicide bombings in Pakistan—last week and last month—have taken the lives of 11 Chinese nationals and cast doubt about the viability of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. CPEC, as the $62 billion plan is known, is the centerpiece of Xi Jinping's Belt and Road (BRI), his global infrastructure initiative.
China has blamed both the U.S. and India for complicity in the deadly bombings. Beijing could take action against them, thereby engulfing the world's major powers in conflict.
On Friday, a boy suicide bomber killed two Chinese children traveling in the last car of a convoy on the Gwadar East Bay Expressway, a CPEC project. China is caught in the middle of long-running disputes in Pakistan, especially between the oppressed Balochs and Islamabad, and there is little Beijing can do to ensure the security of its workers and dependents in-country. The Balochistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack.
Gwadar, a Chinese-built port on the Arabian Sea, has been hit by weeks-long protests that shut down the city. Those disturbances have been directed in part against illegal Chinese fishing in nearby waters.
The Gwadar disturbances follow a suicide bombing, on the 14th of last month, targeting the Dasu dam, another CPEC project. The explosion forced a bus into a ravine, killing nine Chinese nationals. The attack is believed to be the most deadly incident against Chinese interests in Pakistan.
"Recently, the security situation in Pakistan has been severe," declared a statement from the Chinese embassy in Islamabad on Friday.
These two incidents, which have followed a series of attacks, have especially alarmed Beijing. "If you've seen the recent developments with CPEC and the Chinese investments in Pakistan, there's been far more anxiety about the security situation there in the last few months than in the last few years," said Andrew Small of the German Marshall Fund to the Hindu, the Chennai-based newspaper. "They're concerned that effectively, Afghanistan could be used as strategic depth for the Pakistani Taliban, and that would have implications for their investments and security interests in the country."
China should be worried. As Kamran Bokhari of the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy tells Newsweek, the fall of the Afghan government has energized the Tehreek-e-Taliban, more commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban. The group "will want to take advantage of what they see as a historic opportunity to replicate in Pakistan the emiratic regime," Bokhari says. To do that, the Pakistani Taliban has been targeting Chinese interests to get Beijing to abandon CPEC projects. As Bokhari points out, China's leaving will weaken Islamabad, and that will help the Pakistani Taliban either topple the current government or grab control of territory along the Afghan border.
Pakistani authorities blamed the July 14 suicide bombing on the Pakistani Taliban, but they say the attacker was "trained in Afghanistan" and "received support from Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies."
The Islamic State in ‘Khorasan’: How it began and where it stands now in Nangarhar - Afghanistan Analysts Network
by Borhan Osman, Afghan Analysts Network
Gradually, the muhajerin turned out to be more than solely oppressed civilians in pursuit of humanitarian assistance. They carried weapons and displayed allegiance to Pakistani militant groups. Hoping to use them against Pakistan, the Afghan government started to woo some of these fighters, according to influential tribal elders involved in helping relation-building from the districts that sheltered the guest militants. Tribal elders feuding against their rivals over land or power also sought to get the support of one group or another. The most well-known case of these militants finding a welcoming home in Nangarhar is that of the Lashkar-e Islam group led by Mangal Bagh. (1) Local residents put the number of this group from the Khyber Agency differently, but a general estimation puts them at no fewer than 500 in the past three years.
https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en/reports/war-and-peace/the-islamic-state-in-khorasan-how-it-began-and-where-it-stands-now-in-nangarhar/
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However, efforts by the Afghan intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security (NDS, the Afghan intelligence), to woo Pakistani militants in Nangarhar have not been confined to Lashkar-e Islam or to militants from Khyber. Tribal elders and ordinary residents of Achin, Nazian and Kot testify that fighters from Orakzai and Mohmand agencies belonging to different factions of the TTP have been allowed free movement across the province, as well as treatment in government hospitals. When moving outside their hub in Nangarhar’s southern districts, they would go unarmed. In off-the-record conversations with AAN, government officials have verified this type of relationship between segments of the Pakistani militants and the NDS, as have pro-government tribal elders and politicians in Jalalabad. They described this state of affairs as a small-scale tit-for-tat
Taliban has never been India’s enemyInterview/ Adrian Levy, author
https://www.theweek.in/theweek/cover/2021/08/19/taliban-has-never-been-india-enemy.html
Levy recently co-authored Spy Stories: Inside the Secret World of the RAW and the ISI, published by Juggernaut, with author-journalist Cathy Scott-Clark.
