Dropped the NOT in the sentence: > But has that NOT deterred it from engaging them in finding a political solution?
At 10:49 AM -0600 1/15/08, Chan Mahanta wrote: > > >Unfortunately, our own home-grown varieties >seem downright enamored with the >>ISI and Bangladesh Intelligence (an oxymoron?). > > > >*** The comment displays a rather simpleminded view of things at best. > >Do the 'home-grown varieties' associate with >ISI, IF they DO, as their detractors claim, >because they are 'enamored' of their ideology or >mission? Or they do so, because they are DRIVEN >to seeking help from the ENEMY of their ENEMIEs? > > >*** Did these 'home-grown varieties' begin their >struggles against Indian rule to advance ISI's or >Pakistan's cause? Or were they DRIVEN to its >fold, if they were, because of decades of Indian >intransigence? Could India imagine that such a >consequence could evolve from its policies, or >was it >not smart enough to foresee it? > >Hasn't India and its apologists not been crying >hoarse for decades that the NE insurgents are >getting increasing help from ISI or Pakistan or >who-have-you? But has that deterred it from >engaging them in finding a political solution? > >Does it not smack of appalling hypocrisy laced >with a liberal dose of clueless propaganda that >would be apparent to anyone with half a working >brain? Or is it a case of abject Indian >stupidity? Or a combination of both? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >At 9:35 AM -0600 1/15/08, Ram Sarangapani wrote: >>It is astonishing that the Western press is still surprised by the fact that >>the ISI can only spew militancy, but has little or no control of such groups >>operating in Pakistan. >>Unfortunately, our own home-grown varieties seem downright enamored with the >>ISI and Bangladesh Intelligence (an oxymoron?). >> >>--Ram >> ------------------------------ >> January 15, 2008 >> Pakistan Struggles Against Militants Trained by Agency By CARLOTTA >>GALL<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/carlotta_gall/index.html?inline=nyt-per>and >>DAVID >>ROHDE<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/david_rohde/index.html?inline=nyt-per> >> >>ISLAMABAD, >>Pakistan<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/pakistan/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>- >>Pakistan's premier military intelligence agency has lost control of >>some >>of the networks of Pakistani militants it has nurtured since the 1980s, and >>is now suffering the violent blowback of that policy, two former senior >>intelligence officials and other officials close to the agency say. >> >>As the military has moved against them, the militants have turned on their >>former handlers, the officials said. Joining with other extremist groups, >>they have battled Pakistani security forces and helped militants carry out a >>record number of suicide attacks last year, including some aimed directly at >>army and intelligence units as well as prominent political figures, possibly >>even Benazir >>Bhutto<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/benazir_bhutto/index.html?inline=nyt-per>. >> >> >>The growing strength of the militants, many of >>whom now express support for Al >>Qaeda<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda/index.html?inline=nyt-org>'s >>global jihad, presents a grave threat to Pakistan's security, as well as > > >NATO<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/north_atlantic_treaty_organization/index.html?inline=nyt-org>efforts >>to push back the >>Taliban<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/t/taliban/index.html?inline=nyt-org>in >>Afghanistan. American officials have begun to weigh more robust covert >>operations to go after Al Qaeda in the lawless border areas because they are >>so concerned that the Pakistani government is unable to do so. >> >>The unusual disclosures regarding Pakistan's leading military intelligence > >agency - Inter-Services >>Intelligence<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/i/interservices_intelligence/index.html?inline=nyt-org>, >>or the ISI - emerged in interviews last month with former senior Pakistani >>intelligence officials. The disclosures confirm some of the worst fears, and >>suspicions, of American and Western military officials and diplomats. >> >>The interviews, a rare glimpse inside a notoriously secretive and opaque >>agency, offered a string of other troubling insights likely to refocus >>attention on the ISI's role as Pakistan moves toward elections on Feb. 18 >>and a battle for control of the government looms: >> >>¶One former senior Pakistani intelligence official, as well as other people >>close to the agency, acknowledged that the ISI led the effort to manipulate >>Pakistan's last national election in 2002, and offered to drop corruption >>cases against candidates who would back President Pervez >>Musharraf<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/pervez_musharraf/index.html?inline=nyt-per>. >> >> >>A person close to the ISI said Mr. Musharraf had now ordered the agency to >>ensure that the coming elections were free and fair, and denied that the >>agency was working to rig the vote. But the acknowledgment of past rigging >>is certain to fuel opposition fears of new meddling. >> >>¶The two former high-ranking intelligence officials acknowledged that after >>Sept. 11, 2001, when President Musharraf publicly allied Pakistan with the >>Bush administration, the ISI could not rein in the militants it had nurtured >>for decades as a proxy force to exert pressure on India and Afghanistan. >>After the agency unleashed hard-line Islamist beliefs, the