ISAF captures senior Lashkar-e-Taiba leader in Ghazni

[sayareakd]

By BILL ROGGIOApril 15, 2013

Coalition and Afghan special operations forces captured a senior leader from the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba during a raid today in the southeastern Afghan province of Ghazni. Additionally, special operations forces killed an "insurgent leader" who supported foreign fighters during an operation yesterday in the northeastern province of Kunar.

The "senior Lashkar-e-Taiba leader" and "a number of other insurgents" were captured in the district of Andar in Ghazni, the International Security Assistance Force stated in a press release. ISAF did not identify the nationality of the leader or the "other insurgents" captured during the raid.

The Lashkar-e-Taiba leader "planned and participated in multiple attacks against Afghan and Coalition forces throughout Kunar, Kandahar and Ghazni provinces" and "was actively planning a high-profile attack at the time of his arrest."

He also "is known to have links to multiple foreign fighters." ISAF often uses the term 'foreign fighters' to describe members of al Qaeda and other affiliated foreign terror groups that operate in Afghanistan. ISAF told The Long War Journal today that it "cannot confirm any ties" between the Lashkar-e-Taiba leader and "al Qaeda affiliation with foreign fighters."

The Andar district in Ghazni is a known Taliban and al Qaeda hub in the southeast. Since August 2008, the US military has conducted eight raids against al Qaeda cells in Andar, according to military press reports compiled by The Long War Journal. Senior Taliban and al Qaeda foreign fighter facilitators are known to operate in the district. Last September, the governor of Ghazni said the Taliban were bringing in "foreign militants" into the province, and the deputy chief of the Ghazni provincial council said that a large number of Pakistanis are currently fighting in Ghazni [see LWJ report, 'Foreign militants' still present in Ghazni].

Also, ISAF announced that it killed an "insurgent leader" who was identified as Rauf during a raid in the Asadabad district in Kunar province. Rauf "facilitated funding for foreign fighters and coordinated operations between the Taliban and other insurgent groups," ISAF stated. He also served as "an operational planner responsible for coordinating attacks on Afghan and coalition forces in multiple provinces throughout Afghanistan."

ISAF told The Long War Journal that it "cannot confirm any ties" between Rauf and "al Qaeda affiliation with foreign fighters."

Kunar province is a known haven for al Qaeda. Special operations forces have killed multiple senior al Qaeda commanders in Kunar, while the terror group is known to have established training camps there. Al Qaeda also directs operations in Afghanistan from Kunar.

Although ISAF declined a recent request by The Long War Journal to discuss al Qaeda and its operations in Afghanistan, US intelligence officials have said the group remains active in the country [see LWJ report, ISAF operations against IMU in 2013 at highest rate since war's start].

Raids against the Lashkar-e-Taiba in Afghanistan

The Lashkar-e-Taiba is known to have a presence in several of Afghanistan's provinces, including, Kunar, Nuristan, Nangarhar, Wardak, Laghman, Paktia, Paktika, Khost, Kabul, and Kandahar.

Four other raids reported by ISAF have targeted the Lashkar-e-Taiba's network since the beginning of July 2010. ISAF operations against the Lashkar-e-Taiba's network have taken place in Kunar, Nangarhar, and Wardak, and ISAF noted in today's press release that the captured commander operated in Kandahar.

In July 2010, ISAF noted an "influx of Lashkar-e-Taiba fighters into the province" of Nangarhar, in two separate press releases that announced the capture of Taliban commanders who helped members of the Pakistani terror group enter the country. The July 2010 announcements by ISAF were the first acknowledgements that the Lashkar-e-Taiba was operating in Afghanistan.

In November 2010, ISAF captured the commander of "a cell of approximately 50 foreign fighters" which consisted of "Arab and Pakistani al Qaeda operatives, possibly members from Lashkar-e-Taiba, as well as members of the Haqqani Network from North Waziristan."

And in June 2012, ISAF killed two senior Lashkar-e-Taiba commanders in an airstrike in Kunar. One of them was Khatab Shafiq, the Lashkar-e-Taiba senior leader in the province who "established multiple insurgent training camps in eastern Afghanistan." The other was Ammar, who led an attack network in Kunar. Both Lashkar-e-Taiba commanders were linked to al Qaeda.

