Abandoned children Of dubious patronage and indubitable hypocrisy

Once upon a time a man called America enticed a woman called Pakistan, promising all kinds of things that Lotharios always do. The giddy girl fell for it. America fathered many children with her. A woman called Saudi Arabia the midwife every time. One child was named ‘Mujahideen al Amreeka’ and later renamed ‘Taliban bin CIA al ISI’. Another, conceived with ova supplied by the midwife, was named ‘Al Qaeda bin Amreeka’. A third was named ‘Haqqani bin Amreeka al Jaal’. There were many others. America fathered them for a purpose.

After the children had served their purpose, the father abandoned them. Naturally, they turned against him and became his enemies. Ever since, he has been doing everything to kill them. The children are killing him back. The children are winning. The father is desperate. He has gone bankrupt. His political system is paralysed. He cannot think logically. He hypocritically blames the mother and the donor-midwife for having fathered them too like self-procreating organisms and also turned on them. But he never blames himself for abandonment as callous fathers do. So he is paying the price, as are the mother and the midwife.

Lacking logical answers, America scoffs at those that question it by trying to portray them as inferior life forms: “That was history. This is now. Forget the past”. Pseudo ‘intellectuals’, themselves looking to help America father more illegitimate children, say, “Right on. Look to the future.” Problem is: the past never allows you to forget itself. If you try, the future becomes bleak. That is America’s prime hypocrisy in this region.

Hypocrisy: There were times when Ronald Reagan likened the Haqqani Network’s founder Jalaluddin Haqqani and America’s other children to the “moral equivalent of America’s founding fathers” who were freedom fighters against the British. America’s children then were freedom fighters against the Soviet Union. Today, they have become the “moral equivalent” of freedom fighters against American occupation. That’s the only difference – just a detail.

Hypocrisy: Retiring Admiral Mike Mullen’s assertion that the ‘Haqqani Network’ is “a veritable arm of the ISI” is a parting-kick of desperate petulance. He forgets that the Mujahideen-Taliban, Al-Qaeda and the Haqqanis started life as “veritable arms of the CIA”. If America’s callous, hypocritical and irresponsible personality hadn’t caused it to become an abandoning father, they would never have turned against it. America forsook its strategic and moral responsibility of looking after its children and is now reaping the harvest.

Hypocrisy: What would you do if someone broke into your house and tried to occupy it? You would bring out your gun and shoot him, wouldn’t you? Well, that is exactly what the Haqqanis and Taliban are doing. Contrarily, America wants Pakistan to wage war on the Afghan Haqqanis on its behalf because they are killing Americans in Afghanistan. That begs the question: what are you doing in Afghanistan in the first place? It is not your country. It belongs to the Afghans. They are fighting to free it. They have every right to do so. Wasn’t that the logic when the Soviet Union was the occupier? Or does logic change with occupier?

Hypocrisy: While America wants Pakistan to wage war against the Haqqanis, it itself wants to negotiate with them. What sense does that make? Talk of being two-faced.

Hypocrisy: America allows its unstable drug lord stooge Karzai to cozy up to India, giving it undue entry and influence in Afghanistan. India should be careful. History shows that whoever befriends America eventually comes a cropper, and not just in the Third World. Europe followed crazy American economic nostrums cooked up by bankers who by definition are limited of living on more and more credit. Today their economies have flatlined. Afghanistan has been totalled. Pakistan followed America slavishly virtually from the beginning and today its very existence is being wondered about. Learn lessons from our pathetic histories, my dear neighbours, learn lessons. Don’t commit suicide in an effort to do Pakistan down. Keep pestering us if it pleases you, but for your own sakes don’t do it by getting into bed with America, else you will get an unmentionable disease. We have.

Hypocrisy: The events of 9/11 started it all. Ten years on and America has still not provided incontrovertible proof that it was Al-Qaeda that did it. Oh, I forget, I’m a ‘conspiracy theorist’.

Hypocrisy: On May 2 this year America claims to have killed Osama Bin Laden in a decrepit house in Abbottabad, while many important Americans say that he died in late 2001. But they are ignored as – you guessed it – ‘conspiracy theorists’. No one was shown the body, not even their own media. They claim to have done a DNA test in 24 hours, which experts say is impossible. They quickly dumped his body in the Arabian Sea. They don’t even show us the photographs because they are too gruesome. Since when did ‘gruesome’ bother America? Since they saw the bodies of cooked Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? There goes the ‘conspiracy theorist’ again. When people don’t have cogent answers to what you are saying, their defense is to discredit you by labeling you a ‘conspiracy theorist’. Their puppets parrot them. When the ‘conspiracy theorist’ abuse is hurled at me, I’m convinced that there is something to what I am saying. Yes, I am a ‘conspiracy theorist’ and proud of the label. You keep hatching conspiracies; I will keep questioning them. When you cannot answer rationally and in a civilised manner, you have lost and I have won.

Hypocrisy: America keeps moaning about the growing heroin addiction in its country. Having ‘successfully’ occupied Afghanistan and installing its satrap Karzai there, couldn’t it have prevented the growth and refinement of poppy? The Taliban government made poppy cultivation history. But if America did it too, how could it assert that the drugs trade is financing its abandoned children, when actually it is financing America’s war: enough has been written about how America part-financed its wars in Latin America, Indo-China and Afghanistan through drugs as a matter of policy. As you sow so shall you reap: there was a time when America and Britain deliberately exported so much opium to China that it turned it into a country of addicts. Today, China is an audacious world climber and America is a pathetic world descender. Too many Americans are drug (and credit) addicts. Which is worse? Such is the bitter fruit of perfidy and hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is the product of stupidity.

So, my two-faced ‘friend’, let’s forget history and talk of today. European economies are finished. America’s economy is in terminal decline. The dollar isn’t dead yet not only because China keeps it on life support to save its loans to America, its investments in America and America’s investments in China.

It is more because the dollar still remains the reserve currency till an alternative is found, which it will be. When people buy dollars (or US bonds), they don’t do so because they think that, “it is as good as gold”. They do so because with all other dollar-pegged currencies also in decline, stock markets in turmoil, equities unstable and real estate falling, they might as well go with the reserve currency until they have something more solid and stable to park their money in. With America’s political system too incompetent to throw up quality leadership to solve its myriad problems, confidence is zero. That, my dear America, is today.

If America doesn’t see sense, stop its hypocrisy and get out of the many messes that it has got into, I wouldn’t bet on it surviving as the global bully much longer. But that is how empires fall: hubris, strategic and intellectual decadence, and imperial overreach.

Yamaha to set up a Motorcycle plant in Pakistan

Finally some good news coming out of Pakistan !

Japanese motorcycle manufacturer Yamaha, will invest $150 million to establish a manufacturing plant in Pakistan. This was revealed at a meeting by the visiting three-member delegation of Yamaha, who called on the Chairman Board of Investment, Saleem H Mandviwalla on Tuesday.
Mandviwalla later told journalists that Yamaha Japan approached BOI through the commission in Japan with the proposal to manufacture motorcycles in Pakistan. He said that Yamaha will establish their manufacturing facility in National Industrial Park, Bin Qasim, Karachi, by acquiring 50 acre of land.
The motorcycle will have EFI engine, automatic transmission, water cool & environment friendly exhaust system, meeting European standards, in this plant. This will not only meet the demand of Pakistani market but will also enable them to export their models to various Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries.
Mandviwalla said that keeping in view the current fuel and energy situation in Pakistan, Yamaha will produce state of the art motorcycles with less fuel consumption of Rs10 per 30min drive which covers a distance of 40-50km. He stated that President Zardari, during his visit to Japan in February 2011, also met Yamaha officials and ensured that government has framed the rules and procedure for the foreign investors in the auto sector.
The Board of Investment is working to frame a policy that rests on the production of high technology products with environment friendly and consumer satisfying features.
The board, being the facilitator of investments in the country, strongly feels that the New Entrant Policy of automobiles should focus on important international auto manufacturers in Pakistani market and meet the local demand and supply gap of various sectors.
Yamaha Executive Officer Sumioka Ryouichi that the investment in Pakistan will create 45,000 jobs and with the transfer of technology in manufacturing of motorcycle, vendor skill capability and capacity will also be developed with exclusive training institutes being run by the company.

Why Karachi is held on ransom by Zardari !

Asif Zardari owned Abraaj Capital now owns KESC ! Why Zardari will never let KESC run smoothly !

Nationalize KESC or Karachi is doomed !

Karachi must be one of the unluckiest places on earth and its people are victims of absolute greed and nepotism that is displayed overtly by the President of Pakistan and his cohorts. KESC is a shining example in our president’s list of achievements to undo the Pakistan society as his personal greed and the nepotism of his close associates is about to finish off the Karachi Electric Supply Corporate (KESC) as we know it. In Karachi, a 3 hour daily load-shedding based outage is now considered normal by Karachites who must be by far the most patient (read helpless) community in the world.

KESC was recently acquired by the Abraaj capital , a UAE based firm which is staffed primarily by Zardari’s relatives and associates. The deal itself is a complex and creative acquisition where Abraaj Capital itself does not own any shares of KESC, which are still held by the previous owners Al Jomaih Group (KES Power) and the Government of Pakistan. From the onset the new and very expensive executive management team from Abraaj, required the resignation of all existing Executive Management and replaced them with their own in-experienced and non technical management teams which included new graduates, bankers and career accountants to run the operations of an electric supply utility for one of biggest cities in the world (Well it could be worst as Zardari appointed a night club manager to run the national insurance company).