On India’s role in Afghanistan, he said that Delhi had been busy nurturing its relationship with the national government, forgetting that there was an Afghanistan beyond Kabul. Excerpts from an interview:
What role do you see for Delhi in Afghanistan?
India did many things in Afghanistan. It pumped in cash and resources and created a relationship, but perhaps its biggest failing was that it was late in [reaching out to] the other side (Taliban). Kabul is not equivalent to Afghanistan; India put too [much trust] in the US mirage there. It went late to Doha. Its reach mirrored the US’s. We must remember that the Taliban is not India’s enemy. It never was.
As much as Indian intelligence agencies like R&AW want to build a narrative that Pakistan will be the biggest worry again, there is evidence to suggest that groups that have decamped as a result of constant purging by Pakistan are now operating in the lawless lands across the Durand Line. Elements of the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba are forming deadly battle-hardened groups inside southern Afghanistan and will attack anyone, including Pakistan.
What are the other worries in Afghanistan?
First, it is the chaotic space created in places in Afghanistan by insurgents who fled Waziristan and FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas), where terror groups are deeply entrenched inside communities. They will continue to spark tension around the Durand Line and beyond. Second, there are spoilers like Iran, which has funded sections of the Taliban to hamper the US; and Russia, which had previously lost in Afghanistan, and is engaged in a contest with Washington. There is Turkey, which is deep into Pakistan, rivalling Saudi, and wants to be seen as a regional power. So, the failed state and the spoilers together pave the way for a breeding ground for evil forces and dangerous groups to thrive.
In 20 years, there have been some changes. The Pakistan army has come through 18 years of war for the better, and Rawalpindi has spent a lot of money to fortify the Durand Line with fencing and tech. What is far from clear is how and whether adventurist elements within the military and the intelligence establishment have now been enabled, too, to prosecute their old anti-India project.
In the book, you draw links between the 2019 Pulwama attack and Afghanistan.
Jaish-e-Mohammad plotted Pulwama inside Afghanistan. They had occupied compounds alongside Al Qaeda and other terrorist outfits. While the public statements and perception were completely different, that the ISI and the Pakistan military establishment were to blame, the facts suggested that the command and control structure was inside Afghanistan. If you look at the aetiology of forensics, a similar device was used in the 2008 bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad. Aluminium powder was used to create enormous heat. So, what you have are Al Qaeda engineers, Jaish leaders and even men trained by the now dead [Al Qaeda] commander Ilyas Kashmiri, who targeted Pulwama. What we see is how few people are needed to spill blood and create the architecture of terror. But what happens afterwards, despite the evidence, is that India lambasts Pakistan. The political project takes over.
So are you saying that R&AW is good at perception management?
India has had great success in projecting itself as benign. It is a masterful thing done through soft and hard power, where you gather a cloak around yourself to disguise all hot actions and instead portray yourself as being the patient, perpetual victim of Pakistan terror. Good play, as ISI would say. There has been Pakistan-backed terror and insurgency. But that is all we see.
Taliban has never been India’s enemyInterview/ Adrian Levy, author
https://www.theweek.in/theweek/cover/2021/08/19/taliban-has-never-been-india-enemy.html
Levy recently co-authored Spy Stories: Inside the Secret World of the RAW and the ISI, published by Juggernaut, with author-journalist Cathy Scott-Clark.
In the book, you describe Kulbhushan Jadhav as an asset and not an officer. What is the difference?
In Jadhav, Pakistan spotted an opportunity. India required a new facility post 26/11; there was a need to step up and deploy assets that had access deep inside Pakistan and neighbouring countries to illuminate operations by Jaish, LeT and Al Qaeda. Given that actions by these groups had been switched down to only a simmer in Kashmir, they re-formed in Karachi and elsewhere looking for new routes to attack India. All agencies in India needed to reset around this thesis, be it the Indian Navy, the Intelligence Bureau or R&AW.
