Osama Bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan

[LETHALFORCE]

Who sheltered Osama bin Laden? Kayani among suspects - The Times of India


Who sheltered Osama bin Laden? Kayani among suspects

NEW DELHI: The US is turning the heat on Pakistan's ISI as it tries to establish the identity of those who sheltered Osama bin Laden in the garrison town of Abbottabad. And, going by reports in the US media and assessments made by Indian experts, the needle of suspicion is pointing at not just ISI boss Shuja Pasha but also two of his predecessors, one of whom is none other than Pakistan army chief Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.

Kayani was the ISI chief when Osama is said to have shifted to the Abbottabad mansion in 2005. Pasha is now said to be under pressure to quit as the ISI failed to detect Osama's presence for almost three years under him. Kayani's successor in the ISI, Nadeem Taj who took over in October 2007, is the third and an equally strong suspect. Known as the most rabid anti-US and anti-India boss the agency has had in the recent past, Taj was eased out of ISI after a 10-month tenure in 2008 allegedly under pressure from the US.

"In any enquiry regarding collusion between the ISI and Osama bin Laden since 2005, which enabled OBL to live in Abbottabad, the main suspicion has to be on Nadeem Taj followed by Pasha and Kayani," security expert B Raman said. It was during Taj's tenure as ISI chief that the agency used David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana for reconnaissance missions in India and during which the July 2008 bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul took place. It is significant that Taj was heading the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad before taking over as ISI chief.

The US has sought information about those senior officials who worked closely with militants in the past and Taj's name is likely to figure right at the top. As former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal put it, though, it is inconceivable that Osama continued to live right under the nose of the military establishment without the knowledge of Kayani who headed ISI in 2005.

"Kayani would have known and so would have Pasha. One can't dispense with reason and logic simply because there is no documentary evidence to prove it," Sibal told TOI. He added that he did not see anything relevant coming out of the US exercise to identify those who helped Osama hide in Abbottabad because the Pakistanis were not going to give any "self-incriminating" information to the US.

The New York Times earlier reported about the growing suspicion in the US security establishment that at least somebody in ISI was aware of Osama's whereabouts. It said the US was frustrated as even in the past, Pakistani military and intelligence had failed to identify those ISI officials who had worked closely with Osama since the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. "There are degrees of knowing, and it wouldn't surprise me if we find out that someone close to Pasha knew," it quoted a US official as saying.

Former CIA officer Art Keller was also quoted as saying that, at best, it was a case of willful blindness on the part of the ISI. "Willful blindness is a survival mechanism in Pakistan," Keller said, adding that Osama wouldn't have ventured into Abbottabad if he did not have any assurance of protection.

 

[pmaitra]

Musharraf says ISI did not hide Osama - (Parts 1,2/2)

Musharraf says ISI did not hide Osama - (Parts 1,2/2)

 

[SHASH2K2]

