(CNSNews.com) – Christians in Pakistan’s flood-hit regions are doubly affected by the disaster as a result of anti-Christian discrimination by government relief workers and Muslim aid agencies, according to representatives of the embattled minority.

They are urging Christians to send assistance to organizations that will either help stricken Christians specifically, or at least ensure that Christians are not sidelined in the aid distribution.

As flood waters begin to recede, thousands of Christians are among millions of Pakistanis left homeless. Aid agencies are delivering food, clothing, building supplies and hygiene kits in a bid to prevent outbreaks of water-borne diseases.

Many have lost not only their homes but also their source of livelihood as their crops and subsistence fields have been washed away along with seed for next season’s planting.

According to the Pakistan Christian Congress (PCC), Muslim relief organizations and government agencies have been denying assistance to Christians affected by the flooding in Punjab province.

The PCC organ Pakistan Christian Post described the southern Punjab was a “hotbed” of extremist organizations which view Christians as “infidels.” It said local officials in fear of the radical elements were barring Christians from tent camps for flood victims.

PCC president Nazir Bhatti appealed to donor governments and organizations to earmark some of their aid for Christians, and distribute it through organizations such as the Catholic aid agency Caritas or the Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

Western Christian organizations working in Pakistan also are calling for help for Christian flood victims specifically, concerned that they will otherwise lose out, or face intolerable pressures.

“The only place with aid for many is their local mosque, which places Christians in an extremely vulnerable situation,” Open Doors USA president Carl Moeller says in a video appeal.

“Some are flatly denied assistance while others are told to vacate the region or convert to Islam. Imagine, giving up your faith in order to feed your starving children – what a horrible choice. The church in Pakistan needs another way to take care of their families. They’re looking to you and to me.”

Barnabas Fund, an international charity focusing on Christian minorities in the Islamic world, is another conduit for assistance for Christian individuals and families affected by the flood.

“Christians, who are marginalized and discriminated against in Pakistan, are likely to be neglected by the government and mainstream aid agencies, so desperately need the help of fellow believers around the world,” it said Wednesday.

“Barnabas Fund channels money exclusively from Christians through Christians to Christians who desperately need our help,” the organization’s international director, Patrick Sookhdeo, said in an earlier statement.

“They urgently need our assistance now and, looking to the future, will require long-term help to rebuild their homes and shattered lives.”

Last month Anglican Bishop Humphrey Peters of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (formerly the North-West Frontier Province), told Barnabas Fund that as the crisis moves from the emergency phase to longer term rehabilitation. “we are sure that some countries will come forward with aid packages, but hardly anything will reach the minority Christians.”

Peters’ Peshawar diocese is carrying out relief operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where some 100,000 Christians live among more than 17 million Muslims.

The diocese says on its Web site that it has set up four relief camps where hundreds of flood-affected Christians, as well as members of the Hindu minority, are being sheltered.

Even before the latest disaster, it says “most Christians of the province remain unskilled, poorly educated, low social status, economically poorest of the poor and living in slum areas.”

Complaints about discrimination against non-Muslim Pakistanis are not just coming from minority sources.

“Reports about systematic discrimination in aid distribution are utterly disgraceful, the Lahore-based Daily Times newspaper said in an editorial at the weekend.

“If we want to progress as a nation, we need to close the doors on our prejudices. For far too long we have let religious bigots call the shots; now is the time to stand up to them and say no to religious exclusivism.”

Security fears

Christians comprise an estimated 1.7-2.5 percent of Pakistan’s 175 million people, and members of the small community have periodically come under attack from Islamic extremists, stirred up over allegations of blasphemy or associating local Christians with unpopular Western policies relating to the Islamic world.

The State Department reported last week that militants in Pakistan had threatened to target foreign aid workers as well as government ministries involved in the relief effort.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which earlier urged the government to reject U.S. aid, called the presence of foreign aid workers in the country “unacceptable.”

Barnabas Fund said the security threats against foreigners were a matter of grave concern, but that it was channeling its support through Pakistani churches and Christian organizations, “which should not be blocked or targeted by the militants’ disruptive agenda.”

There have been no confirmed reports of attacks on foreign aid workers, although rumors have circulated about the killing by the TTP of three Western Christian relief workers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

In a teleconference briefing last week, U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Michael Nagata, who is attached to the U.S. Embassy’s Office of the Defense Representative, said for the second time in a fortnight that U.S. forces carrying out relief missions had seen no evidence of a security threat.

He praised the Pakistani army for what he called a “highly effective job in providing our force protection and security.”

U.S. Warns Taliban Planning Attack on Aid Workers in Pakistan
FoxNews.com
August 26, 2010

The Pakistani Taliban are planning to attack foreigners assisting in the aftermath of devastating floods in the country, a senior U.S. official warned.

“According to information available to the U.S. government, Tehrik-e-Taliban plans to conduct attacks against foreigners participating in the ongoing flood relief operations in Pakistan,” the official told the BBC on condition of anonymity.

The Taliban “also may be making plans to attack federal and provincial ministers in Islamabad,” the British broadcaster quoted the official as saying.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq hinted at an attack himself, claiming Thursday that the United States and other countries were not really focused on providing aid to flood victims but had other “intentions” he did not specify.

Tariq strongly hinted that the militants could resort to violence.

Massive rainfall has caused the deadliest floods in Pakistan since 1929. As the natural disaster entered its third week of destruction, the U.N. warned that many of the 20 million people affected by the disaster have yet to receive any emergency aid.

“When we say something is unacceptable to us one can draw his own conclusion,” he said.

It is not yet clear what effect the terror warning will have on U.S. involvement in the relief efforts, but Pakistan has assured the U.S. it will press its campaign against insurgents inside its borders despite the extraordinary demands on the country’s military from the floods, officials said.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban faction is a key architect of extremist violence that has left more than 3,500 dead in Pakistan over the last three years, according to AFP.

U.S. officials had previously said they had not encountered any hostilities in flying aid to stricken parts of the country.

The U.S. military official leading the American flood relief mission in Pakistan said he was confident that Islamabad would continue the fight but deflected questions about whether the pace or scope of its efforts might change.

Pakistan will maintain a “dedicated, committed struggle against violent extremism,” Brig. Gen. Michael Nagata said.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he worries the insurgents will take advantage of the flooding. Insurgent groups could benefit by providing aid that the central government cannot, or by launching attacks or widening their reach during a period when the Army is occupied elsewhere.

At least one of the Muslim charities involved in aid work is alleged to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned militant organization blamed for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India.

“There are millions who are affected right now in Pakistan, and the Pakistani military is heavily engaged in responding to the needs that are generated by these floods,” Mullen said after an appearance in Chicago. “In priorities right now, the Pakistani leadership, civil and military, as well as the Pakistani people, have to take care of the floods.”

Other U.S. officials cautioned that Pakistan’s army will be stretched thin by flood relief efforts for at least several more weeks.

The United States wants Islamabad to expand its pursuit of insurgents farther into North Waziristan, a border area next to Afghanistan often described as lawless. U.S. officials are hoping for assurances that Pakistan will not rule out that expansion because of the demands of flood relief.

Two U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the delicate military relationship with Islamabad.
The U.S. military official leading the American flood relief mission in Pakistan said he was confident that Islamabad would continue the fight but deflected questions about whether the pace or scope of its efforts might change.

Pakistan will maintain a “dedicated, committed struggle against violent extremism,” Brig. Gen. Michael Nagata said.

Police in Canada say they had to move in on three suspected terror plotters, including one who appeared on Canada’s version of ‘American Idol,’ after they learned of the group’s plans to send money to terror groups in Afghanistan.

Ottawa residents Hiva Alizadeh and Misbahuddin Ahmed were picked up Wednesday. Additionally, Royal Canadian Police Sgt. Marc LaPorte said police arrested Khuram Sher in London, Ontario, on Thursday.

Canadian authorities said their investigation into the trio began in September 2009.

According to documents filed in provincial court in Ottawa, all three conspired with an additional three named individuals to “knowingly facilitate terrorist activities” in Canada and abroad.

The investigation led to the recovery of videos, drawings, books, schematics and electronic equipment to create an IED.

“This group posed a real and serious threat to the citizens of the National Capital Region and Canada’s national security,” police said in a statement. “Our criminal investigation and arrests prevented the assembly of any bombs and the terrorist attack(s) from being carried out.”

Sher appeared on the reality show “Canadian Idol” in 2008 in which he sings a comical version of Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated,” complete with dance moves that include a moonwalk. He told the judges he’s from Pakistan and likes hockey, music and acting.

A judge remanded Alizadeh and Misbahuddin in custody until they appear again, by video, next Wednesday.