India worked hard to make connections through assets in Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and [among] Baloch nationalists, as well as seeking influence in places like Iran’s Chabahar Port, which was the natural competitor to Gwadar Port. So, there is China and Pakistan in Gwadar and R&AW and Iran in Chabahar. What we have are two ports of extreme strategic importance in Central Asia. And then there is Kulbhushan Jadhav working in Chabahar, but also able to traverse Pakistan and India. The man has at least two forms of official identity, mis-describing his religion and an actual address in Mumbai that the ISI learns is linked to a former senior police officer. The ISI sees a perfect opportunity to trap India. To build Jadhav from a roving itinerant—a roving ear—into being seen as an Indian master spy.
Are you saying Pakistan’s claim on Jadhav is real?
What cops do is detect crimes and put them through the criminal justice system, but what spymasters do is latch on to a crime and let it run as long as possible to see what the man is up to. They germinated an idea—in this case a conspiracy to attack a Pakistan air force base—and thrust upon him plans for the base, making him a party in a serious criminal conspiracy. They waited to see whom he would contact. Would he find a Baloch national? All along, in the background, they know he is a family man with kids. So, Jadhav gets jammed between spy wars of two sides.
In spy wars, enemy's enemy is your friend. How true is it for India?
Agencies like R&AW and Intelligence Bureau are using forces and assets and officers of every kind against Pakistan. This is classic intelligence work and this is what R&AW should be doing and is doing, while shielding its actions. It did that with MQM, when it was divided and its leader took asylum in London - recruiting inside MQM. The agency does this in London, Vienna, Geneva and other safe European havens and not within the theatre which is Pakistan. It does this with other outfits in Kashmir and along the Durand Line.
Taliban has never been India’s enemyInterview/ Adrian Levy, author
https://www.theweek.in/theweek/cover/2021/08/19/taliban-has-never-been-india-enemy.html
Levy recently co-authored Spy Stories: Inside the Secret World of the RAW and the ISI, published by Juggernaut, with author-journalist Cathy Scott-Clark.
Did you see a rivalry between the R&AW and IB?
The IB became frustrated by not only the monopolisation of technical resources by the R&AW after 26/11 especially but also the scope of their operations. Although India is the theatre of action for IB, its officers told us that since the terror plans are brewed abroad, they too wanted operations tracking and eavesdropping outside India. That's also where a man like Jadhav comes in.
What we see - and more specifically what ISI might see - are only glimpses.
What are the ills plaguing the R&AW?
The organisation hollowed out after partition and became quite communal. The senior R&AW officers wanted and want to remove the IPS recruitment system and rigid promotions structure and start recruiting across religions, communities and languages. Some others want to involve the diaspora which speaks all languages. But, even today, hardly any Muslim officer has made it to the top in intelligence agencies.
But these are struggles the MI5, MI6, CIA, FBI have all had - becoming more like the societies they have to operate in. Relying on technical intel is not enough. RAW also desired a conditional role and a charter but these have been denied by many different governments that have resisted reform so that the intel agencies can continue to be political tools.
R&AW is suspected to be behind the Pegasus snooping scandal. Your comments.
We must look at the sequence of events. After 2001, the coming together of US and Pakistan enraged India which felt that the old abusive relationship was back on again and they tried to smash it and undermine it and colour it. They were successful in portraying Pakistan as the harbinger of terror, advancing bogus theories that, for example, 9/11 was funded by the Islamic Republic. They even projected a powerful false conspiracy involving an assassination threat to US secretary of state Colin Powell where Ilyas Kashmiri was said to have plotted to kill him in Rawalpindi using one of the CIA's missing Stinger missiles.
By 2004, under US secretary of state Condoleeza Rice, the US slowly began to repoint its relationship with India having acknowledged the rise of China. A series of military and security deals, that led to the civil nuclear pact, followed. By 2009, there was an attempt at high-level technical intelligence sharing (which initially struggled to get off the ground because of leaks in India) and the coming together of various agencies, United Kingdom Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the United States National Security Agency (NSA) inducting India into high-level groups. India began to centralise its technical eavesdropping facility and then bought into German spyware in ousting FinFisher that could access Blackberry and Android but could only pry into jail-broken Apple phones. It was used by spy agencies around the world to listen in to journalists and political dissidents, creating a scandal in which India was also accused. What replaced it, it seems, was Pegasus, supplied to in a country-to-country deal by Israel’s NSO, likely in 2018 and the Pegasus trials started running in 2019 which have exploded into the public arena with the leak of 2021.