U.S. Raises Pressure on Pakistan in Raid's Wake


WASHINGTON — President Obama's national security adviser demanded Sunday that Pakistan let American investigators interview Osama bin Laden's three widows, adding new pressure in a relationship now fraught over how Bin Laden could have been hiding near Islamabad for years before he was killed by commandos last week.
Both the adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, and Mr. Obama, in separate taped interviews, were careful not to accuse the top leadership of Pakistan of knowledge of Bin Laden's whereabouts in Abbottabad, a military town 35 miles from the country's capital. They argued that the United States still regards Pakistan, a fragile nuclear-weapons state, as an essential partner in the American-led war on Islamic terrorism.
But in repeatedly describing the trove of data that a Navy Seal team seized after killing Bin Laden as large enough to fill a small college library, Mr. Donilon seemed to be warning the Pakistanis that the United States might soon have documentary evidence that could illuminate who, inside or outside their government, might have helped harbor Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, who had been the world's most wanted terrorist.
The United States government is demanding to know whether, and to what extent, Pakistani government, intelligence or military officials were complicit in hiding Bin Laden. His widows could be critical to that line of inquiry because they might have information about the comings and goings of people who were aiding him.
"We have asked for access," Mr. Donilon said on the CNN program "State of the Union," "including three wives who they now have in custody from the compound, as well as additional materials that they took from the compound."
The request had echoes of previous struggles with Islamabad, starting with the days right after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Then, the United States insisted that Pakistan clearly choose sides and join the United States in fighting Al Qaeda, and Pakistan formally broke ties with the Taliban government, which was still in power in Afghanistan. But ever since, Washington has frequently lost out in its efforts to seek information about the loyalties and actions of top Pakistani officials.
Eight years ago, for example, the Bush administration demanded interviews with Abdul Qadeer Khan, the chief of Pakistan's main nuclear weapons laboratory, as the United States sought to understand who in the Pakistani military or intelligence apparatus had helped sell nuclear weapons technology and designs to Libya, North Korea and Iran. Pakistan has refused, perhaps because Mr. Khan, while seeking freedom from house arrest, briefly threatened to tell all.
As one American official said after Mr. Donilon spoke Sunday: "Our guess is that the wives knew just who was keeping Bin Laden alive for all these years." He added later, "It's the Khan case all over again." He insisted on anonymity as the United States tries to ease Pakistan's anger over Mr. Obama's decision to conduct the raid without telling Pakistani officials in advance, or seeking their involvement.
The Pakistani government has said nothing about allowing interviews of the wives, who were among the handful of survivors of the raid. One wife was shot in the leg by commandos as she tried to protect Bin Laden moments before he was killed.
Pakistan has said it will conduct its own investigation, but American officials doubt it will be credible. For more than two years Pakistan has slow-walked investigations into the 2008 siege in Mumbai, India, by a terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, that is believed to have strong links to portions of the Pakistani intelligence apparatus. To the distress of Pakistani officials, a trial scheduled to start soon in Chicago is expected to reveal evidence about the role in that attack of an officer of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's main military intelligence agency.
The sparring over the investigation about Bin Laden's support structure threatens to go to the heart of what top American intelligence officials now routinely call the "double game" played by Pakistan. Mr. Obama alluded to that on "60 Minutes" on Sunday evening, saying, "We think that there had to be some sort of support network for Bin Laden inside of Pakistan."
Mr. Obama added: "But we don't know who or what that support network was. We don't know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that's something that we have to investigate, and more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate."
The debate inside the administration over how hard to press Pakistan for answers — and whether to make public any evidence the United States possesses — has revived the question of whether it is time to dispense with, or radically amend, the unspoken bargain between Islamabad and Washington.
For years, the terms of that deal were simple: for the sake of getting Pakistani assistance in hunting down Qaeda leaders, Washington funneled billions of dollars to the Pakistani military. And it said next to nothing about its fears that fundamentalists were burrowed in Pakistan's huge nuclear complex, or about the country's race to expand its arsenal, one of the fastest-growing in the world, a buildup that American officials fear could put more nuclear material at risk of falling into the hands of terrorists.
But as Mr. Donilon argued implicitly on Sunday, an alternative to that bargain could be even worse. Severing Pakistan's funds could end the cooperation on counterterrorism — which still works fairly well in some of the tribal areas — and it would mean losing virtually all visibility into the worrisome nuclear arsenal.
"We have had difficulty with Pakistan, as I said, but we've also had to work very closely with Pakistan in our counterterror efforts," Mr. Donilon said. "More terrorists and extremists have been captured or killed in Pakistan than in any place in the world."
As Leonard S. Spector, the director of the Washington office of the Monterey Institute's nonproliferation center, said, "It is hard to abandon Pakistan because of the danger of the nuclear program and the need for help in counterterrorism."
On Thursday, the Pakistani chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, threatened a rethinking of all intelligence and military cooperation with the United States if it ever again mounted an operation similar to the Bin Laden raid. (Mr. Donilon refused Sunday to rule out a repeat.)
But the military council, reacting to widespread fears in Pakistan that a similar American commando operation could seize Pakistan's arsenal of roughly 100 nuclear weapons, told Pakistani reporters that the country's weapons and materials were "well protected" and that "an elaborate defensive mechanism is in place," according to The Frontier Post, a Pakistani newspaper.

 

[nitesh]

good read, but with this part, i am unable to understand, in which world US people live? Why it is India's problem that pakistanis are lunatic

U.S. Support for Pakistan: A Long Messy History : The New Yorker

India would no doubt welcome a reduction in military aid to Pakistan, and the U.S. could use this as leverage to pressure India to allow the Kashmiris to vote on their future, which would very likely be a vote for independence. These two actions might do far more to enhance Pakistan's stability, and to insure its friendship, than the billions of dollars that America now pays like a ransom

 

[nitesh]

must read, an excellent article

High Noon in Pakistan | Via Meadia
May 8, 2011
High Noon in Pakistan
Walter Russell Mead

 

[A chauhan]

Plan to use Indians for terror attacks on West

In another such assessment report, a senior Al Qaeda operative was said to be planning to use Indians for terror attacks because of the low-level of scrutiny Indians are subjected to in the western nations.

"The detainee admitted that he had considered using India as a platform to send operatives to the US or UK because of the large Muslim population there and the low level of scrutiny given to travellers of Indian nationality," the document on Abu al-Libi says.

Pak Army selected Indian targets, ISI did the rest - Rediff.com News
(click Next 4 times to read it)

Now Indian Muslim extremists can be a danger for India and the world, so we need to identify, watch and control them if needed.

 

[Virendra]

GOI ........... wake up !!!

 

[SHASH2K2]

Pak must give access to Osama's wives, says US

WASHINGTON: The US on Sunday demanded access from Pakistan to all non combatants, including Osama bin Laden's three wives, detained by the Pakistani authorities and additional materials recovered from Abbottabad compound.

"We need to work with them (Pakistan) on assessing all the evidence out of that compound and all of the evidence associated with Osama bin Laden's presence there for six years. They have in their custody all the noncombatants from the compound, including three wives of Osama. We've asked for access to those folks," the NSA, Tom Donilon said.

Pakistan says it is still holding the wives and children of bin Laden for interrogation and that so far, no country has sought their extradition.

