Pakistani Intelligence Terrorism Exposed in Mainstream Media

[NOTE: In a criminal lapse of journalistic memory, these revelations are presented as something new. No history of Pakistani ISI sponsorship of terrorist attacks is given to the readers. No ties to 9/11, to Pakistani ISI chief Mahmoud Ahmad, or other relevant information is provided.

Need I remind readers (as NY Times does not) that we've been shovelling several BILLION dollars per year over to the Pakistan regime since 9/11/01, basically to maintain this status quo situation (protecting terrorists so as to provide an endless, open-ended "war on terror" myth).

Too many low level US operatives found out about this blatant Pakistani terror attack, and monumentally stupid act of war against India, in order to keep it quiet and under wraps.]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20399.htm

Pakistanis Aided Kabul Attack, U.S. Officials Say

By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT

01/08/08 "New York Times" -- WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies have concluded that members of Pakistan’s powerful spy service helped plan the deadly July 7 bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to United States government officials.

The conclusion was based on intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack, the officials said, providing the clearest evidence to date that Pakistani intelligence officers are actively undermining American efforts to combat militants in the region.

The American officials also said there was new information showing that members of the Pakistani intelligence service were increasingly providing militants with details about the American campaign against them, in some cases allowing militants to avoid American missile strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Concerns about the role played by Pakistani intelligence not only has strained relations between the United States and Pakistan, a longtime ally, but also has fanned tensions between Pakistan and its archrival, India. Within days of the bombings, Indian officials accused the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, of helping to orchestrate the attack in Kabul, which killed 54, including an Indian defense attaché.

This week, Pakistani troops clashed with Indian forces in the contested region of Kashmir, threatening to fray an uneasy cease-fire that has held since November 2003.

The New York Times reported this week that a top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled to Pakistan this month to confront senior Pakistani officials with information about support provided by members of the ISI to militant groups. It had not been known that American intelligence agencies concluded that elements of Pakistani intelligence provided direct support for the attack in Kabul.

American officials said that the communications were intercepted before the July 7 bombing, and that the C.I.A. emissary, Stephen R. Kappes, the agency’s deputy director, had been ordered to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, even before the attack. The intercepts were not detailed enough to warn of any specific attack.

The government officials were guarded in describing the new evidence and would not say specifically what kind of assistance the ISI officers provided to the militants. They said that the ISI officers had not been renegades, indicating that their actions might have been authorized by superiors.

“It confirmed some suspicions that I think were widely held,” one State Department official with knowledge of Afghanistan issues said of the intercepted communications. “It was sort of this ‘aha’ moment. There was a sense that there was finally direct proof.”

The information linking the ISI to the bombing of the Indian Embassy was described in interviews by several American officials with knowledge of the intelligence. Some of the officials expressed anger that elements of Pakistan’s government seemed to be directly aiding violence in Afghanistan that had included attacks on American troops.

Some American officials have begun to suggest that Pakistan is no longer a fully reliable American partner and to advocate some unilateral American action against militants based in the tribal areas.

The ISI has long maintained ties to militant groups in the tribal areas, in part to court allies it can use to contain Afghanistan’s power. In recent years, Pakistan’s government has also been concerned about India’s growing influence inside Afghanistan, including New Delhi’s close ties to the government of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president.

American officials say they believe that the embassy attack was probably carried out by members of a network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, whose alliance with Al Qaeda and its affiliates has allowed the terrorist network to rebuild in the tribal areas.

American and Pakistani officials have now acknowledged that President Bush on Monday confronted Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, about the divided loyalties of the ISI.

Pakistan’s defense minister, Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, told a Pakistani television network on Wednesday that Mr. Bush asked senior Pakistani officials this week, “ ‘Who is in control of ISI?’ ” and asked about leaked information that tipped militants to surveillance efforts by Western intelligence services.

