U.S. Offers North Korea Evidence That Nuclear Secrets Came From Pakistani's Network

U.S. Offers North Korea Evidence That Nuclear Secrets Came From Pakistani's Network

By DAVID E. SANGER and JIM YARDLEY

WASHINGTON, July 28 - In negotiations with North Korea this week, the Bush administration has for the first time presented the country with specific evidence behind American allegations that North Korea secretly obtained uranium enrichment technology from a founder of Pakistan's nuclear program, two senior administration officials said.

The decision to share the intelligence with North Korean negotiators, the officials said, was part of an effort to convince North Korea that any discussions about disarmament must cover not only the nuclear weapons program it has boasted about, but a second one that it now denies exists.

Putting on the table the evidence that North Korea obtained technology from the network built by Abdul Qadeer Khan is significant because it is an effort to break an impasse over the scope of North Korea's nuclear program.

American officials were reluctant to describe the North Korean response, but one official said that when presented with the evidence - chiefly the testimony of Mr. Khan - "they argue with us about it."

American officials have never made public the details of Mr. Khan's statements to Pakistani officials, who have declined to make him available for direct interrogation. But they have shared the information widely with Asian allies, and elements of it have leaked out, including Mr. Khan's assertion - doubted by several specialists in the American intelligence community - that the North Koreans once showed him what they said were three fully assembled nuclear weapons.

The two Bush administration officials declined to speak on the record, citing the delicacy of both the intelligence and the current negotiations. They would not describe how much detail had been given to the North Koreans. The presentation came in the first two days of talks in Beijing, which American officials said may stretch into next week. On Thursday, American negotiators, led by Christopher R. Hill, moved past generalities in talks with North Korea and focused on the specifics of their dispute over the nuclear program.

Later, Mr. Hill said he hoped the talks had advanced enough so that the six nations taking part could soon start drafting a statement that would advance the disarmament process. The other participants are China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.

Mr. Hill said North Korea and the United States found some "common understanding" in their meeting Thursday, but added that "a lot of differences" remained.

"I want to caution people not to think we are coming to the end of this," Mr. Hill told reporters.

North Korea has long admitted to turning spent plutonium fuel from its nuclear reactors into bomb fuel. That program is centered at the Yongbyon complex.

In February, North Korea declared for the first time that it was a nuclear weapons state. It said it had reprocessed 8,000 fuel rods, turning them into weapons fuel. Specialists inside and outside the government say that fuel could be used to produce six or more nuclear weapons, but there is no independent evidence to confirm that the weapons have been produced.

There has long been a dispute about a second nuclear program, one the United States alleges that North Korea began in the 1990's, when the Yongbyon plant was "frozen" under a 1994 accord. That program, the United States alleges, aims at producing enriched uranium, a process easier to hide than producing plutonium. American officials, who first told North Korea that they had evidence of the program in 2002, say North Korea initially admitted to it. Since then, North Korea has denied the program's existence.

A senior administration official told reporters Thursday evening that any agreement must include dismantling both programs. But intelligence officials have said they do not know where the uranium program is.

"We don't want to be inspecting every tunnel where it might be hidden," the senior official said. "They've got to give it up. That's how the Libyans did it," he said, a reference to Libya's decision to dismantle its program.

Mr. Hill has recently emphasized it is unlikely that this fourth round of talks will produce a breakthrough but that participants instead are hoping to agree to a statement of "shared principles." In Washington, an official said the first two principles should be a commitment to denuclearization of the Korean peninsula - which North Korea has agreed to before - and a commitment that North Korea would not transfer nuclear technology to any other state or outside group.

The regularity and length of private meetings this week between the United States and North Korea has underscored the vast difference between these and earlier talks when only short and unannounced private discussions took place. Much of the negotiating this week has centered on such diplomatic wrangling as finding a shared definition of denuclearization.

"We're pretty close on that," Mr. Hill said.

The definition has been a sticking point because North Korea has reportedly tried to use it to challenge whether the United States has nuclear weapons in South Korea, a charge the Americans deny.

Earlier this year, North Korea suggested that the focus of the talks should shift to mutual arms reduction. On Thursday, Mr. Hill took an implicit verbal slap at these tactics. "The issue for us was to try to keep these concepts with some basis in reality and not go too far away with polemical ideas or rhetorical ideas," he said.

Aleksandr Alekseyev, Russia's top envoy, met privately with both the Americans and the North Koreans on Thursday. "We got the feeling it was a very difficult, concrete talk," he said. He said the two countries moved beyond generalities and began discussing their standoff in specific details.

Ejaz Haider on the India-US nuclear deal

India strikes nuclear gold

Ejaz Haider

"…the Indian government was, from the outset, disinclined to compromise. Its short-term goal was to resist precisely the sort of abnegation the United States proposed. Its strategy was to play for the day when the United States would get over its huffing and puffing and, with a sigh of exhaustion or a shrug of resignation, accept a nuclear-armed India as a fully responsible and fully entitled member of the international community….

“As one of the architects of the Indian strategy, Jaswant Singh came closer to achieving his objective in the dialogue than I did to achieving mine.”

Strobe Talbott, Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb; p5

albott, then deputy secretary of state and President Clinton’s special envoy for South Asia in the wake of Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests in May 1998, could not have got it more right. What India embarked upon with the tests and later with the dialogue – as opposed to negotiations with the US – came to fruition when the US signed the nuclear pact with India during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent visit to Washington (July 18-21). The past seven years have been the story of growing US-India relations, with India remaining bang on target about its objectives and goals, seeing the US pare down its expectations to the point where it (US) has had to accept India as a responsible and legitimate nuclear-weapon state.

Any analysis of what India’s new partnership with the US means must be seen in relation to the patient policy New Delhi pursued after the tests and which has survived three changes of government since then. Consider.

The BJP government cast aside India’s policy of ambiguity and pulled the bomb out of the basement and put it on the shelf. It assessed correctly that the window for doing so was fast closing. But testing itself meant nothing; the hard currency of nuclear weapons in the world of realpolitik must translate into something concrete, and to India’s advantage.

Talbott’s book is the story of how India moved systematically and without remitting its efforts to that end. The tests brought India face to face with the US and “In that sense, the dialogue [became] its own reward, as both a means and an end”. While the unfolding of India-US relations following the tests is not merely a tale of engagement on the nuclear issue, the tests and the dialogue provided the unguent that helped the Cold War wounds heal, allowing the relationship to evolve in multiple dimensions.

The recent Indo-US Joint Statement takes the relationship to a level higher than the NSSP (Next Steps in Strategic Partnership) that was worked out between former Indian National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra and his US counterpart Condoleezza Rice. The Rice-Mishra dialogue, spread over 2001-4, was the continuation of the Talbott-Singh engagement of 1998-2000. The NSSP was the stepping-stone to the June 30 10-year defence pact signed between India and the US and the defence pact paved the way for Washington’s acceptance of New Delhi as a legitimate NWS.

Frankly, the deal is not about cooperation in nuclear energy or even extending dual-use technology to India, important though these factors are in a technical sense. It is about accepting India as a responsible state despite its having shot a hole through the non-proliferation agenda. It is also about conceding that what India has done cannot be reversed and if the US wants to partner India, it will have to legitimise India’s de facto status as a nuclear-weapon state by signing a bilateral agreement with it on nuclear cooperation.

This is the real significance of the agreement and begets India a prize that has not come the way of any other state that has defied the NPT (Israel is an exception but its programme, officially, still remains underground). Contrast the words of President Clinton, “We’re going to come down on those guys like a ton of bricks,” with the Bush administration’s acceptance of the parameters of strategic partnership that India was demanding even at the time Talbott was dialoguing with Singh.

While the Clinton administration remained firm on its four benchmarks, two broad aspects of the policy pursued by India, from the outset, are clear from Talbott’s own account: India kept dissembling on the nuclear question and bought time not only on that issue, but also used it to further the other evolving dimensions of India-US relations. Clinton’s 5-day high profile visit to India provided the plinth for the new relationship. As Talbott writes, another theme of his book is that “it is the story of the turning point in US-Indian relations”.

Critics argue that India will now have less room to play, having compromised its independence by getting into a strategic and defence partnership with the US. This assessment is wrong. India’s diplomacy has shown itself to be pegged on a clear assessment of what New Delhi wants. While a partnership does mean acting in tandem with another state and to that extent forfeiting some freedom of action, India has correctly assessed that it can play ball with the US, at least until it suits it, and that it can accept certain constraints as the price for acquiring other, longer-term capabilities essential for power projection.

It is easier for New Delhi to do so, having unmoored itself from its Nehruvian legacy. Space does not allow a point-wise reading of the defence pact or the agreement on nuclear cooperation but suffice to say that India has gotten more out of the agreements than the US. (The BJP’s cavilling about the deal is simply a case of sour grapes; it would have loved to cut this deal if it were in power.)