Next, a detailed asset inventory was taken including all hardware and land assets owned by the KESC Group in Karachi and its surroundings. These included prime properties and very expensive copper wire surplus and stock held by the KESC. These were sold at rock bottom prices to more of Zardari's cohorts. In the public imagination KESC’s biggest problem is the generation of power, the truth of the matter is that KESC is perfectly capable of generating power for its regional customers. It is in-fact the availability of furnace oil and gas that is the main issue. In 2008, KESC owed 80 Billion Rupees to its main suppliers which are WAPDA and Sui Southern Gas(SSGC). By the end of 2010, KESC now owes 350 Billion rupees to WAPDA and Sui Southern Gas. Zardari has been using his presidential powers to pressure WAPDA and SSGC to continue to provide the required furnace oil and gas to KESC without getting the bills paid for the last few years which results in this unprecedented debt. This off-course involves both government pressure on the suppliers and also large bribes paid to the senior executives at WAPDA and SSGC. In the meanwhile KESC continues to collect sizable cash from its regional consumers and that Cash is disappearing in the Black Hole of Zardari and Co’s well of greed. It is said that already Abraaj capital has gotten 50 times the return on its original investment. All the stakeholders are now awaiting is the imminent fall of the Zardari government and then all hell breaks loose.

The future will look something like this. Fast and timely exits of all key players from Abraaj capital from the country before their names are put on the infamous exit control list. A suspension of furnace Oil and Gas supplies to KESC, resulting in ceasure of all power generation by KESC. Potential social havoc in Karachi due to complete daily outages with only limited hourly power supply during the day. Mass social unrest as hospital, schools and the general social structure is deeply affected by complete and limitless power outages. In case of a Sharif Government coming in (as it would be technically their turn to rip the country off) a hard-line approach is expected towards Karachi which would result in political upheaval and further violence in the city. In short, this would be by far the worst affecting corruption scandal in our history rife with massive and overt corruption scandals. And all this is happening as I write these words.

How did Abraaj take control of KESC !

According to the detailed answer regarding ownership of shares, this is the exact explanation provided to The News by Mr Farrukh Abbas. It is reproduced in toto so that experts can decipher the real situation.

The question sent to Abraaj was the following: Has the transfer of 51 per cent shares between Al-Jomaih Group (KES Power) and Abraaj Capital been completed. If so when was it done?

The answer: It is important to note that there is no transfer of shares taking place in the transaction. Abraaj will subscribe for new shares in KES Group, the holding company that currently owns 71.5 per cent of KESC. As a result of this subscription for new shares, Abraaj will end up owning 50 per cent of the issued share capital of KES Power, and therefore will indirectly own 35.75 per cent of KESC. All of the capital (i.e. funds) used for the purchase of KES Power Shares will remain in KES Power and will then be injected into KESC (this is what is meant by capital injection). The total amount to be injected equals US$361 million, all of which will go directly into the business of KESC. This exactly equal the amount that has been invested in KESC by the existing shareholders Al Jomaih Group and NIG, who will continue to hold the same number of shares as before in KES Power, but will be diluted down to 30 per cent and 20 per cent ownership respectively in KES Power. As part of the agreement between Al-Jomiah and Abraaj, Abraaj will have full management control of KESC.

These top level connections to the political leadership of the country apart, the Abraaj management has already acquired the reputation of an arrogant, no-nonsense set up which does not care about the consumers of KESC or the Karachi political leadership, an attitude never seen before in any management, not even run by the army.

Mystery ::
The mystery surrounding the new owners of KESC, Karachi’s beleaguered power supply utility, has finally been unraveled. In a rare show of plain speaking, the top boss of Abraaj Capital with his 40 expensive executives, has made startling written confessions which may stun the nation.
In response to 35-questions sent to Abraaj/KESC’s new management, Mr Farrukh Abbas, the Chief Executive Officer of Abraaj Capital (Pak) and Mr. Naveed Ismail the Chief Executive Officer of KESC, have sent a 28-page document answering all the questions sent by The News, explaining and confirming what has so far remained part of a vicious whispering campaign in cool and cozy drawing rooms.
For instance these top executives admit that Mr Farrukh Abbas is a relative of President Asif Ali Zardari. “Mr Abbas is not directly related to the Zardari family, but is indeed through marriage,” his written response to The News states, but quickly adds: “At no time has any personal relationship played a part in Abraaj’s involvement in KESC….Abraaj spent six months doing due diligence of this deal and no favours were sought by Abraaj during the course of its negotiations with the Government of Pakistan and none were granted outside the normal course of commercial discussions aimed at reviving KESC for the benefit of all stakeholders.”
Another frank admission is that the Group marketing and Communication Head of Abraaj/KESC, Mr Qashif Effendi, is also related to the Zardari family. Is this correct, Mr Abbas was asked. “They are distantly related but that relationship has no impact on the business, nor has it played any role in Mr Effendi’s known career growth,” the written response says.
Yet another shocker comes when the company chief admits that the new Chief Financial Officer of KESC, Mr Jalil Tareen, is a distant cousin and a good friend of Mr Shaukat Tareen, Prime Minister’s Adviser on Finance but adds: “He has obviously been hired entirely on his own merits as he also happens to have a superb track record as a highly seasoned UK-qualified chartered Accountant and senior manager in Pakistani local and multi-national businesses.”
Abraaj is a middle-east based company with over US$7.5 billionin management funds and has been operating in several countries. Its investors are predominantly from the Gulf and wider Middle East and increasingly from markets as wide as US, Asia and Europe and its management says it has an clean track record of transparent and self-regulatory conduct.
Yet the manner in which the Abraaj Group has taken over the control of KESC is highly complicated and it would take some real experts to determine how they have been allowed to run a company with 17,000 employees when they do not own one share, either of KES Power or KESC, as of today.
According to the detailed answer regarding ownership of shares, this is the exact explanation provided to The News by Mr Farrukh Abbas. It is reproduced in toto so that experts can decipher the real situation.
The question sent to Abraaj was the following: Has the transfer of 51 per cent shares between Al-Jomaih Group (KES Power) and Abraaj Capital been completed. If so when was it done?
The answer: It is important to note that there is no transfer of shares taking place in the transaction. Abraaj will subscribe for new shares in KES Group, the holding company that currently owns 71.5 per cent of KESC. As a result of this subscription for new shares, Abraaj will end up owning 50 per cent of the issued share capital of KES Power, and therefore will indirectly own 35.75 per cent of KESC. All of the capital (i.e. funds) used for the purchase of KES Power Shares will remain in KES Power and will then be injected into KESC (this is what is meant by capital injection). The total amount to be injected equals US$361 million, all of which will go directly into the business of KESC. This exactly equal the amount that has been invested in KESC by the existing shareholders Al Jomaih Group and NIG, who will continue to hold the same number of shares as before in KES Power, but will be diluted down to 30 per cent and 20 per cent ownership respectively in KES Power. As part of the agreement between Al-Jomiah and Abraaj, Abraaj will have full management control of KESC.
These top level connections to the political leadership of the country apart, the Abraaj management has already acquired the reputation of an arrogant, no-nonsense set up which does not care about the consumers of KESC or the Karachi political leadership, an attitude never seen before in any management, not even run by the army.
This became evident last week when a top Jamaat Islami delegation led by Mr Mehnti, tried to meet the top managers at the KESC office but they were not allowed on the 7th floor and security guards were called to shoo them out. A notice has been posted at the 7th floor that prior appointments are required to meet anyone.
Yet while the Abraaj management claims that these top level relationships with the political class have played no role in acquiring KESC or running it, the 28-page document submitted to The News denies these claims of not being a ‘most favoured company’, even before it has acquired the stakes.
For instance Abraaj has confirmed the following special favours given to the company in the last few months, eversince Abraaj started the due diligence process to acquire KESC. These statements of fact were made in answers to various questions in different contexts:
* While Abraaj has already taken over KESC and started running the show, the document says: “Management control of KESC will transfer fully to Abraaj once the transaction has been completed. “The Consortium agreement has been signed between Abraaj and KES Power (Al Jomaih Group, the previous owners) and there are a number of conditions precedents that need to be satisfied before the subscription of shares can take place.” So factually Abraaj has no shares in KESC as of now but has been handed over the management.
* “KES Power and the Government of Pakistan, as the existing shareholders of KESC, requested that Abraaj make its new management team available to the company prior to transaction completion”. Why the GOP was so interested in an Abraaj takeover even before the formalities and transfer of shares was completed has not been explained.
* The new senior management team was appointed and empowered by the existing Board of Directors, including the Government, through circulation without any formal Board meeting.
* “Abraaj’s entry into KESC will occur once the GOP approves a waiver to the Sales-Purchase agreement signed between the Privatisation Commission and KES Power in November 2005. The GoP has to approve the transaction and sale of new shares by KES Power to Abraaj by Nov 28, 2008 after which the shares would be available for transfer to Abraaj.”
* Although Abraaj has yet to acquire the shares, Government of Pakistan has already approved a petition awarding Disco Status to KESC which means buying Wapda electricity at 25 to 30 per cent of the current rates. This concession was denied to all previous managements of KESC for years, not given even by General Pervez Musharraf to army generals running KESC. Yet Abraaj is so influential it says: “Following consultations with the GOP, and after filing a detailed petition with NEPRA, Abraaj and KESC were able to convince the Government and NEPRA that this discriminatory treatment must be reversed and KESC must be treated on par with all the other Discos (distribution companies) in the country. NEPRA issued a determination in this regard following full consultations and hearings….It is important to note that key beneficiaries of this decision are the consumer of Karachi.” This decision would save KESC Rs30 billion in money it owes to Pepco and in future it will get electricity cheaper from Wapda.
* Regarding new concessions from the Zardari Government, Abraaj says:: “All that has been done is address actual problems and issues faced by KESC and to try and find solutions to these problems,” and significantly admits: “Some of these problems that were addressed had been lingering for years, without adequate focus from either the management of KESC or the Government….With active effort many of these problems have been solved, or at least begun to be solved..”
* In a significant claim, the Abraaj statement says: “Without active involvement from Abraaj and the new management team, many of these issues would have remained unresolved.”
* Government of Pakistan has already settled the dispute of pending payments between KESC and Wapda/Pepco on KESC’s terms. Besides the above fast track concessions, this is a major achievement as this was a lingering issue since 2004 but was resolved even before Abraaj has acquired the KESC shares. Abraaj, however, maintains that “Its (the Wapda dues) elimination does not alter KESC’s financial position and does not, in any sense, amount to a write off.”
* Abraaj and Government of Pakistan have already agreed on amendments in the Implementation Agreement which was originally signed between KESC and the Government when KESC was privatised to Al-Jomiah Group in Nov 2005. The Abraaj statement claims these amendments will “bring the agreement up to date and to clarify the support which the Government will provide (to KESC under Abraaj).”
All these decisions and agreements have been possible not because the top managers are relatives of President Zardari but because they are so smart and competent, within days and weeks they have moved the mountains and forced the bureaucratic machine to move in their favour at top speed, so that when they take over the company fully, nothing is left to decide and they can concentrate on providing electricity to the people of Karachi now burning KESC bills and shouting slogans on Karachi streets.
This smart management is being paid a huge price for this job. According to KESC insiders the total bill of Mr Abbas and his 40 executives is the same US$ 8 million which was paid to Siemens for operation and maintenance contract by the Al-Jomaih Group. But Siemens was an operations company with engineers and equipment, while these 40 executives are managers with a few engineers but no equipment.
When Abraaj was asked about this huge monthly salary tabs, ranging from Rs 1 million at the lowest level to Rs 5 million for the chief executive, plus the perks, Abraaj’s written response was: “Compensation for the new management team has been approved by the Board of Directors of KESC and is paid by the company. The Government of Pakistan’s Directors have also approved the compensation to be paid to the CEO.”
But Abraaj refused to confirm or deny the figures saying: “Being a public company, the total salary costs for the CEO and the management team will be disclosed in the annual audited accounts but at this stage it is sufficient to say that they are competitive and commensurate with comparables available in the corporate sector of Pakistan.”
The statement, however said: “The numbers quoted by you are incorrect,” yet at another point in the statement, Abraaj says: “These individuals did not join KESC for salary inducements, rather they left lucrative professional careers elsewhere in order to be able to turnaround KESC and participate in a story that hopefully will have a beneficial impact on the lives of millions of people.”
This last statement is amusing as nowhere in the world any corporate executive leaves a lucrative job to “participate in a story” to impact millions of lives. That basically is politics.

