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by Xavia Team
Every inquiry must start somewhere. We have chosen this inquiry to start in the late eighties when two junior intelligence officers one Pakistani other Indian faced each other on opposite sides of the law. The Pakistani intelligence officer had caught the Indian agent on Pakistani soil with incriminating evidence. Indian agent knew his life had come to an end. However, everything has a price. And his freedom was worth a little less than half a million rupees. A few days later the Indian agent was sitting back at home, free as a bird. And life went on for several more years until the fateful year of 1994 when the two old "chaps" met again. This time officially. The Indian agent had climbed the ladder to an important post in the government. At this side of the border the junior Pakistani agent, against all odds had become one of the top bosses at Federal Investigation Agency. Of course, this was the infamous Rehman Malik.
The Indian side wanted Pakistani Government's help in reducing cross-border terrorism. But Rehman Malik offered a lot more than mere reduction in "cross-border". He had been appointed as Additional Director FIA and yielded immense power through the country. Additionally he had become the right-hand-man of Asif Ali Zardari, stashing his looted money all over the world. He offered them direct access to the jihadists which he would capture. Somewhere along the line Israel also became a party to the deal and soon Mossad agents were carrying out investigations of the captured (ISI backed) jihadists on Pakistani soil. There were millions to be made from the deal and of course Rehman Malik was working in tandem with this immediate boss Ghulam Asghar, head of the FIA and under the auspices of Asif Ali Zardari. ISI, Pakistan Military and top brass quietly kept a close watch. Although painful but capture of a few foot soldiers was bearable in the bigger national interest.
By 1995 in a little over a year the Benazir Bhutto government had expelled 2000 Arab mujahidin of the Afghan-Soviet War and imprisoned number of Pakistani mujahidin. Secondly and more significantly, Benazir Bhutto on her official visit to US in April 1995 met in secret with an Israeli delegation. On her return she faced stiff resistance from a block of military and civilian bureaucracy which had generated great suspicions of her dealings with India and Israel. Just four months later she thwarted a coup attempt against her headed by Major General Zahirul Islam Abbasi. Director General of Military Intelligence Major General Ali Kuli Khan tipped-off General Abdul Waheed Kakar who immediately ordered Chief of General Staff Lt. General Jehangir Karamat to suppress the coup. A total of 36 army officers and 20 civilians were arrested from Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
Then in November 1995 Egyptian Embassy blast occurred. Al-Qaeda was quick to claim it. Although the real reasons of the handlers of bombers remain hidden to this day, but in the next few days a silent but significant event happened. General Abdul Waheed Kakar who was given an extension in his tenure he refused it and Lt. General Jehangir Karamat was appointed as the Army Chief by the then President Farooq Leghari on 18 December, 1995. Lt. General Jehangir Karamat was the senior most general at the time, therefore the least controversial within the military – something which the military desperately needed at the time. The other three generals who were in the position to become COAS were Lt Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi, Lt Gen Naseer Akhtar, and Lt Gen Mohammad Tariq. Lt. Gen. Ghulam Muhammad Malik had already retired in October 1995. Maj Gen Naseem Rana was heading the ISI at the time, taken his charge in October 1995. Lt Gen Shujat Ali Khan was heading the ISI's Internal Wing.
In the backdrop of these events in Pakistan, in March 1995 Israel's Air Force chief had visited India with an entourage that included key Mossad officials. It was at this point that in a meeting Pakistan's nuclear program was discussed. A year later Indian nuclear and missile program head, Abdul Kalam had a "top secret" visit of Israel in June 1996. It was "top secret" because no one knew about it. As it turned out, everyone knew about it even before he left India. All the much publicized secrecy and visit of such a top level official achieved the aim and nearly nobody bothered with the entourage which included a manager from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) - Alok Tiwari. The "top secret" meetings between Abdul Kalam and his Israeli counterparts were related to purchase of UAVs. However, in every single one of those "top secret" meetings Alok Tiwari was missing. With all the attention was focused on Abdul Kalam and his "top secret" meetings no one noticed the odd thing.
Just a few days later, after coming back to India Tiwari accompanied Air Chief Marshal S. K. Sareen to Israel in Israel in July 1996. In fact this was his third trip. He had also visited Israel in April 1996 along with India's first Defence Attaché to Israel.
First Wave
The effect was immediate. In late July 1996 MQM organized a province wide strike. Simultaneously a large bomb exploded at Lahore airport and a second at Faisalabad railway station. On 14th August 1996 12 SSP activists were gunned down during an Independence Rally by unidentified gunmen. By end August Punjab had been engulfed in sectarian violence, Shias and Sunnis were being gunned down in broad daylight. The political and security situation worsened by the murder of Murtaza Bhutto and reinstatement of Manzoor Wattoo as Chief Minister of Punjab. The country seemed in a political and economic turmoil with violence erupting throughout the country. At the same time, out of blue Ataullah Mengal returned from his self-imposed exile.
While everyone was busy with the current crisis a team of agents working directly under Rehman Malik were gathering information on Kahuta and A.Q. Khan. Beginning November 1996 ISI saw an increase in Indian troops movement, which finally sent alarm bells ringing through the echelons of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
Suddenly, all the pieces fell in place and Ghulam Asghar and Rehman Malik's shenanigans seemed a lot deeper than mere money grabbing tactics. By fourth of November a thick load of evidence had been gathered on Ghulam Asghar and Rehman Malik working with the consent of Asif Ali Zardari towards gathering information on the progress of Pakistan's nuclear program.
On 5th November 1996, Farooq Leghari dissolved Benazir Bhutto's government. At the other side of the border, this caused the immediate visit of Israeli naval chief Vice-Admiral Alex Tal to India. Back at home, Ghulam Asghar and Rehman Malik were imprisoned on undisclosed charges. Pakistan had narrowly escaped the storm that was brewing in its mists.
Second Wave
In February 1997, Indian Defence Secretary T. K. Banerji led a high level defence delegation to Israel to discuss the "exchange of technology" between two countries. Other than the official purpose the most important topic was Pakistan's nuclear program. By the end of the visit the two countries had decided to do "whatever" it takes to neutralize the threat.
In March next year the BJP won Indian elections and one of the immediate policies adopted was to tackle Pakistan's nuclear issue by any means possible. With such enthusiastic approach the government even decided to take the most extreme measures if needed. In the next two months the official and diplomatic delegations between India and Israel came to a halt, however, there was a sudden rise in non-diplomatic delegations between the two countries. The last official visit was of Gen. Prakash Malik to Israel in March 1998, who was also the first serving Indian Chief of Army Staff to visit Israel since normalization. In April 1998 two out-of-the ordinary incidents happened. Air India announced its discontinuation of Tel Aviv flight on 1 April 1998 and early April the Confederation of Indian Industry announced an unplanned "Study Mission" to Israel. This was the prelude to the second wave which officially started on 11th May 1998 when India exploded its nuclear bombs.