Disarmament activists do not like the deal because they think that the US-India pact would further damage the non-proliferation regime. That is Talbott’s read when, following the recent deal, he wrote an op-ed for YaleGlobal Online ( A bad day for non-proliferation ; July 23): “In fact, India and the United States have both shown a penchant for going it alone, and if their versions of unilateralism reinforce each other, it will work to the detriment of institutions like the United Nations and risk turning agreements like the non-proliferation treaty from imperfect but useful mechanisms into increasingly ineffectual ones.”

The only problem with this assessment is that it views the NPT as becoming increasingly ineffectual in the future The fact is that from the time the US senate refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to the stillborn Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty to the electoral win for the Republicans in 2000 to the Nuclear Posture Review in 2002 to the lifting of the 10-year-long ban by the US Congress on the development of tactical nuclear weapons to the impotent NPT RevCon last June, the non-proliferation regime, as understood and pursued by the Clinton administration, is already in the throes of death.

Robert Einhorn symbolised non-proliferation as pursued by the Clinton administration; John Bolton symbolised the attitude of the Bush administration. The difference between the two approaches, from treaty-based, normative acceptance of non-proliferation to force-based counter-proliferation is like hands across the sea. What India has done is to stick to its agenda and exploit the space provided by the Bush administration’s new approach to nuclear weapons.

This is of course a bird’s eye-view of the development. There are other dimensions of it to which we shall come next week.

Khaled Ahmed's excellent op-ed on Pakistan and the London bombings

The bombings in London


Khaled Ahmed’s A n a l y s i s

he London bombings of 7 July 2005 have not aroused the kind of analysis in Pakistan it deserved. Opinions expressed on TV channels and the Urdu press were routine: the UK is to blame because it radicalised the UK Muslims by taking part in the invasion of Iraq. One TV channel was discussing mazloom (persecuted) Muslims of the world even as 55 innocent citizens died at the hands four suicide bombers (three out of them of Pakistani origin) in London. No forum in Pakistan had any in-depth knowledge about the 1.6 million Muslims living in the UK. They knew even less about the Pakistani community which forms a majority among Muslims there. But they spoke authoritatively on the subject, denying Muslim culpability even while showing sympathy to the British public.

BBC (16 July 2005) interviewed half a dozen boys together at Luton in London. All of them were wearing shalwar-kurta and were extremely angry about UK’s participation in the Iraq war. On the bombings of 7/7 they were united in condemning extremism and were of the opinion that the suicide-bombers had probably fallen into the clutches of the extremists already present in the UK. But they linked it to the outrage in Iraq where the UK and the US were killing ‘our brothers’. One boy got up and advanced on the interviewer saying he was as much a British citizen as the interviewer was and he had to say that prime minister Blair had hurt the Muslims of the UK by killing women and children in Iraq.

Focusing on Iraq: CNN (15 July 2005) interviewed Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid who said (confirmed on the 19th by President Musharraf) that there were seminaries in Pakistan who would recruit terrorists from the UK. But a British citizen and member of a Muslim organisation in London, Mr Tamimi, disagreed and said that the seminaries had no role to play in the conversion of the British Muslim youth. He said in Leeds, where the youth was radicalised, was besieged by British racists who threatened them with violence. He said the Muslim boys constantly asked questions about Iraq, but prime minister Blair was in denial of this reality. He said the Muslims were being victimised in such places as Afghanistan, Palestine, Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, and the only solution for the UK was to change its Iraq policy.

The discussions in the UK had rare liberal Muslims owning up to the flaws in the community itself while the conservatives who outnumbered them continued to say the same thing: that Blair’s invasion of Iraq was behind the terrorist attacks. It was also apparent that the liberals were tentative in their opinion while the conservatives were forceful and aggressive. One could see that there was tension between the two opinions and that the liberals were likely to retreat from their stance out of fear. Most of the Muslims who offered comment were conservative and said more or less the same thing as was said by Muslims all over the world even before 7/7. On 4 July 2004, just three days earlier, at a seminar in Jordan titled The Reality of Islam and its Role in the Contemporary Society , Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi of Qatar had blamed ‘injustices done to Muslims by the West’ as a reason for the growth of Muslim extremism. The truth is that Qaradawi’s earlier fatwa of death against the British could have actually triggered the 7/7 terror.

State and jihad in Pakistan: In Pakistan, the vast underworld of jihad is still functioning, not least because the ‘jihad option’ against India has been retained, and the training camps in Mansehra once again field militias that take the cue from their Arab masters. There is no measure to quantify the salafist influence on Pakistan’s Islam but it is generally accepted that jihad has further stiffened the faith and that the jihadi militias have absorbed a lot of their new worldview from their Arab sponsors. There is a generally felt devotion for the ‘true’ Arab faith because it is not diluted by the ‘Hindu-influenced’ culture of Pakistan. At least two well known Urdu columnists wrote wistfully about the late Saudi cleric whose ‘hate literature’ has been poisoning the mosques all over the world.

Journalist Mustafa Sadiq wrote in Jang that when he was saying his prayer in a mosque in Dipalpur in Punjab he discovered pamphlets there penned by the great late Saudi scholar Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Baz. He was greatly impressed by the pamphlets and remembered that Bin Baz was rector of the Madina University and wielded a lot of authority with the Saudi royalty. The columnist went to Saudi Arabia in 1966 and interviewed Bin Baz, which he published on one full page of his paper Wafaq . Bin Baz could actually undo the punishments given out by the princes. He was so powerful he could open the door of the crown prince, the most powerful man in the kingdom, and enter at will. He wore his usual long robe but kept a big pocket in it. In the pocket was a mohur (stamp). Whenever he wanted to give an order that the kingdom had to obey he took it out of his robe and used it as a stamp.

Conversion to hate: Columnist Irfan Siddiqi wrote in Nawa-e-Waqt (1 April 2005) an account of his visit to Madina in Saudi Arabia. At Madina he visited the famous Madina Islamic University set up 45 years ago with the advice of Maulana Abul Ala Maududi and Maulana Daud Ghaznavi of Pakistan. It was headed by its first vice chancellor the great Sheikh Bin Baz. It welcomed 6,000 foreign students forming almost 80 percent of the total student population. It gave generous scholarships plus an air ticket back home during vacations. Pakistani students came from Lahore, Faisalabad, Turbat, Mamo Kanjan, Karachi, Qasur, Gujranwala, Peshawar, Nowshehra, Haripur, Gilgit and Mekran. There used to be 300 Pakistanis in the university but now it was less than 200. Before 9/11, teachers of the university used to spread around the world picking up students but now that has ceased. Pakistan was no longer issuing no-objection certificates to its students for this university.

The three Pakistani-origin bombers visited Pakistan approximately for three months. The pattern is very much like the one followed by the suicide bombers of 9/11: they had visited Pakistan before going to the US and had touched base with someone in Karachi and Afghanistan. This time the one seminary investigated is Lahore’s Manzurul Islam. It was noticed earlier by American scholar Jessica Stern in her book Terror in the Name of God and the director she had met was named Pir Saifullah Saif. In the jihadi underworld this name will immediately ring a bell: it is a nom de guerre . This time the director of the seminary was differently named, and there was no trace of Mujibur Rehman Inqilabi who had bragged all sorts of jihadi derring-do to Stern.

Psychology of denial: The general behaviour of the Pakistani population is not extremist, but its opinion is. Pakistan is under siege from people who think extremist thoughts. The consequence of this state is expression of extreme helplessness accompanied with moral outrage. The next stage among the ‘select’ earmarked by Al Qaeda is suicide. Not even politicians feel satisfied unless they borrow from the vocabulary of extremism. Also, there are centres of radical action funded from abroad, stoking the fire of revenge against the West and inspiring sectarian violence and even training people for acts of terrorism.

An entire population is completely untouched by this extremism of action but it helps terrorism through the mass psychology of denial and through extreme formulations of thought. The psychology of denial is created by closing the mind against information and any data related to the subject of terrorism. On the other hand, much is picked up from Western sources critical of the policies followed by governments in the West. Those who have specialised in the jihadi underworld are intellectual pariahs and will not be published in the more popular Urdu press. The English-speaking elite avoids jihadi data because of the outlandish Urdu vocabulary of jihad.

What UK is to blame for: If the UK is to blame, it is for neglecting the way the Muslims in general and the Pakistanis in particular were turning their face away from integration. In April 2001 Professor Muhammad Anwar of the University of Warwick, revealed for the first time the alarming picture of the largest Muslim minority in the UK. According to him, the Pakistanis living in the UK were 700,000, the third largest minority community. (There are a million Indians in the UK.) The majority of these British Pakistanis are Kashmiris, including those displaced by Mangla Dam in Azad Kashmir. They are concentrated in four regions: 30 percent in and around London, 22 percent (100,000) in Birmingham, 20 percent (65,000) in Bradford, 20,000 in Manchester and 15,000 in Glasgow. The figure of 700,000 had grown from 5000 in 1951. Because of high birth-rate, fully 47 percent of them were under the age of 16, as compared to 17 percent for whites. They had the highest unemployment rate, five times more than the British average; and a crime rate higher than in any other community. Fully 2 percent of the prisoners rotting in British jails were Pakistanis, the highest for any one community.