Pakistan’s new civilian government is wrestling with these very issues, and there is concern in Washington that the civilian leaders will be unable to end a longstanding relationship between members of the ISI and militants associated with Al Qaeda.

Spokesmen for the White House and the C.I.A. declined to comment for this article. Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, did not return a call seeking comment.

Further underscoring the tension between Pakistan and its Western allies, Britain’s senior military officer said in Washington on Thursday that an American and British program to help train Pakistan’s Frontier Corps in the tribal areas had been delayed while Pakistan’s military and civilian officials sorted out details about the program’s goals.

Britain and the United States had each offered to send about two dozen military trainers to Pakistan later this summer to train Pakistani Army officers who in turn would instruct the Frontier Corps paramilitary forces.

But the British officer, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, said the program had been temporarily delayed. “We don’t yet have a firm start date,” he told a small group of reporters. “We’re ready to go.”

The bombing of the Indian Embassy helped to set off a new deterioration in relations between India and Pakistan.

This week, Indian and Pakistani soldiers fired at each other across the Kashmir frontier for more than 12 hours overnight Monday, in what the Indian Army called the most serious violation of a five-year-old cease-fire agreement. The nightlong battle came after one Indian soldier and four Pakistanis were killed along the border between sections of Kashmir that are controlled by India and by Pakistan.

Indian officials say they are equally worried about what is happening on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border because they say the insurgents who are facing off with India in Kashmir and those who target Afghanistan are related and can keep both borders burning at the same time.

India and Afghanistan share close political, cultural and economic ties, and India maintains an active intelligence network in Afghanistan, all of which has drawn suspicion from Pakistani officials.

When asked Thursday about whether the ISI and Pakistani military remained loyal to the country’s civilian government, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sidestepped the question. “That’s probably something the government of Pakistan ought to speak to,” Admiral Mullen told reporters at the Pentagon.

Jalaluddin Haqqani, the militia commander, battled Soviet troops during the 1980s and has had a long and complicated relationship with the C.I.A. He was among a group of fighters who received arms and millions of dollars from the C.I.A. during that period, but his allegiance with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda during the following decade led the United States to sever the relationship.

Mr. Haqqani and his sons now run a network that Western intelligence services say they believe is responsible for a campaign of violence throughout Afghanistan, including the Indian Embassy bombing and an attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul earlier this year.

David Rohde contributed reporting from New York, and Somini Sengupta from New Delhi.

Note the Clearinghouse disclaimer

"Presstitute and war pimp alert: Demonizing Pakistan"

The NYTimes is just doing its regular, poor job.

These 'journalists'

obviously graduated from the Judith Miller School of Journalism.

All of a sudden ISI is a problem? Why wasn't this a problem 7 years ago, when they supposedly helped finance 9/11? Instead we gave them billions of dollars to maintain the bogus war on the rest of us.

...

The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Agency News Bias

By the way, I've tried corresponding with Dennis Lormel. If you don't know who he is, you'll learn by reading the following emails I sent to him. As the story goes, I found out where he works now. I called his offices to speak with him, and did so. He told me that a quote of his was taken out of context, and based on the available information, it appears that it was. However, he didn't elaborate any further. He asked me to send him information in an email. I did send him information to his work email, and he asked me to send it to his private email. I did so, and it got bounced back to me as a bad email address. I sent him another email to his work address telling him that the email address he gave me was bad. I never heard back from him. He is definitely someone that should be brought forward in a real investigation to testify publicly, and under oath. The following is the first informative email I sent to his work address, and to the "private" email address he gave me:

Hi Dennis,

Per our conversation, here is the information I have pertaining to the allegation that Lt. General Mahmood Ahmed ordered Omar Sheikh to wire transfer $100,000 to Mohammad Atta, as well as the information attributing a confirmation from you. Any help you can give me on this would be greatly appreciated.