Night of 27-28 May
Pakistan resisted testing its nuclear bombs for nearly two weeks until 27th May 1998. On 27 May 1998 in a top level meeting Lt. Gen. [[[Naseem Rana]] (DG ISIP briefed the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and army chief of the increasing intelligence reports of possible Indian attack on Pakistan's nuclear installations. However, the panic this created was nothing compared to the next two meetings. The first report pertained to the sighting of an unidentified F-16 aircraft at the periphery of Pakistan's airspace on 27th May. Knowing India did not have F-16, the obvious suggestion was presence of Israeli Air Force in the area (especially with the reports of Indian COAS visiting Israel just a month ago). And the second report coming just before 1am on 28th May recorded unusual movements of Indian aircrafts just across the border which suggested India was preparing for preventive airstrikes against Pakistan. The obvious response of nuclear tests on 28th May.
The tests confirmed once and for all that Pakistan has nuclear capability.
Deduction
It seemed probable that BJP Government had decided to fire its nuclear bombs to force Pakistan into test firing its – if it has any. After a delay of two weeks, doubts had started rising in nearly every analytical discourse that Pakistan did not have the nuclear capability otherwise it would have responded. This was the golden opportunity to take out Pakistan/Pakistan's nuclear installations before that Pakistan got the capability. The important visit of Indian COAS to Israel in March – in the light of proceeding events – could only be regarding Israel's support for the planned attack. Whatever, the reasons and aims, the end result was establishment of Pakistan as a nuclear state, which completely changed the Great Nuclear Game.
Third Wave
Pakistan's test firing of nuclear bombs was a shock for the rest of the world. No one expected, in the first place for Pakistan to have the capability and secondly to fire them if it had. For India and Israel, who were two top most interested parties in destroying Pakistan's nuclear assets, this meant a complete overhaul of their strategy.
A year later Indian National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra came to meet Barak in September 1999 and this time he was accompanied with a familiar face – Alok Tiwari. Within a year, Alok Tiwari and another security analyst finalized a document based on their discussion the preceding year.
In June 2000 L. K. Advani visited Israel in which new deals related to Mossad and Shabak espionage and cooperation with R&AW are finalized and as a result Israel was allowed to establish its own network to operate from India. Also, L.K. Advani discussed Pakistan's nuclear program and coordination between the two countries on an operation for disarming Pakistan. During the visit, Alok Tiwari's report was also discussed.
By July 2000 a heavy deployment of Israeli agents in Indian Occupied Kashmir was reported. Near the end of 2000 Israel's top intelligence officers were reported to have visited India and discussed amongst other issues, Kashmir and Pakistan's nuclear assets. One of the meetings on the agenda was regarding the report Alok Tilwar had prepared which had gone through considerable changes in Israel. By the end of the visit the top spies of the two country had agreed to cooperate on the operation detailed inside the thick volume titled: "Operation Blue Tulsi".
Operation Blue Tulsi: Preparation
We do not know what is written inside the report Operation BlueTulsi. But we can ascertain some of it by the events it had led to beginning 2001. Preparation for the mega Operation Blue Tulsi began fervently in early 2001. By mid 2001 eyebrows were being raised over R&AW and Mossad's cooperation and in July 2001 Janes Information Group reported that RAW and Mossad are cooperating to infiltrate Pakistan to target important religious and military personalities, journalists, judges, lawyers and bureaucrats. In addition, bombs would be exploded in trains, railway stations, bridges, bus stations, cinemas, hotels and mosques of rival Islamic sects to incite sectarianism. At the same time the Balouchistan Liberation Army rose out of dead like a second incarnation and Balach Marri a Moscow graduate declares himself as the leader of BLA. Within weeks in Balochistan numerous training camps sprouted with each camp reported to be training up to a 100 militants. Intelligence of RAW, Mossad and CIA agents operating in Balochistan started coming in.
In mid 2001 reports appeared that Special Operations Division of Mossad, also known as Metsada, specializing in assassinations and sabotage have been based in India since May 2001 to train RAW operatives and Mossad and Shin Bet or Shabak were operating a number of teams in Indian Held Kashmir and were also operating a delicate spy network from Indian soil. In July 2001 RAW increased its budget for Indian consulates in Afghanistan by nearly 10 times.
Within days after Sep 11, a story was leaked into press that Pakistan is dismantling and spreading its nuclear assets to safer places implying that it would be much more difficult to pinpoint them and much more easier for extremists to get hold of. These news stories were shortly followed by another piece on 28 October 2001 which stated that Pentagon was looking into plans to dispatch an elite unit into the Pakistan to disarm its nuclear arsenal. The special unit which was trained to slip into foreign countries to ferret out and disarm nuclear weapons and operated under Pentagon control with CIA assistance and would be getting special help from Israel's Sayeret Matkal also known as Unit 262.
On 22 December 2001 C. Raja Mohan wrote, "There is a growing belief in New Delhi that the time has come to call Pakistan's nuclear bluff. If it does not, India places itself in permanent vulnerability to cross-border terrorism from Pakistan… India is now confronted with the possibility that its restraint in the face of nuclear escalation is taken as a fundamental weakness. India must deal with the possible assessment in Pakistan that its nuclear capability has foreclosed all conventional military options." Same time at the other side of the globe Prof. Stephen P Cohen was saying, "South Asia may have reached a point where the two countries (India and Pakistan) are really bent on hurting each other one way or another and it may be time to consider more unilateral, more forceful American steps - diplomatically and economically forceful - to get compliance from India and Pakistan separately on some vital concerns. Clearly, we may have reached a point where the peace process is simply too little, too late, and we may have to turn to other forms of diplomacy."
These two writers one from US and other from India very implicitly had voiced their respective governments' policies towards Pakistan's nuclear assets.
In December 2001 Indian PM, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, while addressing the parliament said, "the question was not whether there should be or should not be a war, [the question was] under what circumstances there will be war … and whether there will be a war."
Of course the underlying message was, whether India should attack a nuclear armed country or a country which has lost its nuclear capabilities.
In December 2001 Benazir Bhutto while visiting India said in her interviews, "President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, as an army general, had planned the Kargil invasion in Jammu and Kashmir while I was the Prime Minister." Later she also said, "Pakistan army as an institution had brought back Osama bin Laden".