Ahmed’s lawyer, Ian Carter, said the charges are serious and his client, a husband and father, could be put away “for a long time.”

“He is in shock. That’s all I can say,” Carter said.

Police descended on a home in Canada’s national capital of Ottawa early Wednesday. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a news release they were executing search warrants in connection with the case.

Matthew Weiler, a neighbor, said a man and woman had lived at the address for at least six months and that the woman usually was veiled in public.

Carolina Ayala, who lives four doors down from the couple, said she saw the man wearing blue hospital scrubs and thinks he may have worked at a hospital.

A few miles away a police car sat outside an apartment building where a second raid was carried out.

The arrests come four years after the apprehension of the so-called Toronto 18, suspects in a homegrown terror plot that involved the attempted setting off of truck bombs in front of Canada’s main stock exchange and two government buildings. The ringleaders and others have been convicted.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service director Dick Fadden alluded to the possibility of other homegrown terrorist cases in comments to a Parliament public safety committee last month.

Transcript: Gen. David Petraeus Interviewed by Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin

Petraeus: Reconciliation With Taliban is Ultimate Goal for Afghanistan’s Future

Reconciliation with the Taliban will ultimately be a goal for Afghanistan once U.S. and Afghan forces create conditions to allow it, Gen. David Petraeus said Wednesday.

Speaking in Afghanistan to Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin — in her first overseas assignment since recovering from breast cancer — Petraeus said that orders approved by provincial governors and local leaders Wednesday enable implementation of measures ordered by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to reintegrate the “$10-a-day Taliban” into society.

Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said those low-budget fighters are the first to return to society’s fold since they are “local individuals, almost chameleon-like sometimes, in their allegiances because that’s how they stay alive over 30 years of war here in this country.”

Petraeus described how in the last two days, small groups of individuals and lower-level leaders came in, “laid down their weapons and, in one case, were given reintegration certificates by the governor of the province.”

As a result, the prospect of large-scale reintegration “is very real,” Petraeus said.

The military chief’s comment is the first from a U.S. commander offering a firm endorsement for the reintegration approach that has been reported by leaks in recent months.

Other commanders have been more cagey about openly supporting such talks with the Taliban, but Petraeus acknowledged that U.S. forces safeguard the movement of officials to those meetings with the Taliban officials.

He said reconciliation is a broader matter than reintegration because it takes place at higher levels. Karzai has offered a list of conditions Taliban fighters must meet to be a part of Afghanistan’s future — accept the constitution, lay down weapons, cut ties to Al Qaeda and become productive or participating members of society.

If those “redlines” are met, Petraeus said he doesn’t see “why you would not support reconciliation.”

“We sat down across the table in Iraq from individuals who had our blood on their hands. That’s what was done in northern Ireland. It’s what’s done in just about any insurgency as you get to the end stages of it,” he said.

“If there’s a willingness of those at the high-levels to do that, and they do indeed agree to the safeguards. … then certainly you would want to reconcile,” he said.

Petraeus added that the U.S. is not facilitating those meetings, but “is very much in the information loop and in a couple of cases has helped in a sense, but is not doing the negotiation.”

But getting the Taliban to the point where they are ready to give up fighting is the tricky part. This week, several dozen schoolgirls and some of their teachers were poisoned. Petraeus noted that the Taliban have tried that tactic in other locations — schools and police forces — along with other barbarities like stoning, flogging and killing of medical teams — an indication they are not ready to retreat.

To that end, he has been refining the tactical directives given to U.S. forces by lower-level commanders. Petraeus described the rules of engagement as “fundamentally sound” but said in practice some officers had been adding further restrictions to the plan created by his predecessor Gen. Stanley McChrystal, which he fully supported.

The recent changes — implemented just in the past weeks — along with a full complement of 100,000 U.S. troops, additional civilian forces and funding for 100,000 Afghan troops — have enabled enactment of a strategy that has been in development for 18 months.

That strategy is seeing progress in Helmand Province, where Marines are fighting in Marja and unlikely to be done by July 2011, the self-imposed U.S. deadline for a drawdown.

The Taliban would “really like (to) recapture that very important command-and-control mode and narcotics industry nexus,” Petraeus said.

But the fact is, Petraeus said, in this past week, Marjans were able to register to vote and are now opening shops. One third of the 30,000-strong population has returned from hiding since six months ago, when the streets in Marja were controlled by Taliban.

In Kandahar, the U.S. has started “clear, hold and build operations,” while Kabul City’s security perimeter is expanding, and is being led by Afghan forces.

“Kabul City itself is one-sixth of the population in the entire country. So again that’s a pretty significant task. And they’re generally doing quite a good job,” Petraeus said.

Critics had called the timetable for a July 2011 a forecast to Taliban fighters that they merely need to hang on for a while longer and the U.S. will leave. But Petraeus said the deadline was designed to send a message of urgency to the Afghans and is not a date at which the U.S. will turn out the lights and go home.

Petraeus said he understands the impatience at home, but the core objective and the vital U.S. national security interest is “not to see Afghanistan once again become a sanctuary for transnational extremists the way it was prior to the 9/11 attacks.”

“And the only way to do that that any of us can fathom is by doing what it is that we are attempting to do. And that is to carry out a comprehensive civil military counterinsurgency campaign,” he said.

Petraeus, who called the WikiLeaks scandal — in which a website published nearly 100,000 pages of classified U.S. military documents — “absolutely reprehensible,” said he’s not aware of any lives lost as a result of the documents, but it remains a concern.

Those documents published by WikiLeaks offered details about Iranian efforts to undermine the U.S. war in Afghanistan and fund the insurgency. Petraeus said he thinks Iran does “provide a modicum of assistance to the Taliban, but not an enormous amount,” and certainly not as much as it did in Iraq.

“They don’t love the Taliban either,” he said.

Nonetheless, Petraeus said he sees credibility in assessments that Iran is seeking to influence the upcoming parliamentary elections, though no weapons caches from Iran have been found in Taliban hands recently nor has there been evidence that violence in the north is inspired by Iranian support. – FOX News

WASHINGTON – The good will tour of the Middle East by the imam behind the proposed mosque near ground zero is just part of the U.S. government’s efforts to reach out to the Muslim world.

This year, the Obama administration will spend nearly $6 million to restore 63 historic and cultural sites, including mosques and minarets, in 55 nations, according to State Department documents.

Under a program established by Congress in 2001, the department will fund at least five projects in as many countries at a cost of more than $271,000.

The contributions include $76,135 for the 16th century Grand Mosque in Tongxin, China, and $67,500 for the 18th century Golden Mosque in Lahore, Pakistan. An additional $62,169 will be spent on restoring a 19th century minaret in Mauritania’s ancient city of Tichitt; $50,437 for the Sundarwala Burj, a 16th century Islamic Monument in New Delhi, and $15,450 to restore the 18th century Gobarau Minaret in Katsina, Nigeria.

The amount spent on mosque restoration projects is a fraction of the total in the 2010 Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation, which also will fund projects to restore Christian and Buddhist sites as well as museums, forts and palaces.

Since 2001, the U.S. government has spent almost $26 million on the program to fund about 640 cultural preservation projects in more than 100 countries.

“The fund has demonstrated America’s respect for the world’s cultural heritage,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said last month in announcing the 2010 projects. “Cultural heritage serves as a reminder of historical experiences and achievements of humanity. Ancient structures and objects offer important lessons for us today.”

Sen. John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Friday that there is a “very active” effort under way to reach a negotiated political settlement with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Kerry (D-Mass.) acknowledged that “efforts” have begun after visiting Afghanistan and Pakistan this week, meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other officials.

“I can report without being specific that there are efforts under way. They are serious and I completely agree with that fundamental premise — and so does General [David] Petraeus and so does President Obama — there is no military solution,” he told NPR. “And there are very active efforts now to seek an appropriate kind of political settlement.”

U.S. officials have acknowledged that some sort of political settlement must be reached with the Taliban — a loosely affiliated group of Islamic insurgents that control large swaths of territory in Afghanistan — in order to bring an end to the almost nine-year-long U.S. war there.

The beginning of settlement negotiations represents a significant development in terms of Western involvement there.

The announcement also comes at a time when a growing number of U.S. politicians and the public are becoming war weary and want a quick end to it.

Kerry was asked if negotiations are underway between either between the Afghan government or NATO and a specific portion of the Taliban.

Allied forces in Afghanistan have fought Taliban insurgents since 2001, when the war began. The group, which once governed the mountainous Central Asian nation, was booted from power, but has since regained control of several key areas of the country.

Kerry said that any “appropriate” settlement would have to include “a renunciation of al-Qaeda,” a “reduction of violence,” a “recognition of the constitutional rights of both Pakistan and Afghanistan and greater efforts to reduce sanctuaries for insurgency.”

