India asks Pakistan to hand over 20 "fugitives".

[daredevil]

Pakistan: Thus far and no further: Indian POV

B Raman | December 05, 2008 | 17:42 IST

You cannot convince somebody, who does not want to be convinced, who is not prepared to be convinced.

That has been our experience since 1981 when Pakistan started using terrorism as a weapon to keep India bleeding and to weaken it, in the hope that, by doing so, it will be able to force India to agree to a change in the status quo in Jammu & Kashmir.

The recovery by the Dubai authorities in 1983 of a revolver from a Khalistani hijacker which German authorities certified in writing was from a consignment sold to the Pakistan Army; the recovery from the perpetrators of the March, 1993, blasts of hand-grenades which Austrian experts certified in writing had been manufactured in Pakistan with technology and equipment sold by Austria to the Army-run Pakistan ordnance factories; the recovery from them of a chemical timer which the US certified in an unsigned note was part of a consignment supplied by the US to Pakistan in the 1980s and more and more and more.

The more the evidence we collected, the stronger the rejection -- particularly from the US. Not sufficient enough. Does not directly implicate the government of Pakistan. That was the stock reply we received repeatedly.

The US was interested only in protecting the lives and property of its citizens and in preventing another 9/11 in the US homeland from Pakistani territory. So long as Pakistan was co-operating with the US in action against al Qaeda, the US closed its eyes and continues to close its eyes to Pakistani support for acts of jihadi terrorism directed against India.

One would have expected that the US attitude after the Mumbai terrorist strikes would have been different because the terrorists of the Pakistan government-raised and backed Lashkar-e-Tayiba killed not only about 160 Indians, but also 25 foreigners -- six of them Israelis and another six Americans.

The Jewish civilians killed by the terrorists in the Nariman House were subjected to brutalities the like of which the world has not seen since the brutalities inflicted on the Jewish people by the Nazis during the Second World War.

And yet, the attitude of the US and other Western countries has been the same as it has always been. Where is the evidence, we are asked.

What evidence?

Evidence of the death of 160 Indians?

Evidence of the death of six Americans?

Evidence of the death of six Israelis?

Evidence of the brutalities inflicted by the terrorists on the Jewish people?

Is not the capture by the public of one of the perpetrators, a Pakistani national, who has confessed that he is from Pakistan and that he belonged to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and that the entire operation was mounted by the LeT evidence enough?

Are not the intercepted telephone conversations between the perpetrators and their handlers in Pakistan evidence enough?

Are not the movement and activities of Professor Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed, the amir of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the political wing of the LET, in Pakistan as reported in the Pakistani media and in its own web site evidence enough?

Is not the continued existence of the training camps of the LET in Pakistani territory, including at Muridke, its headquarters near Lahore, evidence enough?

Is not the refusal of the Pakistan government -- whether of Pervez Musharraf or Asif Ali Zardari -- to arrest the operatives of the LeT and close their camps despite an ostensible ban on it evidence enough?

What more evidence do the Americans want?

What evidence did they have when Ronald Reagan ordered the bombing of Libya in 1986 after an explosion in a West Berlin discotheque, which killed some Americans?

What evidence did they have before Bill Clinton ordered the Cruise missile attacks on jihadi training camps in Afghan territory in August, 1998?

What evidence did they have against al Qaeda and the Taliban before they bombed Afghanistan from October 7, 2001?

What evidence did they have against the Saddam Hussain government before they invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003?

In every case affecting American nationals and interests, they bombed and then collected evidence. They did not wait till they had collected all the evidence possible before they bombed.

They did not act on the basis of evidence accepted by the international community. They acted on the basis of their conviction as to where from the attacks on Americans came.

Their actions were motivated by the need to show that nobody can play with American lives and get away with it.

We should stop demeaning ourselves as a nation by going to the Americans and others with evidence. I am shocked by suggestions that we should produce the evidence before the UN Security Council. I cannot think of a more naive idea. It is as stupid as the advice given by the British to Jawaharlal Nehru to take the Kashmir issue to the UN Security Council with a promise that it would do justice by India.