This rhetoric of Benazir Bhutto was perfectly in line with the agreement signed by US and India in 2002. Late in 2002 US and India signed an agreement on cooperation in disarming Pakistan's nuclear assets and the two player offensive team of OperationBlueTulsi found a third partner in the form of CIA. As a result of this deal Abdullah Mehsud was freed from Guantanamo Bay and returned to Pakistan with millions in cash.
Benazir Bhutto's statements in India were the major reason Pervez Musharraf's declaration of Benazir Bhutto as a "security risk" during a chat with Pakistan's leading editors and correspondents in April 2002. Pakistani security agencies already had a great deal of intelligence regarding Benazir Bhutto, Asif Zardari and Rehman Malik's involvement with Mossad and India in 1995-96 and their collaboration against Pakistan's nuclear assets.
In January 2002 under orders from L. K. Advani R&AW and other intelligence agencies submited a detailed report on military options for solving Kashmir issue and in case of a full-fledged war, for neutralizing Pakistan's nuclear assets. One major outcome of the report was creation of Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) in March 2002 with the authority to conduct external operations supported by a huge budget.
Also, a Lawyers' Struggle surfaced in October 2003 under the leadership of Hamid Ali Khan (now drowned under the infamous Lawyers' Movement). The first prominent protest of the "struggle" was held on 15 October 2003 in which the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) Hamid Ali Khan said, "Musharraf's very presence within the army and holding of other important offices and Shaikh Riaz Ahmad's continuation as chief justice after his retirement are undoubtedly illegal and unconstitutional… Let's think collectively, move forward collectively and act collectively to outs usurper generals and judges (who had collaborated with Pervez Musharraf including Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry). However, like a B-grade movie twist, four years later Iftikhar Chaudry becomes the hero to these same lawyers who wanted to oust him. Like a script from past, this protest had followed a "Long March". And the "struggle" then moved to other cities one by one asking Musharraf, Riaz Ahamad and among others Iftikhar Chaudhry's removal from office. At this point along with Hamid Ali Khan, Kazim Khan was at the forefront. Lacking the charisma and cunning of their successors, assassination of a leader, and shortage of "unlimited" billions of rupees their names and their Lawyers' Struggles has been confined to the dusty pages of history with their names ascribed against the words, "traitors". Also, there is no evidence to support that assassination attempts on Pervez Musharraf were somehow related to the timing of the Lawyers' Struggle.
By mid 2004 the government had ample evidence that BLA and some Baloch leaders were conspiring against the government, aided by foreign countries.
On 13th August 2004 the Chief Minister of Baluchistan, Jam Muhammad Yousaf is quoted by The Herald (Sep 2004-Karachi): "Indian secret services (RAW) are maintaining 40 terrorist camps all over the Baluch territory". While this was happening on ground, there was talk of "Peace Talks" everywhere in the air. And Jan Muhammad Jamali had become a laughing stock of the media for his suggestion of foreign agents operating in Balochistan, which despite the ground facts forcefully opposed such thoughts.
However, he was already too late. The preparation for the Operation Blue Tulsi were nearly complete and the Government of Pakistan had wasted all opportunities for stopping the inevitable.
Operation Blue Tulsi: Start
1st January 2005 was the starting date. The local agents got the signal and the operation started with the ominous rape of a female doctor in Sui on 2nd January 2005. As expected the incident created headlines all round and culprits not being found created a much supported backlash. This was shortly followed by rocketing of gas installation at Sui on 7th January which put a hole in Pakistan's gas supply for nearly a week.
2005 was a busy year with Baloch terrorists continuously creating havoc in Balochistan and adjacent areas and ended with assassination attempts on Musharraf in December. After President Gen Pervez Musharraf escapes a rocket attack on his life in December 2005 and the Inspector General Frontier Corps survives an assassination attempt, Navtej Sarna, the Indian External Affairs Ministry's spokesman said, "The Government of India has been watching with concern the spiralling violence in Balochistan and the heavy military action, including use of helicopter gun-ships and jet fighters by the Government of Pakistan to quell it… We hope the Government of Pakistan will exercise restraint and take recourse to peaceful discussions to address the grievances of the people of Balochistan".
The Indian Government had realized that the two assassination attempts would surely result in backfire on the Indian assets in Balochistan, which it needed to safeguard for its final aim, especially Akbar Bugti. Just as suspected, the Government of Pakistan intensifies its operation against Baloch militants.
And in April 2006 Government of Balochistan is setup with its offices in Jerusalem under Azaad Khan Baloch. In a laughingly stupid mistake, Azaad Khan Baloch who is representing Balochis of Pakistan decided to spell his name according to Hindi transliteration with double "a" in Az"aa"d, rather than a single "a" as used in Pakistan, i.e. Azad. Or more probable, "Azad Khan Baloch" is not a Pakistani.
Meanwhile in Balochistan the government operation against Akbar Bugti intensified who took shelter in the rugged mountain range and coordinated the activities of his militants from there. Ultimately the military found him and during the process of capture Akbar Bugti died because of cave-roof collapse on 26 August 2006.
This proved a minor setback in the overall plans. However, beginning 2007 events in the country took a completely different turn. Starting March 2007, every incident occurring in the country was tied to the aim of ousting Pervez Musharraf, including the much profitable Lawyers' Movement. Intelligence agencies were having a field-day bringing in pile after pile of reports proving involvement of CIA, RAW, Mossad and MI6 towards Musharraf's ouster. True to some extent but unlike analyzed, ouster of Pervez Musharraf was just one milestone towards the main goal, which every agency completely missed. Thus, all their efforts went into controlling the situation to secure Musharraf, while in the backdrop, silently the wheels kept turning. While Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan were burning Swat was sitting quietly, unnoticed and out of radar. Within a period of few months, the numbers of "Pakistani Taliban" in Swat surged and just as well their ammunition, latest military equipment a country like Pakistan would dream of. A portion of this ended up in the ill-fated Lal Masjid. While intelligence and military were busy keeping Musharraf's seat safe in Pakistan, a new political game started in UAE. Rehman Malik enthusiastically started pursuing the goal of National Reconciliation Ordinance. He became instrumental in the final deal between Benazir Bhutto, US and Pervez Musharraf and NRO. Since Benazir Bhutto did not have much to lose without NRO she was never very interested in it. That was the reason two options were thrown at Musharraf, i.e. either eliminating the two term condition or NRO. Rehman Malik on the other hand was vehemently pursuing NRO, as of the three (Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir Bhutto and Rehman Malik) the Government of Pakistan only had clear evidence against Rehman Malik and it was enough to put him in jail for life (i.e. involvement in espionage and working with Mossad and RAW). However, at that point no one knew the real motivations of Rehman Malik other than that he was working to get the path clear for Benazir's return. Amazingly, FBI also was putting its weight behind NRO rather than eliminating the two term condition. While, if US had really wanted Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister of Pakistan, logic dictates that they would want the two term condition eliminated to assure her easy succession to the premiership. It needs to be noted here that Rehman Malik had also tried to do a similar deal in 2005, which never materialized. This time it did.