France’s Gilles Kepel studied the UK Pakistanis in his Allah in the West: Islamic Movements in America and Europe (Polity Press, 1997) but apparently London paid no attention to it. According to him, in the United Kingdom, Islamisation of the immigrant Muslim community was an early post-colonial trend stemming from the British experience in India. Communalisation rather than integration suited the UK because it could then farm out the menial jobs to a community formed specially for them. Workers’ mosques came up in the 1950s in the industrial areas of the UK, as opposed to France where this trend started only in the 1970s. Out of the 55 mosques serving the 85,000 Muslims of Birmingham in 1985 nearly half were set up before 1970. In the 1950s and 1960s, the mosques were divided against each other on the basis of Barelvi-Deobandi religions. There were even Pathan and Punjabi, Mirpuri, Bengali and Gujrati mosques.

World of the UK Pakistani: The first central mosque in Birmingham was built in 1971 but its first Barelvi khateeb was so favoured by the Muslims that the Deobandi khateeb was not allowed his turn. Individual charismatic figures like Barelvi Pir Maroof Shah who built a number of mosques for his followers in Bradford, founding the World Islamic Mission in 1973. Sufi Abdullah built himself a similar Barelvi empire in the area in the early 1980s. The Bradford Council of Mosques in the 1980s was already ‘separating’ the community on such questions as halal and girls’ education, and Labour Party was the popular party for the Muslims. Then came the Rushdie Affair in 1988, almost coinciding with the explosion caused by the Islamic scarf affair in France a year later. The protest that was organised against Rushdie’s Satanic Verses united the fragmented Muslim community in the UK while toppling its less educated leaders in favour of the anglophone radical ones inspired by the Islamic Revolution of Imam Khomeini in Iran.

The Islamic Foundation of Leicester sent out the call against Rushdie’s blasphemy, but the man who finally ran away with the collective Muslim response was ex-journalist, Kalim Siddiqi, of Jamaat-e-Islami background, who set up his Muslim Parliament and issued what was termed the Muslim Manifesto in 1990, actually challenging the British system. This caused Labour politician Roy Jenkins, who had described the British policy of integration as ‘equal opportunities with cultural diversity’ in 1965, to say in 1989 that the policy had failed to effect any integration of the Muslim culture and religion within the British society. London looked at Kalim Siddiqi as some kind of a crazy person and ignored him. It ignored others like Abu Hamza Al Masri and Umar Bakri (whose ultra-radical Al Muhajirun outfit came to Pakistan in 2000 together with Hizb al-Tahrir) later on too, while the Muslims retreated further from British society. The climax of this failure to integrate came in the shape of the conversion of the British mosque to Deobandi and Ahle Hadith identity during the 1990s.

The Arab injection: Kepel, introducing a reprint of his old book The Roots of Radical Islam (Saqi 2005) noted that the Finnsbury Mosque cell of Al Qaeda was run by Abu Hamza Al-Masri, an Egyptian who had lost an arm and an eye fighting in Afghanistan, whose journal al-Ansar glamorised the murderous GIA in Algeria, and who got his son to abduct British tourists in Yemen for the sake of jihad. (Al Masri is in British jail since 2004, but perhaps a little later than he should have been.) Another Egyptian, Yasser al Sirri, headed the London-based Islamic Media Observatory, the news agency that provided letters of accreditation to a pair of suicide-bombers posing as journalists who killed Ahmad Shah Massoud in the Northern Areas of Afghanistan three days before 9/11.

The government in London must accept responsibility for providing a crucial input into international terrorism as well as radicalising an already brutalised Pakistani community in the United Kingdom. It turned a deaf ear to protests made about its export of radical British youth into Pakistan and other regions of the world. It turned its face away equally from protests against its policy of giving out visas to people in Pakistan (ex-ISI chiefs included) and elsewhere known for inciting violent reactions among Muslim communities in the West. It created the ‘Londonistan’ it is now faced with, as graphically described by French journalist Muhammad Sifaoui in Inside Al Qaeda: How I Infiltrated the World’s Deadliest Terrorist Organisation.

Malaysia demands strict security clearance for Pak manpower

Malaysia demands strict security clearance for Pak manpower
M R Klasra Malaysia is the first Muslim country to inform Pakistan that it will only import workers under a new, stricter policy framework
n light of the changed security environment after the recent suicide attacks in London and Egypt, Malaysia has slowed down the process of recruitment of manpower from Pakistan and has made it compulsory for incoming Pakistani workers to produce a security clearance certificate issued by the police. Malaysia is the first country – out of the 40 to which Pakistan supplies manpower – that has informed Pakistan that it will only import workers who hold machine-readable passports. Interestingly, Malaysia is also the first Muslim country that has, on the basis of serious levelled charges against Pakistani immigrants for their involvement in criminal and militant activities around the globe, told Pakistan that it will only import workers under a new, stricter policy framework. After expelling well over 500,000 illegal Pakistani immigrants in the recent past, the Malaysian government now plans to recruit some 200,000 workers from Pakistan. However, this deal has been stalled by Malaysia’s apprehensions over Pakistani’s links with terrorist groups. Pakistan is in the process of formulating a new policy under which all workers going to Malaysia will be required to obtain a clearance certificate from the local police station. If the worker fails to produce a certificate corroborating his or her good conduct duly signed by the SHO of his area, the Malaysian government can deny him a visa even if he fulfils all other conditionalities. According to government documents available with TFT, President Pervez Musharraf met then Malaysian prime minister Mahatir Bin Mohammad during the NAM summit in February 2003. At the meeting, Musharraf proposed that semi- and unskilled workers be recruited from Pakistan. Mahatir agreed to this proposal and told Musharraf that both sides needed to work out the modalities of the deal before formalising an agreement. As a follow up to this meeting, the then minister of labour, manpower and overseas Pakistanis visited Malaysia in April 2003, after which Pakistan was included in the list of countries supplying manpower to Malaysia. Next, a Memorandum of Understanding was approved by the cabinet of then-Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali in May 2003 and subsequently signed by the Malaysian government. Then in 2005, the Malaysian prime minister visited Pakistan and declared Pakistan to be a major source of manpower to Malaysia. Malaysia presented a demand of 200,000 workers. However, Pakistan received a great shock when a high level delegation from the ministry of labour and manpower went to Malaysia to finalise the arrangements for the export of manpower from Islamabad. To its dismay, officials of the Malaysian ministry of interior actually refused to meet the Pakistani delegation and rejected the idea of importing workers from Pakistan. The reason given for this decision was that Pakistanis workers – under the influence of religious and jihadi groups in Pakistan – might create problems for the pluralistic Malaysian society. The interior ministry expressed fear over Pakistani militancy spreading to Malaysia through the workers and becoming a problem for its economy. Following this episode, the government of Pakistan has devised a plan to address the fears of the Malaysian government. As a first step, Islamabad has asked Malaysia to specify the terms and conditions under which it would be ready to import Pakistani manpower. In response, the Malaysian government has asked Pakistan to take some steps before Pakistani workers will be allowed employment in Malaysia. As per Malaysia’s demands, the Pakistan government has assured Kuala Lumpur that each worker entering Malaysia would obtain a ‘police clearance certificate’ Islamabad has agreed that selected workers would themselves obtain police character verification certificates from their district police officers. Each worker would be responsible for his certificate’s genuineness and would face serious punishment if the document were found to be fake. The agreement reads that visas would only be issued upon presenting the security clearance certificate. Also, only workers holding machine-readable passports would be granted visas. It would also be the worker’s responsibility to obtain a medical fitness certificate from hospitals recognised by the Malaysian High Commission in Pakistan. On arrival in Malaysia, all workers would be re-examined medically and in the event that the medical certificate was found to hold incorrect information, the concerned worker would be immediately repatriated at his own risk and cost. Pakistani workers selected by Overseas Export Promoters (OEP) shall be required to appear before the Protector of Emigrants who would brief them about the terms and conditions of their services. The officer will also inform the emigrants about the customs, traditions and labour laws of Malaysian as well as about general dos and don’ts to be observed during their stay in Malaysia. Each selected worker would have to wear clean shalwar kameez or shirt and trousers before departing for Malaysia. The Malaysian government has also handed over a criterion for the selection of female workers from Pakistan. To ensure the safety of female workers coming to Malaysia, a community welfare attaché would visit the place of employment and verify the credentials of the employer as well as check working conditions and boarding and lodging arrangements. However, selected female workers will be required to provide an NOC signed by their parents/guardians in order to be allowed employment in Malaysia. The OEP would then have to verify the reputation of the worker. The Protector of Emigrants would send a fortnightly report regarding the registration of female workers to the Director General Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment. The arrangement also ensures that migrant workers are not exploited by sub-agents or middlemen. The agreement reads that Employment Promoters cannot charge any fee other than the prescribed service charges and levies clearly spelled out in the advertisement. A top official of the labour ministry told TFT that although religious parties were busy promoting militancy in Pakistan, they were oblivious to the fact that their actions were hurting the interests of the poor. “If the level of militancy continues to grow, other countries might also raise objections against Pakistani workers coming into their countries,” he said.