 

[SHASH2K2]

U.S. Raises Pressure on Pakistan in Raid's Wake

WASHINGTON — President Obama's national security adviser demanded Sunday that Pakistan let American investigators interview Osama bin Laden's three widows, adding new pressure in a relationship now fraught over how Bin Laden could have been hiding near Islamabad for years before he was killed by commandos last week.
Both the adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, and Mr. Obama, in separate taped interviews, were careful not to accuse the top leadership of Pakistan of knowledge of Bin Laden's whereabouts in Abbottabad, a military town 35 miles from the country's capital. They argued that the United States still regards Pakistan, a fragile nuclear-weapons state, as an essential partner in the American-led war on Islamic terrorism.
But in repeatedly describing the trove of data that a Navy Seal team seized after killing Bin Laden as large enough to fill a small college library, Mr. Donilon seemed to be warning the Pakistanis that the United States might soon have documentary evidence that could illuminate who, inside or outside their government, might have helped harbor Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, who had been the world's most wanted terrorist.
The United States government is demanding to know whether, and to what extent, Pakistani government, intelligence or military officials were complicit in hiding Bin Laden. His widows could be critical to that line of inquiry because they might have information about the comings and goings of people who were aiding him.
"We have asked for access," Mr. Donilon said on the CNN program "State of the Union," "including three wives who they now have in custody from the compound, as well as additional materials that they took from the compound."
The request had echoes of previous struggles with Islamabad, starting with the days right after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Then, the United States insisted that Pakistan clearly choose sides and join the United States in fighting Al Qaeda, and Pakistan formally broke ties with the Taliban government, which was still in power in Afghanistan. But ever since, Washington has frequently lost out in its efforts to seek information about the loyalties and actions of top Pakistani officials.
Eight years ago, for example, the Bush administration demanded interviews with Abdul Qadeer Khan, the chief of Pakistan's main nuclear weapons laboratory, as the United States sought to understand who in the Pakistani military or intelligence apparatus had helped sell nuclear weapons technology and designs to Libya, North Korea and Iran. Pakistan has refused, perhaps because Mr. Khan, while seeking freedom from house arrest, briefly threatened to tell all.
As one American official said after Mr. Donilon spoke Sunday: "Our guess is that the wives knew just who was keeping Bin Laden alive for all these years." He added later, "It's the Khan case all over again." He insisted on anonymity as the United States tries to ease Pakistan's anger over Mr. Obama's decision to conduct the raid without telling Pakistani officials in advance, or seeking their involvement.
The Pakistani government has said nothing about allowing interviews of the wives, who were among the handful of survivors of the raid. One wife was shot in the leg by commandos as she tried to protect Bin Laden moments before he was killed.
Pakistan has said it will conduct its own investigation, but American officials doubt it will be credible. For more than two years Pakistan has slow-walked investigations into the 2008 siege in Mumbai, India, by a terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, that is believed to have strong links to portions of the Pakistani intelligence apparatus. To the distress of Pakistani officials, a trial scheduled to start soon in Chicago is expected to reveal evidence about the role in that attack of an officer of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's main military intelligence agency.
The sparring over the investigation about Bin Laden's support structure threatens to go to the heart of what top American intelligence officials now routinely call the "double game" played by Pakistan. Mr. Obama alluded to that on "60 Minutes" on Sunday evening, saying, "We think that there had to be some sort of support network for Bin Laden inside of Pakistan."
Mr. Obama added: "But we don't know who or what that support network was. We don't know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that's something that we have to investigate, and more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate."
The debate inside the administration over how hard to press Pakistan for answers — and whether to make public any evidence the United States possesses — has revived the question of whether it is time to dispense with, or radically amend, the unspoken bargain between Islamabad and Washington.
For years, the terms of that deal were simple: for the sake of getting Pakistani assistance in hunting down Qaeda leaders, Washington funneled billions of dollars to the Pakistani military. And it said next to nothing about its fears that fundamentalists were burrowed in Pakistan's huge nuclear complex, or about the country's race to expand its arsenal, one of the fastest-growing in the world, a buildup that American officials fear could put more nuclear material at risk of falling into the hands of terrorists.
But as Mr. Donilon argued implicitly on Sunday, an alternative to that bargain could be even worse. Severing Pakistan's funds could end the cooperation on counterterrorism — which still works fairly well in some of the tribal areas — and it would mean losing virtually all visibility into the worrisome nuclear arsenal.
"We have had difficulty with Pakistan, as I said, but we've also had to work very closely with Pakistan in our counterterror efforts," Mr. Donilon said. "More terrorists and extremists have been captured or killed in Pakistan than in any place in the world."
As Leonard S. Spector, the director of the Washington office of the Monterey Institute's nonproliferation center, said, "It is hard to abandon Pakistan because of the danger of the nuclear program and the need for help in counterterrorism."
On Thursday, the Pakistani chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, threatened a rethinking of all intelligence and military cooperation with the United States if it ever again mounted an operation similar to the Bin Laden raid. (Mr. Donilon refused Sunday to rule out a repeat.)
But the military council, reacting to widespread fears in Pakistan that a similar American commando operation could seize Pakistan's arsenal of roughly 100 nuclear weapons, told Pakistani reporters that the country's weapons and materials were "well protected" and that "an elaborate defensive mechanism is in place," according to The Frontier Post, a Pakistani newspaper.