Here is an article written by them member of Parliament Michael Meacher.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/sep/10/terrorism.politics

"This is all the more remarkable when this is the same Omar Sheikh who, at the behest of General Mahmood Ahmed, head of the ISI, wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leading 9/11 hijacker, before the New York attacks, as confirmed by Dennis Lormel, director of FBI's financial crimes unit."

Here is an article by World Net Daily insinuating that you all but confirmed the allegation.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26249

"J-e-M's accounts were frozen not long after Dennis M. Lormel, director of FBI's financial crimes unit, confirmed the $100,000 transaction, if not the source.

"They wired over $100,000 into Mr. [Mohamed] Atta a year ago," he testified in October, not identifying who "they" were."

Here is the actual testimony given by you regarding the $100,000 wire transfer. Keep in mind, I realize that you did not verify that Ahmed ordered Sheikh to wire transfer the money.

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/bank/hba75656.000/hba75656_0.HTM

"Mr. LAFALCE. OK. Well, with respect to countries that are not on that list, but whose standards might not be what we think they should be, do we have a different list, and are we trying to get them to improve both their laws and their practices? I mean, I have heard and read that much of al Qaeda's funding has come from accounts belonging to charities and others and banks in the United Arab Emirates. And apparently Mohamed Atta received a wire transfer of $100,000 from a bank account in Pakistan under the control of one of bin Laden's lieutenants. And so I am just curious about that.

[...]

Mr. LORMEL. Yes. Right on the front end, ma'am, they wired over $100,000 in to Mr. Atta a year ago, and we are aware of that. And we tracked that back to accounts in the UAE."

As the story goes, Omar Sheikh wire transfered $100,000 to Mohammad Atta under the direction of then head of the ISI Lt. General Mahmood Ahmed. The Times Of India originally reported on this, and it was confirmed by Agence France Press, and the story was picked up by the online version of the Wall Street Journal. Not long after it was reported, Lt. General Mahmood Ahmed was asked to step down from his position within the ISI. There is A LOT of evidence to support the claim that Omar Sheikh wire transferred $100,000 to Mohammad Atta. There is less evidence to support the claim that Lt. General Mahmood Ahmed ordered him to do it.

Again, any help would be greatly appreciated. Either regarding Lt. General Ahmed, or Omar Sheikh's involvement.

Thank you for your time.

Jon Gold

After that email got bounced back to me, I sent him an email to his work address to let him know, and never heard from him. I then sent the following email to his work address:

Hi Dennis,

Would it be possible for you to write a statement that can be posted with regards to Lt. General Mahmood Ahmed and Omar Sheikh?

Again, any help or information you can provide with regards to the $100,000 wire transfer would be greatly appreciated considering the 9/11 Commission never addressed this issue even though it was submitted to them in the form of a question by the families.

Sincerely,

Jon Gold

From the 9/11 Family Steering Committee website.

http://www.911independentcommission.org/questions.html

22) On the issue of state sponsored terrorism:

� Why did Mahmood Ahmed, Director of Pakistan's secret service, the (ISI) order Saeed Sheikh to wire $100,000 to hijacker Mohamed Atta?

� What was Mahmood Ahmed's relationship with Al Qaeda?

� Where did the money come from?

� Did officials in Pakistan know in advance about the terrorist attack?

� On September 11 th , Mahmood Ahmed had a breakfast meeting in Washington, D.C., with House and Senate Intelligence Committee chairmen, Rep. Porter Goss and Senator Bob Graham. What were they discussing?

I guess this effort can be perceived as "no comment."


Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

Clearly...

Someone doesn't want to talk about it.

To understand US interest in Pakistan

just look at a map.

http://www.welt-atlas.de/datenbank/karten/karte-0-9014.gif

Afghanistan is a buffer between US oil interests in the Middle East and Russia and China. Pakistan is the corridor to the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. Pakistan is also the way the drugs get out of Afghanistan, and the weapons get into Afghanistan.

Also notice how US occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and alliance with Pakistan, brackets Iran.

Location, location, location.