The time for action against Pakistan has come. Action based on our conviction that the terrorists came from a Pakistani terrorist organisation, which enjoys the patronage of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.

The objective of the action should be to force Pakistan to act effectively against the LeT and its terrorist infrastructure. It should also be to mount a no-holds barred covert operation against the LeT through our own resources and methods.

Two steps the Government can take immediately:

� �STEP No.1: Downgrade the diplomatic relations with Pakistan, terminate all economic relations including bilateral trade and communication links, suspend the confidence-building measures and the so-called peace process, terminate the talks on the gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan and withdraw from the so-called joint counter-terrorism mechanism, which has been a farce forced on Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh by the US. Announce that these actions will remain in force till Pakistan acts against the LeT and its terrorist leaders and infrastructure and hands over to India the terrorists wanted for trial in India.

� �STEP No. 2: Revive immediately the covert action capability of the Research and Analysis Wing, which was wound up by Inder Gujral, when he was the prime minister in 1997, and empower it to impose prohibitive costs on Pakistan till it stops using jihadi terrorism against India. The RAW imposed heavy costs on Pakistan for supporting the Khalistanis and should be able to do so now for its support to the LET and other jihadi terrorist organisations.

If step 2 has to be effective, there is an urgent need for a revamping of RAW. The organisation has been in a bad state of affairs with low staff morale, factionalism and internal bickering. Unfortunately, at this critical time in the nation's history, the RAW has no covert action specialists at the top of its pyramid. Get a suitable officer from the IB or the army. If necessary, make him the head of the organisation.

This is not the time for a direct military confrontation with Pakistan. It could prove counter-productive. It would enable the Pakistan Army to divert its troops from the Pashtun tribal belt to the Indian border and could unite the various jihadi organisations against India.

A divided Pakistan, a bleeding Pakistan, a Pakistan ever on the verge of collapse without actually collapsing -- that should be our objective till it stops using terrorism against India.

We should be realistic enough to anticipate that Pakistan will step up terrorism in Indian territory if we adopt such a policy. This should not deter us from embarking on this policy. The policy of active defence against Pakistan should be accompanied by time-bound action to strengthen our counter-terrorism capability at home.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

That has been our experience since 1981 when Pakistan started using terrorism as a weapon to keep India bleeding and to weaken it,

That has been Pakistan's experience since 1971, and the creation of the BLA, when India started using terrorism to keep Pakistan bleeding, and weaken her, and indeed succeeded in dividing her.

The recovery by the Dubai authorities in 1983 of a revolver from a Khalistani hijacker which German authorities certified in writing was from a consignment sold to the Pakistan Army; the recovery from the perpetrators of the March, 1993, blasts of hand-grenades which Austrian experts certified in writing had been manufactured in Pakistan with technology and equipment sold by Austria to the Army-run Pakistan ordnance factories; the recovery from them of a chemical timer which the US certified in an unsigned note was part of a consignment supplied by the US to Pakistan in the 1980s and more and more and more.

There is no doubt that for a short while, until the Bhutto government decided to stop such support, Pakistan did support the Khalistani insurgency (after 1971 what did India expect).

It is also true that Pakistan supported militants in Kashmir against Indian security forces in a proxy war., but as I pointed out, both India and the US have done the same. In any such covert operation it is impossible to maintain control over the supplies and resources being distributed, and ensure the reach only the designated entities and are used only for designated purposes. We saw that in the Afghan Jihad as well - its the nature of the covert, proxy game.

Therefore Raman is incorrect in bemoaning the refusal to implicate the GoP in the terrorism (violence against civilians) in India - the evidence he points to could have been obtained from any number of sources.

Even now, Taliban militants are fighting with ISAF equipment, does that indicate US complicity?

 

[Prodigy17]

' My master" ??

It is Pak that the US pays for " services ' & then goes & shoots msls into Pak territory & uses Pak nationals for target practice. With the " racit " approval of the GOP as mentined by a Pak moderator / admin onthis forum..