Petraeus, commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he thought “there is a prospect for reconciliation with some of the groups,” specifically citing HIG (Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin) insurgents who have squabbled with the Taliban and have made overtures to the Afghan government to agree to the conditions laid out.

“It doesn’t mean that Mullah Omar is about to stroll down main street in Kabul any time soon and raise his hand and swear an oath on the constitution of Afghanistan,” Petraeus said, citing the Taliban leader.

“But every possibility, I think, that there can be low- and mid-level reintegration, and indeed, some fracturing of the senior leadership that could be really defined as reconciliation.” – The Hill

Pakistanis Block Highways To Protest Slow Flood Aid
The Drudge Report
August 17, 2010

Pakistani flood victims, burning straw and waving sticks, blocked a highway on Monday to demand government help as aid agencies warned relief was too slow to arrive for millions without clean water, food and homes.

Public anger has grown in the two weeks of floods, highlighting potential political troubles for an unpopular government overwhelmed by a disaster that has disrupted the lives of at least a tenth of its 170 million people.

Hundreds of villages across Pakistan in an area roughly the size of Italy have been marooned, highways have been cut in half and thousands of homeless people have been forced to set up tarpaulin tents along the side of roads.

Aid has failed to keep pace with the rising river waters.

“The speed with which the situation is deteriorating is frightening,” Neva Khan, Oxfam’s country director in Pakistan, said in a statement.

“Communities desperately need clean water, latrines and hygiene supplies, but the resources currently available cover only a fraction of what is required.”

The United Nations warned on Monday that up to 3.5 million children could be at risk of contracting deadly diseases carried through contaminated water and insects.

Dozens of stick-wielding men and a few women tried to block five lanes of traffic outside Sukkur, a major town in the southern province of Sindh. Villagers set fire to straw and threatened to hit approaching cars with sticks.

“We left our homes with nothing and now we’re here with no clothes, no food and our children are living beside the road,” said protester Gul Hasan, clutching a large stick.

Hasan, like fellow protesters, has been forced from his village and sought refuge in Sukkur. He and others were camped under tattered plastic in muddy wasteland beside the road.

On Sunday night, hundreds of villagers burned tires and chanted “down with the government” in Punjab province.

“We are dying of hunger here. No one has showed up to comfort us,” said Hafiz Shabbir, a protester in Kot Addu.

ONLY A QUARTER OF AID ARRIVES

The damage caused by the floods and the cost of recovery could bring long-term economic pain to Pakistan and shave more than one percentage point off economic growth, analysts say.

Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Britain, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, told Reuters the cost of rebuilding could be more than $10 to $15 billion and appealed to the international community to provide funds to help stabilize the country.

“These floods have really dislocated everything,” he said.

Pakistani stocks ended down 2.9 percent on fears the impact may be more damaging than estimated after Sunday’s warnings.

The government has been under fire for its perceived inadequate response. Islamic charities, some linked to militant groups, have stepped in to provide aid to flood victims, possibly gaining supporters at the expense of the state.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi expressed concerns over Pakistan’s stability, saying it was dangerous to let them fill the vacuum. “I am worried,” he told the BBC.

Up to 1,600 people have been killed and two million made homeless in Pakistan’s worst floods in decades.

Only a quarter of the $459 million aid needed for initial relief has arrived, according to the United Nations. That contrasts with the United States giving at least $1 billion in military aid last year to its regional ally to battle militants.

Saudi Arabia has sent a dozen planeloads of aid and is donating $9.3 million, state media reported on Monday.

Authorities forecast on Monday a brief respite in rains.

Water levels in the Indus River feeding Pakistan’s plains have fallen in Punjab, the country’s most populous and worst hit province, although flooding would stay high where embankments were breached. In Sindh province, flooding could get worse.

“In the next 4-5 days … there will be scattered rains, but they are not flood-producing,” Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, director general of the meteorological department, told Reuters.

On Sunday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged donors to quicken up aid and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani warned of a second and third wave of floods.

Despite a possible break in heavy rains, many families had little hope of returning to their homes.

“We only hear that the water is receding but there is still more and more water in our village,” said Mansha Bozdar, 45, whose village borders the Sanawan town in southern Punjab.

“It seems if it will never stop.”

The U.N. has reported the first case of cholera. In a statement issued in New York, it said the greatest threat was from acute watery diarrhea and dysentery, but that hepatitis A and E and typhoid fever were also significant risks.

“The lack of clean water and the unavailability of medication is a deadly combination,” said Guido Sabatinelli of the World Health Organization. “When added to the poor living conditions and the lack of food … the picture is alarming.”

The government has been accused of being too slow to respond to the crisis, with victims relying mostly on the military — the most powerful institution in Pakistan — and foreign aid agencies for help.

Nevertheless, a military coup is considered unlikely. The army’s priority is fighting Taliban insurgents, and seizing power during a disaster would make no sense, analysts say.

In Sukkur, hundreds of people set up camp along a sliver of dry land between the swollen Indus and a low concrete wall by a road running alongside the river. But their sanctuary has been getting ever narrower as the river rises.

On Monday, the muddy bank was just a few feet wide in some places and the water was still coming up.

“Where can we go?” asked Faiz Mohammad as he squatted on the concrete wall. “Everywhere is flooded.”

A new State Department report designating terrorist organizations notably excludes one group: the Taliban. The U.S. has been fighting a war in Afghanistan for almost a decade aimed at “defeating the Taliban,” Taliban members repeatedly have threatened and killed American citizens and lawmakers have increased pressure on State to add the Taliban to the list.

Earlier this summer, a group of congressional Democrats sent a letter to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton urging her to begin the process of categorizing the Taliban as a terrorist group. In June, Sens. Charles Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand of New York and Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez of New Jersey proposed legislation that would immediately add the Taliban to the terrorist list.

Yet the State Department’s report (due on April 30 but released last week), did not include the Taliban with groups such as al-Qaida, Hamas and the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA). To qualify, an organization must meet only three criteria: It must be foreign, it must engage in terrorist activity and its activity must threaten the security of the U.S. or its citizens.

“It is hard to imagine this agency can see fit to issue a report that doesn’t include the Taliban groups,” Fred Gedrich, a foreign policy analyst and former State Department employee, told The Daily Caller. “They have killed more Americans and conducted more terror attacks on innocent civilians during the past 12 months than any other terror group.“

Gedrich and others troubled by the Taliban’s absence from the list note that the Taliban recruited and trained the failed Times Square bomber. Just days ago the Taliban claimed responsibility for the deaths of six American medical missionaries in Afghanistan.

“Leaving these ruthless groups off the terror list undermines State Department credibility and could further endanger American troops, U.S. embassy personnel and others in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as Americans innocently going about their business in the United States,” Gedrich said.

Further inspection of the State Department’s report reveals that not all the terrorist organizations listed meet the requirements as precisely as the Taliban does. The Mujahadin-E Khalq (MEK), for example, is an Islamist organization that seeks to overthrow the Iranian regime. Although a U.S. citizen has not been harmed by the MEK since the 1970s, it was designated a terrorist organization during the Clinton administration in hopes that rapprochement could be reached with Iran.

The MEK continues to be included on the list, while the Taliban has not appeared once. And the seemingly arbitrary decision on the part of the State Department has confused even the most experienced foreign affairs experts.

“It’s insane because we are talking about the most barbaric group in the world,” said Gedrich.

“I don’t know why,” Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former CIA officer, told TheDC. “Bush should have done so back in 2001.”

So is the decision not to include the Taliban purely a political one? Some suggest it’s possible, that the U.S. government, going back to the early days of the Bush administration, does not want to ruin its chances for some type of rapprochement with the more moderate parts of the Taliban.

“There may be some today who do hope for a political process with the Taliban,” said Riedel. “But that does not explain why we didn’t put them on the list in 2001-2008 during the Bush years.”

When contacted by TheDC, Rhonda Shore, senior public affairs adviser in the Counterterrorism Office of the State Department, said, “We’re considering the question of designating the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) and are following the necessary procedures to establish a clear evidentiary basis to support any FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization) designation.”

When pressed, Shore declined to comment any further. – The Daily Caller

British Couple Reportedly Killed In Suspected Honor Killing In Pakistan
August 8, 2010
FoxNews.com

When will the PC media of the West stop calling these so called “honor killings” what they should be called and that is “Family Terrorist Dishonor Murders”?

A British couple was murdered last week in Pakistan in a suspected “honor killing,” Sky News reported Sunday.

The couple, Gul Wazir and his wife, Bagum, of Birmingham, England, reportedly traveled to the country to resolve a dispute over a wedding and were gunned down in the village of Salehana in the remote Nowshera province.