Near the end of 2007, intelligence and military were convinced that a conspiracy had been hatched in the country with the sole aim of removing Musharraf from power. Assassination of Benazir Bhutto, simultaneous rioting throughout the country, terrorist activities occurring in every province had considerable similarities to the Bush Administration backed Color Revolutions. In order to keep Musharraf in power the government kept giving into one demand after the other. As a result Rehman Malik becomes head of Interior Ministry, Yusuf Raza Gilani becomes the Prime Minister of Pakistan and sweeping changes are made in the security and intelligence community. Still, the government saw the war finally over when in one move Gilani puts ISI under Interior Minister on 27 July 2008. Until that time ISI and top brass had thought all Rehman Malik wanted was to get-rid of extremist elements from ISI and Pakistan's establishment.
It was the end of July 2008 when the alarm bells started ringing again in the high echelons. Intelligence machinery went into extra high gear and millions later it came back with the name: Operation Blue Tulsi.
Operation Blue Tulsi: the Revelation
The Establishment, only now realized the full extent of the operation which they had been witnessing since the beginning of 2000. More worryingly, the current operation had eerily similar modus operandi to the 1995-96 debacle – which left the country tethering onto its nuclear assets – just that this time it was vastly more sophisticated and greater in size. In matter of hours the priorities changed. Keeping Pervez Musharraf in power suddenly paled in comparison to the real threat. As the agencies reopened recent reports, reading them in the light of newest finding all the pieces fell in place. It was a disastrous lapse on behalf of the multibillion dollar strong organizations. Overnight the report was prepared and the summary was sent to President Pervez Musharraf next morning.
In 1995-96 India came up with a plan to destroy Pakistan's nuclear facilities before that Pakistan developed a nuclear capability. The plan was prepared by a RAW agent Alok Tiwari (who has recently been compromised). At that time Mossad was already active in Pakistan and once it heard about the project for elimination of Pakistan's nuclear facilities jumped in by first streamlining the project further and then using its assets in Pakistan. Somewhere in early 1996 the operation was given go-ahead. At that point FIA Director General Ghulam Asghar and his ADG Rehman Malik in a deal with India and Israel were hunting down Pakistan based Kashmiri and Arab militants. These two proved to be the front line in the operation and when contacted by Indian agents fully agreed to supply all the necessary information regarding Kahuta and A. Q. Khan's operations. Towards mid 96 demonstrations and chaos erupted throughout the country. The aim was to destabilize the country enough that when the two confirmed Pakistan did not have any nuclear capabilities India would go-ahead with all out assault. General Jehangir Karamat who was already weary of the two chaps and Asif Ali Zardari's complicity took immediate action and Benazir Bhutto's government was dissolved. The duo of Asghar and Malik and Zardari had already come into military's radar the year before when they tried to lure General Abdul Wahed Kakar.
Then five years later, Alok Tiwari submited an updated version of his older report. Israel was again consulted and this time L. K. Advani vehemently pursued it. Towards the end of 2000 a delegation of top Mossad brass visited India and the combined operation titled: Operation Blue Tulsi was finalized and put into operation which had only one aim:
Destroy Pakistan's nuclear assets followed by its Balkanization.
Approach:
Milestones:
By August 2008 the operation was too deep rooted and it was clear if attention was diverted towards saving Musharraf there was more than a probability of loosing nuclear capability in near future. With Musharraf gone, ISI estimated a window of opportunity of 18 to 20 months before either Taliban or Asif Zardari with his shenanigans destabilized Pakistan. In the greater interest Musharraf decided to step down peacefully.
Operation Blue Tulsi: In Operation
Musharraf stepped down and Asif Ali Zardari took over, but by then the order had been sent and the agents in Swat Valley and FATA who had been preparing for the day for the last eight years launched an all out assault on the military with a single aim of destabilizing Pakistan. In the eventful month of December 2007 Baitullah Mehsud had already announced officially the formation of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. Although right after the victory of PPP Baitullah Mehsud has negotiated peace with the government which led to the great debacle of US$ 20 million by August 2008 he was again involved with the military in a full on battle. ISI and military by this time had realized the foremost importance of ridding the Taliban off foreign agents and assets by any means and costs.
At one end Pakistan military still is trying to safeguard its own assets while tracing out and eliminating foreign agents, while at the other end US is trying its best to safeguard its prime asset of Baitullah Meshud who had taken over after the death of Abullah Mehsud. Until very recently, there had been not a single drone attack on Baitullah Mehsud, while ISI aligned Taliban had been bombed repeatedly, as a result of which many have turned their backs against Pakistan. Only in the recent months four drone attacks on Baitullah Mehsud's territory have been reported.
Operation Blue Tulsi and Future
Currently the entire country is gripped by the ongoing operations of military against the Taliban. Media which once championed itself as the sympathizers of the Taliban and were chanting "Taliban are coming to Islamabad" have suddenly changed their tunes, especially after being declared by the Taliban as kafirs and thus "killable".
The economy is in doldrums and corruption is rampantly high but the top brass knows Pakistan is first and for Pakistan nuclear assets come first. Thus, until the country is cleansed of all the foreign agents in FATA and Taliban, the military and intelligence has only one goal, to stop Operation Blue Tulsi at this stage, making sure it never goes into Phase TWO – attacking and destroying Pakistan's nuclear assets because extremist elements have destabilized Pakistan.
Grande Strategy
Link: http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2009/...-years-in-preparation-and-today-in-execution/
Every inquiry must start somewhere. We have chosen this inquiry to start in the late eighties when two junior intelligence officers one Pakistani other Indian faced each other on opposite sides of the law. The Pakistani intelligence officer had caught the Indian agent on Pakistani soil with incriminating evidence. Indian agent knew his life had come to an end. However, everything has a price. And his freedom was worth a little less than half a million rupees. A few days later the Indian agent was sitting back at home, free as a bird. And life went on for several more years until the fateful year of 1994 when the two old "chaps" met again. This time officially. The Indian agent had climbed the ladder to an important post in the government. At this side of the border the junior Pakistani agent, against all odds had become one of the top bosses at Federal Investigation Agency. Of course, this was the infamous Rehman Malik.