Pew Institute : 2/3 of Pakistanis and Indians have an unfavorable view of each other !

Pakistanis consider India and the Murtids - al Qaeda and Taliban- a major threat to Pakistan.

WASHINGTON: A PEW research says that most Pakistani disapproved of the US operation that killed Osama bin Laden, even though the terror leader was not a crowd favourite, a majority considered it a bad thing. However views about the US and Obama did not get any worse after bin Laden’s killing.
With the relations between the two war on terror allies moving towards breaking point, the research found that 63 per cent of the people did not approve of bin Laden’s killing while 55 per cent believed it to be a bad thing. A mere 37 per cent believed in using army to combat extremists in Khyber Pakhtookhwa and FATA areas.
The comprehensive report is broken down in six chapters, views on national conditions, ratings of political leaders and government institutions, death of bin Laden and the continuing efforts against terrorists, opinion about US and Obama, on extremism and how Pakistanis and Indians view each other.
Views on national conditions
With regards to national condition, the PEW research said that “Pakistanis continue to be highly dissatisfied with conditions in their country. Roughly nine-in-ten (92 per cent) are dissatisfied with the country’s direction. Almost as many (85 per cent) say the economic situation in Pakistan is bad. And optimism is scarce – 60 per cent think the economy will worsen in the next 12 months; only 13 per cent believe it will improve.”
Ratings of political leaders and government institutions
Ratings for President Zardari dropped from 20 per cent a year ago to mere 11 per cent. While ratings for the Prime Minister Gillani fared better, with 39 per cent, despite dropping from 59 per cent from a year ago.
In contrast, political rivals such as Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif saw their popularity soar with Khan getting 69 per cent and Sharif 63 per cent.
Chief of Army Staff, Ashfaque Pervaiz Kayani came in third with 52 per cent. However, the institution he represents, the armed forces were viewed positively with 79 per cent approval. The ratings for the army have fallen only four points after the OBL incident.
Death of bin Laden and the continuing efforts against terrorists
After the bin Laden operation, criticism of the army was rising home and abroad. According to the PEW research data “although Osama bin Laden was not well-regarded in recent
years, few Pakistanis approve of the military operation that killed him, and most say it is a bad thing that the al Qaeda leader is dead. Looking forward, many think the killing of bin
Laden will create even greater tensions between the US and their country.”
As criticism about drone strikes increase, more and more people seemed to be getting knowledgeable about what the hue and cry about it. In addition to that, almost 61 per cent of the people disagreed that they were necessary while 89 per cent thought that they killed too many innocent people.
Support for the fight against extremism using Pakistani forces to conduct operations in the troubled FATA and Khyber Pakhtoonkhw areas of Pakistan has also waned with only 37 per cent of the people supporting an Army operation.
Opinion about US and Obama
Pakistanis are ranked second in viewing the US as unfavourable to their cause. The PEW report suggested that percentage of people who viewed America as friendly slipped from 17 per cent in 2010 to 12 per cent in 2011. Only in Turkey was America viewed less favourably with only 10 per cent viewing the country in positive light.
Extremism
According to the PEW research, the views about Islmaic extremism slipped slightly in 2011 compared with 2010. However, with 63 per cent still worried about the extremism in the country, most Pakistanis continue to see it as a problem facing their nation. Many worry that extremists could take control of their country, and pluralities see al Qaeda and the Taliban as serious threats.
How Pakistanis and Indians view each other
Pakistanis continue to see India in a bad light, with the PEW research saying that views have gotten more negative about their arch rivals over the past five years. According to the research,

ONly 14 per cent of Pakistanis view India in a favourable light.
54 per cent consider India to be a serious threat to Pakistan. Pakistanis also consider Taliban and Al Qaeda (Murtids) a huge threat to Pakistan -Taliban is (34 per cent) and al Qaeda (29 per cent).
On the flip side, Indians do not view Pakistan as any more favourable as Pakistanis view Indians.
However, 65 per cent of Indians see Pakistan in a negative light compared to 75 per cent for Pakistanis.
Interestingly, despite the visible hostility between the neighbouring countries, a large majority of people on both sides of the border want to improve relations.

The full research report can be read on the PEW research website.

Pakistan Army Uncovers a cell of Murtids in the Army !

"Murtids" caught in the Army with contacts with a militant oganization. Serving Bearded army officer by the name of Brig. Ali Khan arrested.


A spokesman for Pakistan’s military confirmed on Tuesday that a senior officer had been detained and was under investigation for suspected ties to militants.

The BBC’s Urdu-language news service first reported that the officer, Brigadier Ali Khan, who was serving in the general headquarters of Pakistan’s military in Rawalpindi, was taken into custody last month.

Dawn, a leading Pakistani newspaper, added that the military’s chief spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, “confirmed that the officer had been arrested, but released no further details on which groups he was alleged to have been in contact with.”

General Abbas told Agence France-Presse that Brigadier Khan had been detained because of contacts with a “defunct” militant organization. He added, “The investigation is on and we follow a zero tolerance policy of any such activity within the army.”

General Abbas later told Reuters that Brigadier Khan was linked to Hizb-ul-Tahrir, a radical Islamist group.

Omar Waraich, a Pakistan correspondent for Time magazine, noted on Twitter that Hizb-ul-Tahrir “clandestinely dropped pamphlets in military cantonments” after the American raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, “calling for officers to establish an Islamic caliphate.”

A Karachi newspaper, The Express Tribune, reported that “sources close to Khan’s family revealed he had not returned home on May 6.”

“Senior military officers had told the family that he had been held back to answer some questions and that he would return soon,” the newspaper said.

A Pakistani journalist, Abbas Nasir, pointed out on Twitter, Brigadier Khan seems to have been detained just four days after the Abbottabad raid.

The Express Tribune said Brigadier Khan came from a military family. “Khan’s father was a junior-commissioned officer in the army and his brother is a serving colonel posted with an intelligence agency,” the paper reported. “His son-in-law and son are both captains in the army.” The Tribune added that a senior military source said that the possible radicalization of a senior officer “with loyalty to the army stretching to three generations” was “a worrisome issue for the army.”

After militants penetrated security at a naval base in Karachi earlier this month, Newsweek asked Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s interior minister, if “rogue elements within the military” might give radicals access to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. The minister assured the magazine, “Our nuclear weapons are 200 percent safe.”

Pakistani Police and Army confused who are the "Good" and "Bad" Terrorists !