British police confirmed the deaths over the weekend, adding that a murder inquiry is already being carried out by the Pakistani authorities, according to the network.

The pair was reportedly shot dead by their daughter’s fiancee after the woman called off the wedding.

The couple has already been buried and the British Foreign Office is providing consular assistance to the family, Sky News reported.

The New York Times seems to believe themselves obliged to publish everything they stumble across that can/will put America’s interests, war missions, and troops in danger. They also feel that simply reminding us they have more, but are sitting on it, is somehow credit-due for them …

A six-year archive of classified military documents made public on Sunday offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal.

The secret documents, released on the Internet by an organization called WikiLeaks, are a daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year.

The New York Times, the British newspaper The Guardian and the German magazine Der Spiegel were given access to the voluminous records several weeks ago on the condition that they not report on the material before Sunday.

The documents — some 92,000 reports spanning parts of two administrations from January 2004 through December 2009 — illustrate in mosaic detail why, after the United States has spent almost $300 billion on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001.

As the new American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, tries to reverse the lagging war effort, the documents sketch a war hamstrung by an Afghan government, police force and army of questionable loyalty and competence, and by a Pakistani military that appears at best uncooperative and at worst to work from the shadows as an unspoken ally of the very insurgent forces the American-led coalition is trying to defeat.

The material comes to light as Congress and the public grow increasingly skeptical of the deepening involvement in Afghanistan and its chances for success as next year’s deadline to begin withdrawing troops looms.

The archive is a vivid reminder that the Afghan conflict until recently was a second-class war, with money, troops and attention lavished on Iraq while soldiers and Marines lamented that the Afghans they were training were not being paid.

The reports — usually spare summaries but sometimes detailed narratives — shed light on some elements of the war that have been largely hidden from the public eye:

• The Taliban have used portable heat-seeking missiles against allied aircraft, a fact that has not been publicly disclosed by the military. This type of weapon helped the Afghan mujahedeen defeat the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

• Secret commando units like Task Force 373 — a classified group of Army and Navy special operatives — work from a “capture/kill list” of about 70 top insurgent commanders. These missions, which have been stepped up under the Obama administration, claim notable successes, but have sometimes gone wrong, killing civilians and stoking Afghan resentment.

• The military employs more and more drone aircraft to survey the battlefield and strike targets in Afghanistan, although their performance is less impressive than officially portrayed. Some crash or collide, forcing American troops to undertake risky retrieval missions before the Taliban can claim the drone’s weaponry.

• The Central Intelligence Agency has expanded paramilitary operations inside Afghanistan. The units launch ambushes, order airstrikes and conduct night raids. From 2001 to 2008, the C.I.A. paid the budget of Afghanistan’s spy agency and ran it as a virtual subsidiary.

Over all, the documents do not contradict official accounts of the war. But in some cases the documents show that the American military made misleading public statements — attributing the downing of a helicopter to conventional weapons instead of heat-seeking missiles or giving Afghans credit for missions carried out by Special Operations commandos.

White House officials vigorously denied that the Obama administration had presented a misleading portrait of the war in Afghanistan.

“On Dec. 1, 2009, President Obama announced a new strategy with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan, and increased focus on Al Qaeda and Taliban safe-havens in Pakistan, precisely because of the grave situation that had developed over several years,” said Gen. James L. Jones, White House national security adviser, in a statement released Sunday.

“We know that serious challenges lie ahead, but if Afghanistan is permitted to slide backwards, we will again face a threat from violent extremist groups like Al Qaeda who will have more space to plot and train,” the statement said.

General Jones also condemned the decision by WikiLeaks to make the documents public, saying that “the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security.”

“WikiLeaks made no effort to contact us about these documents – the United States government learned from news organizations that these documents would be posted,” General Jones said.

The archive is clearly an incomplete record of the war. It is missing many references to seminal events and does not include more highly classified information. The documents also do not cover events in 2010, when the influx of more troops into Afghanistan began and a new counterinsurgency strategy took hold.

They suggest that the military’s internal assessments of the prospects for winning over the Afghan public, especially in the early days, were often optimistic, even naïve.

There are fleeting — even taunting — reminders of how the war began in the occasional references to the elusive Osama bin Laden. In some reports he is said to be attending meetings in Quetta, Pakistan. His money man is said to be flying from Iran to North Korea to buy weapons. Mr. bin Laden has supposedly ordered a suicide attack against the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. These reports all seem secondhand at best.

The reports portray a resilient, canny insurgency that has bled American forces through a war of small cuts. The insurgents set the war’s pace, usually fighting on ground of their own choosing and then slipping away.

Sabotage and trickery have been weapons every bit as potent as small arms, mortars or suicide bombers. So has Taliban intimidation of Afghan officials and civilians — applied with pinpoint pressure through threats, charm, violence, money, religious fervor and populist appeals.

FEB. 19, 2008 | ZABUL PROVINCE Intelligence Summary: Officer Threatened

An Afghan National Army brigade commander working in southern Afghanistan received a phone call from a Taliban mullah named Ezat, one brief report said. “Mullah Ezat told the ANA CDR to surrender and offered him $100,000(US) to quit working for the Afghan Army,” the report said. “Ezat also stated that he knows where the ANA CDR is from and knows his family.” Read the Document »

MAY 9, 2009 | KUNAR PROVINCE Intelligence Summary: Taliban Recruiter

A Taliban commander, Mullah Juma Khan, delivered a eulogy at the funeral of a slain insurgent. He played on the crowd’s emotions, according to the report: “Juma cried while telling the people an unnamed woman and her baby were killed while the woman was nursing the baby.” Finally he made his pitch: “Juma then told the people they needed to be angry at CF [Coalition Force] and ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] for causing this tragedy” and “invited everyone who wants to fight to join the fighters who traveled with him.” Read the Document »

The insurgents use a network of spies, double agents, collaborators and informers — anything to undercut coalition forces and the effort to build a credible and effective Afghan government capable of delivering security and services.

The reports repeatedly describe instances when the insurgents have been seen wearing government uniforms, and other times when they have roamed the country or appeared for battle in the very Ford Ranger pickup trucks that the United States had provided the Afghan Army and police force.

NOV. 20, 2006 | KABUL Incident Report: Insurgent Subterfuge

After capturing four pickup trucks from the Afghan National Army, the Taliban took them to Kabul to be used in suicide bombings. “They intend to use the pick-up trucks to target ANA compounds, ISAF and GOA convoys, as well as ranking GOA and ISAF officials,” said a report, referring to coalition forces and the government of Afghanistan. “The four trucks were also accompanied by an unknown quantity of ANA uniforms to facilitate carrying out the attacks.” Read the Document »

The Taliban’s use of heat-seeking missiles has not been publicly disclosed — indeed, the military has issued statements that these internal records contradict.

In the form known as a Stinger, such weapons were provided to a previous generation of Afghan insurgents by the United States, and helped drive out the Soviets. The reports suggest that the Taliban’s use of these missiles has been neither common nor especially effective; usually the missiles missed.

MAY 30, 2007 | HELMAND PROVINCE Incident Report: Downed Helicopter

An American CH-47 transport helicopter was struck by what witnesses described as a portable heat-seeking surface-to-air missile after taking off from a landing zone.

The helicopter, the initial report said, “was engaged and struck with a Missile … shortly after crossing over the Helmand River. The missile struck the aircraft in the left engine. The impact of the missile projected the aft end of the aircraft up as it burst into flames followed immediately by a nose dive into the crash site with no survivors.”

The crash killed seven soldiers: five Americans, a Briton and a Canadian.

Multiple witnesses saw a smoke trail behind the missile as it rushed toward the helicopter. The smoke trail was an important indicator. Rocket-propelled grenades do not leave them. Heat-seeking missiles do. The crew of other helicopters reported the downing as a surface-to-air missile strike. But that was not what a NATO spokesman told Reuters.

“Clearly, there were enemy fighters in the area,” said the spokesman, Maj. John Thomas. “It’s not impossible for small-arms fire to bring down a helicopter.”

The reports paint a disheartening picture of the Afghan police and soldiers at the center of the American exit strategy.

The Pentagon is spending billions to train the Afghan forces to secure the country. But the police have proved to be an especially risky investment and are often described as distrusted, even loathed, by Afghan civilians. The reports recount episodes of police brutality, corruption petty and large, extortion and kidnapping. Some police officers defect to the Taliban. Others are accused of collaborating with insurgents, arms smugglers and highway bandits. Afghan police officers defect with trucks or weapons, items captured during successful ambushes or raids.

MARCH 10, 2008 | PAKTIA PROVINCE Investigation Report: Extortion by the Police

This report captured the circular and frustrating effort by an American investigator to stop Afghan police officers at a checkpoint from extorting payments from motorists. After a line of drivers described how they were pressed to pay bribes, the American investigator and the local police detained the accused checkpoint police officers.