 

[SHASH2K2]

U.S. Braced for Fights With Pakistanis in Bin Laden Raid

WASHINGTON — President Obama insisted that the assault force hunting down Osama bin Laden last week be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if confronted by hostile local police officers and troops, senior administration and military officials said Monday.
In revealing additional details about planning for the mission, senior officials also said that two teams of specialists were on standby: One to bury Bin Laden if he was killed, and a second composed of lawyers, interrogators and translators in case he was captured alive. That team was set to meet aboard a Navy ship, mostly likely the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea.
Mr. Obama's decision to increase the size of the force sent into Pakistan shows that he was willing to risk a military confrontation with a close ally in order to capture or kill the leader of Al Qaeda.
Such a fight would have set off an even larger breach with the Pakistanis than has taken place since officials in Islamabad learned that helicopters filled with members of a Navy Seals team had flown undetected into one of their cities, and burst into a compound where Bin Laden was hiding.
One senior Obama administration official, pressed on the rules of engagement for one of the riskiest clandestine operations attempted by the C.I.A. and the military's Joint Special Operations Command in many years, said: "Their instructions were to avoid any confrontation if at all possible. But if they had to return fire to get out, they were authorized to do it."
The planning also illustrates how little the administration trusted the Pakistanis as they set up their operation. They also rejected a proposal to bring the Pakistanis in on the mission.
Under the original plan, two assault helicopters were going to stay on the Afghanistan side of the border waiting for a call if they were needed. But the aircraft would have been about 90 minutes away from the Bin Laden compound.
About 10 days before the raid, Mr. Obama reviewed the plans and pressed his commanders as to whether they were taking along enough forces to fight their way out if the Pakistanis arrived on the scene and tried to interfere with the operation.
That resulted in the decision to send two more helicopters carrying additional troops. These followed the two lead Black Hawk helicopters that carried the actual assault team. While there was no confrontation with the Pakistanis, one of those backup helicopters was ultimately brought in to the scene of the raid when a Black Hawk was damaged while making a hard landing.
"Some people may have assumed we could talk our way out of a jam, but given our difficult relationship with Pakistan right now, the president did not want to leave anything to chance," said one senior administration official, who like others would not be quoted by name describing details of the secret mission. "He wanted extra forces if they were necessary."
With tensions between the United States and Pakistan escalating since the raid, American officials on Monday sought to tamp down the divisions and pointed to some encouraging developments.
A United States official said that American investigators would soon be allowed to interview Bin Laden's three widows, now being held by Pakistani authorities, a demand that Mr. Obama's national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, made on television talk shows on Sunday.
American officials say the widows, as well as a review of the trove of documents and other data the Seals team collected from the raid, could reveal important details, not only about Bin Laden's life and activities since he fled into Pakistan from Afghanistan in 2001, but also information about Qaeda plots, personnel and planning.
"We believe that it is very important to maintain the cooperative relationship with Pakistan precisely because it's in our national security interest to do so," said the White House spokesman, Jay Carney.
In an effort to help mend the latest rupture in relations, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, will meet soon with his counterpart, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, head of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI, "to discuss the way forward in the common fight against Al Qaeda," an American official said.
On Sunday, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. "Mullen just wanted to check in with him," said an American military official. "The conversation was civil, but sober, given the pressure that the general is under right now."
In describing the mission, the officials said that American surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft were watching and listening to how Pakistan's police forces and military responded to the raid. That determined how long the commandos could safely remain on the ground going through the compound collecting computer hard drives, thumb drives and documents.
American forces were under strict orders to avoid engaging with any Pakistani forces that responded to the commotion at the Bin Laden compound, senior administration officials said.
If a confrontation appeared imminent, there were contingency plans for senior American officials, including Admiral Mullen, to call their Pakistani counterparts to avert an armed clash.
But when he reviewed the plans, Mr. Obama voiced concern that this was not enough to protect the troops on the mission, administration officials said.
In planning for the possible capture of Bin Laden, officials decided they would take him aboard a Navy ship to preclude battles over jurisdiction.
The plan, officials said, was to do an initial interrogation for any information that might prevent a pending attack or identify the location of other Qaeda leaders.
"There was a heck of a lot of planning that went into this for almost any and all contingencies, including capture," one senior administration official said.
In the end, the team organized to handle his death was called into duty. They did a quick forensics study of the body, washed it, and buried it at sea.
But the officials acknowledged that the mission always was weighted toward killing, given the possibility that Bin Laden would be armed or wearing an explosive vest.​

​

 

[johnee]

Chinese media has claimed that Pakistan was part of the operation against Bin Laden. Power supply was cut off in the whole area before the operation. I was always wondering how Pakistan managed to get Bin Laden's family, if it was a US operation. All the statements in media are nothing but hogwash, they are fooling people.

Pakistan collected the crumbs left by US(Bin Laden's family) because the US was in a special OP for Osama. Whats there to wonder?

If Pakistan was part of the OP, then would they allow Osama to be targetted near their military contontment area? They would have killed him and then handed over just the body instead of allowing the americans to swoop right into the middle of Pakistan, thereby 'violating the sovereignity' of Pakistan and branding Pakistan as a terror supporter/sympathiser/funder.

Why do Indians want to do a favour to Pakistan by trying to prove that Pakistan was involved in the OP when it has been clearly declared by US and Pakistan that it was all US OP...?