Background on the Lashkar-e-Taiba

The Lashkar-e-Taiba has been linked to numerous complex attacks in eastern Afghanistan and in Kabul. Its fighters are believed to have worked with the Haqqani Network, run by Siraj Haqqani, to carry out attacks on Indian targets in Kabul.

Lashkar-e-Taiba fighters have fought alongside al Qaeda and the Taliban in multiple engagements against US and Afghan forces in the east, including the deadly assault on the US combat outpost in Wanat in Nuristan province in July 2008. More than 400 enemy fighters launched the coordinated attack. In the fierce fighting at Wanat, nine US troops were killed, 15 US soldiers and four Afghan troops were wounded, and the post was nearly overrun. Although US forces ultimately defeated the attack, they withdrew from the outpost days later.

The terror group is known to have run training camps in Kunar and Paktia provinces up until the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Lashkar-e-Taiba also currently operates camps in Pakistan in Mansehra, Sindh, Punjab, and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Pakistan's military and its Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate support Lashkar-e-Taiba as part of Pakistan's so-called strategic depth against rival India.

The terror group, which is backed by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate and the military, and sheltered by the government, essentially runs a state within a state in Pakistan. The sprawling Muridke complex in Punjab houses "a Madrassa (seminary), a hospital, a market, a large residential area for 'scholars' and faculty members, a fish farm and agricultural tracts. The LeT also reportedly operates 16 Islamic institutions, 135 secondary schools, an ambulance service, mobile clinics, blood banks and several seminaries across Pakistan," the Southeast Asia Terrorism Portal reported.

Over a period of years, the Lashkar-e-Taiba has established an organization that rivals Lebanese Hezbollah. The group succeeded in providing aid to earthquake-ravaged regions in Kashmir in 2005 while the Pakistani government was slow to act. Lashkar-e-Taiba is active in fundraising across the Middle East and South Asia, and has recruited scores of Westerners to train in its camps. The most well-known Western recruit is David Coleman Headley, an American citizen who helped scout the deadly November 2008 Mumbai terror assault and also plotted attacks in Europe.

Like al Qaeda, the Lashkar-e-Taiba seeks to establish a Muslim caliphate in southern and central Asia. Lashkar-e-Taiba has "consistently advocated the use of force and vowed that it would plant the 'flag of Islam' in Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi," according to the Southeast Asia Terrorism Portal. Also, like al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba practices Wahhabism, the radical Islamist school of thought born in Saudi Arabia.

Lashkar-e-Taiba has an extensive network in southern and southeast Asia. After the Mumbai terror assault in November 2008 that killed 165 people, a senior US military intelligence official described the group as "al Qaeda junior," as it has vast resources and is able to carry out complex attacks throughout its area of operations. "If by some stroke of luck al Qaeda collapsed, LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) could step in and essentially take its place," the official told The Long War Journal in November 2008.

The relationship between al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba is complex, the official noted. "While Lashkar-e-Taiba is definitely subordinate to al Qaeda in many ways, it runs its own network and has its own command structure. The groups often train in each others' camps, and fight side by side in Afghanistan."

The US government designated Lashkar-e-Taiba as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in December 2001. The Pakistani government banned the group in January 2002, but this did little to shut down its operations. The group renamed itself the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and has conducted business as usual.

Hafiz Saeed, the emir of Lashkar-e-Taiba, and several other leaders have been added to the US's list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists. In May 2012, the US added Saeed to the Rewards for Justice program, and offered $10 million for information leading to his arrest and prosecution. Saeed continues to operate openly Pakistan, and is often feted by Pakistani politicians and the media.



Read more: ISAF captures senior Lashkar-e-Taiba leader in Ghazni - The Long War Journal

ISAF captures senior Lashkar-e-Taiba leader in Ghazni - The Long War Journal

 

[sayareakd]

this news is someone what connected with this

'Drone strikes if Kashmir militants aren't touched'

Pak., U.S. entered into a secret deal: NYT

In a secret deal, Pakistan allowed American drone strikes on its soil on the condition that the unmanned aircraft would stay away from its nuclear facilities and the mountain camps where Kashmiri militants were trained for attacks in India, according to a media report.

Under negotiations between the ISI and the CIA during 2004, the terms of the bargain were set, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

"Pakistani intelligence officials insisted that drones fly only in narrow parts of the tribal areas — ensuring that they would not venture where Islamabad did not want the Americans going: Pakistan's nuclear facilities, and the mountain camps where Kashmiri militants were trained for attacks in India," the paper said.