There is “massive confusion” in the police department about whether they can take action against certain banned groups such as the active Jamaatud Dawa unless they get the go-ahead from ‘big brother’.
These groups differ from clearly marked ones such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi or Tehreek-i-Taliban, who are fair game. In any given month, the police arrest at least a dozen of their operatives, who are paraded in front of the media, albeit under blankets to protect their identity. The proud officers rachet up the number of suspects and everyone goes home happy.
But what about the groups that fall in a grey area? In background interviews, senior police and civilian intelligence officials reveal to The Express Tribune that the confusion begins when they come across suspects who operate under groups with an “untouchable status”.
Take, for example, certain outfits such as the Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) whose members were “sashaying around” [Dhandanatay huey phir rahey they] in a massive rally to openly mourn the death of Osama bin Laden, as one senior police official put it. It was ironic that the force had to offer them “protection” for their rally, he remarked. They even openly offered funeral prayers in absentia for the al Qaeda leader.
“Today, if [Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan’s general secretary] Maulana Aurangzeb Farooqi comes to the city and holds a rally, nobody in the police force would know whether he should be allowed to make a speech or not,” said this officer, who has vast experience and specialises in terrorism cases. To make matters worse, the police have the complaint that the intelligence agencies are usually arrogant about these matters and tell the police force that they should be consulted first before any action is taken.
“Without a doubt, there’s massive confusion in the police force today about what to do with certain people belonging to some banned militant groups,” said a senior civilian intelligence official, who corroborated the police official’s claim. He stressed there was a dire need to set up a platform where police, civil and military security agencies can coordinate and work out what is kosher.
This confusion and its fallout has been noted and discussed not just inside the force, but by observers too. It should hardly come as a surprise that the police in Karachi, as those elsewhere in the country, don’t know what to do, said Zahid Hussain, who is the new Pakistan scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre and the author of The Scorpion’s Tale: The Relentless Rise of Islamic Militants in Pakistan. “Despite numerous terrorism incidents, Pakistan lacks a national policy on how to deal with terrorism,” he said. In fact, some of our security agencies engaged in counter-terrorism are still not clear in their heads whether militancy and all militant groups are a threat to the country.
Hussain blamed the government for failing to come up with a national policy and warned that the longer we wait, the more difficult it would become to craft one. For him, it was a shame that the national counter-terrorism authority that was supposedly established to deal with exactly these questions, remains ineffective. “They’re still bickering over whether this body should come under the interior minister or prime minister,” he said.
But why should there even be kosher and non-kosher groups at all, argue others. These categories for militant groups are “mere excuses” being made by the police, in the opinion of former Inspector-General of Police for Sindh Afzal Shigri. It was the duty of a police official and every law enforcement authority to arrest all terrorists. A policeman works under the law and if he catches a suspect according to the law, no one can stop him from doing so. “It is ridiculous, in my opinion, to say that they can’t act unless Big Brother winks at them,” he said, adding that it’s highly unfortunate that today the police was playing second fiddle to the agencies. “Police have the powers to arrest and interrogate. They have all the powers, while intelligence agencies technically have no such powers.”
The truth is that the police has its own national police management board which can be approached for all such conundrums and from whom legal opinion can be solicited.
For Shigri, it’s the policeman’s job to withstand pressure from all internal and external players, even if it comes from the intelligence agencies. “Worst comes to worst, the influential [people] can have an officer transferred. So why be afraid of that?” he asked. In his view, the current situation also indicates a lack of leadership within the police. “An officer who is earning just his salary, [about] Rs20,000, wouldn’t care for such things,” he explained. “It is those who are earning two million rupees a month who worry about transfers and Big Brother pressures.”

Pakistani politicians in Total Denial on Terrorism !

Taleban should be declared "Murtids" if we are to win the hearts and minds of the illiterate majority of Pakistan. Innocent people of the villages are brainwashed and then made to believe that the Taliban's agenda is the truth and Pakistan is on the wrong side of the war.

Circumvention, hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness describe best the behaviour of clergy and politicians when it comes to condemning terrorists and extremism. Fearing electoral losses, the politicians and ulema have chosen to either remain mum or side with the rising tide of bigotry and fanaticism.

Nawaz Sharif and company::
The Sharifs of Punjab are playing the most dangerous game with the fate of Punjab vis-à-vis terrorism which has become entrenched in the province due to denial of the threat’s existence. There have been allegations of them being in arms with various extremist elements for petty political gains. Earlier, Punjab’s senior minister Rana Sanaullah was photographed with the chief of defunct Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan during the by elections in south Punjab. Following this, Shahbaz Sharif and Interior Minister Rehman Malik exchanged endless salvos of claims for and against the existence of Punjabi Taliban.

Imran Khan ::
Imran Khan is another politician of the same ilk who wants us to think that terrorists are only after Pakistan because we are fighting a “US war” and not a war for our own survival. He conveniently ignores the terrorists’ proclamation of “fighting to create an Islamic system in Pakistan”. However, ANP is an exception which bravely and boldly took the case of the militants on, wrestled free Swat and South Waziristan and suffered several casualties in its ranks and file.

Parliament ::
Shrinking from its duty, the Parliament has failed to take ownership of the counter terrorism action. They have not amended the 1997 Anti Terrorism Ordinance which lapsed and has not been re-promulgated ever since.

Politicians ::
The politicians share the mindset with the clergy who otherwise issue infidelity verdicts at the drop of hat, like their cousins in the pre-Protestant Movement’s clergy, but refuse to educate people to exorcise the genie. Most share the perverted ‘jihad’ mindset of imposing a system based on blood and gore.

One would question their quest for Islamising Pakistan. The preamble to our Constitution says no unIslamic law can be passed in the country. A republic with majority Muslims has never passed anything even remotely unIslamic. But constitution matters little to them which they consider based on “munkirat”.

Sectarian ::
Barring the argument, the roots of intolerance go back to the ’50s at times of movement against the Ahmadis. Later, the country bore witness to the blood curdling Shia -Sunni violence at the behest of the Saudis and the Iranians. This progressed into internecine intra-sunni conflict. And now fundamentalist insurgency. They are waging their “jihad” in clear violation of the Holy Quran and Hadith. As Javed Ahmad Ghamdi points out ” Jihad can only be launched by the state and not independent actors otherwise it turns into chaos.”

Deoband ::
Unfortunately, all the followers of Pakistan’s chapter of Deoband school approve of terrorism, whereas scholars running the Deoband Institution in India have rejected and denounced terrorism as unIslamic.

Jamat-e-Islami::
Qazi Hussain Ahmad of Jamaat-e-Islami refuses to denounce the Taliban offensive and terms it justified. His party, now led by Munawwar Hassan, is up in arms over action against feared terrorist and mastermind Ilyas Kashmiri. Jamaat-e-Isami’s Karachi chief Merajul Huda Siddiqui says Kashmiri’s death is being celebrated by India.

JUI (F)::

A departure from this trend is Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Albeit too little too late, Fazl’s reaction coincided after two life attempts on him. Stopping short of categorical rejection, he criticised terrorism, saying “violence has no parallel in Islam.”

Who is on Board against the Taliban/Al Qaeda/The Right::
But there were some religious luminaries who acted like “light at the end of the tunnel”.

Maulana Hassan Jan ::
They lost their lives in opposing Taliban and al Qaeda’s brand of Islam. Foremost among them was Maulana Hassan Jan who was a Taliban ideologue and tried to convince the latter of the wrongdoing. He received several warnings but he didn’t budge from opposing the macabre deeds and was gunned down.

Other Maulanas who should declare the Taliban Murtids ::
Dr Ghulam Murtaza, Dr M Farooq, vice chancellor of International Islamic University, Swat, Mufti Naeemi, and Maulana Hassan Turabi slammed the violence perpetrated by the fringe elements openly and boldly but had to pay with their blood for sticking to their conviction. Another critic, noted scholar Javed Ahmad Ghamdi has to leave the country following persistent life threats.

Ulema ::
The ulema as a whole should have taken the lead role in explaining and defining terrorism as a vice which only sows more confusion and chaos. Their effort should have been directed at reformation and education. Let’s see how long it takes for sanity to prevail.

Political Parties who are on Board ::
MQM
ANP
PPP
JUI(F)
BNM
APML
PML (Q)

Political Parties who are NOT on Board ::
PML (N)
TI

This tells us that major political parties are on board with the rest of Pakistan. PML(N) has basically lost all track to what way they are headed.

Imran Khan thinks this is all Americas fault and there is no enemy within.

I rest my case with both of these parties. PML(N) will perhaps get another drubbing at the hands of the the major parties in 2013 with no major coalition partners siding with them.

Defining Moment for Pakistan's media and the military establishment !

Pakistani journalists' Syed Saleem Shahzad killing has changed Pakistan and its media. This sole event has brought Pakistan's media and the military establishment at loggerheads putting the military on the defensive for the first time in the history of the country.

“I have never worked for any well-funded international news organizations. Nor have I worked for the mainstream national media. My affiliations have always remained with alternative media outlets. This has left me with narrow options and very little space to move around in. Those who loom large on the political horizon by and large target mainstream information outlets and well-financed news organizations for the launch of their media campaigns, interviews and/or disclosures. Alternative media persons need to work twice as hard as others to draw their attention…,” wrote Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, who was tortured to death, in the preface to his book Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11 that hit the stands just 10 days before his brutalised body was fished out of a canal.

But in death, Shahzad — who was the Pakistan bureau chief of the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online — has turned out to be a game-changer in a country where journalists are often part of the collateral damage in the war on terror. Before his body was found on May 31, over 70 journalists had been killed in the country since 2000. And, in the fortnight after his end, at least three journalists have been killed — two while reporting a blast in Peshawar and a third in mob violence outside the Multan Press Club.

While some of these journalists killed in the line of duty were victims of targeted attacks, Shahzad's case shook media honchos to the core. Top guns of the industry — seldom seen in protest meetings over attacks on freedom of expression and minorities — took to the streets; rubbing shoulders with lesser mortals in the profession and, more importantly, began openly questioning the feared Inter Services Intelligence by name.

Had Shahzad been killed at any other time, the volte face by some of the media bigwigs would not have been so evident. But, Shahzad died at the end of a month which began with the U.S. raid in Abbottabad to take out al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and terrorists laying siege of a naval airbase for 17 hours three weeks later.