Pakistan soldiers accused of rape by Kashmiri woman

Pakistan soldiers accused of rape

The family of a young woman in Pakistan-administered Kashmir has accused three soldiers of raping her.

Police have registered a case against the unnamed army personnel, said to be members of the Mujahid Battalion, for the rape of the villager.

The family says the army has put pressure on them to withdraw the case. The military has not yet commented.

This is the first alleged rape in Pakistan-administered Kashmir in which military personnel have been accused.

Villagers' protest

A copy of the police report was faxed to the BBC in Pakistan by one of the villagers.

It says the alleged victim - a divorced woman in her early 30s from the village of Palri, 100km (62 miles) north of the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Muzaffarabad - had gone to collect firewood on 15 July when she was raped by three men.

A minor accompanying her ran away but was chased by one attacker, the report says. The minor was stopped but started to cry, forcing her attacker to flee.

Local villagers say inquiries established the three alleged rapists were from the army.

Hundreds of people from Palri and neighbouring villages staged a protest in nearby Athamuqam on Wednesday, demanding the culprits be arrested by Friday and brought to justice.

Second case

The woman's brother-in-law says military authorities were informed of the incident.

But, he says, instead of helping they put pressure on his family not to pursue the case.

The brother-in-law sent an application on behalf of all the villagers to the deputy commissioner of the Neelum valley on 21 July, urging a case be registered.

"When our protectors start plundering our honour, who are we supposed to turn to?" he asked in the application.

The case was registered on 26 July at the police station in Athamuqam.

The police report also alleges the attempted rape of another woman, from the village of Bun Chattar, at an unspecified earlier date.

It says that attempt also involved military personnel but villagers decided not to press the matter as the woman managed to escape.

Pakistan has been subject to two recent high-profile rape cases.

Mukhtar Mai, who was raped in 2002 allegedly on the orders of a village council, has fought a strong campaign to bring her attackers to justice.

And Dr Shazia Khalid says she was forced to flee her home in Balochistan after her rape - allegedly by an army officer - sparked tribal clashes with security forces.

Pakistan Connection Seen in Taliban's New Tactics

Pakistan Connection Seen in Taliban's New Tactics

By Paul Watson, Times Staff Writer

ASADABAD, Afghanistan — Telephone and power lines haven't reached the villages clinging to the craggy mountainsides of Kunar province. Digital phones and computer chips are even further beyond the shepherds' imaginations.

So when sophisticated bombs detonated by long-range cordless phones began blowing up under U.S. and Afghan military vehicles on mountain tracks, investigators knew they had to search elsewhere for the masterminds.

Afghan officials immediately focused on nearby Pakistan and its military, whose Inter-Services Intelligence agency helped create the Taliban in the early 1990s and provided training and equipment to help the Muslim extremists win control over most of the country.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf joined the Bush administration's war on terrorism and publicly turned against the Taliban immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. But Afghan officials allege that Taliban and allied fighters who fled to Pakistan after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 are learning new, more lethal tactics from the Pakistani military at numerous training bases.

"Pakistan is lying," said Lt. Sayed Anwar, acting head of Afghanistan's counter-terrorism department. "We have very correct reports from their areas. We have our intelligence agents inside Pakistan's border as well.

"If Pakistan tells the truth, the problems will stop in Afghanistan. They say they are friends of Americans, and yet they order these people to kill Americans."

At least 38 U.S. troops have died from hostile fire in Afghanistan this year, higher than the annual combat death toll for any year since the invasion.

Musharraf has denied that his military supports the Taliban or any other Afghan insurgents and the Bush administration and U.S. military spokesmen continue to praise Pakistan's role in combating terrorism.

Pakistan's army recently added 4,000 troops to the 70,000 soldiers patrolling the rugged, nearly 1,500-mile, border between the countries in what it says is a determined effort to stop infiltrations of Afghanistan.

Pakistani Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, a military spokesman, said it was ridiculous to suggest that Pakistan had a secret operation to train insurgents to build complex electronic bombs.

"This is just a figment of some absurd mind, nothing else," Sultan said.

High-tech bombs similar to those being found in Afghanistan have killed Pakistani soldiers too, he said. More than 250 Pakistani troops have died in border operations in the last year, Sultan said.

"We haven't found any sanctuary, so far, where such items probably could be made," he said, adding that Pakistan's military didn't know where the sophisticated bomb-making technology was coming from.

Anwar, the Afghan official, who has worked in intelligence for 27 years, acknowledged that there was no smoking gun linking insurgents in Afghanistan to Pakistan's military intelligence.



Yet despite the Pakistani military's assertions, increasing numbers of guerrillas are crossing into eastern and southern Afghanistan, Anwar and other Afghan officials said.

"Last year, the enemy wasn't able to attack our checkpoints or plant so many mines," Anwar said. "This year, they have become very strong."

Anwar said reports from intelligence agents across the border and 50 captured prisoners describe an extensive network of militant training camps in areas of Pakistan's federally administered North Waziristan tribal area where government forces are firmly in control.

Tauda China, a village in the area, which is home to Pushtun tribes, is the site of one camp where Inter-Services Intelligence agents trained militants, Anwar said. He alleged that there were as many as six other camps in the surrounding valley, which is closed to outsiders and guarded by Pakistani troops and armed Afghans.

"Our agents have been there," Anwar said. "They tried to enter the valley and the soldiers didn't allow them."

Zulfiqar Ali, a Pakistani journalist who freelances for the Los Angeles Times, recently reported that at least some training camps that were closed on Musharraf's orders have been reopened.

The government denies that there are training camps. But Ali, who also writes for the Pakistani magazine the Herald, visited one camp and found armed militants with fresh recruits as young as 13 undergoing 18-day "ideological orientation" and weapons training. Several sources said 13 militant camps had been reactivated in the Mansehra region alone in the first week of May.

Militants said their official funding had continued during Musharraf's ban, but the camps had been abandoned and falling apart until this spring.

"Our transport fleet is back, electricity has been restored and the communications system is in place," a militant guide reportedly boasted to Ali.

The reported reopening of militant training camps in Pakistan coincides with the discovery of the high-tech bombs in Afghanistan.

Two months ago, Afghan security forces discovered six high-tech bombs in the town of Sarowbi, east of Kabul, the Afghan capital. The triggers consisted of long-range cordless phones attached with black electrical tape to electronic boxes, which Anwar believes convert the ringing phone's signal into an electrical charge, detonating the explosives.

"These phones are Pakistani-made phones," he said.

Since March, when heavy winter snow in the insurgents' hide-outs began to melt, the Taliban and its allies have been intensifying attacks on military and civilian targets in Afghanistan.

In addition to the rising number of U.S. deaths, about 700 people, including Afghan civilians, soldiers and insurgents, have died in the escalated fighting.

In late June, suspected Taliban guerrillas ambushed a four-man Navy SEAL reconnaissance unit high in the Hindu Kush mountain range of Kunar province. Only one of the SEALs survived the attack, and only by good fortune, according to the Pentagon's account. A rocket-propelled grenade blast knocked him down a mountainside, and despite his wounds he managed to escape to a village that gave him shelter.

Sixteen U.S. troops sent to rescue the SEALs died when insurgents shot down their helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.

Lt. Naqibullah Nooristani, operations commander for Afghan troops fighting alongside U.S. forces in Kunar, said the Taliban and its allies were proving so resilient because they were receiving improved training and equipment just across the border in Pakistan.

The guerrillas who escaped after attacking the U.S. troops left behind trash that suggests they have a good supply chain, Nooristani said.

"When our soldiers got up on the mountain, we saw empty cans of Pepsi and old running shoes, which means they changed into new ones for the operation," the lieutenant said, sitting on the edge of a cot where he sleeps next to his desk.

"They have Pepsis in the mountains while I can't find them here in the city," Nooristani said. "That means they are well supported."

The lieutenant estimated there were 300 Taliban fighters just in the Pec valley northwest of Asadabad, the provincial capital. Thousands more are fighting in several other border provinces in eastern and southern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said.

Police recently found four remote-controlled bombs in the luggage of an Afghan taxi passenger traveling on the main road from Jalalabad, near the Pakistani border, said Anwar, the Afghan counter-terrorism chief. The detonators were small, silver-colored explosive capsules that were made in Pakistan, he said.

The man transporting the bomb components, Sanaullah Khan, was from Parwan province, north of Kabul.

Under interrogation, Khan said he had entered Afghanistan with four Pakistani men after receiving training at a camp in Shamshatu, near Peshawar, Pakistan, Anwar said, reading from an interrogator's report.

Khan provided few details about the training camp, Anwar said.