Pakistani officials also insisted that they be allowed to approve each drone strike, giving them tight control over the list of targets, it added.

The "secret deal" over drone strikes was reached after CIA agreed to kill tribal warlord Nek Muhammad, a Pakistani ally of the Afghan Taliban who led a rebellion and was marked by Islamabad as an "enemy of the state", the NYT reported, citing an excerpt from the book The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth.

A CIA official had met the then ISI Chief Ehsan ul-Haq with the offer that if the American intelligence agency killed Muhammad, "would the ISI allow regular armed drone flights over the tribal areas", the report said.

ISI-CIA bargain

The ISI and CIA also agreed that all drone flights in Pakistan would operate under the American agency's "covert action authority", which meant that the U.S. would never acknowledge the missile strikes and that Pakistan would either take credit for the individual killings or remain silent.

While Pakistani officials had in the past considered drone flights a violation of sovereignty, it was Muhammad's rise to power that forced them to reconsider their line of thought and eventually allow Predator drones.

The ISI-CIA's "back-room bargain" sheds light on the beginning of the covert drone war which "began under the Bush administration, was embraced and expanded by President Obama".

From capture to kill

The deal resulted in the CIA changing its focus from capturing terrorists to killing them, and helped "transform an agency that began as a cold war espionage service into a paramilitary organisation".

After Muhammad's killing in a drone strike, a Pakistani military spokesman had told reporters that "al-Qaeda facilitator" Nek Muhammad and four other "militants" had been killed in a rocket attack by Pakistani troops, the paper said.

During the time when the negotiations were being held, CIA's then Inspector-General John Helgerson came out with a critical report about the abuse of detainees in the agency's secret prisons.

Mr. Helgerson's report has been described as the single most important reason for the CIA's shift from capturing to killing terrorism suspects.

CIA's Counterterrorism Centre (CTC) had earlier focused on capturing al-Qaeda operatives, interrogating them in its jails or outsourcing interrogations to intelligence services of Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt and using the information to hunt more suspects. Mr. Helgerson's report raised questions about interrogation methods like waterboarding and sleep deprivation, raising concerns that it violated the UN Convention Against Torture.

The report "was the beginning of the end" for CTC's detention programme.

"The ground had shifted, and counterterrorism officials began to rethink the strategy for the secret war. Armed drones, and targeted killings in general, offered a new direction. Killing by remote control was the antithesis of the dirty, intimate work of interrogation.

"Targeted killings were cheered by Republicans and Democrats alike, and using drones flown by pilots who were stationed thousands of miles away made the whole strategy seem risk-free. Before long the CIA would go from being the long-term jailer of America's enemies to a military organisation that erased them," the NYT report said.

'Drone strikes if Kashmir militants aren't touched' - The Hindu

 

[sayareakd]

looks like ISI has as usual fooled Uncle again.............

 

[IBRIS]

looks like ISI has as usual fooled Uncle again.............

Uncle Sam knows well about the two headed snake he had been nurturing for decades against us

ISAF kills Lashkar-e-Taiba's leader for Kunar in airstrike
By BILL ROGGIOJune 30, 2012

For years, the rugged, remote Afghan province of Kunar has served as a sanctuary for al Qaeda, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, and allied terror groups. The presence of al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba cells has been detected in the districts of Asmar, Asadabad, Dangam, Marawana, Pech, Shaikal Shate, Sarkani, Shigal, and Watahpur; or nine of Kunar's 15 districts, according to press releases issued by the International Security Assistance Force that have been compiled by The Long War Journal.

The Lashkar-e-Taiba has been directly identified by ISAF as operating in Afghanistan one other time, in July 2010, when it reported the capture of a Taliban commander who is tied to Lashkar-e-Taiba operations in Khugyani district in Nangarhar province.

ISAF kills Lashkar-e-Taiba's leader for Kunar in airstrike - The Long War Journal

 

[sayareakd]

If Uncle ji continue to pretend as fool, it will only going to increase incidence of terror attacks.

 

[datguy79]

Picture of the arrested:

 

[sayareakd]

Picture of the arrested:

give these to us and we shall see that they will never spread any terror

 

[sayareakd]

BTW mota mota hai salaa.