My masters indeed.

Yes, your master indeed! if nothing else, you sit in the same lap as we do....... no better than a temporary exalted or favorite servant.

 

[daredevil]

Act now, Rice tells leaders in Islamabad: Enough information made available


By Baqir Sajjad Syed


ISLAMABAD, Dec 4: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday that enough information was available for acting against the perpetrators of Mumbai attacks and forestalling such incidents.

“There is a lot of information and it needs to be used to get to the perpetrators and prevent them from doing it again,” she said at a news conference after meeting President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani during her brief visit to Islamabad.

Although Ms Rice found Pakistani leadership “very focused” and “very committed” on the issue, she emphasised the urgency of the matter, particularly because of concerns about the “unprecedented sophistication of the attack”.

“There is urgency in getting to the bottom of it; there is urgency in bringing the perpetrators to justice; and there is urgency for using the information to disrupt and prevent further attacks,” she said, adding that the message was “well received” in Islamabad.

During her meetings, she stressed the importance of Pakistan taking responsibility to deal with those who might use its territory even if they were non-state actors.

“Pakistani leadership understands the importance of rounding up whoever perpetrated the attack, from wherever it was perpetrated, whatever its sources, wherever the leads go,” she said.

“Pakistan clearly doesn’t want itself to be associated with terrorist elements and is fighting them out.”

The secretary of state scoffed at suggestions that India was planning a military response to the terror attack. She said New Delhi was focusing on ways to deal with terrorism and prevent recurrence of such attacks.

She expressed a hope that the two countries would not only ‘keep their channels of communication open’, but also cooperate with each other in investigating the incident. “The best thing is that the two countries do what they can to investigate the incident.”

However, she stressed the need for co-opting the West into the investigations. The most effective way, she added, was through international cooperation involving India and any other willing partner, be it the UK or the US.

This was necessitated by the fact that the terrorists perpetrated their acts in a way that was not respectful of borders, Ms Rice emphasised.

Rejecting allegations of finger-pointing and hostile propaganda, the secretary of state said that during her visits to Islamabad and New Delhi, she had heard nothing except reasonable and responsible discussions on the issue.

She said India was concerned and determined to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice.Talking to Ms Rice, Prime Minister Gilani reiterated Pakistan’s determination not to allow the use of its territory for any terrorist activity.

Condoleezza Rice urged Pakistan to provide “unequivocal help” to India. “Pakistan should be seen acting sincerely and quickly.”

She said Pakistan should take necessary steps to prevent “non-state actors” from using its soil for carrying out “acts of terror” in any country.

Ms Rice assured Pakistan of assistance in upgrading its paramilitary forces to tackle extremism and terrorism.

President Zardari told Ms Rice that the government would not only help in the investigation, but also take action against any Pakistani elements found involved in the attack.

 

[Imran Khan]

US Senator John McCain arrives in Pakistan Updated at: 2120 PST, Friday, December 05, 2008
ISLAMABAD: US Senator John McCain, who contested the recently held presidential election, arrived here Friday on a two-day visit.

He is accompanied by Senators Liberman and Lindsey Graham. The delegation would meet Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani, PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif and military leadership.

Issues such as war against terrorism and the regional situation in the wake of Mumbai attacks would be discussed during his meetings with Pakistani leadership.

 

[daredevil]

Rice tells Pakistan to act ‘or US will’


By Baqir Sajjad Syed


ISLAMABAD, Dec 5: The US Secretary of State, Dr Condoleezza Rice, is reported to have told Pakistan that there is ‘irrefutable evidence’ of involvement of elements in the country in the Mumbai attacks and that it needs to act urgently and effectively to avert a strong international response.

The information emerging after her departure indicates that in her meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani during her four-hour stay in Islamabad, she had told the them that Islamabad’s options were quite limited.

Contrary to the formal statements issued by Pakistani authorities and her own statement at the Chaklala Airbase before her departure, sources said she “pushed the Pakistani leaders to take care of perpetrators, otherwise the US will act”.