 

[bhramos]

Radars were inactive, not jammed: air chief

The News International
Pakistan Air Force has assured the government that no foreign helicopters or fighter planes will be allowed to violate the Pakistani air space in future and if ordered, the PAF can shoot down the US drones.
Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman has accepted the responsibility of air surveillance failure but informed the government that the entry of American helicopters into the Pakistani air space was not detected because the radars deployed on the western borders were not active on May 2. He dispelled the impression that the Pakistani radars were jammed.
The success of American operation against Osama bin Laden has raised many questions about the capability of Pakistan Army and Air Force. Tension between Pakistan and the US further increased on Friday after another drone attack in the tribal area. The PAF clearly told the government that they never perceived any threat for urban areas of Pakistan from Afghanistan and that was why the radars deployed close to the western borders were "on rest". It was learnt that radars deployed on the borders with India and the LoC with the Indian occupied Kashmir are active 24 hours and that was why Pakistan came to know about a possible Indian attack in December 2008 immediately after the Mumbai attacks. It was the evening of December 21, 2008 when Pakistan came to know about the unusual movement of Indian Army and Air Force. When the threat was confirmed, then within minutes Pakistan Air Force night fighters were ordered to fly.
Pakistan has two kinds of radars, high-level radars and low-level radars. High-level radars are meant to protect the air space. Low-level radars are used for training flights. The maximum life of high-level radars is 25,000 hours. These radars need overhauling after three years and they cannot work after nine years. Due to the expensive nature of high-level radars, Pakistan Air Force does not use these machines 24 hours on western borders and that was the reason the American helicopters entered Pakistan without challenge.
It was also learnt that Pakistan Air Force informed the government long ago for the need of a modern surveillance system, which could cover all the areas of Pakistan. On the request of the PAF, the former government made a deal with Sweden and China for the purchase of modern aircraft with radar systems.
The PAF has received three Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) planes from Sweden and one more will come in June 2011. China has provided one ZDK-03 Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEWC) plane and three more will come at the end of this year. These modern machines will be activated soon and it will cover the whole of Pakistan. In the meanwhile, PAF activated all radars deployed on the western borders after the May 2 incident, which means that foreign forces present in Afghanistan will now be considered as a threat to the security of Pakistan.
Defence sources are of the view that the CIA chief's statement about Pakistan had forced them to think objectively and honestly about our real friends and real enemies. These sources clearly said: "Osama bin Laden declared war not only against America but also against Pakistan Army, we lost 3,500 soldiers, we arrested most of his close comrades but Americans never took us into confidence about the May 2 operation and even after the success of their unilateral operation, they tried to humiliate us in their traditional arrogant style but we will not tolerate their arrogance in future."
When asked why there was another drone attack in North Waziristan on Friday, the defence sources said, "We can stop the drones like we destroyed one Indian drone a few years back at the night time, let the political government allow us and we will not disappoint our countrymen." They insist: "We were not sure about the identity of intruders on May 2 but when the PAF chief came to know about the presence of some helicopters in Abbottabad through the Army, he immediately ordered his night fighters to shoot down the unknown helicopters. Night fighters were in the air within 15 minutes but when they reached Abbottabad, by that time the unknown helicopters had disappeared".
These sources say: "Let them come again from the west or even from the east and the world will see our real action."
Short URL: Radars were inactive, not jammed: air chief | IAF News: Airforce, Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Space, Missile

JF-17 blunders got scrambled but could not catch the American helicopters at Abbottabad. It should not be surprising that the helicopters ran away faster than the blunders. Lol...

 

[SHASH2K2]

US, Pak agreed on Osama op in secret deal 10 yrs ago


In a secret deal struck a decade ago, the US and Pakistan agreed that Washington will carry out a unilateral operation against Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil if he was found there following which Islamabad would vociferously protest the incursion, a media report said on Tuesday. The then military
leader Gen Pervez Musharraf and then US president George Bush struck the deal after bin Laden escaped US forces in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains in late 2001, The Guardian newspaper reported. Under the deal, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid on its soil in search of bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. Afterwards, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion, the paper quoted serving and retired Pakistani and US officials as saying.
"There was an agreement between Bush and Musharraf that if we knew where Osama was, we were going to come and get him," said a former senior US official familiar with the counter-terrorism operations.
"The Pakistanis would put up a hue and cry, but they wouldn't stop us."
A senior Pakistani official said it had been struck under Musharraf and renewed by the army during the "transition to democracy" – a six-month period from February 2008 when Musharraf was still president but a civilian government had been elected.
Referring to the killing of bin Laden in Abbottabad compound near Islamabad, the Pakistani official said, "As far as our American friends are concerned, they have just implemented the agreement."
The former US official said that the Pakistani protests of the past week were the "public face" of the deal.
"We knew they would deny this stuff."
The deal puts a new complexion on the political storm triggered by bin Laden's death, with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani strongly protesting the raid and warning that "Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force."
54-year-old bin Laden was killed by the US special forces in a secret operation in the garrison town of Abbottabad, 80 kms from Pakistani capital Islamabad.
Pakistan has said that it was "intelligence-driven operation by the US" and it was not informed prior to the raid.