officials said, >>it struggled to stop the ideology from spreading. >> >>¶Another former senior intelligence official said dozens of ISI officers who >>trained militants had come to sympathize with their cause and had had to be >>expelled from the agency. He said three purges had taken place since the >>late 1980s and included the removal of three ISI directors suspected of >>being sympathetic to the militants. >> >>None of the former intelligence officials who spoke to The New York Times >>agreed to be identified when talking about the ISI, an agency that has >>gained a fearsome reputation for interfering in almost every aspect of >>Pakistani life. But two former American intelligence officials agreed with >>much of what they said about the agency's relationship with the militants. >> >>So did other sources close to the ISI, who admitted that the agency had >>supported militants in Afghanistan and Kashmir, although they said they had >>been ordered to do so by political leaders. >> >>The former intelligence officials appeared to feel freer to speak as Mr. >>Musharraf's eight years of military rule weakened, and as a power struggle >>for control over the government looms between Mr. Musharraf and opposition >>political parties. >> >>The officials were interviewed before the assassination of Ms. Bhutto, the >>opposition leader, on Dec. 27. Since then, the government has said that >>Pakistani militants linked to Al Qaeda are the foremost suspects in her >>killing. Her supporters have accused the government of a hidden hand in the >>attack. >> >>While the author of Ms. Bhutto's death remains a mystery, the interviews >>with the former intelligence officials made clear that the agency remained >>unable to control the militants it had fostered. >> >>The threat from the militants, the former intelligence officials warned, is > >one that Pakistan is unable to contain. "We could not control them," said >>one former senior intelligence official, who spoke on condition of >>anonymity. "We indoctrinated them and told them, 'You will go to heaven.' >>You cannot turn it around so suddenly." >> >>The Context >> >>After 9/11, the Bush administration pressed Mr. Musharraf to choose a side >>in fighting Islamist extremism and to abandon Pakistan's longtime support >>for the Taliban and other Islamist militants. >> >>In the 1990s, the ISI supported the militants as a proxy force to contest >>Indian-controlled Kashmir, the border territory that India and Pakistan both > >claim, and to gain a controlling influence in neighboring Afghanistan. In >>the 1980s, the United States supported militants, too, funneling billions of >>dollars to Islamic fighters battling Soviet forces in Afghanistan through >>the ISI, vastly increasing the agency's size and power. >> >>Publicly, Mr. Musharraf agreed to reverse course in 2001, and he has >>received $10 billion in aid for Pakistan since then in return. In an >>interview in November, he vehemently defended the conduct of the ISI, an >>agency that, according to American officials, was under his firm control for >>the last eight years while he served as both president and army chief. >> >>Mr. Musharraf dismissed criticism of the ISI's relationship with the >>militants. He cited the deaths of 1,000 Pakistani soldiers and police >>officers in battles with the militants in recent years - as well as several >>assassination attempts against himself - as proof of the seriousness of >>Pakistan's counterterrorism effort. >> >>"It is quite illogical if you think those people who have suffered 1,000 >>people dead, and I who have been attacked thrice or four or five times, that >>I would be supportive towards Taliban, towards Al Qaeda," Mr. Musharraf >>said. "These are ridiculous things that discourages and demoralizes." >> >>But some former American intelligence officials have argued that Mr. >>Musharraf and the ISI never fully jettisoned their militant protégés, and >>instead carried on a "double-game." They say Mr. Musharraf cooperated with >>American intelligence agencies to track down foreign Qaeda members while >>holding Taliban commanders and Kashmiri militants in reserve. >> >>In order to undercut major opposition parties, he wooed religious >>conservatives, according to analysts. And instead of carrying out a >>crackdown, Mr. Musharraf took half-measures. >> >>"I think he would make a decision when a situation arises," said Hasan >>Askari Rizvi, a leading Pakistani military analyst, referring to militants >>openly confronting the government. "But before that he would not alienate >>any side." >> >>There is little dispute that Pakistan's crackdown on the militants has been >>at best uneven, but key sources interviewed by The Times disagreed on why. >> >>Most Western officials in Pakistan say they believe, as Pakistani officials, >>including President Musharraf, insist, that the agency is well disciplined, >>like the army, and is in no sense a rogue or out-of-control organization >>acting contrary to the policies of the leadership. >> >>A senior Western military official in Pakistan said that if the ISI was >>covertly aiding the Taliban, the decision would come from the top of the >>government, not the agency. "That's not an ISI decision," the official said. >>"That's a government-of-Pakistan decision." >> >>But former Pakistani intelligence officials insisted that Mr. Musharraf had >>ordered a crackdown on all militants. It was never fully carried out, >>however, because of opposition within his government and within ISI, they >>said. >> >>One former senior intelligence official said that some officials in the >>government and the ISI thought the militants