“While waiting,” the investigator wrote, “I asked the seven patrolmen we detained to sit and relax while we sorted through a problem without ever mentioning why they were being detained. Three of the patrolmen responded by saying that they had only taken money from the truck drivers to buy fuel for their generator.”

Two days later when the American followed up, he was told by police officers that the case had been dropped because the witness reports had all been lost. Read the Document »

One report documented the detention of a military base worker trying to leave the base with GPS units hidden under his clothes and taped to his leg. Another described the case of a police chief in Zurmat, in Paktia Province, who was accused of falsely reporting that his officers had been in a firefight so he could receive thousands of rounds of new ammunition, which he sold in a bazaar.

Coalition trainers report that episodes of cruelty by the Afghan police undermine the effort to build a credible security force to take over when the allies leave.

OCT. 11, 2009 | BALKH PROVINCE Incident Report: Brutal Police Chief

This report began with an account of Afghan soldiers and police officers harassing and beating local civilians for refusing to cooperate in a search. It then related the story of a district police commander who forced himself on a 16-year-old girl. When a civilian complained, the report continued, “The district commander ordered his bodyguard to open fire on the AC [Afghan civilian]. The bodyguard refused, at which time the district commander shot [the bodyguard] in front of the AC.”

Rivalries and friction between the largest Afghan security services — the police and the army — are evident in a number of reports. Sometimes the tensions erupted in outright clashes, as was recorded in the following report from last December that was described as an “enemy action.” The “enemy” in this case was the Afghan National Security Force.

DEC. 4, 2009 | ORUZGAN PROVINCE Incident Report: Police and Army Rivalry

A car accident turned deadly when an argument broke out between the police and the Afghan National Army. “The argument escalated and ANA & ANP started to shoot at each other,” a report said.

An Afghan soldier and three Afghan police officers were wounded in the shootout. One civilian was killed and six others were wounded by gunfire. Read the Document »

One sign of the weakness of the police is that in places they have been replaced by tribal warlords who are charged — informally but surely — with providing the security the government cannot. Often the warlords operate above the law.

NOV. 22, 2009 | KANDAHAR PROVINCE Incident Report: Illegal Checkpoint

A private security convoy, ferrying fuel from Kandahar to Oruzgan, was stopped by what was thought to be 100 insurgents armed with assault rifles and PK machine guns, a report said.

It turned out the convoy had been halted by “the local Chief of Police,” who was “demanding $2000-$3000 per truck” as a kind of toll. The chief, said the report, from NATO headquarters in Southern Afghanistan, “states he needs the money to run his operation.”

The chief was not actually a police chief. He was Matiullah Khan, a warlord and an American-backed ally of President Karzai who was arguably Oruzgan’s most powerful man. He had a contract, the Ministry of Interior said, to protect the road so NATO’s supply convoys could drive on it, but he had apparently decided to extort money from the convoys himself.

Late in the day, Mr. Matiullah, after many interventions, changed his mind. The report said that friendly forces “report that the COMPASS convoy is moving again and did not pay the fee required.”

The documents show how the best intentions of Americans to help rebuild Afghanistan through provincial reconstruction teams ran up against a bewildering array of problems — from corruption to cultural misunderstandings — as they tried to win over the public by helping repair dams and bridges, build schools and train local authorities.

A series of reports from 2005 to 2008 chart the frustrations of one of the first such teams, assigned to Gardez, in Paktia Province.

NOV. 28, 2006 | PAKTIA PROVINCE Civil Affairs Report: Orphanage Opens

An American civil affairs officer could barely contain her enthusiasm as she spoke at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new orphanage, built with money from the American military.

The officer said a friend had given her a leather jacket to present to “someone special,” the report noted. She chose the orphanage’s director. “The commander stated that she could think of no one more deserving then someone who cared for orphans,” it said.

The civil affairs team handed out blankets, coats, scarves and toys. The governor even gave money from his own pocket. “All speeches were very positive,” the report concluded. Read the Document »

DEC. 20, 2006 | PAKTIA PROVINCE Civil Affairs Report: Not Many Orphans

The team dropped by to check on the orphanage. “We found very few orphans living there and could not find most of the HA [humanitarian assistance] we had given them,” the report noted.

The team raised the issue with the governor of Paktia, who said he was also concerned and suspected that the money he had donated had not reached the children. He visited the orphanage himself. Only 30 children were there; the director had claimed to have 102. Read the Document »

OCT. 16, 2007 | PAKTIA PROVINCE Civil Affairs Report: An Empty Orphanage

Nearly a year after the opening of the orphanage, the Americans returned for a visit. “There are currently no orphans at the facility due to the Holiday. (Note: orphans are defined as having no father, but may still have mother and a family structure that will have them home for holidays.)” Read the Document »

FEB. 25, 2007 | PAKTIA PROVINCE District Report: Lack of Resources

As the Taliban insurgency strengthened, the lack of a government presence in the more remote districts — and the government’s inability to provide security or resources even to its own officials — is evident in the reports.

An official from Dand Wa Patan, a small sliver of a district along the border with Pakistan, so urgently wanted to talk to the members of the American team that he traveled three and a half hours by taxi — he had no car — to meet them.

“He explained that the enemy had changed their tactics in the area and were no longer fighting from the mountains, no longer sending rockets toward his compound and other areas,” the report noted. “He stated that the enemy focus was on direct action and that his family was a primary target.”

Ten days earlier the Taliban crept up to the wall of his family compound and blew up one of the security towers, the report said. His son lost his legs in the explosion.

He pleaded for more police officers, weapons and ammunition. He also wanted a car so he could drive around the district he was supposed to oversee.

But the Americans’ situation was not much better. For months the reports show how a third — or even a half — of the team’s vehicles were out of service, awaiting spare parts.

NOV. 15, 2006 | PAKTIA PROVINCE Civil Affairs Report: Local Corruption

For a while the civil affairs team worked closely with the provincial governor, described as “very charismatic.” Yet both he and the team are hampered by corrupt, negligent and antagonistic officials.

The provincial chief of police is described in one report as “the axel of corruption.”

“He makes every effort to openly and blatantly take money from the ANP troopers and the officers,” one sympathetic officer told the Americans.

Other officers are more clever. One forged rosters, to collect pay for imaginary police officers. A second set up illegal checkpoints to collects tolls around Gardez. Still another stole food and uniforms, leaving his soldiers underfed and ill equipped for the winter.

The governor, meanwhile, was all but trapped. Such animosity developed between him and a senior security official that the governor could not leave his office for weeks at a time, fearing for his life. Finally, the corrupt officials were replaced. But it took months.

SEPT. 24, 2007 | PAKTIA PROVINCE Civil Affairs Report: The Cost of Corruption

Their meetings with Afghan district officials gave the American civil affairs officers unique insights into local opinions. Sometimes, the Afghan officials were brutally honest in their assessments.

In one case, provincial council officials visited the Americans at their base in Gardez to report threats — the Taliban had tossed a grenade into their office compound and were prowling the hills. Then the officials began a tirade.

“The people of Afghanistan keep loosing their trust in the government because of the high amount of corrupted government officials,” the report quoted them as saying. “The general view of the Afghans is that the current government is worst than the Taliban.”

“The corrupted government officials are a new concept brought to Afghanistan by the AMERICANS,” the oldest member of the group told the civil affairs team.

In conclusion, the civil affairs officer who wrote the report warned, “The people will support the Anti-Coalition forces and the security condition will degenerate.” He recommended a public information program to educate Afghans about democracy. Read the Document »

The reports also evoke the rivalries and tensions that swirl within the presidential palace between President Karzai’s circle and the warlords.
(Continue Reading here @ NY Times and here)

W.H. condemns ‘irresponsible’ leaks, dismisses stories

The White House responded swiftly and sharply to publication Sunday evening of more than 91,000 secret documents painting a bleak picture of the Afghanistan war, calling the leak “irresponsible” and saying that the source – the whistleblower website WikiLeaks — “opposes U.S. policy in Afghanistan.”

WikiLeaks said its “Afghan War Diary” consists mostly of reports “written by soldiers and intelligence officers … describing lethal military actions involving the United States military.” WikiLeaks gave three news organizations – The New York Times, The (British) Guardian and Germany’s Der Spiegel – advance access to the “war logs” trove.

White House National Security Adviser James Jones issued a statement that begins: “The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security.

“Wikileaks made no effort to contact us about these documents – the United States government learned from news organizations that these documents would be posted. These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people.

“The documents posted by Wikileaks reportedly cover a period of time from January 2004 to December 2009. On December 1, 2009, President Obama announced a new strategy with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan, and increased focus on al Qaeda and Taliban safe-havens in Pakistan, precisely because of the grave situation that had developed over several years.”