The Indian side wanted Pakistani Government's help in reducing cross-border terrorism. But Rehman Malik offered a lot more than mere reduction in "cross-border". He had been appointed as Additional Director FIA and yielded immense power through the country. Additionally he had become the right-hand-man of Asif Ali Zardari, stashing his looted money all over the world. He offered them direct access to the jihadists which he would capture. Somewhere along the line Israel also became a party to the deal and soon Mossad agents were carrying out investigations of the captured (ISI backed) jihadists on Pakistani soil. There were millions to be made from the deal and of course Rehman Malik was working in tandem with this immediate boss Ghulam Asghar, head of the FIA and under the auspices of Asif Ali Zardari. ISI, Pakistan Military and top brass quietly kept a close watch. Although painful but capture of a few foot soldiers was bearable in the bigger national interest.
By 1995 in a little over a year the Benazir Bhutto government had expelled 2000 Arab mujahidin of the Afghan-Soviet War and imprisoned number of Pakistani mujahidin. Secondly and more significantly, Benazir Bhutto on her official visit to US in April 1995 met in secret with an Israeli delegation. On her return she faced stiff resistance from a block of military and civilian bureaucracy which had generated great suspicions of her dealings with India and Israel. Just four months later she thwarted a coup attempt against her headed by Major General Zahirul Islam Abbasi. Director General of Military Intelligence Major General Ali Kuli Khan tipped-off General Abdul Waheed Kakar who immediately ordered Chief of General Staff Lt. General Jehangir Karamat to suppress the coup. A total of 36 army officers and 20 civilians were arrested from Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
Then in November 1995 Egyptian Embassy blast occurred. Al-Qaeda was quick to claim it. Although the real reasons of the handlers of bombers remain hidden to this day, but in the next few days a silent but significant event happened. General Abdul Waheed Kakar who was given an extension in his tenure he refused it and Lt. General Jehangir Karamat was appointed as the Army Chief by the then President Farooq Leghari on 18 December, 1995. Lt. General Jehangir Karamat was the senior most general at the time, therefore the least controversial within the military – something which the military desperately needed at the time. The other three generals who were in the position to become COAS were Lt Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi, Lt Gen Naseer Akhtar, and Lt Gen Mohammad Tariq. Lt. Gen. Ghulam Muhammad Malik had already retired in October 1995. Maj Gen Naseem Rana was heading the ISI at the time, taken his charge in October 1995. Lt Gen Shujat Ali Khan was heading the ISI's Internal Wing.
In the backdrop of these events in Pakistan, in March 1995 Israel's Air Force chief had visited India with an entourage that included key Mossad officials. It was at this point that in a meeting Pakistan's nuclear program was discussed. A year later Indian nuclear and missile program head, Abdul Kalam had a "top secret" visit of Israel in June 1996. It was "top secret" because no one knew about it. As it turned out, everyone knew about it even before he left India. All the much publicized secrecy and visit of such a top level official achieved the aim and nearly nobody bothered with the entourage which included a manager from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) - Alok Tiwari. The "top secret" meetings between Abdul Kalam and his Israeli counterparts were related to purchase of UAVs. However, in every single one of those "top secret" meetings Alok Tiwari was missing. With all the attention was focused on Abdul Kalam and his "top secret" meetings no one noticed the odd thing.
Just a few days later, after coming back to India Tiwari accompanied Air Chief Marshal S. K. Sareen to Israel in Israel in July 1996. In fact this was his third trip. He had also visited Israel in April 1996 along with India's first Defence Attaché to Israel.
First Wave
The effect was immediate. In late July 1996 MQM organized a province wide strike. Simultaneously a large bomb exploded at Lahore airport and a second at Faisalabad railway station. On 14th August 1996 12 SSP activists were gunned down during an Independence Rally by unidentified gunmen. By end August Punjab had been engulfed in sectarian violence, Shias and Sunnis were being gunned down in broad daylight. The political and security situation worsened by the murder of Murtaza Bhutto and reinstatement of Manzoor Wattoo as Chief Minister of Punjab. The country seemed in a political and economic turmoil with violence erupting throughout the country. At the same time, out of blue Ataullah Mengal returned from his self-imposed exile.
While everyone was busy with the current crisis a team of agents working directly under Rehman Malik were gathering information on Kahuta and A.Q. Khan. Beginning November 1996 ISI saw an increase in Indian troops movement, which finally sent alarm bells ringing through the echelons of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
Suddenly, all the pieces fell in place and Ghulam Asghar and Rehman Malik's shenanigans seemed a lot deeper than mere money grabbing tactics. By fourth of November a thick load of evidence had been gathered on Ghulam Asghar and Rehman Malik working with the consent of Asif Ali Zardari towards gathering information on the progress of Pakistan's nuclear program.
On 5th November 1996, Farooq Leghari dissolved Benazir Bhutto's government. At the other side of the border, this caused the immediate visit of Israeli naval chief Vice-Admiral Alex Tal to India. Back at home, Ghulam Asghar and Rehman Malik were imprisoned on undisclosed charges. Pakistan had narrowly escaped the storm that was brewing in its mists.
Second Wave
In February 1997, Indian Defence Secretary T. K. Banerji led a high level defence delegation to Israel to discuss the "exchange of technology" between two countries. Other than the official purpose the most important topic was Pakistan's nuclear program. By the end of the visit the two countries had decided to do "whatever" it takes to neutralize the threat.
In March next year the BJP won Indian elections and one of the immediate policies adopted was to tackle Pakistan's nuclear issue by any means possible. With such enthusiastic approach the government even decided to take the most extreme measures if needed. In the next two months the official and diplomatic delegations between India and Israel came to a halt, however, there was a sudden rise in non-diplomatic delegations between the two countries. The last official visit was of Gen. Prakash Malik to Israel in March 1998, who was also the first serving Indian Chief of Army Staff to visit Israel since normalization. In April 1998 two out-of-the ordinary incidents happened. Air India announced its discontinuation of Tel Aviv flight on 1 April 1998 and early April the Confederation of Indian Industry announced an unplanned "Study Mission" to Israel. This was the prelude to the second wave which officially started on 11th May 1998 when India exploded its nuclear bombs.