Shamshatu is the site of a large U.N. camp for Afghan refugees. As recently as this spring, Pakistani newspaper reports said 90% of the camp's residents were loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former prime minister and warlord whose Hizb-i-Islami militia is now allied with the Taliban against the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan.

Khan told investigators he had received the explosive devices found in his bag from a Pakistani whom he identified as Fazal Rabi. He said Rabi lived at the camp and was "very well connected with Al Qaeda," according to the interrogation report.

Lt. Gen. Moin Faqir, who oversees the Afghan army's operations as central corps commander, said his forces first started seeing bombs with computer components six months ago in Kunar province.

"It is not easy to use these mines unless you are well trained for it," he said.

Unlike conventional land mines that have plagued Afghanistan for decades, these new devices are not triggered by the pressure of wheels rolling over them, Faqir said.

Instead, they are designed to explode directly under the vehicle's passenger cab, increasing the chances that a relatively small explosion would maim or kill. They are also easier to conceal than regular land mines.

Faqir said he could not say with certainty who was providing the equipment and training to build the new bombs.

"I think we all know where these mines are from," he added with a pained smile.

The Afghan general chose his words carefully. A uniformed U.S. military advisor was sitting on a couch next to him, taking notes on everything he said. Without using names, Faqir made it clear he thought the source of the sophisticated bombs was an enemy of the worst kind because it pretended to be an ally.

"No one should have two faces with his friend," he said, adding that such people would suffer shame and destruction. "Once you shake hands with somebody, you should stand with him till the end."

Mohammad Naseem, chairman of Birmigham mosque.

Leading cleric rails at injustice of 'Muslim bashing'
By Nick Britten
(Filed: 28/07/2005)

The most senior Islamic cleric in Birmingham claimed yesterday that Muslims were being unjustly blamed in the war on terrorism and that the eight suspects in the two bombing attacks on London "could have been innocent passengers".

Mohammad Naseem, the chairman of the city's central mosque, called Tony Blair a "liar" and "unreliable witness" and questioned whether CCTV footage issued of the suspected bombers was of the perpetrators.

He said that Muslims "all over the world have never heard of an organisation called al-Qa'eda".

Mr Naseem, who was speaking after police seized Yasin Hassan Omar in Birmingham, delivered his unprompted outburst when he was invited to a press conference with West Midlands police and Birmingham city council to help calm fears of racial or religious tension after the arrest.

It was held near the police cordon in Heybarnes Road, where Omar was arrested.

His comments shocked senior police officers.

Sources said that attempts to encourage Muslims to pass them information on the bombers' activities would be hindered. One said: "We are trying to gain the trust of the Muslim community and these kinds of comments have the opposite effect. All they do is encourage communities to close ranks against us."

To the obvious embarrassment of council officials and police standing next to him, Mr Naseem said the Government and security services "were not to be relied upon".

He said: "Tony Blair has told lies on going to Iraq and in a court of law if a witness has proved to be a liar he ceases to be a reliable witness. So we cannot give our blind trust to the Government.

"To have that trust it is important that the process of law should be independent, open and transparent. I am also sad that unfortunately the impression has been given that Muslims are to be targeted in this war against terror. There seems to be a directive to target Muslims. Why do we not have an open mind about this?

"Muslim bashing seems to be more earnest than the need for national unity and harmony. Terrorists can be anybody - we will have to see [whether the bombers are Muslims]. The process is not open; the process is not transparent; the process is not independent. I do not have faith in the system as it stands."

Mr Naseem is one of the most respected Muslims in the city and is considered a moderate. He has regular meetings with the chief constable to discuss religious harmony.

Mr Naseem said that while it was vital that terrorism was stamped out and that there was never any justification for it, the Government had not helped by going to war in Iraq.

Dismissing the Prime Minister's insistence that the war had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks, he said: "Tony Blair … is not going to be perceived as a reliable witness. His comments could motivate someone to take the law into his own hands.

"Some people have been caught but I have not seen any evidence. The process of law is not open."

Asked about the suspects' DNA being found at the scene of the first attacks, he said: "DNA can match you, but that does not mean you are going to commit a crime. Thousands of youths are passing by and caught on CCTV, so how do you know it is them?"

He added: "We must rely upon trust that we have between communities.

"We must remain united in the fight against terrorism but the process should be independent and open, not like the Hutton inquiry, not like the Lord Butler inquiry." And, in an editorial in The Dawn, the central mosque's newsletter, Mr Naseem writes: "Where is the evidence that four youths whose pictures were caught on CCTV cameras…were the perpetrators? How did we reject the possibility they were just innocent victims of this terrible happening? They had bought return train tickets."

An emerging alliance with India: Michael Barone

An emerging alliance with India

By Michael Barone

You didn't see it in the headlines this week, but it's likely to be more important in the long run than many things that received much more notice. The "it" in question is the New Framework for the U.S.-India Defense Relationship signed Monday by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee. This agreement provides for increased cooperation on research and development of high-tech weaponry and joint and combined training exercises.

This is big news—a lot bigger news than (to name a couple of items that got more attention recently) German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's expression of hope that things will turn out well in Iraq or Sen. Joseph Biden's call for 1,500 French gendarmes to help us there. A few European troops or trainers more or less are not going to make a difference in the outcome in Iraq. But our emerging alliance with India—and that is what it is, whatever label you put on it—can make an enormous difference over the next long generation in Asia.

Put it in historic perspective. From the 1950s to 1991, India was a de facto ally of the Soviet Union. It purchased Soviet military equipment, routinely opposed the United States in international forums and shared with the Soviets the purpose of cabining in China. The Soviets for their part took India's side against Pakistan, which in turn was supported by China and the United States. Remember that Henry Kissinger took off on his first secret flight to China from Pakistan.

The Indian-Soviet alliance came to a screeching halt with the end of the Soviet Union in December 1991. The Russians had little to offer India, and India needed new friends. Over the intervening years it became apparent that they had more interests in common with the United States than Jawaharlal Nehru or Indira Gandhi ever thought. As president, Bill Clinton played a constructive role by visiting India and increasing U.S.-India ties. George W. Bush carried on when, in his first months as president, he made a point of stopping by for an unscheduled 45-minute chat with India's foreign minister when he was meeting with Condoleezza Rice.

I have often wondered whether Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's decision soon after September 11 to cooperate with the United States was prompted by our improving relations with India. Bush administration officials have told me they don't think so. But it seems to me that Musharraf may have thought that if Pakistan didn't cooperate with the United States in its efforts against Afghanistan, India would have, with negative consequences for his regime.

In any case, since September 11 Bush and his administration have moved closer and closer to India. It is obvious that the two countries have much in common: the English language, representative democracy, the rule of law. Since 1991, India has dismantled much of the "permit raj" that choked its economy, and its leaders have enabled the market to do its magic work of promoting economic growth. In recent years the Indian economy has been growing about 6 percent a year, and millions of Indians have moved out of poverty. India has become a center of high-tech innovation. And India, like the United States, has long been a target of jihadist terrorists.

Last Monday's agreement was another step in the process of adding to the list of America's military allies in Asia. Japan has recently been building its military forces and despite the pacifist clauses in its Constitution has aided us in Afghanistan and Iraq and has spoken out against a Chinese takeover of Taiwan. Australia was a major partner in Iraq and has taken the initiative on other occasions, notably on tsunami relief. Now we are building closer military ties with India.

There is not likely to be a formal NATO-like alliance among Japan, Australia, India, and the United States. But increasingly there is the functional equivalent of one. There is fierce debate in many quarters whether China will emerge as a military threat. Some, like strategist Thomas Barnett, argue that China is too well integrated into the international economy to allow its gains to be lost by military aggression. Others argue that the Chinese are seeking to project their military strength outward and cannot be counted on to refrain from aggression in Taiwan. Whichever view you take, our emerging alliance with India is good news. Despite official denials, it provides something of a counterweight to China. And it increases the clout of a nation that is showing what representative democracy, the rule of law, and the free marketplace can do.

IAEA terms under US pact won’t tie India’s hands

IAEA terms under US pact won’t tie India’s hands

Additional protocol gives operational flexibility to N-weapon states

C. RAJA MOHAN

NEW DELHI, JULY 27: Contrary to assertions here that the separation of India’s civilian and military nuclear programmes and placing the former under international safeguards will undermine India’s nuclear deterrent, a reading of similar agreements by other nuclear weapon states suggests the government will retain full operational flexibility under any such arrangement.

Besides choosing which facilities of the nuclear programme it wants to designate as civilian and place under international safeguards, India will have the option of removing facilities from the list it would eventually submit to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Pew Survey: US Image Most Favorable in India

Pew Survey: US Image Most Favorable in India

By Anjana Pasricha
New Delhi
27 July 2005

"As two great democracies we are natural partners in many ways. We are at a juncture in our history where we can embark on a partnership between India and the United States, a partnership that can draw both on principles as well as pragmatism," said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

These words by Prime Minister Singh to the U.S. Congress during his visit to Washington this month epitomize the huge shift in Indian attitudes to the United States in recent years.