An administration official went further in an e-mail to reporters: “I don’t think anyone who follows this issue will find it surprising that there are concerns about ISI and safe havens in Pakistan. In fact, we’ve said as much repeatedly and on the record. …

“The period of time covered in these documents (January 2004-December 2009) is before the President announced his new strategy. Some of the disconcerting things reported are exactly why the President ordered a three month policy review and a change in strategy.”

The official added: “[I]t’s worth noting that WikiLeaks is not an objective news outlet but rather an organization that opposes U.S. policy in Afghanistan.”

The official highlighted this passage in The Guardian’s coverage: “[F]or all their eye-popping details, the intelligence files, which are mostly collated by junior officers relying on informants and Afghan officials, fail to provide a convincing smoking gun for ISI complicity. Most of the reports are vague, filled with incongruent detail, or crudely fabricated. The same characters – famous Taliban commanders, well-known ISI officials – and scenarios repeatedly pop up. And few of the events predicted in the reports subsequently occurred.

“A retired senior American officer said ground-level reports were considered to be a mixture of ‘rumours, [baloney] and second-hand information’ and were weeded out as they passed up the chain of command. ‘As someone who had to sift through thousands of these reports, I can say that the chances of finding any real information are pretty slim,’ said the officer, who has years of experience in the region.

“If anything, the jumble of allegations highlights the perils of collecting accurate intelligence in a complex arena where all sides have an interest in distorting the truth.” – Politico

U.K. Provides Vital Communications To U.S. In Drone Attacks
Published July 25, 2010
FoxNews.com NewsCore (AP)

A top British spy agency uses its technology to pinpoint the hiding places of al Qaeda and Taliban chiefs for controversial “targeted killings” by U.S. drones, it was revealed Sunday.

GCHQ, the top secret U.K. communications agency, has used telephone intercepts to provide the Americans with “locational intelligence” on leading militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, an official briefed on its operations said.

Insiders say GCHQ can provide more extensive and precise technical coverage in the region than its American sister organization, the National Security Agency, because Britain has a better network of intercept stations in Asia.

Drone attacks have succeeded in disrupting al Qaeda activities. However, hundreds of civilians have been killed, and a prominent human rights lawyer investigating the attacks for the United Nations has challenged their legality.

Washington says Pakistan’s northwest tribal area is a global headquarters for al Qaeda, from where it plans attacks on western troops in Afghanistan and on cities abroad.

Officials say 2 US missile strikes kill 12 suspected militants in northwest PakistanThere have been more than 100 drone strikes there in the past two years. In an attack early Saturday, U.S. missiles hit a suspected militant hideout in south Waziristan, killing 16 insurgents, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.

It has been reported that Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) uses a small fleet of Reaper drones — unmanned aerial vehicles — to attack targets in Afghanistan.

U.K. Ministry of Defence figures released earlier this year revealed that the RAF has fired 84 missiles since they were first deployed there in June 2008. Those missiles were used to support British and American troops in direct combat.

Until Sunday, it had not been disclosed that GCHQ was providing “locint” — locational intelligence — on the location of individuals.

Intelligence officials say US missile strike kills 5 suspected militants in NW Pakistan
FoxNews.com (AP)
July 25, 2010

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — Unmanned U.S. aircraft fired four missiles at a house in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday, killing five suspected militants in the second drone strike in as many days, intelligence officials said.

The U.S. has launched more than 100 missile strikes in Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal area along the Afghan border over the past several years. Most have them have targeted militants in North and South Waziristan, important sanctuaries for Afghan and Pakistani Taliban fighters.

The house that was destroyed Sunday was in Shaktoi, a village along the border of North and South Waziristan. The attack, which actually occurred in South Waziristan, also wounded four suspected militants, said the intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The strike came a day after U.S. aircraft fired six missiles at a compound in the Nazai Narai area of South Waziristan, killing 16 suspected militants. The hide-out was known to be frequented by foreign fighters who were among the dead, intelligence officials said.

The U.S. refuses to publicly acknowledge the covert CIA-run drone program in Pakistan, but officials have said privately that it has killed several senior Taliban and al-Qaida figures.

One of the reasons the U.S. has relied so heavily on the missile strikes is that it has been unable to convince the Pakistani military to target Afghan Taliban fighters in North Waziristan who regularly launch cross-border attacks against U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Many analysts believe Pakistan’s reluctance is driven by the military’s belief that the Taliban could be useful allies in Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw.

Pakistan publicly condemns the U.S. missile strikes, but it has secretly helped Washington in previous attacks.

Suspected US missiles kill 16 militants in Pakistan’s troubled South Waziristan tribal region
by Munir Ahmed (AP)
July 23, 2010

ISLAMABAD – U.S. missiles hit a suspected militant hide-out, killing 16 insurgents in a troubled Pakistani tribal region along the Afghan border before dawn Saturday, intelligence officials said.

The strike came as the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, was in Pakistan. Mullen was expected to see Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who was recently granted a three-year term extension in what some have welcomed as a sign of continuity in Pakistan’s battle against Islamist extremists.

The six missiles struck a compound in the Nazai Narai area of South Waziristan. The hide-out was known to be frequented by foreign fighters who were among the dead, two intelligence officials said.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to go on the record, said agents were trying to get more details about the identities and nationalities of the dead.

Army spokesmen were not immediately available for comment.

U.S. missile strikes regularly pound extremist targets in the northwest. South Waziristan has witnessed several major Pakistani military operations since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Washington has relied heavily on its covert missile campaign to take out al-Qaida, Afghan Taliban and their local supporters in North and South Waziristan tribal regions, which are hiding places for insurgents.

The vast majority of strikes have hit targets in North Waziristan — home to several militant networks that attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Although Pakistan publicly condemns the missile strikes, it has secretly helped Washington in previous attacks.

Clinton Meets With Pakistani Officials At Start of Afghan War Trip
FoxNews.com (AP)
July 18, 2010

So the Obamao administration wants to “help” Pakistan with American aid and development. As the story suggests, Sec. Clinton is in Pakistan to offer U.S. development assistance to Pakistan and this is a nation that doesn’t like us. Wonderful. Just wonderful. How many more billions of dollars will be wasted on the Islamic ingrates of Pakistan at the expense of the U.S. middle class? Mrs. Clinton should try U.S. developmental aid assistance to the U.S. Oh that’s right. Obamao has already tried that. And that failed just as this Pakistani effort will fail too!

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, center, walks on the red carpet upon her arrival at PAF Base Chakala in Islamabad July 18. (AP Photo)

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton started a South Asia tour on Sunday aimed at refining the goals of the nearly 9-year-old war in Afghanistan and pushing neighboring nations to work together in the fight against Al Qaeda and Taliban extremists.

Clinton landed in Islamabad where she will underscore the need for Afghan-Pakistani cooperation in winning the war but also announce plans to beef up U.S. development assistance to Pakistan, which is rife with anti-American sentiment.

In talks with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani on Sunday and military and civilian officials on Monday, Clinton is seeking to convince Pakistanis the U.S. is committed to the country’s long-term development needs and not just short-term security gains.

This, officials hope, will lead to greater Pakistani cooperation on key U.S. policy goals, particularly combating Pakistan-based militants accused of conspiring to attack the United States, including the failed Times Square bombing, and stepping up action against extremists along the Afghan border.

“To get there we need to change the core of the relationship with Pakistan,” said Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Clinton plans to announce about $500 million in several new development programs — funded by a bill approved by Congress last year to triple nonmilitary aid to Pakistan with $1.5 billion a year over five years — that will focus on water, energy, agriculture and health.

These initiatives will mark the second phase of projects begun under a new and enhanced “strategic partnership” that began last year.

Holbrooke noted that when Clinton visited Pakistan last October she had “waded into continually hostile and skeptical crowds.” But he maintained that the new U.S. focus is “producing a change in Pakistani attitudes, first within the government and gradually, more slowly, within the public.”

Still, he and other officials concede, mistrust of America runs deep in Pakistan, particularly over unmanned drone strikes which are aimed at militants but kill or maim civilians and to many Pakistanis represent an unacceptable violation of sovereignty.

Vali Nasr, a Holbrooke deputy, said overcoming the suspicion remains a work in progress.
“We’re beginning to see movement, but this is not going to happen overnight,” he said. “We’re not going to be able to get them aligned over a one-year time period on every single issue and change 30 years of foreign policy of Pakistan on a dime.”

Equally important, officials say, is getting Pakistan and Afghanistan on the same page.

Holbrooke said last week that “nothing could be more important to the resolution of the war in Afghanistan than a common understanding between Afghanistan and Pakistan on what their strategic purpose is.”