She is reported to have said that the response needed to be “effective and focused” and that India was thinking on similar lines.

Dr Rice had told the media at Chaklala that there had been no talk of military action and the discussions had focussed on ways of dealing with the problem of terrorism.

She hinted at having communicated to Pakistani leaders that the matter of dealing with the perpetrators was more urgent than they might have thought. She said: “There is urgency in getting to the bottom of it; there is urgency in bringing the perpetrators to justice; and there is urgency for using the information to disrupt and prevent further attacks.”

Sources privy to the meetings said Pakistan had expressed its readiness to work jointly with India in investigating the incident, but had wanted such a cooperation to be comprehensive and also addressed its own concerns.

However, Ms Rice was reportedly not ready to listen to Pakistan’s grievances about India’s interference in Balochistan, the role of Indian consulates along the Afghan border in promoting instability in Pakistan and other such issues. Instead, she told Pakistani leaders that she would like to discuss only the issue at hand.

Meanwhile, despite Dr Rice’s hopes that the two countries would keep their channels of communication open, the India-Pakistan Composite Dialogue has effectively been put on hold, making the peace process one of the major casualties of the Mumbai attacks.

“Proposed dates for the meetings of different segments of the composite dialogue were being finalised, but the entire process has now come to a halt,” a source in Foreign Office told Dawn.

Sources in the Indian High Commission have indicated that the peace talks would not resume until Pakistan fully addressed their concerns.

The trade talks have already been postponed.

Similarly, a meeting of the defence secretaries of the two countries expected to be held in January is unlikely to go ahead. A visit by a team from India’s Planning Commission has also been put off.

A meeting of technical experts on the Sir Creek was postponed earlier because of technical reasons and it is not being rescheduled.

The fifth round of the composite dialogue began in July this year with a meeting of foreign secretaries of both countries in New Delhi.

The composite dialogue was last suspended by India in July 2006 after another terrorist attack on Mumbai’s commuter trains.

Foreign Minister Qureshi had earlier said that the peace process was under stress because of the terrorist incident, but expressed the hope that the two countries would soon overcome the hiccup in their ties.

After a meeting with the Indian High Commissioner, MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar told DawnNews TV that the four-year-old peace process between Pakistan and India had suffered a major setback as a result of the Mumbai attacks.

 

[daredevil]

European Parliament slams Pakistan over Mumbai terror attack

PTI | December 06, 2008 | 19:01 IST

In a stinging indictment of Pakistan, European Parliament has said there is 'confirmed evidence' about the country hosting several terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and criminal mastermind Dawood Ibrahim and using them as an instrument of terrorism against India.

Against the backdrop of the Mumbai attacks, the Parliament of the 27-nation grouping asked Pakistan to take urgent action to 'transform its polity to prevent the continuing calls for violent jihad against its neighbours and its partners'.

The Parliament, in a declaration adopted in Brussels on Friday, said, "Despite a democratic government in Pakistan, there is confirmed evidence of Pakistan hosting several terrorist groups and using them as an instrument of terrorism, particularly against India."

It further said, "Despite Pakistan's claim of participating in the war against terror, it continues to host terrorist leaders of the Khalistani Movement, Hizb-uld Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba and criminal masterminds like Dawood Ibrahim, who live and operate freely."

The declaration -- 'Terrorists operating from the soil of Pakistan' -- reflects the recognition in the world that Pakistan continues to sponsor terrorism directed against India despite Islamabad's continuous denials.

It also nails Pakistan's lies that Dawood Ibrahim, whom the US has declared as 'international terrorist', is not in Pakistan.

The European Parliament has asked Pakistan to stop all cross-border infiltration and take immediate action to extradite to India "leaders of Khalistan (groups) and other terrorist groups who acknowledge their role in terrorist activities in India".

These observations come as a shot in the arm for India which has been asking Pakistan to hand over the chiefs of LeT, Hizb-ul Mujahideen and other terrorist groups besides Dawood, but without any success.