After the initial loss for words at these show-stopping events, the media — particularly, the mood-setting television news networks — stuck to the all-too-familiar narrative on security-related matters; pedalling conspiracy theories that sought to put the blame outside Pakistan. Of course, there were some notable exceptions who questioned the country's strategic policy that has harmed Pakistan most than any other country and called for introspection, especially by the military which has shaped not just the nation's history but also its thinking. But the mainstream narrative focussed on the U.S.' violation of Pakistani sovereignty in the Abbottabad raid and the “outside hand” in the “PNS Mehran” attack; prompting columnist Ayaz Amir to write: “Islam is not the state religion of Pakistan, denial is. And our national emblem should be the ostrich, given our proclivity to bury our heads in the sand and not see the landscape around us as it is.”

Shahzad changed that. Known to have contacts within terror networks and intelligence agencies, the unsaid view is that he had crossed some “red lines.” What these lines were or who drew them will probably never be known — given the track record of enquiries in Pakistan — but it drove home the fact that proximity to the security establishment does not necessarily ensure personal security.

Protest

Overnight, several prime time television anchors and columnists — known to toe a certain line — changed their tone, began asking searing questions and joined the 24-hour protest staged outside Parliament House on Wednesday to demand the setting up of a commission to enquire Shahzad's killing. Some of them did live talk shows from the site of the dharna and openly admitted that the media — which had been so supportive of the security establishment — had been forced by circumstances to turn against it.

In all this the democratically elected government got a bit of a breather for the first time since it was voted to power three years ago. The guns were trained elsewhere with even the higher judiciary coming in for some fire over the Supreme Court taking suo motu notice of actress Atiqa Odho being let off by airport authorities after detention for carrying two bottles of liquor in her luggage. What peeved a lot of people was that the Court could take notice of this but not to a petition filed in January to act against a cleric who had issued a fatwa against Asia Bibi, the Christian woman facing death sentence for blasphemy.

However, this comfort was short-lived. Though the federal government accepted journalists' demand for a commission headed by a sitting Supreme Court judge, the past-midnight decision to assign the task to Mian Saqib Nisar was taken without consulting the Chief Justice. As a result, Justice Nisar has made his acceptance conditional to approval by the Chief Justice. The Government's contention is that the law does not mandate consultation with the Chief Justice before appointing a judge of the apex court to head a commission. But, Supreme Court Bar Association president Asma Jehangir said, “the government just cannot disturb benches of the apex court by picking judges of its choice to head such commissions with consulting the Chief Justice.”

Given that there was an identical hiccup in the setting up of the commission to enquire into the circumstances that led to the U.S. raid in Abbottabad, the government's decision to walk the same path has led to questions about its own seriousness in getting to the truth in both instances. So much so that now the Pakistan People's Party — which has always been regarded as an anti-establishment party and one of the few that does not owe its existence to the powerful military — is being called the security establishment's bedfellow.

The China Pakistan Nexus !

China is adamant that the West "must respect" Pakistan's sovereignty.

The message was delivered during Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani's recent four-day visit to Beijing, which celebrated no less than six decades of strategic relations - involving, among other issues, nuclear collaboration and support over the ultra-sensitive Kashmir question.

The Times of India reconstructed the message as a stark warning that: "any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China."

Chinese diplomacy dwells on too much sophistication for such a crude outburst; but even enveloped in red velvet, the message - in view of the non-stop US drone war over Pakistan's tribal areas, not to mention the "get Osama" raid in Abbottabad - was indeed a bombshell.

Whatever the merit of charges that Islamabad helps some Taliban factions - such as the Haqqani network in North Waziristan - the Pakistani politico-security-military establishment has had enough of being treated by Washington as a mere satrapy, or worse, a bunch of punks.

Pakistani popular opinion, from urban centers to tribal areas, roundly abhors Washington's drone war. And even before the Navy SEALS raid to get Osama the sordid Raymond Davis case was configured as the ultimate humiliation.

Davis, a CIA asset, shot two Pakistanis dead in broad daylight in Lahore; an American "extraction team" killed another one who was trying to save Davis from arrest; and then the CIA paid blood money to finally extract Davis out of the country. Sovereignty? What sovereignty?

Strategic ports

There's frantic spin in the US especially among the right that Pakistan must be taught a lesson because it "harbors terrorists". The mighty conceptual leap would be for these righteous, misinformed, armchair warriors to advocate teaching China a lesson.

Gwadar is an ultra-strategic deepwater port in the Arabian Sea, in Pakistani Balochistan, not far from the Iranian border and only 520 km away from the hyper-strategic Strait of Hormuz. Beijing financed close to 80 per cent of the construction of the port via the China Harbor Engineering Company Group. The port is currently managed by Singapore. The lease will end soon - and it will go to China.

Islamabad now wants the Chinese to build a naval base at Gwadar. That will be a monster geopolitical earthquake in a crucial node of "Pipelineistan" as well as the New Great Game in Eurasia.

Sleepy (for now) Gwadar has been building up for years as the key node of the IP (Iran-Pakistan) pipeline, which used to be the IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India) or "peace" pipeline, before New Delhi got cold feet. For Washington, the prospect of a steel umbilical cord linking Iran and Pakistan has always been anathema.

What Washington wants - and has wanted badly since the Bill Clinton years - is the TAP (Trans-Afghan) pipeline, which then became TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India). Even millennial rocks in the Hindu Kush know TAP or TAPI will only be built when the war is over in Afghanistan, with the Taliban an inevitable part of the government.

In this ongoing, epic IP (or IPI) versus TAP (or TAPI) battle, what is never mentioned is that the winner after all may be... China.

New Delhi knows a pipeline crossing Afghanistan is, well, a pipe dream. But still it has not committed itself to IPI - in part because of relentless Washington pressure, in part because it does not trust Pakistan.

China, on the other hand, has already proposed itself for an IP expansion. This means that starting at Gwadar, another pipeline would be built, by the Chinese of course, crossing Balochistan and then following the Karakoram highway northwards all the way to Xinjiang, China's Far West.

Those who have already traveled the spectacular, 1,400 km-long Karakoram highway from Kashgar in Xinjiang, Western China, via the Khunjerab pass to, of all places, Abbottabad in Pakistan, know it for what it is - a graphic example of strategic Sino-Pak collaboration. Further on down the road, Beijing engineering will connect the Karakoram highway with a railway across Balochistan towards Gwadar.

Pakistanis involved with the development of Gwadar love to bill it as the new Dubai. Well, it might as well become Western Hong Kong.

No wonder Beijing's strategic analysts are tasting what could be the geopolitical equivalent of the finest shark-fin soup; the Chinese Navy positioned at the heart of the Arabian Sea, a stone's throw from the Persian Gulf; a great deal of its Middle East oil imports shipped to nearby Gwadar - and then by pipeline or railway all the way to Kashgar; and the Chinese economy profiting from extra gas supplied by Iran and, in a near future, Qatar.

Keep on truckin'

It's not only China possibly winning a crucial "Pipelineistan" chapter plus an Arabian Sea base to add to its "string of pearls" network. In terms of its AfPak vulnerability, Washington may be contemplating a triple X defeat.

For obvious reasons the Pentagon cannot use Chinese or Iranian seaports to supply no less than 100,000 US troops, 50,000 NATO troops and over 100,000 private contractors in Afghanistan - legions of mercenaries included - which dabble in over 400 military bases all across the country. Nearly 80 per cent of this monstrous quantity of supplies transit through Pakistan. And that means, essentially, Karachi.

So one cannot imagine the "kinetic military action" (White House copyright) in AfPak without a non-stop serpent of trucks leaving Karachi and entering Pakistan via Torkham or Chaman every single day.

All the stuff Kabul - and the immense Bagram Air Base close by - needs goes through Torkham, at the end of the fabled Khyber Pass. All the stuff Kandahar needs goes through Chaman, in Pakistani Balochistan, not far from Quetta, where Mullah Omar theoretically lives when he's not being pronounced dead by the Pentagon.

The Pentagon of course could rely on alternative routes such as the interminable Northern Distribution Network (NDN) from Riga in Latvia to Termez in Uzbekistan, which connects via a bridge over the Oxus to Afghanistan. But NDN is not only long but also impractical; it does not allow too much cargo; and the Uzbeks forbid the transport of lethal weapons.

As for the Manas base in Kyrgyzstan, that's only for troops coming in and out, and for storage of jet fuel.

The bottom line is that Islamabad knows the Pentagon simply cannot conduct the AfPak war without the Karachi-Torkham (300 trucks/tankers a day) and Karachi-Chaman (200 trucks/tankers a day) routes delivering like clockwork.

So if you break the balls of the Islamabad establishment to a tipping point and Taliban networks will have a free hand at attacking US/NATO convoys to Kingdom Come. Compare it with Beijing acknowledging Pakistan's "contribution and sacrifices in the war against terrorism".

On message

Beijing actively helped Islamabad's nuclear weapons program. Next August, China will launch a satellite into orbit for Pakistan. Roughly 75 per cent of Pakistan's weapons are made in China. Soon 260 Chinese fighter jets will become the core of the Pakistani Air Force.

Even before Beijing delivered the message that Pakistan's sovereignty shouldn't be messed about, the Pakistani military had already delivered their own message.

It concerned that most photographed rotor of the stealth Black Hawk helicopter that crashed beside Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. The Pakistanis threatened they would let the Chinese tinker with it - and that would certainly yield some ace reverse engineering.

It didn't happen. But still they didn't get the message in a Washington whose leeway over Islamabad is a strategic rent that goes basically to Pakistan's military. If the US congress would cut it - threats abound - there's no question Beijing would be delighted to make up the difference.