After Pakistan, Clinton will attend an international conference on Afghanistan in Kabul on Tuesday.

Security has been tightened across the capital ahead the conference, which will be attended by diplomats from 60 nations as well as the heads of NATO and the United Nations.

Still on Sunday, a suicide bomber in the eastern section of Kabul killed three civilians and injured dozens more.

Clinton’s visit to Afghanistan comes as American lawmakers and voters are increasingly questioning the course of the drawn-out war with rising death tolls among U.S. and international troops and growing questions about corruption.

Last month was the deadliest of the war for international forces: 103 coalition troops were killed, despite the infusion of tens of thousands of new U.S. forces. So far in July, 54 international troops have died, 39 of them American. An American service member was killed by a blast in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, and an American died in a blast in the south on Friday.

Later in the week, Clinton will meet up with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates in South Korea, where tensions with the communist North have risen after the sinking of a South Korean warship that was blamed on the North.

She will finish her trip in Vietnam for discussions with regional leaders. Among the topics will be the upcoming elections in Myanmar.

US drone attack kills 10 in North Waziristan
Dawn.com
July 15, 2010

The three missiles struck the Mada Khel area of the northwest region filled with militants determined to oust Western troops from across the border in Afghanistan. — File Photo

MIRANSHAH: US missiles destroyed a compound used by militants in Pakistan’s tribal belt on Thursday, killing at least 10 militants in the first such attack for two weeks, officials said.

A US drone fired at least two missiles into the compound in the village of Sheerani Mada Khel in the district of North Waziristan, a Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked stronghold heavily targeted in a covert US drone war this year.

“At least 10 militants were killed,” a senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“Most of the dead militants are said to be foreigners,” he added, but said that their nationalities were not yet known.

Pakistani officials use the term “foreigners” for Al-Qaeda fighters operating in the tribal regions.

Another security official said up to 14 militants were killed when three missiles slammed into the compound.

The area, 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, is a stronghold of Pakistani warlord Hafiz Gul Bahadur.

He is reputed to control up to 2,000 fighters in the region who stage attacks over the border against foreign forces stationed in Afghanistan.

It was not immediately clear whether there were any high-value targets among the dead.

The missiles were fired at around 6:30 pm (1330 GMT) and militants quickly surrounded the site, barring access to local residents, officials said.

US forces have been waging a covert drone war against Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked commanders in Pakistan’s northwest tribal belt, where militants have carved out havens in mountains outside direct government control.

Washington has branded the rugged tribal area on the Afghan border a global headquarters of Al-Qaeda and the most dangerous place on Earth.

The US military does not, as a rule, confirm drone attacks, but its armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy pilotless drones in the region.

Thursday’s strike was the first drone attack in Pakistan’s tribal belt since six militants were killed in South Waziristan on June 29.

Around 960 people have been killed in more than 100 drone strikes in Pakistan since August 2008, including a number of senior militants. However the attacks fuel anti-American sentiment in the conservative Muslim country.

Waziristan came under renewed scrutiny when Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American charged over an attempted bombing in New York on May 1, allegedly told US interrogators he went there for bomb training.

The United States has been increasing pressure on Pakistan to crack down on Islamist havens along the Afghan border.

Pakistani commanders have not ruled out an offensive in North Waziristan, but argue that gains in South Waziristan and the northwestern district of Swat need to be consolidated to prevent their troops from being stretched too thin.

As death toll from tribal region bombings’ hits 102, Pakistanis search for relatives in rubble
July 10, 2010
FoxNews.com (AP)

As Adnan Khan sifted through the rubble in this northwest Pakistani village Saturday, his grief mingled with a sense of disbelief. Of the 102 people killed by a pair of suicide bombers here the day before, 10 were his relatives. Aunts, uncles, cousins — all perished in the deadliest attack in Pakistan this year.

“People came here yesterday to receive biscuits and edible oil,” the college student said. “I don’t know why terrorists killed them.”

Yakaghund village lies in Mohmand, one of several regions in Pakistan’s tribal belt where al-Qaida and Taliban militants are believed to be hiding. The Friday strike showed that Islamist extremists remain a deadly force along this area bordering Afghanistan, despite pressure from army offensives or drone-fired U.S. missiles.

Although the Pakistani Taliban said anti-militant tribal elders were the target, it was dozens of ordinary men and women who bore the brunt of the strike. Many had lined up nearby to pick up donated food and goods such as farm equipment when the blasts occurred.

The bombs’ target appeared to be the office of Rasool Khan, a deputy Mohmand administrator, that tribal elders were visiting. Local journalists told The Associated Press that Pakistani Taliban spokesman Akramullah Mohmand had called them late Friday and claimed responsibility.

None of those elders were hurt, officials said. Some are believed to have been involved in citizens’ militias that have risen against the insurgents.

The attack also wounded 168 people in Yakaghund, a village of 4,000 that lies on the edge of Mohmand and the Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province. Some 70 to 80 shops were damaged or destroyed, while damage to a prison building allowed 28 inmates — ordinary criminals, not militants — to flee, Rasool Khan said.

Some houses nearby, including those belonging to Adnan Khan’s relatives, also were leveled.

People on Saturday kept up the search through the piles of brick and rubble left behind. As of midday, at least 15 people were still believed to be trapped beneath, said Ibrahim Khan, a security official who gave the latest casualty tolls.

Sher Afzal, 22, hoped his uncle and cousin would be found.

“My uncle came here to collect his national identity card (from a government office), and he is still missing with his son,” Afzal said. “We have checked all the hospitals, but we could not trace them.”

The U.S. has pushed Islamabad to clamp down on militants who threaten Western troops across the border in Afghanistan and to destabilize nuclear-armed Pakistan itself.

The Pakistani army has carried out operations in Mohmand, but it has been unable to extirpate Islamist militants hiding there. Its efforts to rely on citizen militias to take on the militants have had limited success in Mohmand.

On Saturday, many in Yakaghund were too scared to even mention the word “Taliban,” but several said it was the U.S. presence in Afghanistan that was the real cause of the violence in Pakistan.

They also blamed the Pakistani government for not caring about the effects of the U.S. war across the border on Pakistani citizens.

“Mohmand was a peaceful area, but we have lost this peace since the American attacks in Afghanistan,” said Haji Mohammad Amin, 65, a farmer.

“The government policies are responsible for this. They don’t provide security for the common people,” said Adnan Khan, the college student who lost 10 relatives.

The Friday attack was the third this year to kill more than 90 people, and it was the worst attack in the country since a car bombing killed 112 people at a crowded market in the main northwest city of Peshawar last October.

Nevertheless, army operations and U.S. missile strikes are believed to have disrupted militants’ activities enough to where attacks in the country have decreased this year so far, especially in the northwest. In the last three months of 2009, for instance, more than 500 people were killed in a surge of attacks across the country.

Global Terror: At Least 18 Dead as Blasts Rock Religious Shrine in Pakistan
July 01, 2010
FoxNews.com (AP)

It’s just another day at the office for the false-religion of love.

LAHORE, Pakistan — A government official says at least two suicide bombers attacked a popular Muslim shrine minutes apart in the Pakistani city of Lahore, killing 18 people.

Sajjad Dhutta, a senior government official in Lahore, says police are still investigating the source of a third blast that followed the two suicide bombers.

Dhutta said thousands of people were visiting Data Darbar shrine at the time of the attack. It contains the tomb of a famous Sufi saint and is visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year.

Peace Through Strength and American Pride vs. “Enemy-Centric” Policy

Earlier this week, I spoke at the Freedom Fest in Norfolk, Virginia; and, evidently, the media was asked to leave – not by me, that’s for sure. I want my message out, so despite reporters making up a story about “Palin people kicking us out” (uh, the “Palin people” entourage would consist of one person – my 15-year-old daughter, Willow – and I have no doubt she could take on any reporter, but I know for certain she didn’t “kick ‘em out” of the event). Anyway, here are some of the key issues I spoke about.

DEFENSE SPENDING

It takes a lot of resources to maintain the best fighting force in the world – especially at a time when we face financial uncertainty and a mountain of debt that threatens all of our futures.

We have a federal government that is spending trillions, and that has nationalized whole sections of our economy: the auto industry, the insurance industry, health care, student loans, the list goes on – all of it at enormous cost to the tax payer. The cost of Obamacare alone is likely to exceed $2.5 trillion dollars.

As a result of all these trillion dollar spending bills, America’s going bust in a hurry. By 2020 we may reach debt levels of $20 trillion – twice the debt that we have today! It reminds me of that joke I read the other day: “Please don’t tell Obama what comes after a trillion!”