Even after the Mumbai attacks, India has demanded that LeT chief Hafiz Mohd Saeed, Dawood and other 18 most wanted faces of terror be handed over to this country for their �error activities.

Pakistan, however, insists that there is no evidence about their involvement in any crimes in India.

The European Parliament said the madrassas in Pakistan 'continue to provide cadres for terrorist groups, including Al Qaida', and asked the government of the country to take immediate measures to reform the teaching imparted in such educational institutes.

The Declaration said Pakistan's secret service ISI is 'closely aligned to Taliban and Al-Qaida and is protecting them from international peace forces'

The Parliament asked Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to monitor these matters personally.


URL for this article:
European Parliament slams Pakistan

 

[daredevil]

India Police Arrest Two New Suspects in Mumbai Attacks


Police Now Probing Possibility of Some Level of Indian Involvement

By Rama Lakshmi and Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, December 6, 2008; 11:31 AM

NEW DELHI --The ongoing probe into last week's Mumbai attacks widened late Friday night as Indian police began investigating the possibility of local support groups with the arrest of two new suspects in New Delhi and the eastern city of Calcutta.

Police arrested two men identified as Tausif Rehman,28, and Mukhtar Ahmed Sheikh, 35, for buying cell phone cards using forged documents. Officials now want to investigate whether the gunmen in Mumbai used these cards to make calls during their attacks last week.

"We are questioning them about procurement of SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) cards used in Mumbai," Jawed Shamim, the deputy commissioner of police in Calcutta, told news agency Reuters. Mumbai police officials had earlier traced some of the SIM cards used in the Mumbai attack to the state of West Bengal, whose capital is the city of Calcutta.

At least 174 people were killed and 230 injured when ten gunmen struck India's financial capital of Mumbai and laid siege to two luxury hotels and one Jewish prayer center after attacking people at a restaurant and a train station.

Police on Saturday removed a bomb that was wrapped in a black plastic bag at a private hospital in Nagpur, a city 330 miles from Mumbai, after a doctor received a phone call that there would be an explosion.

Security was also heightened across India on Saturday, the 16th anniversary of the demolition of a medieval mosque by Hindu radicals in the north Indian town of Ayodhya, the epicenter of Hindu-Muslim tensions in the past decade.

According to the police, one of the suspects arrested in Calucutta, Rehman, had allegedly supplied at least 22 SIM cards to the second suspect, Sheikh, a man of Kashmiri origin. The two men were remanded to police custody until December 19th.

"Thirteen such SIM cards were bought by Tauseef which were passed on to Sheikh. Some of these cards were used by terrorists involved in the attack in Mumbai," the public prosecutor in Calcutta, S. Pathak told the Press Trust of India.

In Mumbai, Rakesh Maria, a senior Mumbai police officer, said a dairy was found aboard the fishing trawler Kuber, which was hijacked by militants. The diary sketched out plans for November 21 to 25, just one day before the November 26 attacks and was proof, Maria said, "that there were only ten gunmen on the boat".

The diary named 10 people and described each person's task -- some would watch out for the coast guard, others would cook, others would steer the boat. But it was clear there were 10 from the diary."

Maria also said they were still searching in India, "for anyone here or elsewhere in India who might have aided the attackers."

Police initially had dismissed the involvement of any Indian support network in the three-day siege, which New Delhi has accused Pakistan of aiding. But in the past three days, they have begun to look for leads that would determine evidence of Indian complicity in providing logistical help to the gunmen.

On Friday, Mumbai police decided to again question Fahim Ansari, who is in Indian custody, for his links to last week's operation. Ansari was arrested in February this year and had told the police that he had conducted reconnaissance of several locations in Mumbai for a Pakistan-based outlawed militant group called Lashkar -i-Taiba.

The fallout of the attacks hassoured ties between India and Pakistan, the two nuclear-armed neighbors that have fought three wars in the past.

An e-mail message received by the police authorities on Thursday warned that airports across India were a target for attacks. A high alert was announced at Indian airports with several tiers of security checks added by the government.