In the corridors of power in New Delhi, America is now seen as a friend and ally rather as a superpower that sparked Indian resentment and a neutral stance in the Cold War days.

The view extends beyond government to India's growing middle class, which has always regarded America as the world's leading land of opportunity, but disliked its foreign policy.

In recent decades, hundreds of thousands of migrating Indians have achieved their dream of prosperity in the United States. In the last three years, Indian students have made up the largest chunk of foreigners heading out to study in American colleges.

As more and more Indians travel to and from the United States for vacations, to visit sons and daughters, or for business, there are many words of praise for the country.

In fact, a recent 16-country poll by the Pew Research Center in Washington found that Indians have the most favorable image of the United States, more so than the publics in Canada and Britain. The survey found that 71 percent of Indians had a positive view of America, up from 54 percent three years ago.

A professor of Sociology at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, Dipankar Gupta, says traditional hostility to America is melting as Washington reaches out to India and builds a stronger political partnership.

"The people in India have always admired America, have wanted to go to America, visit America and be loved by America," he said. "But America somehow took a hard stand against India, and that is what made India hostile to America, not because of what America is essentially or intrinsically, but because of its foreign relations."

Despite the positive image, some Indians side with many other nations in objecting to what they see as unilateral policies by the United States and want to see greater international cooperation.

Some ordinary Indians here in Delhi still strongly feel that the United States is arrogant and overbearing in its foreign policy.

"I admire its progressive thinking, but I find it a bully as a nation," said one person.

"As a country I like it, but somewhere they have to draw a balance as to how to interact with the other nations," said another.

They site the U.S. decision to invade Iraq without a United Nations mandate as just one example.

But as India focuses more firmly on trying to achieve its dream of economic prosperity and big power status, it appears to be more in step with the U.S. than ever before.

Details on the trouble in gilgit

Flashpoint Gilgit

AZIZ-UD-DIN AHMAD
While the government is finding it difficult to deal with communal terrorism in the country, Northern areas promise to turn into a rich breeding ground for Sunni and Shia extremists and suicide bombers. This is a region where the sects are almost evenly balanced and extremist elements have a strong presence on both sides. The ongoing spurt of sectarian violence has turned Gilgit into a new flashpoint. Attacks have already claimed eight lives and there seems to be no end in sight to the ongoing violence.
During the last seven months communal violence has taken toll of two score lives and caused injuries to many more. It all started in January this year after a vehicle in which a prominent Shia cleric was traveling was ambushed in Gilgit, killing two of his guards and mortally wounding him. This led to mayhem in the city and 11 people were left dead on a single day in acts of arson and killings. Curfew was imposed which was relaxed only after two weeks.
The incident had widespread repercussions. In Skardu hundreds of demonstrators burned tyres and blocked roads. There were protests in Karachi where a large number of people from Northern areas come to work or study. A Sipah-i-Sahaba cleric was later gunned down in the city. An attempt to kill a Sunni cleric in Islamabad failed but two months later former Northern areas police chief Sakhiullah Tareen was killed along with police guards. Days before he had led a crackdown on sectarian groups in Gilgit.
The recent spurt of violence started after unknown gunmen attacked a Natco bus on its way to Pindi from Gilgit, killing four and injuring six. During the last few months half a dozen attacks of the sort have happened on the strategic highway, which carries practically the entire load of Pak-China trade besides being the sole all-weather link between the Northern areas and rest of the country.
As Diamir district where the bus was attacked is predominantly Sunni and as some of the killed and injured were Shias, it was interpreted as a sectarian incident and there was a communal flare up in Gilgit. Subsequently, eight people belonging to the two sects, including a union council chairman, have been gunned down during the last few days. The town is in grip of tension, markets and shopping centres have been closed down, and tourists have left in panic. Orders have been given by the police chief to shoot at sight any suspected terrorist or arsonist.
The violence is in fact a sequel to last year's communal killings which started after protests by the local Shia community that their children were being forced to read Islamic studies books written by Sunni authors. They demanded separate courses for Shia students in line with their beliefs. As a communal minded bureaucracy opposed the demand this led to student strikes, followed by disturbances, killings, mass arrests and imposition of curfew. Six of the FC personnel posted to protect the Chinese working on the KKH were kidnapped along with their weapons. In case anyone of the Chinese had been harmed, this would have led to international repercussions. Foreign NGOs were in the meanwhile warned against suicide attacks. The greatest loss to the area was that the schools in Gilgit remained closed for over six months.
The continuing communal strife in the Northern areas is bound to have ominous repercussions for the country. The region supplies Pakistan army with men and officers with greater capability to fight in some of the most difficult terrain along the LoC than men recruited from the plains of Punjab. Rise of communalism can affect their morale.
The Gilgit region was a part of Kashmir before 1947. Soon after partition, its people rebelled against the Dogra rule and decided to join Pakistan. Those who led the rebellion were both Sunnis and Shias. The Northern areas were not integrated into Pakistan for being technically a part of Kashmir and because the people were supposed to take part in the referendum promised under the UN resolution. Sectarian infighting is bound to send a negative message to Kashmiris living under the Indian rule as Shias and Sunnis live there in harmony and are struggling together against India under the leadership of the APHC.
Keeping in view the fact that Northern areas border China, religious extremism expressing itself in sectarian killings is likely to raise hackles in Beijing where it would be seen as a destabilising factor in the highly sensitive Muslim majority Sinkiang. What is more the closure of the markets in Gilgit flush with Chinese goods, and insecurity on the KKH, the sole route for the Pak-China trade is a bad omen for the trade between the two countries. Lack of security on the KKH will affect the prospects of the Gwadar port.
The Northern areas have the largest number of peaks, glaciers and mountain passes that attract mountaineers and backpackers from all over the world. The region is one of the most popular destinations of the foreign tourists coming to Pakistan. The sectarian violence which has gripped the area, particularly during the last two years, has acted as a disincentive and is already hitting hard the fledgling tourist industry.
Instead of taking the communal issue in the Northern areas lightly, its ramifications need to be properly understood. Special measures should be taken urgently to promote tolerance and communal harmony. Unless this happens, there is a likelihood of the whole country being affected by the communal hatred being promoted in the region.
E-mail queries and comments to: azizuddin@nation.com.pk

Herald report on terrorist camps

Back to camp

By Zulfiqar Ali

An hour's drive north-west of Mansehra, opposite a beautiful village nestled on the slopes of a ridge, a jeep track branches off from the road and snakes up a hill that is home to the oldest militant training camp in the region.

"Until 2001, thousands of fighters trained here for operations in Kashmir and Afghanistan," says our guide, requesting that his name and that of his organisation be withheld. After the September 11, 2001, attacks in America, though, the militants' activities dwindled. Last year, the camp was abandoned following an unequivocal warning from the government. 'But now we can start again,' he says. According to a top manager of the training camp in Mansehra, all the major militant organisations, including Hizbul Mujahideen, al-Badr Mujahideen, Harkatul Mujahideen and others, began regrouping in April this year by renovating training facilities that were deserted last year.

Ironically, this regrouping comes amid the high-profile composite dialogue with India and when institutional arrangements for non-interference in Afghanistan have been put in place. Previously, these two countries have been the target of Islamic militancy. The top Indian leadership has so far not reacted strongly to reports of militant infiltration across the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir, probably because it has not exceeded the levels of previous years. But Islamabad has recently been under fire from Kabul over its alleged support for the Taliban insurgency that has claimed a record number of civilian, Afghan and American lives this year.

URL: http://www.dawn.com/herald/main.htm#1

London bombers link to Jaish.

Two Militants Place Suspect at a Camp in Pakistan

By ARIF JAMAL and SOMINI SENGUPTA

LAHORE, Pakistan, July 25 - Two experienced militants, both veterans of the war in Afghanistan, told an independent Pakistani journalist here last week that they had met one of the July 7 London bombing suspects, Shehzad Tanweer, on a trip to a known militant training camp north of the capital, Islamabad.

One of the militants interviewed said Mr. Tanweer struck him as "a good Muslim" who was eager to assassinate the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. "I wish I could do that," he recalled Mr. Tanweer as saying.

The militants, both members of Jaish-e-Muhammad, an organization officially banned by the government and implicated in two assassination attempts against General Musharraf, spoke on condition that their names not be used because they do not want to be apprehended by the government. They said they met Mr. Tanweer, 22, a Briton of Pakistani descent, last winter, but they would not be more specific on dates for fear of revealing their own identities.

Jihad culture runs deep in Pakistan: Farhan Bokhari

Jihad culture runs deep in Pakistan
By Farhan Bokhari
Published: July 27 2005 03:00 | Last updated: July 27 2005 03:00

"The most supreme jihad [holy war] is offering one's life for sacrifice - the reward for which is eternal life for a martyr."

This line comes neither from a firebrand Islamic preacher armed with anti-western vitriol, nor from a sermon in a predominantly Muslim country where the Taliban brand of Islam influences many.