Washington may still have a sterling opportunity to get the message next month, when the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meets in Astana, Kazakhstan. There's a strong possibility that Pakistan may be enthroned as a full member, upgraded from its current status of observer.

This means, in practice, Pakistan as a member of the still embryonic Asian answer to NATO. An attack on any NATO member is an attack on them all, according to its charter. The same would apply to the SCO. Ladies and gentlemen, draw your conclusions - and start dancing to the sound of the Sino-Pak shuffle.

Pakistan Army Attacks back at the MURTIDS ! Watch video !

Watch how Pakistan Army strikes back. Pakistan Army using what they call lame tactics to get the Queen Bee. God be with them and we will Inshallah defeat the Murtids.

http://sawantspeak.blogspot.com/2009/10/pak-army-torture-exposed.html

The video says it all ! Pakistan army strikes at the inner core. Get the PICTURE!

Prelude to the Attack on PNS Mehran Naval Base Karachi !

Al-Qaeda cells operating within the Navy got busted and Al-Qaeda set out to teach Pakistan Navy a lesson ! Unbelievable how Jihadi Pakistani Armed forces have become. Lets cleanse them from these forces and bring back the glory of Pakistani armed forces !

This attack is being dubbed as the turning point between the Jahidi forces in the Armed forces and Jihadi groups

Al-Qaeda carried out the brazen attack on PNS Mehran naval air station in Karachi on May 22 after talks failed between the navy and al-Qaeda over the release of naval officials arrested on suspicion of al-Qaeda links, an Asia Times Online investigation reveals.

Pakistani security forces battled for 15 hours to clear the naval base after it had been stormed by a handful of well-armed militants.

At least 10 people were killed and two United States-made P3-C
Orion surveillance and anti-submarine aircraft worth US$36 million each were destroyed before some of the attackers escaped through a cordon of thousands of armed forces.

An official statement placed the number of militants at six, with four killed and two escaping. Unofficial sources, though, claim there were 10 militants with six getting free. Asia Times Online contacts confirm that the attackers were from Ilyas Kashmiri's 313 Brigade, the operational arm of al-Qaeda.

Three attacks on navy buses in which at least nine people were killed last month were warning shots for navy officials to accept al-Qaeda's demands over the detained suspects.

The May 2 killing in Pakistan of Osama bin Laden spurred al-Qaeda groups into developing a consensus for the attack in Karachi, in part as revenge for the death of their leader and also to deal a blow to Pakistan's surveillance capacity against the Indian navy.

The deeper underlying motive, though, was a reaction to massive internal crackdowns on al-Qaeda affiliates within the navy.

Volcano of militancy
Several weeks ago, naval intelligence traced an al-Qaeda cell operating inside several navy bases in Karachi, the country's largest city and key port.

"Islamic sentiments are common in the armed forces," a senior navy official told Asia Times Online on the condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to the media.

"We never felt threatened by that. All armed forces around the world, whether American, British or Indian, take some inspiration from religion to motivate their cadre against the enemy. Pakistan came into existence on the two-nation theory that Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations and therefore no one can separate Islam and Islamic sentiment from the armed forces of Pakistan," the official said.

"Nonetheless, we observed an uneasy grouping on different naval bases in Karachi. While nobody can obstruct armed forces personnel for rendering religious rituals or studying Islam, the grouping [we observed] was against the discipline of the armed forces. That was the beginning of an intelligence operation in the navy to check for unscrupulous activities."

The official explained the grouping was against the leadership of the armed forces and opposed to its nexus with the United States against Islamic militancy. When some messages were intercepted hinting at attacks on visiting American officials, intelligence had good reason to take action and after careful evaluation at least 10 people - mostly from the lower cadre - were arrested in a series of operations.

"That was the beginning of huge trouble," the official said.

Those arrested were held in a naval intelligence office behind the chief minister's residence in Karachi, but before proper interrogation could begin, the in-charge of the investigation received direct threats from militants who made it clear they knew where the men were being detained.

The detainees were promptly moved to a safer location, but the threats continued. Officials involved in the case believe the militants feared interrogation would lead to the arrest of more of their loyalists in the navy. The militants therefore made it clear that if those detained were not released, naval installations would be attacked.

It was clear the militants were receiving good inside information as they always knew where the suspects were being detained, indicating sizeable al-Qaeda infiltration within the navy's ranks. A senior-level naval conference was called at which an intelligence official insisted that the matter be handled with great care, otherwise the consequences could be disastrous. Everybody present agreed, and it was decided to open a line of communication with al-Qaeda.

Abdul Samad Mansoori, a former student union activist and now part of 313 brigade, who originally hailed from Karachi but now lives in the North Waziristan tribal area was approached and talks begun. Al-Qaeda demanded the immediate release of the officials without further interrogation. This was rejected.

The detainees were allowed to speak to their families and were well treated, but officials were desperate to interrogate them fully to get an idea of the strength of al-Qaeda's penetration. The militants were told that once interrogation was completed, the men would be discharged from the service and freed.

Al-Qaeda rejected these terms and expressed its displeasure with the attacks on the navy buses in April.

These incidents pointed to more than the one al-Qaeda cell intelligence had tracked in the navy. The fear now was that if the problem was not addressed, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) supply lines could face a new threat. NATO convoys are routinely attacked once they begin the journey from Karachi to Afghanistan; now they could be at risk in Karachi port. Americans who often visit naval facilities in the city would also be in danger.

Therefore, another crackdown was conducted and more people were arrested. Those seized had different ethnic backgrounds. One naval commando came from South Waziristan's Mehsud tribe and was believed to have received direct instructions from Hakeemullah Mehsud, the chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistan Taliban). Others were from Punjab province and Karachi, the capital of Sindh province.

After Bin Laden was killed by American Navy Seals in Abbottabad, 60 kilometers north of Islamabad, militants decided the time was ripe for major action.

Within a week, insiders at PNS Mehran provided maps, pictures of different exit and entry routes taken in daylight and at night, the location of hangers and details of likely reaction from external security forces.

As a result, the militants were able to enter the heavily guarded facility where one group targeted the aircraft, a second group took on the first strike force and a third finally escaped with the others providing covering fire. Those who stayed behind were killed.

(The Journalist Saleem Shahzad who exposed the contacts between the Pakistan Navy and Al Qaeda was found dead June 1, 2011 in Gujrat. ISI is suspected of abducting him but ISI has denied the charge).

Drones or Ababeels ? God Sent ? Nothing Happens without Gods Will so Stop the Groans !

The advocates of wounded pride and injured sovereignty lose sight of the critical fact that these actors of the “Islamic internationale” who use Pakistan as a springboard of Islamic revolution the world-wide are the first and foremost violators of the country’s sovereignty.

Ever since the WikiLeaks revelation that the army chief requested for drone attacks, there are many ‘hurt’ egos and protests doing the rounds. Very few it seems are willing to take into consideration why the attacks are a timely necessity. Our current anti-drone mindset is simply strengthening the agenda of the extremists, and we should very wary of representing views that protect and serve the interests of the terrorists who are holding a gun to our future.

First, we must not lose sight of the fact that large swathes of areas in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas lie beyond the state’s control. These places remain under the control of foreign and local terrorists, who over the years have eroded the state’s writ, administration and intelligence gathering abilities by decimating maliks and political agents and heavy-handed terrorist activities all over Pakistan. As it is, years of negligence from the government has rendered Fata impoverished, shoving the people there away from the mainstream country, at times from even those who share the same culture and language in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Today, we don’t have adequate human intelligence to know what is going on our own soil. Take, for instance, the fact that the ‘rumour’ of Hakimullah Mehsud’s death in a drone attack could not be confirmed for weeks due to lack of ground intelligence; the same can be said about the mystery in which the death of Baitullah Mehsud’s was shrouded in for days.

Drones hone in the audio visual signatures of the terrorists while depending critically on real-time information about the targets from human intelligence that the US has developed. The unmanned aerial vehicles are targeting known terrorists and neutralising the existential threat to Pakistan and to the larger world. The ruthless and barbaric Baitullah Mehsud topped the long list, comprising Abu Laith al-Libi, Abu Sulayman Al-Jazairi, Hamza Rabia, Midhat Mursi, Abu Akash, Mohammad Hasan Khalil al-Hakim, Rashid Rauf, Abu Zubair al-Masri, Usama al-Kini Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan. Each and every single one of them was decapitated by drone attacks.

Briefing journalists in Miranshah, General Officer Commanding 7 Division, Maj-Gen Ghayur Mehmood, who is in charge of the troops in North Waziristan, had confirmed the deaths of many ‘hard core’ elements with a sizeable number of them being foreigners. “Conceding there have been a few civilian casualties, he added the drone attacks also had social and political repercussions,” the news report read.

Without denying the collateral damage, it is also an uncomfortable truth that most of those dying in the attacks are mostly “facilitators” hiding and working for the terrorist network and not ordinary innocent victims of senseless terror attacks across the country.

It is a folly to think that terrorism can ebb with mere negotiations. The experiences in South Waziristan and Swat are enough to convince everyone of the terrorists’ duplicity when they would violate every accord and use commitments to gain time, strengthen and strike back. The destruction of schools and enforcing a primitive, alien and tribal sociology is an ugly manifestation of their ideology. But this is not to sideline the importance of negotiations which need to be conducted only from a position of strength and only at the stage when the terrorists have been rooted out so as to afford the moderates in their ranks an opportunity to join back the society and start anew.

The advocates of wounded pride and injured sovereignty lose sight of the critical fact that these actors of the “Islamic internationale” who use Pakistan as a springboard of Islamic revolution the world-wide are the first and foremost violators of the country’s sovereignty.