​

 

[chex3009]

US, Pak agreed on Osama op in secret deal 10 yrs ago


In a secret deal struck a decade ago, the US and Pakistan agreed that Washington will carry out a unilateral operation against Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil if he was found there following which Islamabad would vociferously protest the incursion, a media report said on Tuesday. The then military
leader Gen Pervez Musharraf and then US president George Bush struck the deal after bin Laden escaped US forces in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains in late 2001, The Guardian newspaper reported. Under the deal, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid on its soil in search of bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. Afterwards, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion, the paper quoted serving and retired Pakistani and US officials as saying.
"There was an agreement between Bush and Musharraf that if we knew where Osama was, we were going to come and get him," said a former senior US official familiar with the counter-terrorism operations.
"The Pakistanis would put up a hue and cry, but they wouldn't stop us."
A senior Pakistani official said it had been struck under Musharraf and renewed by the army during the "transition to democracy" – a six-month period from February 2008 when Musharraf was still president but a civilian government had been elected.
Referring to the killing of bin Laden in Abbottabad compound near Islamabad, the Pakistani official said, "As far as our American friends are concerned, they have just implemented the agreement."
The former US official said that the Pakistani protests of the past week were the "public face" of the deal.
"We knew they would deny this stuff."
The deal puts a new complexion on the political storm triggered by bin Laden's death, with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani strongly protesting the raid and warning that "Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force."
54-year-old bin Laden was killed by the US special forces in a secret operation in the garrison town of Abbottabad, 80 kms from Pakistani capital Islamabad.
Pakistan has said that it was "intelligence-driven operation by the US" and it was not informed prior to the raid.

​

This is a very old news where in a portion of ISI agreed to trade OBL with the US for some deal around Musharraf Era but it was pulled off at the very last moment by the ISI and that very same portion of ISI brought OBL to Afghanistan with them to hand it over to the US and what happenned that suddenly every plan was laid down and OBL was again taken away by ISI and the US went empty handed, i had posted about this some time ago. I am looking for the source...

 

[Patriot]

Rule of Law or Law of the Jungle?

The US has set a dangerous precedent by ordering the killing of bin Laden. But it's not too late to save American foreign policy.

The execution of Osama bin Laden on May 1 by a team of US Navy Seals sends a brutal message to the world that the extermination of the United States' enemies takes precedence over any consideration of morality or international law. For daring to attack the United States, al-Qaeda's founder had to be hunted down and exterminated, however long it took and at whatever the cost. Might is right.

Other governments will note the example set by the United States—an example that might also be copied by non-state actors, and even by aggrieved citizens. After all, Americans aren't alone in having national interests, legitimate grievances and enemies they wish to bury. Others, too, can claim the right of self-defence, overriding legal or ethical constraints.

Israel has been doing so for decades. As a matter of deliberate policy, it has carried out numerous extra-judicial killings of its political enemies, and appears to have no qualms about violating the sovereignty of other countries. In a recent blog, US lawyer John Whitbeck reports that Gen. Shaul Mofaz, a former Israeli chief of staff known for his tough tactics, has claimed the credit for inspiring the US assassination strategy. Mofaz is now chairman of the Knesset's foreign affairs committee.

If states can resort to terrorism with impunity in order to kill their enemies, political leaders must be prepared to face the same rough 'justice' at the hands of the followers, friends or relatives of their victims. What if a hit team of Iraqi Baathists, for example, seeking to avenge the wanton destruction of their party, their army and their country, were to track down the orchestrators of the Iraq War? Would that be terrorism or justice? What if a Pashtun tribal leader were to decide that the director of the CIA should be targeted for the drone attacks that have killed hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians in the tribal areas of Pakistan? Would that be terrorism or justice?

Would the United States not have been better served had it upheld the rule of law in Abbottabad rather than resorting to the law of the jungle?

Terrible and tragic as was the fate of the 3,000 victims of 9/11, they aren't the only ones to be mourned. In seeking to punish bin Laden's al-Qaeda for its attack on America's heartland, the United States waged wars on Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan—wars that are thought to have caused, by some estimates, about a million deaths, not to mention the wounded and the displaced, and all those whose lives have been shattered by the massive disturbance and material destruction of these conflicts. The dead from these misguided wars cry out for vengeance from the grave. Whether they are Iraqis, Afghans or Pakistanis, they, too, are mourned.

Just as the United States' alleged torture of 'unlawful combatants' in Iraq and elsewhere gave a blank cheque to Arab tyrants and others to torture their own citizens, so the assassination of America's number one enemy will encourage others to resort to the same lawless methods.

Accounts differ, but one Pakistani intelligence official said bin Laden appears to have been gunned down in front of his family, including his 12-year-old daughter. Contrary to initial reports, bin Laden doesn't seem to have hidden behind his family, or to have used them as human shields. He was, according to a statement from the White House, unarmed. Images released from within the compound show people surrounded by pools of blood, but no weapons. Bin Laden may have been loathed and feared as a terrorist, but many will see the way he was shot as a 'hit'— an assassination pure and simple.

Couldn't US Special Forces have surrounded his house, once they had discovered where he was hiding, and asked the Pakistani authorities to arrest him and hand him over for trial? That would have had the great advantage of not violating Pakistani sovereignty and of not causing grave offence to the Pakistani Army and intelligence services, as well as to public opinion in that country. Pakistani officials have described the US raid as 'unauthorised and unilateral', while the army has warned that any repeat of such an operation would affect relations with the United States. It's likely that Pakistan will now reduce its anti-terrorist cooperation with the United States and seek instead to strengthen its ties with China. It will certainly continue to befriend Afghan jihadist groups so as to have allies there to defend its cause against India once US forces withdraw.