Night of 27-28 May
Pakistan resisted testing its nuclear bombs for nearly two weeks until 27th May 1998. On 27 May 1998 in a top level meeting Lt. Gen. [[[Naseem Rana]] (DG ISIP briefed the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and army chief of the increasing intelligence reports of possible Indian attack on Pakistan's nuclear installations. However, the panic this created was nothing compared to the next two meetings. The first report pertained to the sighting of an unidentified F-16 aircraft at the periphery of Pakistan's airspace on 27th May. Knowing India did not have F-16, the obvious suggestion was presence of Israeli Air Force in the area (especially with the reports of Indian COAS visiting Israel just a month ago). And the second report coming just before 1am on 28th May recorded unusual movements of Indian aircrafts just across the border which suggested India was preparing for preventive airstrikes against Pakistan. The obvious response of nuclear tests on 28th May.
The tests confirmed once and for all that Pakistan has nuclear capability.
Deduction
It seemed probable that BJP Government had decided to fire its nuclear bombs to force Pakistan into test firing its – if it has any. After a delay of two weeks, doubts had started rising in nearly every analytical discourse that Pakistan did not have the nuclear capability otherwise it would have responded. This was the golden opportunity to take out Pakistan/Pakistan's nuclear installations before that Pakistan got the capability. The important visit of Indian COAS to Israel in March – in the light of proceeding events – could only be regarding Israel's support for the planned attack. Whatever, the reasons and aims, the end result was establishment of Pakistan as a nuclear state, which completely changed the Great Nuclear Game.
Third Wave
Pakistan's test firing of nuclear bombs was a shock for the rest of the world. No one expected, in the first place for Pakistan to have the capability and secondly to fire them if it had. For India and Israel, who were two top most interested parties in destroying Pakistan's nuclear assets, this meant a complete overhaul of their strategy.
A year later Indian National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra came to meet Barak in September 1999 and this time he was accompanied with a familiar face – Alok Tiwari. Within a year, Alok Tiwari and another security analyst finalized a document based on their discussion the preceding year.
In June 2000 L. K. Advani visited Israel in which new deals related to Mossad and Shabak espionage and cooperation with R&AW are finalized and as a result Israel was allowed to establish its own network to operate from India. Also, L.K. Advani discussed Pakistan's nuclear program and coordination between the two countries on an operation for disarming Pakistan. During the visit, Alok Tiwari's report was also discussed.
By July 2000 a heavy deployment of Israeli agents in Indian Occupied Kashmir was reported. Near the end of 2000 Israel's top intelligence officers were reported to have visited India and discussed amongst other issues, Kashmir and Pakistan's nuclear assets. One of the meetings on the agenda was regarding the report Alok Tilwar had prepared which had gone through considerable changes in Israel. By the end of the visit the top spies of the two country had agreed to cooperate on the operation detailed inside the thick volume titled: "Operation Blue Tulsi".
Operation Blue Tulsi: Preparation
We do not know what is written inside the report Operation BlueTulsi. But we can ascertain some of it by the events it had led to beginning 2001. Preparation for the mega Operation Blue Tulsi began fervently in early 2001. By mid 2001 eyebrows were being raised over R&AW and Mossad's cooperation and in July 2001 Janes Information Group reported that RAW and Mossad are cooperating to infiltrate Pakistan to target important religious and military personalities, journalists, judges, lawyers and bureaucrats. In addition, bombs would be exploded in trains, railway stations, bridges, bus stations, cinemas, hotels and mosques of rival Islamic sects to incite sectarianism. At the same time the Balouchistan Liberation Army rose out of dead like a second incarnation and Balach Marri a Moscow graduate declares himself as the leader of BLA. Within weeks in Balochistan numerous training camps sprouted with each camp reported to be training up to a 100 militants. Intelligence of RAW, Mossad and CIA agents operating in Balochistan started coming in.
In mid 2001 reports appeared that Special Operations Division of Mossad, also known as Metsada, specializing in assassinations and sabotage have been based in India since May 2001 to train RAW operatives and Mossad and Shin Bet or Shabak were operating a number of teams in Indian Held Kashmir and were also operating a delicate spy network from Indian soil. In July 2001 RAW increased its budget for Indian consulates in Afghanistan by nearly 10 times.
Within days after Sep 11, a story was leaked into press that Pakistan is dismantling and spreading its nuclear assets to safer places implying that it would be much more difficult to pinpoint them and much more easier for extremists to get hold of. These news stories were shortly followed by another piece on 28 October 2001 which stated that Pentagon was looking into plans to dispatch an elite unit into the Pakistan to disarm its nuclear arsenal. The special unit which was trained to slip into foreign countries to ferret out and disarm nuclear weapons and operated under Pentagon control with CIA assistance and would be getting special help from Israel's Sayeret Matkal also known as Unit 262.
On 22 December 2001 C. Raja Mohan wrote, "There is a growing belief in New Delhi that the time has come to call Pakistan's nuclear bluff. If it does not, India places itself in permanent vulnerability to cross-border terrorism from Pakistan… India is now confronted with the possibility that its restraint in the face of nuclear escalation is taken as a fundamental weakness. India must deal with the possible assessment in Pakistan that its nuclear capability has foreclosed all conventional military options." Same time at the other side of the globe Prof. Stephen P Cohen was saying, "South Asia may have reached a point where the two countries (India and Pakistan) are really bent on hurting each other one way or another and it may be time to consider more unilateral, more forceful American steps - diplomatically and economically forceful - to get compliance from India and Pakistan separately on some vital concerns. Clearly, we may have reached a point where the peace process is simply too little, too late, and we may have to turn to other forms of diplomacy."
These two writers one from US and other from India very implicitly had voiced their respective governments' policies towards Pakistan's nuclear assets.
In December 2001 Indian PM, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, while addressing the parliament said, "the question was not whether there should be or should not be a war, [the question was] under what circumstances there will be war … and whether there will be a war."
Of course the underlying message was, whether India should attack a nuclear armed country or a country which has lost its nuclear capabilities.
In December 2001 Benazir Bhutto while visiting India said in her interviews, "President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, as an army general, had planned the Kargil invasion in Jammu and Kashmir while I was the Prime Minister." Later she also said, "Pakistan army as an institution had brought back Osama bin Laden".
This rhetoric of Benazir Bhutto was perfectly in line with the agreement signed by US and India in 2002. Late in 2002 US and India signed an agreement on cooperation in disarming Pakistan's nuclear assets and the two player offensive team of OperationBlueTulsi found a third partner in the form of CIA. As a result of this deal Abdullah Mehsud was freed from Guantanamo Bay and returned to Pakistan with millions in cash.