Instead, it comes from a school textbook, used for teaching Pakistan studies (history, culture and politics) to 15-year-old children.

Fifty thousand copies of its latest edition, titled "Pakistan Studies for Class 10", were printed in April - more than three years after General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler, turned his back on Afghanistan's Taliban regime and promised to root out militancy in his country.

The textbook is one of many examples cited by those who see a gap between official promises and reality.

Across small towns and poorer neighbourhoods in larger cities it is not uncommon to see wall slogans urging Muslims to resist infidel westerners, or stickers at book shops highlighting the importance of jihad.

Such symbols become even more frequent in the north-western frontier and Baluchistan - the provinces bordering Afghanistan, ruled by Islamic clerics belonging to the coalition of six Islamist groups known as the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.

"This is shocking. Before reading this book, I hadn't realised we continue to ignore militant influence, although we say we are trying to remove them from our society," says Hasan Askari Rizvi, a commentator on security and national affairs, who has recently reviewed textbooks for militancy-related content.

"There can be no greater contradiction between Gen Musharraf professing to be a liberal leader and some of the realities of our society."

Three of the four suspected British suicide bombers who died in the July 7 attacks in London were of Pakistani origin.

At least one is said to have visited a madrassah, or Islamic school, in Pakistan in the past year.

Last week, Gen Musharraf ordered all madrassah - there are an estimated 13,000 - to put themselves up for official inspection by the end of this year and warned banned militant groups against emerging under new identities. But analysts such as Mr Rizvi are sceptical over promises of a crackdown.

"This is not the first time these warnings were delivered," says Mr Rizvi. "We have seen the same promises from the same leader before. You have to ask if such a clean-up is immediately possible when it is so widespread."

The answer to that question lies partly in Pakistan's history. In the 25 years since troops from the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Pakistan's powerful military, which returned to power in 1999 under Gen Musharraf, has encouraged the promotion of the concept of jihad in two ways.

First, the US-backed resistance of Afghanistan's mujahideen fighters in the 1980s relied on Pakistan as a conduit for the supply of arms. During that period, the Afghan resistance was organised by Pakistani and US intelligence officials under the banner of jihad, essentially to give a common objective to ethnically diverse groups.

In addition, Pakistan encouraged the use of a similar concept in supporting Muslim insurgents in Indian-administered Kashmir and only backed away once a new peace process began in January 2004.

Second, the politically powerful military has used the concept of jihad to motivate its troops facing much larger foes, such as India.

"The question for the Pakistani military is, really, are they ready to give up a position and a belief which they have nurtured for so long?" says Brigadier [retired] Shaukat Qadir, an Islamabad-based analyst on military and security affairs.

Others, however, warn Gen Musharraf must retreat from his opposition to Pakistan's mainstream and relatively liberal political parties - the Pakistan People's party of Benazir Bhutto and the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif. The two former prime ministers live in exile, which Gen Musharraf refuses to end.

Open season for jihadis: Syed Saleem Shahzad

Open season for jihadis
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Sophisticated terror attacks using the minimum possible resources to target civilians are the issue of the day, whether it be in Egypt, the United Kingdom or Spain.

Invariably, Pakistan is linked to the attacks. In the case of the July 7 suicide attacks in London, three of the bombers were of Pakistani descent and had visited madrassas (Islamic schools) in Pakistan. Pakistanis are being sought in connection with the weekend's attacks in Egypt.

Pakistan, simply, is widely reckoned as the premier breeding ground for jihadis, fueled by the Afghan resistance to the Soviets in the 1980s, the on-going troubles in Kashmir and the current Taliban-led resistance to foreign forces in Afghanistan.

The root of the "evil", as much of the West sees it, is the madrassa system - the many thousands of schools that teach the Koran and little else, and which mostly attract underprivileged, marginalized youth highly susceptible to the extreme teachings - and militancy - that some of the madrassas offer.

Under US and British pressure, therefore, in the wake of the London bombings, hundreds of madrassa teachers and students, along with militants, have been rounded up in the past two weeks.

Yet maybe this is a classic case of not been able to see the wood for the trees.

Pakistan's leading monthly magazine, Herald, has published a detailed eyewitness account backed with photographs on how youths are trained in militant camps in the central region of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Mansehra. The story was so accurate that the government could not deny it, although it issued orders to "fix" the publisher.

"Until 2001, thousands of fighters trained here for operations in Kashmir and Afghanistan ... after the 9/11 attacks in America, though, the militants' activities dwindled, and last year the camp was abandoned following an unequivocal warning from the government. But all major militant organizations began regrouping in April this year by renovating training facilities that were deserted last year," the cover story of Herald maintained.

According to a manager of the training camp, the report said, all the major militant organizations, including Hizbul Mujahideen, al-Badr Mujahideen, Harkat ul-Mujahideen and others, began regrouping in April.

The Herald report says that at least 13 major camps in the Mansehra region were revived during the first week of May. As the camps reopen, managers claim trained militants as well as new aspirants are flocking to enlist for jihad.

As one militant leader put it, the organizations are now under a "regime of controlled freedom".

The story is a severe embarrassment for the government of Pakistan as many US officials are already skeptical of its integrity in the "war on terror".

Asia Times Online security contacts say that the US had become aware of the main Mansehra camp, but it was assured by Pakistani officials that the camp had not been in operation in the past few months.

Meanwhile, in the mountains ...
The mountainous terrain between Afghanistan and Pakistan is another area where neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan have been able to eliminate training camps. The area is a rugged no-man's-land that spans the border.

This is the hub of the Taliban resistance, where many top commanders, including Jalaluddin Haqqani, visit, and it's a perfect training center of the Afghan and global resistance. The Afghan resistance plots its hit-and-run attacks within Afghanistan from here.

... and in the tribal areas
Asia Times Online sources in the North Waziristan tribal area say that there were as many as 40 attacks in a single day on various army posts on Monday.

"The purpose of the attacks was not to kill anybody but just to remind the Pakistani army what happened to them last year when they tried to conduct operations in South Waziristan," commented a tribal source from Waziristan on the telephone.

Last year, under immense US pressure, the Pakistani government launched several military operations in South Waziristan to track down al-Qaeda suspects and foreign militants. They encountered fierce resistance from tribespeople, who cherish their virtual independence from the central government.

Trouble on the border
Conflict between the Pakistan army and Islamist militants along the Afghan border has led security analysts to talk of a full-fledged insurgency that poses a grave threat to the country, reports M B Naqvi of Inter Press Service (IPS).

"Frequent, bloody gun battles, heavy casualties, ambushes, attacks on military outposts and killing of informers and army collaborators are not ordinary crimes. Make no mistake. It is an insurgency," said A R Siddiqui, commentator on military affairs and a former brigadier in the Pakistan army.

Siddiqui told IPS that he saw the conflict as an "offshoot or even a continuation" of the "war against terror" prosecuted by the US against Taliban-ruled Afghanistan immediately after September 11, 2001.

US-led coalition forces across the border in Afghanistan are coordinating operations with the Pakistani army in both North and South Waziristan as part of the efforts to capture al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The high levels of civilian "collateral damage" in recent weeks has caused outrage which has resulted in further alienation of the Pashtun tribes that dominate Waziristan and which form the backbone of the Taliban movement.

"This is inexcusable," said Siddiqui. "Either Pakistan's intelligence has failed or wrong information was fed by the coalition's military sources in Afghanistan. It is going to intensify the insurgency in all the tribal areas and will mean many more recruits to the Taliban and other militant outfits in both countries."

The Pakistan army first began operations against al-Qaeda elements holing up in Waziristan in July 2002, but quickly became bogged down in a war with fiercely independent Pashtun tribes that saw the expeditions - the first in more than half-a-century - as an attempt to subjugate them.

Pashtun tribes are spread across the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), in which Waziristan falls, the NWFP and on the other side of the Durand Line (border) in Afghanistan.

Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf has said he is particularly concerned about Pakistan's image as a hotbed for Islamist extremism, militancy of various shades and as a support base for the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Last week, he charged two Pakistan-based militant organizations, the Jaish-i-Mohammed and the Sipah-i-Sabah, which he had ordered banned, with being "responsible for indoctrinating some of the London bombers".

Musharraf also said he believed that some of the madrassas were "dabbling in the military training of their students and preparing jihadis".

Now it is up to him to stop it, provided he does not get lost in the trees.

Syed Saleem Shahzad, Bureau Chief, Pakistan, Asia Times Online. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

Guardian: Musharraf 's terrorist claims are dismissed

Musharraf 's terrorist claims are dismissed

Fine balancing act may be backfiring

Declan Walsh in Islamabad
Wednesday July 27, 2005

President Pervez Musharraf's declaration that he has "completely shattered" al-Qaida in Pakistan was met yesterday with deep scepticism from diplomats, analysts and opposition politicians.

As the hunt for the network behind the London bombings intensifies, he bristled at suggestions that Pakistan was a global hub for al-Qaida. "Our military, police and other law enforcement agencies have completely shattered al-Qaida's vertical and horizontal links," he told a press briefing on Monday. "It no longer has any command, communication and propaganda structure in Pakistan."