should be held in reserve, as >>insurance against the day when American and NATO forces abandoned the region >>and Pakistan might again need them as a lever against India. >> >>"We had a school of thought that favored retention of this capability," the >>former senior intelligence official said. >> >>Some senior ministers and officials in Mr. Musharraf's government > >sympathized with the militants and protected them, former intelligence >>officials said. Still others advised a go-slow approach, fearing a backlash >>against the government from the militants. >> >>When arrests were ordered, the police refused to carry them out in some >>cases until they received written orders, believing the militants were still >>protected by the ISI, as they had been for years. >> >>Inside the ISI, there was division as well. One part of the ISI hunted down >>militants, the officials said, while another continued to work with them. >>The result was confusion. >> >>In interviews in 2002, Kashmiri militants in Pakistan said they had been > >told by the government to maintain a low profile and wait. But as Pakistani >>military operations in the tribal areas intensified, along with airstrikes >>by >>C.I.A.<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/central_intelligence_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org>-operated >>drones, militant groups there issued highly charged and sometimes >>exaggerated accounts of women and children being killed. >> >>The first suicide bombing attack on a military target outside the tribal >>areas came days after an airstrike on a madrasa in the tribal area of Bajaur >>in October 2006 killed scores of people. >> >>Another turning point came last July when Pakistani forces stormed the Red >>Mosque in Islamabad, where militants had armed themselves in a compound less >>than a mile from ISI headquarters and demanded the imposition of Islamic >>law. Government officials said that more than 100 people died. The militants >>have insisted that thousands did. >> >>Several weeks later, militants carried out the first direct attacks on ISI >>employees. Suicide bombers twice attacked buses ferrying agency employees, >>killing 18 on Sept. 4 and 15 more on Nov. 24. According to Pakistani >>analysts, the attacks signaled that enraged militants had turned on their >>longtime patrons. >> >>The Militant >> >>One militant leader, Maulana Masood Azhar, typifies how extremists once >>trained by the ISI have broken free of the agency's control, turned against >>the government and joined with other militants to create powerful new >>networks. >> >>In 2000, Mr. Azhar received support from the ISI when he founded >>Jaish-e-Muhammad, or Army of Muhammad, a Pakistani militant group fighting >>Indian forces in Kashmir, according to Robert Grenier, who served as the >>Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Islamabad from 1999 to 2002. >>The ISI intermittently provided training and operational coordination to >>such groups, he said, but struggled to fully control them. >> >>Mr. Musharraf banned Jaish-e-Muhammad and detained Mr. Azhar after militants >>carried out an attack on the Indian Parliament building in December 2001. >>Indian officials accused Jaish-e-Muhammad and another Pakistani militant >>group of masterminding the attack. After India massed hundreds of thousands >>of troops on Pakistan's border, Mr. Musharraf vowed in a nationally >>televised speech that January to crack down on all militants in Pakistan. >> >>"We will take strict action against any Pakistani who is involved in >>terrorism inside the country or abroad," he said. Two weeks later, a >>British-born member of Mr. Azhar's group, Ahmed Omar >>Sheikh<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/ahmed_omar_sheikh/index.html?inline=nyt-per>, >>kidnapped Daniel >>Pearl<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/daniel_pearl/index.html?inline=nyt-per>, >>a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was beheaded by his captors. Mr. >>Sheikh surrendered to the ISI, the agency that had supported >>Jaish-e-Muhammad, and was sentenced to death for the kidnapping. >> >>After Mr. Pearl's killing, Pakistani officials arrested more than 2,000 >>people in a crackdown. But within a year, Mr. Azhar and most of the 2,000 >>militants who had been arrested were freed. "I never believed that >>government ties with these groups was being irrevocably cut," said Mr. >>Grenier, now a managing director at Kroll, a risk consulting firm. >> >>At the same time, Pakistan seemingly went "through the motions" when it came > >to hunting Taliban leaders who fled into Pakistan after the 2001 American >>invasion of Afghanistan, he said. >> >>Encouraged by the United States, the Pakistanis focused their resources on >>arresting senior Qaeda members, he said, which they successfully did from >>2002 to 2005. Since then, arrests have slowed as Al Qaeda and other militant >>groups have become more entrenched in the tribal areas. >> >>Asked in 2006 why the Pakistani government did not move against the leading >>Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, and his son Sirajuddin, who are based >>in the tribal areas and have long had links with Al Qaeda, one senior ISI > >official said it was because Pakistan needed to retain some assets of its >>own. >> >>That policy haunts Mr. Musharraf and the United States, according to >>American and Pakistani analysts. Today Pakistan's tribal areas are host to a >>lethal stew of foreign Qaeda members, Uzbek militants, Taliban, ISI-trained >>Pakistani extremists, disgruntled tribesmen and new recruits. >> >>The groups carried out a record