Benazir Bhutto's statements in India were the major reason Pervez Musharraf's declaration of Benazir Bhutto as a "security risk" during a chat with Pakistan's leading editors and correspondents in April 2002. Pakistani security agencies already had a great deal of intelligence regarding Benazir Bhutto, Asif Zardari and Rehman Malik's involvement with Mossad and India in 1995-96 and their collaboration against Pakistan's nuclear assets.
In January 2002 under orders from L. K. Advani R&AW and other intelligence agencies submited a detailed report on military options for solving Kashmir issue and in case of a full-fledged war, for neutralizing Pakistan's nuclear assets. One major outcome of the report was creation of Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) in March 2002 with the authority to conduct external operations supported by a huge budget.
Also, a Lawyers' Struggle surfaced in October 2003 under the leadership of Hamid Ali Khan (now drowned under the infamous Lawyers' Movement). The first prominent protest of the "struggle" was held on 15 October 2003 in which the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) Hamid Ali Khan said, "Musharraf's very presence within the army and holding of other important offices and Shaikh Riaz Ahmad's continuation as chief justice after his retirement are undoubtedly illegal and unconstitutional… Let's think collectively, move forward collectively and act collectively to outs usurper generals and judges (who had collaborated with Pervez Musharraf including Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry). However, like a B-grade movie twist, four years later Iftikhar Chaudry becomes the hero to these same lawyers who wanted to oust him. Like a script from past, this protest had followed a "Long March". And the "struggle" then moved to other cities one by one asking Musharraf, Riaz Ahamad and among others Iftikhar Chaudhry's removal from office. At this point along with Hamid Ali Khan, Kazim Khan was at the forefront. Lacking the charisma and cunning of their successors, assassination of a leader, and shortage of "unlimited" billions of rupees their names and their Lawyers' Struggles has been confined to the dusty pages of history with their names ascribed against the words, "traitors". Also, there is no evidence to support that assassination attempts on Pervez Musharraf were somehow related to the timing of the Lawyers' Struggle.
By mid 2004 the government had ample evidence that BLA and some Baloch leaders were conspiring against the government, aided by foreign countries.
On 13th August 2004 the Chief Minister of Baluchistan, Jam Muhammad Yousaf is quoted by The Herald (Sep 2004-Karachi): "Indian secret services (RAW) are maintaining 40 terrorist camps all over the Baluch territory". While this was happening on ground, there was talk of "Peace Talks" everywhere in the air. And Jan Muhammad Jamali had become a laughing stock of the media for his suggestion of foreign agents operating in Balochistan, which despite the ground facts forcefully opposed such thoughts.
However, he was already too late. The preparation for the Operation Blue Tulsi were nearly complete and the Government of Pakistan had wasted all opportunities for stopping the inevitable.
Operation Blue Tulsi: Start
1st January 2005 was the starting date. The local agents got the signal and the operation started with the ominous rape of a female doctor in Sui on 2nd January 2005. As expected the incident created headlines all round and culprits not being found created a much supported backlash. This was shortly followed by rocketing of gas installation at Sui on 7th January which put a hole in Pakistan's gas supply for nearly a week.
2005 was a busy year with Baloch terrorists continuously creating havoc in Balochistan and adjacent areas and ended with assassination attempts on Musharraf in December. After President Gen Pervez Musharraf escapes a rocket attack on his life in December 2005 and the Inspector General Frontier Corps survives an assassination attempt, Navtej Sarna, the Indian External Affairs Ministry's spokesman said, "The Government of India has been watching with concern the spiralling violence in Balochistan and the heavy military action, including use of helicopter gun-ships and jet fighters by the Government of Pakistan to quell it… We hope the Government of Pakistan will exercise restraint and take recourse to peaceful discussions to address the grievances of the people of Balochistan".
The Indian Government had realized that the two assassination attempts would surely result in backfire on the Indian assets in Balochistan, which it needed to safeguard for its final aim, especially Akbar Bugti. Just as suspected, the Government of Pakistan intensifies its operation against Baloch militants.
And in April 2006 Government of Balochistan is setup with its offices in Jerusalem under Azaad Khan Baloch. In a laughingly stupid mistake, Azaad Khan Baloch who is representing Balochis of Pakistan decided to spell his name according to Hindi transliteration with double "a" in Az"aa"d, rather than a single "a" as used in Pakistan, i.e. Azad. Or more probable, "Azad Khan Baloch" is not a Pakistani.
Meanwhile in Balochistan the government operation against Akbar Bugti intensified who took shelter in the rugged mountain range and coordinated the activities of his militants from there. Ultimately the military found him and during the process of capture Akbar Bugti died because of cave-roof collapse on 26 August 2006.
This proved a minor setback in the overall plans. However, beginning 2007 events in the country took a completely different turn. Starting March 2007, every incident occurring in the country was tied to the aim of ousting Pervez Musharraf, including the much profitable Lawyers' Movement. Intelligence agencies were having a field-day bringing in pile after pile of reports proving involvement of CIA, RAW, Mossad and MI6 towards Musharraf's ouster. True to some extent but unlike analyzed, ouster of Pervez Musharraf was just one milestone towards the main goal, which every agency completely missed. Thus, all their efforts went into controlling the situation to secure Musharraf, while in the backdrop, silently the wheels kept turning. While Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan were burning Swat was sitting quietly, unnoticed and out of radar. Within a period of few months, the numbers of "Pakistani Taliban" in Swat surged and just as well their ammunition, latest military equipment a country like Pakistan would dream of. A portion of this ended up in the ill-fated Lal Masjid. While intelligence and military were busy keeping Musharraf's seat safe in Pakistan, a new political game started in UAE. Rehman Malik enthusiastically started pursuing the goal of National Reconciliation Ordinance. He became instrumental in the final deal between Benazir Bhutto, US and Pervez Musharraf and NRO. Since Benazir Bhutto did not have much to lose without NRO she was never very interested in it. That was the reason two options were thrown at Musharraf, i.e. either eliminating the two term condition or NRO. Rehman Malik on the other hand was vehemently pursuing NRO, as of the three (Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir Bhutto and Rehman Malik) the Government of Pakistan only had clear evidence against Rehman Malik and it was enough to put him in jail for life (i.e. involvement in espionage and working with Mossad and RAW). However, at that point no one knew the real motivations of Rehman Malik other than that he was working to get the path clear for Benazir's return. Amazingly, FBI also was putting its weight behind NRO rather than eliminating the two term condition. While, if US had really wanted Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister of Pakistan, logic dictates that they would want the two term condition eliminated to assure her easy succession to the premiership. It needs to be noted here that Rehman Malik had also tried to do a similar deal in 2005, which never materialized. This time it did.