But R&AW and the intel services have shown great initiatives on the Techint side since the East Pakistan war and especially during Kargil when Pervez Musharraf was eavesdropped exposing his plans. The intention and skill was there, but the full capabilities would come after 2009. By when these capabilities outpaced the legislature and, remember, oversight also is practically non-existent.
Taliban has never been India’s enemyInterview/ Adrian Levy, author
https://www.theweek.in/theweek/cover/2021/08/19/taliban-has-never-been-india-enemy.html
Levy recently co-authored Spy Stories: Inside the Secret World of the RAW and the ISI, published by Juggernaut, with author-journalist Cathy Scott-Clark.
Did R&AW and IB officers agree on the need for a parliamentary oversight for intelligence agencies?
These agencies do not have a charter and have been used as a political football by different governments. Narasimha Rao government was one that used intelligence this way, and others too, especially Indira Gandhi. All the officers we met agreed there was a need for an oversight mechanism and a chartering that placed the intel services inside a constitutional framework.
As Edward Snowden pointed out after 9/11, there were unlimited budgets combined with a climate of fear that grew intelligence agencies, their facilities and technical skills, which far outpaced the law, but also pushed at the boundaries of what was moral, ethical and also legal. The Pegasus exposé shows this and ultimately our political leaders - who we vote in - should be held accountable. They are not beyond the law and intelligence is not a legal. You cannot allow intelligence agencies to outpace the legislature and the majority of people I spoke to within R&AW agreed. Only the ISI does not agree. They want to continue to operate in the dark.
How was your interaction with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval? Is he a mongoose or a cobra (reference from the book)?
He is action-oriented. He is also a storyteller and likes to make and control the narrative. What we are seeing in Kashmir is complete social media penetration, use of laws like AFSPA and the PSA, where the state of law is permanently upended, to mild and project these stories.
Doval also does not believe in talks without preconditions. He began to talk to Pakistan only when he had removed Kashmir from the table, and then a back channel started to work.
Doval has helmed a communal system, too, which has concentrated power in itself but also for its political masters and their agenda. The police, NIA, IB and R&AW have all been made to fit this objective. This set-up is undermining free thought and legitimate political action. It punishes all kinds of difference and resistance.
I think the positives are that India has created an agile intelligence infrastructure, which responds quickly, and is cleverly wooing foreign countries, thought leaders, power brokers, some of whom were not on their side but are friends today. Doval has wooed the Gulf countries and Saudi. He wants to see out each to China and Iran as well as Turkey. This has created a huge problem for outfits like the D company as extradition to India is now a real threat.
Taliban has never been India’s enemyInterview/ Adrian Levy, author
https://www.theweek.in/theweek/cover/2021/08/19/taliban-has-never-been-india-enemy.html
Levy recently co-authored Spy Stories: Inside the Secret World of the RAW and the ISI, published by Juggernaut, with author-journalist Cathy Scott-Clark.
What are the shortcomings of this approach?
There is a lot of stage fog. It is hard to know what has happened and what has been allowed to happen for political reasons. Terror outfits are puppeteered and penetrated. Theories are put into practice - communal ones - by encouraging acts as well as detecting them. The British did this in Northern Ireland.
All intelligence organisations are becoming more chauvinistic, nationalistic but then there are others who also resist it. In India, we see an assertive Hindu agenda and those who have reason to fear it. Those who are being intimidated or jailed. The security organisations are a mirror of the societies they exist in. All our societies around the world are debating these traits and India is no exception. Popularism and authoritarianism vs liberal democracy. Personal freedom vs State controls. India has ended up more allied with an Orban-Trump-Netanyahu world than any other.
However, it will not permanently limit Indian democracy. India's cultural, regional, language divides are so profound that no Deep State will be able to control them for long.
You have named and quoted senior serving officers of the wing. Did you experience any push back after the book was published?
We cannot write a book and deliver it for approval. We do not work with any limitations other than time and money! So, what ISI and R&AW reads might surprise them and might antagonise some.
The idea was to share their views based on enormous experience so that we could see their thinking, their evolution and show some of the secret scaffolding that holds up their world. In a way, it’s like The Truman Show - that moment when he bumps his head on the roof of his world and finally understands how he has been playing a part. We wanted to define that roof and show some of those in the gallery.
We had to be responsible too - sensitive to the subject. So, even though we have transcripts for all our conversations, 90 per cent of what we learnt has not yet been published because it was either too sensitive or inappropriate or could cause hatred.