number of suicide bombings in Pakistan and >>Afghanistan last year and have been tied to three major terrorist plots in >>Britain and Germany since 2005. >> >>Mr. Azhar, who once served his ISI mentors in Kashmir, is thought to be >>hiding in the tribal area of Bajaur, or nearby Dir, and fighting Pakistani >>security forces, according to one former intelligence official. Militants >>who took part in the Red Mosque siege in Islamabad in July were closely >>affiliated with Mr. Azhar's group. This fall, his group fielded fighters in >>the Swat Valley, the famous tourist spot, where the militants presented a >>challenge of new proportions to the government, seizing several districts >>and mounting battles against Pakistani forces that left scores dead. >> >>One militant from a banned sectarian group who joined Mr. Azhar's group, >>Qari Zafar, now trains insurgents in South Waziristan on how to rig roadside >>bombs and vests for suicide bombings, according to the former intelligence >>official. >> >>Cooperation against the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan has improved since >>2006, and three senior Taliban figures have been caught, according to >>Western officials and sources close to the ISI. Yet doubts remain about the >>Pakistani government's intentions. >> >>Senior provincial ISI officials continue to meet with high-level members of >>the Taliban in the border provinces, according to one Western diplomat. "It >>is not illogical to surmise that cooperation is on the agenda, and not just >>debriefing," the diplomat said. >> >>"There are groups they know they have lost control of," the Western diplomat >>added. But the government moved only against those groups that have attacked >>the Pakistani state, the diplomat said, adding, "It seems very difficult for >>them to write them off." >> >>The Agency Now >> >>Western officials say that before Mr. Musharraf resigned as army chief in >>December, he appointed a loyalist to run the ISI and appears determined to >>retain power over the agency even as a civilian president. >> >>"For as long as he can, Musharraf will keep trying to control these >>organizations," a Western diplomat said. "I don't think we should expect >>this man to become an elder statesman as we know it." >> >>That puts Mr. Musharraf's successor as army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez >>Kayani, who headed the ISI from 2004 to 2007, in a potentially pivotal >>position. General Kayani, a pro-American moderate, is loyal to Mr. Musharraf >>to a point, according to retired officers. But he will abandon him if he >>thinks Mr. Musharraf's actions are significantly undermining the standing of >>the Pakistani army. >> >>Mr. Musharraf will maintain control over the agency as long as his interests >>coincide with General Kayani's, they said, while the new civilian prime >>minister who emerges from February's elections is likely to have far less >>authority over the agency. Opposition political parties already accuse the >>agency of meddling in next month's election. The Western diplomat called the >>ISI "the army's dirty bag of tricks." >> >>Since Ms. Bhutto's assassination, members of her party have accused > >government officials, including former ISI agents, of having a hidden hand >>in the attack or of knowing about a plot and failing to inform Ms. Bhutto. >> >>American experts played down the chances of a government conspiracy against >>Ms. Bhutto. They also said it was unlikely that low-level or retired >>officers working alone or with militants carried out the attack. >> >>But nearly half of Pakistanis said in a recent poll that they suspected that >>government agencies or pro-government politicians had assassinated Ms. >>Bhutto. Such suspicion stems from decades of interference in elections and > >politics by the ISI, according to analysts, as well as a high level of >>domestic surveillance, intimidation and threats to journalists, academics >>and human rights activists, which former intelligence officials also >>acknowledged. >> >>Pakistani and American experts say that distrust speaks to the urgent need >>to reform a hugely powerful intelligence agency that Pakistan's military >>rulers have used for decades to suppress political opponents, manipulate >>elections and support militant groups. >> >>"Pakistan would certainly be better off if the ISI were never used for >>domestic political purposes," said Mr. Grenier, the former C.I.A. Islamabad >>station chief. "That goes without saying." >> >>Pakistani analysts and Western diplomats argue that the country will remain >>unstable as long as the ISI remains so powerful and so unaccountable. The >>ISI has grown more powerful in each period of military rule, they said. >> >>Civilian leaders, including Mrs. Bhutto, could not resist using it to secure >>their political aims, but neither could they control it. And the army >>continues to rely on the ISI for its own foreign policy aims, particularly >>battling India in Kashmir and seeking influence in Afghanistan. >> >>"The question is, how do you change that?" asked one Western diplomat. >>"Their tentacles are everywhere." >> >> >> Copyright >>2008<http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html> >>The >> New York Times Company <http://www.nytco.com/> >>_______________________________________________ >>assam mailing list >>[email protected] >>http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org > > >_______________________________________________ >assam mailing list >[email protected] >http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org _______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