Near the end of 2007, intelligence and military were convinced that a conspiracy had been hatched in the country with the sole aim of removing Musharraf from power. Assassination of Benazir Bhutto, simultaneous rioting throughout the country, terrorist activities occurring in every province had considerable similarities to the Bush Administration backed Color Revolutions. In order to keep Musharraf in power the government kept giving into one demand after the other. As a result Rehman Malik becomes head of Interior Ministry, Yusuf Raza Gilani becomes the Prime Minister of Pakistan and sweeping changes are made in the security and intelligence community. Still, the government saw the war finally over when in one move Gilani puts ISI under Interior Minister on 27 July 2008. Until that time ISI and top brass had thought all Rehman Malik wanted was to get-rid of extremist elements from ISI and Pakistan's establishment.
It was the end of July 2008 when the alarm bells started ringing again in the high echelons. Intelligence machinery went into extra high gear and millions later it came back with the name: Operation Blue Tulsi.
Operation Blue Tulsi: the Revelation
The Establishment, only now realized the full extent of the operation which they had been witnessing since the beginning of 2000. More worryingly, the current operation had eerily similar modus operandi to the 1995-96 debacle – which left the country tethering onto its nuclear assets – just that this time it was vastly more sophisticated and greater in size. In matter of hours the priorities changed. Keeping Pervez Musharraf in power suddenly paled in comparison to the real threat. As the agencies reopened recent reports, reading them in the light of newest finding all the pieces fell in place. It was a disastrous lapse on behalf of the multibillion dollar strong organizations. Overnight the report was prepared and the summary was sent to President Pervez Musharraf next morning.
In 1995-96 India came up with a plan to destroy Pakistan's nuclear facilities before that Pakistan developed a nuclear capability. The plan was prepared by a RAW agent Alok Tiwari (who has recently been compromised). At that time Mossad was already active in Pakistan and once it heard about the project for elimination of Pakistan's nuclear facilities jumped in by first streamlining the project further and then using its assets in Pakistan. Somewhere in early 1996 the operation was given go-ahead. At that point FIA Director General Ghulam Asghar and his ADG Rehman Malik in a deal with India and Israel were hunting down Pakistan based Kashmiri and Arab militants. These two proved to be the front line in the operation and when contacted by Indian agents fully agreed to supply all the necessary information regarding Kahuta and A. Q. Khan's operations. Towards mid 96 demonstrations and chaos erupted throughout the country. The aim was to destabilize the country enough that when the two confirmed Pakistan did not have any nuclear capabilities India would go-ahead with all out assault. General Jehangir Karamat who was already weary of the two chaps and Asif Ali Zardari's complicity took immediate action and Benazir Bhutto's government was dissolved. The duo of Asghar and Malik and Zardari had already come into military's radar the year before when they tried to lure General Abdul Wahed Kakar.
Then five years later, Alok Tiwari submited an updated version of his older report. Israel was again consulted and this time L. K. Advani vehemently pursued it. Towards the end of 2000 a delegation of top Mossad brass visited India and the combined operation titled: Operation Blue Tulsi was finalized and put into operation which had only one aim:
Destroy Pakistan's nuclear assets followed by its Balkanization.
Approach:
- Resurrect Baloch insurgency. Pakistan was fine with it, as it had thirty years of experience with it, starting with the Afghan-Soviet War.
- Buy officials in military, bureaucracy, politics and law. ISI was fine with it, as it had sixty years of experience in dealing with traitors.
- Plant agents in top positions in Taliban, FATA and NWFP. A shocker for everyone.
Milestones:
- Friendly political government. Asif Zardari in place, Aslam Raisani in Balochistan (though first choice Akbar Bugti unfortunately dead, MQM's omnipresence in Sindh, Fazlur Rehman and ANP in NWFP)
- Friendly judiciay. Iftikhar Chaudhry, Munir A. Malik, Atizaz Ahsan
- Friendly secretaries. ??
- Friendly Civil Society. Ansar Burney, Asma Jehangir
- Friendly Generals. ??
- Unrest in NWFP and immediate threat of Taliban taking control of Islamabad. Back in 2002 US had agreed with India that if ever Pakistan seemed to destabilize or falling into the hands of extremists, it would help India in destroying Pakistan's nuclear capabilities. The situation they agreed upon is well defined by the Pakistani media's current theme song of "Taliban are coming to Islamabad"
By August 2008 the operation was too deep rooted and it was clear if attention was diverted towards saving Musharraf there was more than a probability of loosing nuclear capability in near future. With Musharraf gone, ISI estimated a window of opportunity of 18 to 20 months before either Taliban or Asif Zardari with his shenanigans destabilized Pakistan. In the greater interest Musharraf decided to step down peacefully.
Operation Blue Tulsi: In Operation
Musharraf stepped down and Asif Ali Zardari took over, but by then the order had been sent and the agents in Swat Valley and FATA who had been preparing for the day for the last eight years launched an all out assault on the military with a single aim of destabilizing Pakistan. In the eventful month of December 2007 Baitullah Mehsud had already announced officially the formation of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. Although right after the victory of PPP Baitullah Mehsud has negotiated peace with the government which led to the great debacle of US$ 20 million by August 2008 he was again involved with the military in a full on battle. ISI and military by this time had realized the foremost importance of ridding the Taliban off foreign agents and assets by any means and costs.
At one end Pakistan military still is trying to safeguard its own assets while tracing out and eliminating foreign agents, while at the other end US is trying its best to safeguard its prime asset of Baitullah Meshud who had taken over after the death of Abullah Mehsud. Until very recently, there had been not a single drone attack on Baitullah Mehsud, while ISI aligned Taliban had been bombed repeatedly, as a result of which many have turned their backs against Pakistan. Only in the recent months four drone attacks on Baitullah Mehsud's territory have been reported.
Operation Blue Tulsi and Future
Currently the entire country is gripped by the ongoing operations of military against the Taliban. Media which once championed itself as the sympathizers of the Taliban and were chanting "Taliban are coming to Islamabad" have suddenly changed their tunes, especially after being declared by the Taliban as kafirs and thus "killable".
The economy is in doldrums and corruption is rampantly high but the top brass knows Pakistan is first and for Pakistan nuclear assets come first. Thus, until the country is cleansed of all the foreign agents in FATA and Taliban, the military and intelligence has only one goal, to stop Operation Blue Tulsi at this stage, making sure it never goes into Phase TWO – attacking and destroying Pakistan's nuclear assets because extremist elements have destabilized Pakistan.
Grande Strategy
Link: http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2009/...-years-in-preparation-and-today-in-execution/