On the other hand, we were always open about our own beliefs with them. We went into every room as if we were being recorded.I have a thumb rule which I apply always: when you say something out loud then you should be prepared to hear it back.
The I.S.I. also reported that it caught sight of R.A.W. operating in Karachi, infiltrating the Mujahir Qaumi Movement (M.Q.M.), the political party founded by Muslims who migrated from India after Partition. In the 1990s, the M.Q.M. leadership, facing multiple murder and extortion allegations, fled into exile in the U.K. and South Africa. In both places the British security services and the R.A.W. went to work recruiting, including the R.A.W. chief Samant Kumar Goel, seen by the I.S.I. as the most aggressive and capable Indian conduit in the Karachi operation. A window into this world opened-up after a brutal murder in Edgware, in North London, in 2010. Dr Imran Farooq, 50, an M.Q.M. leader, was ambushed walking home, and repeatedly stabbed and bludgeoned with a brick. During the inquiry that followed Scotland Yard detectives were told in sworn witness statements that millions of dollars was delivered by the R.A.W. to the M.Q.M. via diplomatic missions in Vienna and Johannesburg.246 When India required chaos in Karachi, M.Q.M. was paid by Lodhi Road to make it happen in a mirror of B. Raman’s equivalence operations. •
Levy, Adrian. Spy Stories: Inside the Secret World of the RAW and the ISI (pp. 215-216). Kindle Edition.
Indian analyst argues that “Xijinpingistan” (#China) is why #India should woo #Pakistan. But what gets in the way is “Antipathy to subcontinental Islam, Muslims, anything remotely local Muslim-related (and even Urdu language” #Islamophobia #Modi #Hindutva
https://bharatkarnad.com/2022/01/26/xijinpingistan-is-why-india-should-co-opt-pakistan/
The lament is about the Indian government being so addle-brained it still doesn’t know which is its one true enemy — Xijinpingistan, a fact that, in one sense, is at the root of all our external problems and the country’s subordinate status. As a people, we are so blinded by traditional prejudices and cultural bias, rational strategizing goes out the window. I am referring to the anti-Muslim sentiment, of course.
This factor has shaped India’s foreign policy, undermined vital national interests, and shrunk the country into a dependency and a pawn in the global chessboard of power politics. It offers an object lesson for other well endowed countries on how not to screw things up and connive at one’s own reduction. The real tragedy, however, is that no one — not the people at-large, not the government, and not the policy establishment, has learned from this still unfolding fiasco, because no one thinks anything is seriously wrong!
Antipathy to subcontinental Islam, Muslims, anything remotely local Muslim-related (and even Urdu language)
Vijaita Singh
@vijaita
In light of the latest NYT report that Pegasus was sold to India in 2017,same year PM Modi visited Israel....here is our February 2017 report on NSCS budget (Rs 333 crore) getting an inexplicable tenfold hike in 2017-18 budget.
https://twitter.com/vijaita/status/1487272814562344962?s=20&t=lnPUORgzVueeODANyYxKtQ
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Security council secretariat gets Rs.333 crore, a tenfold hike
Vijaita Singh
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/Security-council-secretariat-gets-Rs.333-crore-a-tenfold-hike/article17148272.ece
The National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), which reports to National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval, has seen a tenfold increase in budgetary allocation this year.
Last fiscal, though ₹33 crore was allotted to the NSCS, it ended up spending ₹81 crore; this year the allocation has shot up to ₹333 crore.
NSCS works as an advisory group, comprising various experts on security-related matters, and is headed by deputy NSA Arvind Gupta. The body is responsible for advising the Prime Minister on key strategic and security issues, both on domestic as well as international fronts, and consists of academics and eminent professionals.
Brainchild of Brajesh
Mr. Doval, who is said to be the final authority on all major security-related decisions, has had a deep interest in reviving the scope of NSCS, which was the brainchild of late former NSA Brajesh Mishra.
Mr. Mishra set up the NSCS in 1998 under the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
In 2011-12, only ₹ 17.43 crore was allocated for the body. In 2012-13, it was marginally increased to ₹20.33 crore, going up to ₹26.06 crore in 2013-14.
After NDA-II came to power in 2014-15, the allocation for NSCS was increased to ₹44.46 crore but it could spend only ₹25 crore.