US President Barack Obama, for his part, has made a meal out of this shabby episode. We were told that he took the 'gutsy' decision to attack the compound where bin Laden was living, and images have been released of Obama following the assassination in real time. He visited Ground Zero, paid tribute to the fire-fighters, and decorated the Navy Seals. His popularity has soared and his chances of re-election may have been greatly enhanced.

In my (no doubt minority) view, Obama must now redeem himself for the killing by putting his heightened prestige to good effect. He should announce an early withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, call a halt to drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen; and invite China, Russia, Pakistan and Iran to form an Afghan contact group to sponsor urgent and intensive negotiations between President Hamid Karzai's government and the Taliban, with a view to the formation of a national unity government. It would also be greatly to the United States' advantage—both politically and financially—to reduce its military presence in the Arab world. Its many bases in the Gulf, in particular, serve little purpose. They merely exacerbate local tensions, especially those between the Arabs and Iran.

Above all, if the United States is to regain some goodwill in the Arab and Muslim world, Obama must have the courage to stand up to Israel's right-wing government and its many American friends and lobbyists. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is due in Washington later this month and has been invited to address a joint session of Congress. This should be Obama's opportunity to upstage him with a clear statement that the United States will use all its influence and all its power to bring to birth a viable and independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza, with its capital in East Jerusalem, living in peace and security side-by-side with Israel.

The US president knows very well what needs to be done, but he must be ready to use his new-found political capital to draw the poison from a conflict that has claimed countless victims and plagued the world for more than six decades. It is, after all, the United States' failure to do so that helps create the bin Laden's of this world.

Patrick Seale is a London-based writer.

 

[Blackwater]

just now according to geo news, bomb blast rock karachi, 3 died

TERE BIN LADEN

 

[Blackwater]

I just watched Geo news. They were interviewed locals and neighbor of Osama in Abotabad. Funny part is everybody said" We heard helicopter sound than blast, we though Indians have attacked us"


These pakistani people are so paranoid and terrified and obsessed by India, they think of India 24hrs a day through films, dramas and Indian army lollll

 

[sandeepdg]

LeT trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction with help from Qaida

NEW DELHI: One of LeT's most important leaders who was indicted by the US treasury department for the July 2006 Mumbai train bombings, Arif Qasmani, is helping the India-centric terror group acquire biological weapons and anthrax through his al-Qaida links.

The interrogation report of a Pakistani businessman and Guantanamo Bay detainee, Saifullah Paracha, has revealed that LeT was in touch with a US-based "al-Qaida anthrax operative'' as it tried to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

Qasmani is among the four men whose assets had been frozen by the US for their alleged involvement in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts. The US notification, in fact, had said that Qasmani also facilitated the Samjhauta blast in 2007.

Paracha, a businessman from Sargodha, revealed to the US authorities in 2008 that LeT's Qasmani might have been discussing ways to acquire biological weapons and anthrax with a US based pharmacist, Nazmut Tariq, identified also as an al-Qaida operative.

Sources said the Qasmani referred to in Paracha's Guantanamo interrogation report is the same Qasmani who facilitated the suburban train blasts in Mumbai. "Information linking Tariq to biological weapons and anthrax was found on a calendar belonging to Arif Qasmani, LeT member and associate of senior al-Qaida facilitator Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, aka Abu Zubaydah,'' the report said. The Pune-educated Zubaydah was described by the US as one of the senior-most al-Qaida leaders to have been arrested from Pakistan after 9/11. He was said to have been arrested from a Lashkar safe house in Faisalabad.

The US treasury department notification specifically mentioned Qasmani's links with al-Qaida. "Since 2001, Arif Qasmani has also provided financial and other support and services to al-Qaida, including facilitating the movement of al-Qaida leaders and personnel in and out of Afghanistan, the return of foreign fighters to their respective countries and the provision of supplies and weapons. In return for Qasmani's support, al-Qaida provided Qasmani with operatives to support the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai, India, and the February 2007 Samjhauta Express bombing in Panipat, India,'' said the notification.

Paracha's Guantanamo interrogation report mentions that Tariq's contact information was recovered from the detainee's electronic diary. Tariq is identified as a possible al-Qaida anthrax operative based in New York and that his name was also mentioned in a document seized from an al-Qaida safe house in Pakistan along with a notation for anthrax vaccine.

Paracha told his interrogators that he knew Tariq since 1969 since they came from the same village, Nazimabad, in Pakistan. He also described Tariq as a member of Jamiat Islami who was a pharmacist in the US with stores in New York City and Boston.

It has been obvious to Indian agencies for some time now that LeT has been trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. A Harvard University report titled 'Securing the Bomb 2010' last year raised this issue along with LeT's cooperation with al-Qaida.

"There are at least some indications that Pakistani groups such as LeT may also be interested — a particularly troubling possibility given the deep past connections these groups have had with Pakistani security services, their ongoing cooperation with al-Qaida, and the example of in-depth cooperation on unconventional weapons provided by al-Qaida's work with Jemaah Islamiyah on anthrax," it said.