Many Pakistanis are confused and may be myopic, unable to differentiate between good and evil: they are tormented over the deaths of “terrorists and their facilitators” but ignore the 35,000 killed across the country for no crime of theirs. May be no fault of theirs; apparently the establishment’s ‘good and bad’ Taliban policy has backfired, as those considered assets for our foreign policy are coming to haunt us. The attack on GHQ and a host of others apparently do not seem to have convinced our security establishment of revisiting their outdated policy of harnessing the “assets”. Security analysts believe attack on PNS Mehran by well trained “fidayeen” carried signatures of such groups. It is this very mindset which has confused people to blame external forces rather than to look internally.

The drone strategy needs to be however discussed under a different light. It must be realised that the UAVs are tactical and offer short-term benefits but allows the space for intervention by local security agencies. A space that shrunk and then became non-existent over the last few years! Can anyone deny that Baitullah’s death did not provide some leverage or that Hakimullah’s death was a blow?

Would you rather have the militants culled in a remote region where the casualties from them can be contained, versus in a city such as Quetta where the US had long-held that the terrorists have moved and a strike there will increase the number of dead?

Indeed, that would result in an unacceptable greater civilian death toll causing political and civilian backlash.

We need to move on from debating whether drones are right or wrong. It is about time people come out of the injured pride and wounded sovereignty cliché prevailing these days and end the hypocrisy over drone strikes. You can’t have your cake (read “zero terrorism”) and eat it too (read “no collateral damage”). The debate has to centre on a long term counter-terrorism policy in which the security establishment willfully participates.

Pakistan in Total Disbelief on Terrorism ! When will Pakistan Transform from a Nation to a Society ?

Most Pakistanis are in disbelief and under a spell on terrorism which is wreaking havoc in their land of the pure. They cannot believe that the very Islamists they trained have turned against them ! Army officers are not following orders to kill Islamists who in this case are terrorists because they think that they might be committing a sin. The enemy within is getting stronger and a huge rift in the armed forces is brewing ! Can Pakistan leash the Islamists ?
Watch how Pakistan Army Strikes back !
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The picture says it all - I shouldn't even write more. These Ultra Right is at it again and what they are holding on that placard is unbelievable 'Living one day like Osama bin Laden is equal to living like an army commander for 10 years'. This is the mindset and that's what Pakistan is dealing with but here is the good news- This is Pakistan's 5% and they will be routed again in the next elections. In the last elections they got less then 5% vote and all of Pakistan voted Left or Centre Right.

This is the most difficult article I have ever written. Trying to gather infomation and trying to read the mind set of the a certain Pakistani populous has been very difficult for me. Even though the people on the far right in Pakistan are like 5% but they have influenced the mind set of a major chunk of the population especially north of Pakistan. Its like a tug of war talking to them and trying to explain where I am coming from. First of all they will tear you apart if you call them on the Right. They do NOT want to be labelled right even though their mind set is like Ultra far Right(Read KKK).

Criticising even pro-violent Islamists to them is like walking on ice where they are about to push into a pitfall of Anti-Islam or Anti-Pakistan. The Ultra Right here like any where else is the custodian of the religion and the Nationalism even though in Paksistans case its the enemy within or the Islamists. Under no circumstances they will believe that 'God fearing faithful ultra right pious devout 5 times praying Mullahs' are creating havoc by training suicide bombers. NO amount of arguements is going to convince them that we really have a problem here with the pro violent Taliban, LeT etc.

Thank God for the free 90 plus channels have started to harp my tune on the enemy within. Believe me the conspiracy theorist are having a hay day here and everything in Pakistan is very coordinated and the theorists are just killing me. Everthing is America and Wests doing and even the planes that were destroyed was an American act. I was like that doesn't make sense since the US is ready to replace the planes that were destroyed in the attack at the Mehran Base.

Its like wading through a sea of conspiracy theories and then every day its a new one but the Right is not ready to believe that its the TTP bombing Pakistan. Their belief is that NO Muslim can send bombers in Pakistan to kill fellow Muslims. Its like an oxymoron for the Right.

But let us differentiate with the other 95% that do believe that we really have a problem. Pakistan has to pull up its socks and deal with terrorism with an iron fist even if that means alienating the ruthless right. We have to write off the 5% crazy mullah but we can reign in the 15% fence sitters. Fence sitters are just watching the show but sway either way either because they are poor or vulnerable. But the slide towads violence has to stopped NOW.

What needs to be done in Pakistan to tackle terrorism ?

Pakistans biggest problem is the dysfunctional Police system. 99% of Pakistanis DO NOT trust the police. The West should fund and modernize the police system in Pakistan. Imagine NYC without an effective police system and now imagine Pakistan with thousands of gun trotting Mullahs trying to impose their own misinterpreted Islmic laws. They Police in Pakistan is corrupt, ill equipped and the training does not go far enough. A new structure has to be built with forensic labs and investigators. Pakistan doesn't have an effective forensic lab to tackle crime or terrorism. Investigators need to be hired enmass to control violent crimes to control the lawlessness.

I am amazed to see how disillusioned and confused Pakistanis are about terrorism. They cannot believe that the very Taliban they nurtured with US and Saudi help would turn against Pakistan instead of India. They are waking up to a very changed scenario but most of them are in still in disbelief that the bearded, devout, 5 times a day praying pious Muslims have turned against the citadel of Islam. After talking to literally hundreds of Pakistanis during my stay here I am just dumb founded how deaf Pakistanis have become and cannot see that these Islamists are destroying Pakistan. They Taliban and other terrorist organisations regard the Pakistani army under whatever pretext their enemy number one.
History in a nut shell ::
When Zia UL Haq took over the helm of affairs in Pakistan in the late 70's he started to promote Islamists in the armed forces. The trend stopped right after he was gone but the damage had been done. There were a spate of recruitment in the low ranking soldiers at that time who have become entrenched into the armed forces. Now there are widespread claims that these Islamist soldiers challenge orders from their peers against the Talibaan and LeT etc.

Why Israel is Successful in defeating terrorism ?
Our new terrorist policy should be what Israel enacted following a spate of suicide bombing by Palestinians in mainland Israel.
As part of the 2nd Intifada, the IDF adopted a policy of house demolition of suicide bombers in response to a wave of suicide bombings. Israel justified the policy on the basis of deterrence against terrorism and eye for an eye after negotiations failed. This collective punishment turned out to be good deterrence against suicide bombers who had killed 1000's of Israelis and the houses of Israelis living in mainland Israel. This policy right or wrong turned out to be a huge success and the suicide bombing declined even before the barrier was built to keep the terrorists out.
In February 2005 Israel ordered an end to the demolition of houses for the purpose of punishing the families of suicide bombers unless there is "an extreme change in circumstances". However, house demolitions continue for other reasons. In 2010, 315 Palestinian-owned structures have been demolished in East Jerusalem. 402 people have been displaced and about 1,296 people have been otherwise affected.
There has be some other punitive measures that would deter the suicide bombers, because right now it’s like a walk in the park for them with no repercussions
in the North Western, which is the epicenter of terrorism in Pakistan . Family Honor and sanctity of women are both very sacred to them and that should be used as a weapon by the ISI. A policy needs to be formulated not just against terrorists but also supporters and sympathizers of terrorists. Mass arrests and of families and detention should be organized on mass scale against the whole village that produces suicide bombers.
Madrassas :
Madrassas have biggest the migraine for peace loving Pakistanis. Madrassas or Quranic schools have become a breeding ground for terrorists and their sympathizers. Pakistan needs to come to grips with this menace this very instant to keep sanity alive. All Madrassas should be closed down for a month and cleansed and every teacher needs to be reappointed under a government scrutnized and NGO supported syllabus. All unlicensed madrassas should be banned first and later converted into a police station with a regular primary school teaching regular subjects.
All madrassa teachers should be screened and along with their students should be put under probation. That means they have to report to a probation officer every Friday to make sure they are not getting influenced or brainwashed. They should be informed about the repercussions that their families would endure in case they try an adventure.
Iron Fist :
I know these are iron fisted tactics but we really do need a tyrant to deal with these crooked terrorists. They see no mercy and we have make new rules to enforce the law. NOW is the time to set up Kangaroo courts, secret detentions centers, top secret cherry picked elite force for interrogations and an clamp down like Pakistan has never seen before. The clamp down on MQM in the 90's should look like baby talk. Pakistan really has to put its foot exactly where its mouth is.

Any thing short of these will not get us anywhere and we will reel to something like Liberia !

Guess who got arrested for the PNS Zafar Karachi attack. My greatest fears are being reinforced over and over ! NO Afia Siddiqui, thanks to her arrest in the US, was not involved this time around ! Pakistani intelligence operatives arrested a prayer leader of a seminary at Faisalabad on Friday for alleged links to the terrorist attack on a naval airbase late on Sunday night in Karachi that killed 10 security personnel, sources said.

The operatives of intelligence agencies raided the Deobandi madrassa at Siana Chak village in Faisalabad district of Punjab province and nabbed Qari Qaisar, the prayer leader, sources told PTI.

The arrest was made on the basis of information linking Qaisar to the terrorists who stormed PNS Mehran, the Pakistan Navy's main air station in Karachi.

Qaisar, who is also linked to a banned organisation, was taken to an undisclosed location for interrogation, the sources said.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on PNS Mehran, saying it was carried out to avenge the death of Osama bin Laden in a US raid on May 2.

The terrorists killed 10 security personnel and destroyed two maritime surveillance aircraft during the brazen attack that embarrassed the military.

Four of the attackers were killed or blew themselves up while two more reportedly escaped.