A subsidiary
The National Security Advisory Board (NSAB), which draws experts from all fields, is a subsidiary of NSCS and so is the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC). The allocation for the office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister has also increased substantially from ₹5.19 crore to ₹34.83 crore.
“The funds being allotted for NSCS were always insufficient and the increase in funds is a welcome step. It does security analysis, war-gaming etc. and advises the government on key security issues,” said a former member of NSCS, on condition of anonymity.
NSCS has about 100 staff of all scales. “The increase has got to do with activities. There is much more activity than ever in the past,” said a senior official.
Limited ambit
Another official pointed out that NSCS has a limited ambit, so it was surprising to see such a dramatic budget hike.
How Pakistan’s Most Feared Power Broker Controlled a Violent Megacity From London
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-10-01/altaf-hussain-how-a-feared-power-broker-controlled-karachi-from-london
Though he was born in Karachi in 1953, Hussain has always identified as a Mohajir—a term that refers to those, like his parents, who left India after partition. In Agra, about 140 miles south of Delhi, Hussain’s father had a prestigious job as a railway-station manager. In Karachi he could only find work in a textile mill, and then died when Hussain was just 13, leaving his 11 children dependent on Hussain’s brother’s civil-service salary as well as what their mother earned sewing clothes. Such downward mobility was common among Mohajirs, who were the target of discrimination by native residents of Sindh, the Pakistani state of which Karachi is the capital. Hussain was enraged by his community’s plight. He and a group of other Mohajir students founded the MQM in 1984, and Hussain gained a reputation for intense devotion to the cause. After one protest, when he was 26, he was jailed for nine months and given five lashes.
Religiously moderate and focused on reversing discriminatory measures, the MQM built a large following in Karachi, winning seats in the national and provincial parliaments. It didn’t hurt, according to UK diplomatic cables and two former Pakistani officials, that it received support from the military, which saw the party as a useful bulwark against other political factions. Although Hussain never stood for elected office, he was the inescapable face of the MQM, his portrait plastered all over the many areas it dominated.
From the beginning, the MQM’s operations went well beyond political organizing. As communal violence between ethnic Mohajirs, Sindhis, and Pashtuns worsened in the mid-1980s, Hussain urged his followers at a rally to “buy weapons and Kalashnikovs” for self-defense. “When they come to kill you,” he asked, “how will you protect yourselves?” The party set up weapons caches around Karachi, stocked with assault rifles for its large militant wing. Meanwhile, Hussain was solidifying his grip on the organization, lashing out at anyone who challenged his leadership. In a February 1991 cable, a British diplomat named Patrick Wogan described how, according to a high-level MQM contact, Hussain had the names of dissidents passed to police commanders, with instructions to “deal severely with them.” (Hussain denies ever giving instructions to injure or kill anyone).
Even the privileged came under direct threat. One elite Pakistani, who asked not to be identified due to fear of retribution, recalled angering the party by having the thieving manager of his family textile factory arrested, unaware the employee was an MQM donor. One afternoon in 1991, four men with guns forced themselves into the wealthy man’s car, driving him to a farmhouse on the edge of the city. There, they slashed him with razor blades and plunged a power drill into his legs. The MQM denied being behind the kidnapping, but when the victim’s family asked political contacts to lean on the party he was released, arriving home in clothes soaked with blood.
Clear evidence of India carrying out terrorist activities in Pakistan: Rana Sanaullah
https://www.dawn.com/news/1726154
“Naveed was a labourer in the Middle East and was in jail because he could not pay his fine. A RAW agent approached him and told him that he would pay his fine, but then, Naveed would have to engage in terror activities against Pakistan,” Mehmood said in the press conference.
He added that as soon as Naveed was arrested, several terror activities were thwarted. “When we arrested Sami ul Haq, Naveed was unaware of his arrest. Sami ul Haq told us that he was about to meet Naveed on May 10. We were then able to apprehend Naveed as well.”
As the investigation continued, Mehmood said, more RAW agents were uncovered.
“We also found out that close to a million dollars of terror financing was done through India to spread terrorism in Pakistan through different channels,” he revealed, adding that all the arrested persons have been sentenced to death three times by the court.