LeT trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction with help from Qaida - The Times of India

 

[sandeepdg]

Radars were inactive, not jammed: air chief

The News International
Pakistan Air Force has assured the government that no foreign helicopters or fighter planes will be allowed to violate the Pakistani air space in future and if ordered, the PAF can shoot down the US drones.
Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman has accepted the responsibility of air surveillance failure but informed the government that the entry of American helicopters into the Pakistani air space was not detected because the radars deployed on the western borders were not active on May 2. He dispelled the impression that the Pakistani radars were jammed.
The success of American operation against Osama bin Laden has raised many questions about the capability of Pakistan Army and Air Force. Tension between Pakistan and the US further increased on Friday after another drone attack in the tribal area. The PAF clearly told the government that they never perceived any threat for urban areas of Pakistan from Afghanistan and that was why the radars deployed close to the western borders were "on rest". It was learnt that radars deployed on the borders with India and the LoC with the Indian occupied Kashmir are active 24 hours and that was why Pakistan came to know about a possible Indian attack in December 2008 immediately after the Mumbai attacks. It was the evening of December 21, 2008 when Pakistan came to know about the unusual movement of Indian Army and Air Force. When the threat was confirmed, then within minutes Pakistan Air Force night fighters were ordered to fly.
Pakistan has two kinds of radars, high-level radars and low-level radars. High-level radars are meant to protect the air space. Low-level radars are used for training flights. The maximum life of high-level radars is 25,000 hours. These radars need overhauling after three years and they cannot work after nine years. Due to the expensive nature of high-level radars, Pakistan Air Force does not use these machines 24 hours on western borders and that was the reason the American helicopters entered Pakistan without challenge.
It was also learnt that Pakistan Air Force informed the government long ago for the need of a modern surveillance system, which could cover all the areas of Pakistan. On the request of the PAF, the former government made a deal with Sweden and China for the purchase of modern aircraft with radar systems.
The PAF has received three Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) planes from Sweden and one more will come in June 2011. China has provided one ZDK-03 Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEWC) plane and three more will come at the end of this year. These modern machines will be activated soon and it will cover the whole of Pakistan. In the meanwhile, PAF activated all radars deployed on the western borders after the May 2 incident, which means that foreign forces present in Afghanistan will now be considered as a threat to the security of Pakistan.
Defence sources are of the view that the CIA chief's statement about Pakistan had forced them to think objectively and honestly about our real friends and real enemies. These sources clearly said: "Osama bin Laden declared war not only against America but also against Pakistan Army, we lost 3,500 soldiers, we arrested most of his close comrades but Americans never took us into confidence about the May 2 operation and even after the success of their unilateral operation, they tried to humiliate us in their traditional arrogant style but we will not tolerate their arrogance in future."
When asked why there was another drone attack in North Waziristan on Friday, the defence sources said, "We can stop the drones like we destroyed one Indian drone a few years back at the night time, let the political government allow us and we will not disappoint our countrymen." They insist: "We were not sure about the identity of intruders on May 2 but when the PAF chief came to know about the presence of some helicopters in Abbottabad through the Army, he immediately ordered his night fighters to shoot down the unknown helicopters. Night fighters were in the air within 15 minutes but when they reached Abbottabad, by that time the unknown helicopters had disappeared".
These sources say: "Let them come again from the west or even from the east and the world will see our real action."
Short URL: Radars were inactive, not jammed: air chief | IAF News: Airforce, Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Space, Missile

JF-17 blunders got scrambled but could not catch the American helicopters at Abbottabad. It should not be surprising that the helicopters ran away faster than the blunders. Lol...

Well, they couldn't have caught them even with active radars as the UH-60 choppers were state of the art stealth choppers , probably used for the first time.

 

[SHASH2K2]

Rogue' elements in ISI, army may have helped Osama: Musharraf


WASHINGTON: Calling Pakistani intelligence's failure to detect Osama bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad a "massive slip-up," ex-President Pervez Musharraf has admitted that "rogue" members of ISI and military may have helped the al-Qaeda chief hide in plain sight in the garrison city.

Musharraf, who lives in Britain in self-exile, said the "rogue" lower-level members of the powerful ISI and military might have known about bin Laden's location during the last year of his presidency six years ago.

"It's really appalling that he was there and nobody knew. I'm certainly appalled that I didn't know and that intelligence people from that time onward didn't know for six years that he was inside.

"And there is no excuse for this great, massive slip-up. And an investigation is in order and people must be punished for this big lapse," Musharraf told ABC News.

As a policy, the army and ISI are fighting terrorism and extremism, including al-Qaida and Taliban, he said. "But rogue element within is a possibility," he said.

According to the former president, there were three attachment commanders in Abbottabad in the past six years and he could not imagine all three knowing and harbouring bin Laden.

"The possibility as I said, at the lower level, somebody following a policy of his own and violating the policy from above, is a possibility," he was quoted as saying.

Regardless of who knew what, according to Musharraf, was the fact that the US raid was a possible violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and that there was never a deal struck during his tenure to allow the US to make a unilateral attack on Pakistan's soil if bin Laden was found.

While calling the al-Qaida chief's six-year residence in Abbottabad a "big blunder" on the part of Pakistani intelligence, Musharraf warned the United States that if it continues to alienate Pakistan as it did in the bin Laden raid, the US will be the "loser."

"You want to alienate Pakistan, you will be a loser," he was quoted as saying.