Critics say he is wrong. "It's just window dressing. He says al-Qaida's back is broken after every major operation. It always turns out to be wrong," said Afrasiab Khattak, a human rights activist and opposition politician in Peshawar. A western diplomat in Islamabad said Gen Musharraf had failed to deliver on similar promises after September 11. "Wait until you see, the same thing will happen this time," she said.

But Gen Musharraf, a key western ally, is playing a delicate balancing game, and points to anti-terror successes. Since 2001 Pakistan has arrested more than 700 al-Qaida suspects including Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the alleged number three captured near Peshawar last May.

Last year the army launched a blistering operation against 15 al-Qaida bases in South Waziristan bordering Afghanistan. More than 300 militants (about half of them foreign) and about as many Pakistani soldiers were killed. But analysts say Gen Musharraf is perilously ignoring domestic extremists with ever stronger links to international terrorism.

Pakistan jihadis trained to fight in Kashmir but angered by the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq have given their services to al-Qaida with bloody results. Local groups murdered the journalist Daniel Pearl, bombed western targets and provided computer expertise to help plan attacks around the world. Two assassination attempts on Gen Musharraf in 2003 were ordered by Libbi but carried out by Pakistani supporters. "What we are looking at is al-Qaida lookalikes or wannabes," said Samina Ahmed of the International Crisis Group thinktank.

Concerns centre on Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Mohammad. Initially fostered by the Pakistani intelligence agencies as proxy fighters in Indian-occupied Kashmir, both have widened their jihad to include western targets. Although Lashkar-i-Taiba was banned in 2002 its leader, Hafiz Saeed, has openly preached from his Lahore mosque and attended political rallies in Islamabad.

The Circle line bomber Shehzad Tanweer spent up to four months in a madrasa run by Lashkar near Lahore. It is unknown whether he received militant training there; relatives say he was studying. What is certain is that such extremist institutions produce highly radicalised graduates.

Anti-terrorist officials remain deeply worried about young Britons enrolling at madrasas. They cannot monitor them because of the sheer number of Britons of Pakistani descent who travel to Pakistan.

Training camps for Kashmir are another anxiety. The Karachi-based Herald magazine recently described a camp in Mansehra, 60 miles north of Islamabad, with a stream of recruits. Similar camps have probably been used by al-Qaida. "Not all Kashmiri groups agree with al-Qaida. But since 9/11 you can't ringfence one from another," said a British official. "A lot of social networks were reactivated and bonds strengthened after Iraq."

Gen Musharraf's claims to have crushed al-Qaida in the lawless tribal areas are also in doubt. Officers admit that most of the casualties in the South Waziristan offensive were simple foot soldiers while their leaders - principally the Uzbek militant leader Tahir Yuldashev - escaped.

Since then al-Qaida-linked gunmen have assassinated pro-government tribal leaders. Shah Mehsud, a prominent elder in Makin village, was injured yesterday during the third attempt on his life.

Gen Musharraf is also constrained by political considerations. Two years ago he allied himself with the radical MMA religious group to secure his political survival. His party rules in coalition with the MMA in western Baluchistan province.

Some say the biggest problem lies within his own army. Many senior officers are committed to victory in Kashmir and some are thought to support anti-western ideology. "Musharraf is bound by the Islamic consensus within the armed forces," said Mr Khattak. "There has to be a paradigm shift if he is going to really tackle the terrorist networks."

Shireen Mazari's heartburn on the India-US pact- part 2

The writing on the wall

Shireen M Mazari

Given that most Pakistani leaders in the past, including those with "heavy" electoral mandates, have tolerated all manner of insults simply for a "photo op" with the US President, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz deserves credit for taking the difficult decision to cancel his visit to the US as was the need of the hour. Not that this is the first instance in which we have chosen to assert our own national interest and dignity - after all, we have stood our ground on Iraq and also, so far, on the Iran pipeline project. But the Aziz cancellation came at a critical time and was in response to the mere 30-minute photo op that the US President had offered -- this in the immediate aftermath of the Indian Premier's highly touted visit which brought the US and India into strategic embrace.

In fact, it would have been absurd for our Premier to continue with his US visit given that even for the most obtuse writing on the wall regarding the US and its relationship with India is only too clear. Preceding the Indian Premier's visit to Washington, India and the US signed a 10-year defence agreement, which has already been discussed earlier in these columns. We now see a unique nuclear agreement between India and the US, which effectively puts paid to the international non-proliferation agenda, since it effectively recognises India's nuclear-weapon status. It does so by seeking to separate Indian military nuclear facilities from the civilian facilities, which India, as a quid pro quo, will now place under IAEA safeguards. Linked to all this is the US commitment to provide nuclear technological assistance to India.

For US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns to declare that all this was done in the case of India but could not probably be done in the case of Pakistan was because "India has a record of non-proliferation which is exceptional; very strong commitment to protection of fissile material, other nuclear materials and nuclear technology; and there is a transparency about India's programme, which has been welcomed." Now, we know the Americans have distorted the English language, but how is India's non-proliferation record "exceptional"? In 1975, India signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Iran and began helping in the completion of the Bushehr plant between 1980-1983, including the sending of nuclear scientists and engineers to Iran in November 1982. In 1991, despite US opposition, India negotiated the sale of a 10-megawatt nuclear reactor to Iran and, as we all know, Dr Prasad worked in Bushehr after he retired in July 2000 as head of the Nuclear Corporation of India. It is no wonder that Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Hasan Rowhani, visited New Delhi for talks with the Indian Prime Minister in February 2004!

And that is not all. In 1992, India also supplied thiodyglycol, and other chemicals, to Iran; and in 1993, United Phosphorous of India supplied Iran with 30 tonnes of trimethyl-phosphite. It is also known that an Indian company exported chemicals to Iraq for Saddam's missile programme and a director of that company, Hans Raj Shiv, was under arrest in New Delhi. And no one is talking much about the presence of retired Indian nuclear scientists in Libya. Is this an exceptional non-proliferation record?

As for a strong commitment to protection of fissile material, there is a record of nuclear thefts and missing fissile material in India, including an ISSI study based primarily on Indian sources, which is being sent to educate Mr Burns. He is, of course, correct on India's transparency in terms of its nuclear weapons programme. Since 1974, India has made no effort to conceal its desire for a nuclear-weapons capability. And yet the world merely turned a blind eye to this "transparent" nuclear ambition. So, one can assume now that the US is applauding such ambitions as long as they are transparent!

Please, Mr Burns and others in the US Administration, stop handing us a load of rubbish in terms of why the US has chosen to undermine its own non-proliferation agenda and give effective recognition to India's nuclear status. Some of us had expressed a fear, all along, that the US would seek to delink India's nuclear status from Pakistan's -- giving legitimacy to the former while targeting the latter. This has now come to pass. It is indeed ironic that the US, which was in the forefront in the creation of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and in pushing for full-scope safeguards and enlargement of the NSG's list of sensitive items, now wants to modify the same rules and accommodate India as a "special case".

India has been quick in moving ahead and targeting Pakistan's nuclear programme by raising concerns about its command and control. Given that Pakistan's National Command Authority (NCA) has been in place far longer than India's, and is the most publicly explained NCA, it is now clear that India has now started on the road of seeking to undermine Pakistan's nuclear capability. This is a dangerous game for India to draw the US into because it should be clear to all and sundry that Pakistan has sacrificed too much to allow anyone to rollback this capability. As for the outcry of extremists, given that the BJP controlled India's nuclear programme till recently, India should look inwards to ensure that these extremists who conducted the genocide of Muslims in Gujarat do not come to power again.

In fact, India has acquired a new sense of recklessness after the Singh visit to Washington. Indian forces have begun deliberate targeting and killing of innocent teenagers in Occupied Kashmir -- the latest being on Sunday, July 24, when three teenage boys were shot dead and one seriously wounded. Also, India has adopted a new belligerency towards Pakistan on the Kashmir front while attempting to gradually extricate itself from the pipeline project. Despite Minister Ayer's reassurances, Pakistan should be alert to the possibility that RAW would like to create an incident which would not only provide India with a face-saving exit strategy out of the pipeline project, but also undermine the project as a whole -- a major aim of the US at present.

In view of these developments, Pakistan should re-evaluate US intent towards Pakistan -- including that in terms of its nuclear status. Undoubtedly,the US having delinked India from Pakistan on the nuclear issue, one should expect a more concerted and overt programme targeting Pakistan's nuclear assets. As for any remaining myth about Pakistan having a strategic partnership with the US, let that be removed once and for all in the light of the Indo-US defence and nuclear agreements. The non-proliferation regime exemplified by the NPT, which suffered a mortal blow by the failure of the NPT Review Conference in May, has finally been killed by the Indo-US nuclear agreement. The myth of a strategic Pakistan-US partnership, too, now lies dead. May they both rest in peace.

The writer is Director General of the

Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com