(to be continued)

Adding another one to Osama Bin Laden Assassination Conspiracy Theories !

Why we’ll never see dead Osama bin Laden
What really happened?

Like a lot of conspiracy theories here is another regarding OBL's assassination.
But this one kinda makes sense !

In August 2010 after Pakistani authorities shared intelligence with US about the compound in Abbottabad, US after its own intelligence gathering ascertains that the compound is occupied by Osama’s children. Compound surveillance continues through the next year in anticipation of capturing Osama bin Laden.

In January 2011 the young CIA contractor who is given the charge of Pakistan Station Chief works “extra hard” to gather clandestine information related to ISI and Al Qaeda relationship.

The contractor, now infamous as Raymond Davis the “American Rambo” receives a call from one of his assets, early morning on January 27 about a high value target. But the asset refuses to lay out details on phone or to leave the Lahore city, where he had gone underground. Raymond Davis hires a rent a car and drives to Lahore, while his security detail follows him in a bullet proof Land Cruiser.

Raymond Davis is able to loose his Islamabad’s ISI “detail” by leaving in am unmarked rented car. The ISI agents falling for his trap follows the embassy’s Land Cruiser. Raymond Davis arrives at Lahore one hour earlier than his detail and meets with the asset. The asset gives him some pictures of an intelligence building at Tarbela and recording of a phone call. Listening to the phone call, Raymond Davis realizes the gold mine he had struck, and immediately calls his security detail which had also reached Lahore, knowing if ISI reaches him first, he would not leave Lahore alive.

Next hour when the security car catches up with Raymond Davis, the ISI bosses realize that Raymond Davis had given them a slip earlier in the morning and in couple of hours he did in Lahore, he might have got some important information. Resultantly, they put two contractors on his tail. Raymond Davis seeing a tail fears the worst and shoots them both in the back, at a traffic stop, without logically realizing that there was no way ISI could have known what he was holding.

His security detail which was close behind rushed to his “rescue”. However, by this time police had chased and arrested Raymond Davis, while the security Land Cruiser running over pedestrians escapes towards US consulate compound in Lahore. ISI officers quickly reach the scene and confiscating the memory sticks realize Raymond Davis has unearthed a deep secret which even their immediate bosses didn’t know about.

The sensitivity of information rattles the entire echelons of the ISI and even its own officers are sent under house arrest while the relevant cell steps forward. At that time even some of the top intelligence officers of the secretive ISI outside the relevant cell did not know that Osama bin Laden had died and his body was kept frozen at Tarbela. Young Raymond Davis had unearthed the biggest secret of the century, somehow. But now the Pandora’s Box had been opened. Pak top brass knew it had only a few days or weeks at best to capitalize Raymond Davis’ arrest before US get the intel.

In the next six weeks Pakistan plugs all leaks related to Osama’s death and makes sure that maximum gains are made for Raymond’s release. However,when Raymond Davis is released on March 16, his debriefing results in a tsunami of US policy, personal agendas and fueling of political rivalries. Everyone in the US chain of command now wanted to use the information to further personal goals from General
Petreaus to President Obama. On March 17, knowing that Pakistan had lost its trump card General Pervaiz Kayani releases a press statement in which he critically criticize drone attacks, first from him. From then on Pak Military raised its stance against drone attacks, fearing that US now might target its nuclear assets. While in USA, politics was at its full swing. General Petreaus wanted to get the buckle for Osama bin Laden’s death on his belt for his future political ambitions, while President Obama wanted the credit to help his sliding popularity. While the tussle continued, the other issue still pending was how to confirm Osama’s death.

In the next one month, nearly every week a top US official visited Pakistan, everyone meeting with General Kayani trying to convince him to hand over Osama’s body. While the stance from Pakistan remained, “Osama, Who?” It was a first in the history that so many US top officials had visited and met with a military chief of a foreign country in such a short time. Seeing nothing getting through the top military brass of Pakistan, US started a political and media campaign on the sides to put extra pressure on Pak Military.

Politics within Obama Administration was also at its full swing. Petraeus was pulling all the strings to take the credit, while trying to lay out a plan to get Osama bin Laden’s body out of Pakistan. President Obama on the other hand in one smooth move decided to “promote” Petraeus to the head of the CIA. The news got out in the first week of April that Petraeus was being transferred to the CIA. While at the main front, Obama continued to pressurize General Kayani and General Pasha and on April 5, Obama Administration submitted a report to the Congress that Pakistan government had no clear strategy to triumph over militants. Alongside the report the media campaign against Pak Military and the ISI continued.

The second week of April began with a bang for top Pak Military brass. On April 7, Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer and White House advisor wrote a report arguing that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are not only a deterrent to India but also to USA. The obvious had now become clear that Obama Administration has indirectly sent a clear threat to Pakistan’s nuclear assets. The timing of the report was perfect with Centcom Chief Gen James Mattis meeting with General Kayani next day. In the meeting General Mattis asked about Pakistan’s cooperation in capturing Osama bin Laden.

This was ironically one of typical Hollywood thriller scene. Pakistan knew that US knew that Pakistan knows that US knows that Osama is dead. But Pakistan continued the naive game of “Osama Who?” while US continued to play the game that “Osama must be captured”. General Mattis leaves with veiled threats and stresses that Pakistan must do more to against the Al Qaeda and Taliban, or indirectly saying that Osama bin Laden must be handed over.

For the ten days US waits and sees how Pakistan responds to the threats, but Pakistan acts by burying its head in the sand – see no evil, hear no evil. Obama Administration ups the ante and on April 18 on Pakistan’s Geo TV, Adm. Mike Mullen said Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence “has a longstanding relationship with the Haqqani Network.That doesn’t mean everybody in the ISI, but it’s there.” Again, international media had its field day against Pakistan’s ISI and its links with Taliban.

After putting pressure on General Kayani, Adm. Mike Mullen meets with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Khalid Shameem Wyne and General Kayani on April 20. Admiral Mullen again demands indirectly that Pakistan needs to help USA in locating Osama bin Laden. Pakistan’s response was again, “Osama, Who?” Admiral Mullen however, left with another threat that if they came to know about Osama bin Laden’s location they would go ahead and take unilateral action. This is the same message which President Obama repeated in his announcement of Osama bin Laden’s death, when he said, “We will take actions in Pakistan, if we knew where he was.”

In response to continued threats from USA, Pakistan starts taking back its air bases from US in an attempt to avoid launching of any operation from its own soil. As a result on April 22 the news appears that Pakistan had taken back Shamsi Airbase from CIA/US forces. While Obama Administration was piling pressure on Pakistan, General Petraeus visited Pakistan on April 26 and met with General Kayani openly asking him to hand over Osama bin Laden, otherwise get ready to face the consequences. Same day Washington also critically attacked Pakistan Army’s counter-terrorism efforts. General Petraeus left with a clear message that unless Pakistan hands over Osama, US forces would be forced to take action over Pakistani soil. Pakistani Military knowing that US knew that Osama bin Laden was dead couldn’t understand Obama Administration’s continued stance on capturing Osama bin Laden. General Petraeus left with the ultimatum that either Pakistan handed over Osama or US would get him.

Same day meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) is held at Rawalpindi, one week ahead of schedule at the Joint Staff Headquarters. The top brass discussed the Osama issue and decision is reached to work out the Obama’s strategy leading to continuous threats for capturing Osama bin Laden alive, even after knowing that he was dead. While in Pakistan intelligence community starts using all of its sources to reach to the bottom of US’ demand of capturing Osama bin Laden. On April 28 President Obama signs General Petraeus’ transfer to CIA and next day signs the orders to attack the Abbottabad compounds. Thus Osama bin Laden’s credit is assured to President Obama.

On 29 April after President Obama signed the orders to “bring back” Osama bin Laden,Pakistani security agencies get a report that another order had been signed which had authorized US forces to neutralize Pakistan’s nuclear assets, if needed. The report was nothing short of seeing a death angel for the top Pak Military brass. Seeing the imminent threat, General Kayani tried his last shot when on 30 April 2011 he clearly stated in his Youm-e-Shuhada address: “Pakistan is a peace-loving country and wants friendly relations with other countries and our every step should move towards prosperity of the people. But we will not compromise our dignity and honour for it”. However, it didn’t stop what was about to come 24 hours later.

As night fell on Sunday, 1st May four choppers from a US Afghan base at a low altitude towards its destination in Abbottabad, to the same compound where Osama’s children were in the hiding. Without any detection courtesy of their latest stealth technology and Pakistan’s outdated technology the choppers continued over the Pakistani territory. Ironically, ten years ago a Pak Air force air commodore had raised concern about the outdated radar technology citing that US or worse India could fly helicopters into the country and take out nuclear installations and in reply he was shown the boot while no upgrades to the systems were made.

Anyway, the four choppers made it to the compound in Abbottabad. It is then that PakArmy was notified that they have a choice. Either face an entire barrage of US choppers attacking Pak nuclear assets or hand over Osama’s body. In the meanwhile the small gun battle at the Abbottabad compound continued and to give the drama some authenticity the US forces torched one of their own choppers. Pressed for time a Pakistani helicopter flew from Tarbela carrying dead body of Osama bin Laden which was stored in a cold storage there. While at Abbottabad Pak Army soldiers encircle the entire area around the compound within five minutes of the start of fire fight. The firefight continued for 35 more minutes, waiting for the Pakistani helicopter. Once the Pakistani helicopter reached the compound the three US choppers and the Pakistani helicopter flew towards the Afghan border, this time without the need to fly below the radar detection altitude.

Next day, the world woke up to the news that Osama bin Laden was dead and President Obama had delivered what President Bush and Dick Cheney couldn’t. But the Pak Military brass did not wake up, because they never slept the night before.