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HOW AN INDIAN STATE-SPONSORED TERRORIST RING WORKS 🧵
On the 23rd of June, 2021, #India’s external intelligence agency #RAW conducted a #terrorist attack in the suburbs of Johar Town, Lahore, #Pakistan leading to the death of 3 civilians, and injuring 22 innocent citizens.
https://twitter.com/INTELPSF/status/1602631458698526722?s=20&t=fL8UKCnmKUNbyc0Q5vLhUA
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The VBIED (Vehicle-Bourne Improvised Explosives Device) has 200 kilograms of explosives and destroyed 7 residential houses and 12 vehicles.
The plan was hatched in New Delhi somewhere in 2020, and after approval from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was put into action.
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It was not the first time that India would be conducting a major terror attack inside Pakistan, and would not be the last.
R&AW, Indian intelligence, was given the task. They initially recruited one Bablu Srivastava, a criminal running an extortion and kidnapping-for-ransom ring
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out of Bareilly Jail in Uttar Pradesh under the patronage of RAW.
He became the mastermind behind this terrorist attack. Sanjay Kumar Tiwari, RAW operative in the UAE was the supervisor of this operation. He was aided by Aslam Khan (alias), also a RAW agent operating out
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of Nepal and Maldives. He was financed by two brothers, both working with RAW, namely Zaheem and Saheem Sheikh (both based in the UAE). They were also assisted by one Ali Budesh, who runs RAW’s gold-smuggling network in the Middle East.
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What follows is a chilling account of how India’s state machinery organised a ruthless terror operation against civilians, using underworld criminals as a nexus.
In mid-2020 Naveed Akhtar, a Pakistani national imprisoned in the UAE due to visa problems and non-payment of fines
Clear evidence of India carrying out terrorist activities in Pakistan: Rana Sanaullah
https://www.dawn.com/news/1726154
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is approached by Saheem Sheikh, an Indian RAW operative.
After some time, Saheem discloses his affiliation with Indian intelligence, and offers to get him out of jail and a large financial sum to solve his problems. Mr. Akhtar agrees after some persuasion.
https://twitter.com/INTELPSF/status/1602631500440256515?s=20&t=fL8UKCnmKUNbyc0Q5vLhUA
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His fines are paid, and he travels back to Pakistan, now a RAW informant.
Mr. Akhtar is then introduced to Bablu by Saheem Sheikh who informs him of the attack plan.
Mr. Akhtar is asked to rent a hideout near the target location.
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Mr. Akhtar shifts his family to the hideout to mask his real intentions. He then is instructed to travel to Maldives to meet with RAW operatives, who give him $50,000 and order him to meet RAW’s Afghani execution team in Pakistan who will conduct the attack. After retuning to
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Pakistan,he deposits 3.3 million rupees into two of his accounts and buys a car Toyota license plate number LEA-10-3200. After reconnaissance of the target location for the terrorist attack, Mr. Akhtar sends a video message to Bablu (RAW frontman and operator).
December 13, 2022 at 9:51 AM Delete
Blogger Riaz Haq said...
Pakistan blames India for 2021 bombing near militant’s home
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS - 12/13/22 9:21 AM ET
https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-international/ap-pakistan-blames-india-for-2021-bombing-near-militants-home/
Pakistan’s interior minister on Tuesday accused neighboring India of orchestrating last year’s car bombing in Lahore, near the residence of a militant leader suspected of orchestrating deadly attacks in Mumbai in 2008.
Rana Sanaullah Khan said at a news conference that several Pakistani suspects had been arrested, prosecuted and convicted by Pakistani courts in recent months over their links to the June 2021 bombing, which killed three people. The explosion went off near the home of Hafiz Saeed, who is the founder of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba group.
The interior minister said Pakistan, with the help of INTERPOL, will seek the arrest of Indian intelligence operatives they suspect of being behind the attack near Saeed’s home. Saeed, a Pakistani, is serving a jail term in Pakistan on charges of financing anti-India militants. He said Pakistan had solid evidence about India’s role in the bombing.
The Indian External Affairs Ministry couldn’t be reached for comment.
Saeed had been designated a terrorist by the U.S. Justice Department after the 2008 bombing and has a $10 million bounty on his head. Saeed’s Lashkar-e-Taiba was active for years mainly in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is split between Pakistan and India and is claimed by both in its entirety.
In the Indian-controlled sector of Kashmir, rebels have been fighting against Indian rule since 1989. Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebel goal that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
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