Something has to be done urgently to stop the out of control Obama-Reid-Pelosi spending machine, and no government agency should be immune from budget scrutiny. We must make sure, however, that we do nothing to undermine the effectiveness of our military. If we lose wars, if we lose the ability to deter adversaries, if we lose the ability to provide security for ourselves and for our allies, we risk losing all that makes America great! That is a price we cannot afford to pay.

This may be obvious to you and me, but I am not sure the Obama Administration gets it. There isn’t a single progressive pet cause which they haven’t been willing to throw billions at. But when it comes to defense spending, all of a sudden they start preaching a message of “fiscal restraint.” Our Defense Secretary recently stated the “gusher” of defense spending was over and that it was time for the Department of Defense to tighten its belt. There’s a gusher of spending alright, but it’s not on defense. Did you know the US actually only ranks 25th worldwide on defense spending as a percentage of GDP? We spend three times more on entitlements and debt services than we do on defense.

Now don’t get me wrong: there’s nothing wrong with preaching fiscal conservatism. I want the federal government to balance its budget right now! And not the Washington way – which is raising your taxes to pay for their irresponsible spending habits. I want it done the American way: by cutting spending, reducing the size of government, and letting people keep more of their hard-earned cash.

But the Obama administration doesn’t practice what it preaches. This is an administration that won’t produce a budget for fear that we discover how reckless they’ve been as fiscal managers. At the same time, it threatens to veto a defense bill because of an extra jet engine!

This administration may be willing to cut defense spending, but it’s increasing it everywhere else. I think we should do it the other way round: cut spending in other departments – apart from defense. We should not be cutting corners on our national security.

THE U.S. NAVY

Secretary Gates recently spoke about the future of the US Navy. He said we have to “ask whether the nation can really afford a Navy that relies on $3 to $6 billion destroyers, $7 billion submarines, and $11 billion carriers.” He went on to ask, “Do we really need… more strike groups for another 30 years when no other country has more than one?”

Well, my answer is pretty simple: Yes, we can and, yes, we do because we must. Our Navy has global responsibilities. It patrols sea lanes and safeguards the freedoms of our allies – and ourselves. The Navy right now only has 286 ships, and that number may decrease. That will limit our options, extend tours for Navy personnel, lessen our ability to secure our allies and deter our adversaries. The Obama administration seems strangely unconcerned about this prospect.

OBAMA’S FOREIGN POLICY INHERITANCE

When George W. Bush came into office, he inherited a military that had been cut deeply, an al Qaeda that had been unchallenged, and an approach to terrorism that focused on bringing court cases rather than destroying those who sought to destroy us. We saw the result of some of that on 9/11.

When President Obama came into office, he inherited a military that was winning in Iraq. He inherited loyal allies and strong alliances. And thanks to the lamestream media pawing and purring over him, he had the benefit of unparalleled global popularity. What an advantage! So their basic foreign policy outlines should have been clear. Commit to the War on Terror. Commit to winning – not ending, but winning the war in Afghanistan. Commit to the fight against violent Islamic extremism wherever it finds sanctuary. Work with our allies. Be resolute with our adversaries. Promote liberty, not least because it enhances our security. Unfortunately, these basic principles seem to have been discarded by Washington.

THE WAR ON TERROR

His administration has banned the phrase “war on terror,” preferring instead politically correct nonsense like “overseas contingency operations.” His Homeland Security Secretary calls acts of terrorism “man-caused disasters.” His reckless plan to close Guantanamo (because there’s no place to go after it’s closed) faces bipartisan opposition now.

The Attorney General just announced that a decision about where to try terrorists like 9/11 master mind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would not be announced until after the mid-term elections. Is there something he’s afraid to tell us?

The President’s new National Security Strategy does not even use the word “Islamic” when referring to violent extremism. Does he think the ideology of those who seek to kill Americans is irrelevant? How can we seek to defeat an enemy if we don’t acknowledge what motivates them and what their ultimate goals are? President Obama may think he is being politically correct by dropping the term, but it flies in the face of reality. As Senator Joe Lieberman noted, refusing to use the word Islamic when describing the nature of the threat we face is “Orwellian and counterproductive.”

AFGHANISTAN

In Afghanistan, it is true that President Obama approved deploying additional forces to the conflict – most, but not all the troops requested by commanders on the ground. But it took months of indecision to get to that point, and it came at a very high price – a July 2011 date to begin withdrawal.

This date was arbitrary! It bears no relation to conditions on the ground. It sends all the wrong signals to our friends and to our enemies. We know our commanders on the ground are not comfortable with it.

As that great Navy war hero, Senator John McCain recently put it: “The decision to begin withdrawing our forces from Afghanistan arbitrarily in July 2011 seems to be having exactly the effect that many of us predicted it would: It is convincing the key actors inside and outside of Afghanistan that the United States is more interested in leaving than succeeding in this conflict.”

Does the President really believe the Taliban and al Qaeda won’t be empowered by his naming of a starting date for withdrawal? They now believe they can beat him simply by outlasting us. What sort of effect does he think this will have on the morale of our troops – and of our allies?

ALIENATING OUR ALLIES

It’s not the only area where the Obama administration has failed our allies. They escalated a minor zoning issue in Jerusalem into a major dispute with our most important ally in the Middle East, Israel. They treated the Israeli Prime Minister shabbily in Washington. When a Turkish sponsored flotilla threatened to violate a legal Israeli blockade of Hamas-run Gaza, the Obama Administration was silent. When Israeli commandos were assaulted as they sought to prevent unmonitored cargoes from being delivered to Hamas terrorists, the Obama Administration sent signals it might allow a UN investigation into the matter – an investigation that would be sure to condemn our ally Israel and bemoan the plight of Hamas. Loyal NATO allies in central Europe were undermined by the cancellation of a missile defense program with virtually no warning. At the same time, Russia and China are given preferential treatment, while remaining silent on their human rights violations.

CODDLING ADVERSARIES

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration reaches out to some of the world’s worst regimes. They shake hands with dictators like Hugo Chavez, send letters to the Iranian mullahs and envoys to North Korea, ease sanctions on Cuba and talk about doing the same with Burma. That’s when they’re not on one of their worldwide apology tours.

Do we get anything in return for all this bowing and apologizing? No, we don’t. Yes, Russia voted for a weak sanctions resolution on Iran, but it immediately stated it could sell advanced anti-aircraft missile to Iran anyway, and would not end its nuclear cooperation. In response to North Korea’s unprovoked sinking of a South Korean Navy ship, China warned us not to take part in military exercises with our ally.

And while President Obama lets America get pushed around by the likes of Russia and China, our allies are left to wonder about the value of an alliance with the U.S. They have to be wondering if it’s worth it.

AN “ENEMY-CENTRIC” FOREIGN POLICY

It has led one prominent Czech official to call Obama’s foreign policy “enemy-centric.” And this “enemy-centric” approach has real consequences. It not only baffles our allies, it worries them. When coupled with less defense spending, it signals to the world that maybe we can no longer be counted on, and that we have other priorities than being the world leader that keeps the peace and provides security in Europe, in Asia and throughout the world.

Together with this enemy-centric foreign policy, we see a lessening of the long, bipartisan tradition of speaking out for human rights and democracy. The Secretary of State said she would not raise human rights with China because “we pretty much know what they are going to say.” Democracy promotion programs have been cut. Support for the brave Iranians protesting their government was not forthcoming because President Obama would rather try to cut a deal with their oppressors.

When the world’s dictators see the United States unconcerned with human rights and political freedom, they breathe a sigh of relief, because they know they have a free hand to repress their own people.

This goes against the very ideals on which our republic was founded. There is a long bipartisan tradition of speaking out in favor of freedom – from FDR to Ronald Reagan. America loses something very important when its President consigns human rights and freedom to the back burner of its international priorities.

A DIFFERENT VIEW OF AMERICA

We have a President, perhaps for the very first time since the founding of our republic, who doesn’t appear to believe that America is the greatest earthly force for good the world has ever known.

When asked whether he believed in American exceptionalism, President Obama answered, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” Amazing. Amazing.

I think this statement speaks volumes about his world view. He sees nothing unique in the American experience? Really? Our founding, and our founding mothers and fathers? Really? And our history over the past two and half centuries?

Really? He sees nothing unique in an America that fought and won two world wars and in victory sought not one inch of territory or one dollar of plunder? He sees nothing unique in an America that, though exhausted by conflict, still laid the foundation for security in Europe and Asia after World War II? He sees nothing unique in an America that prevailed against an evil ideology in the Cold War? Does he just see a country that has to be apologized for around the world, especially to dictators?

President Obama actually seems reluctant to even embrace American power. Earlier this year when he was asked about his faltering Middle East peace process, he said “whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower.” Whether we like it or not?! Really? Mr. President, this may come as news to you, but most Americans actually do like it. And so do our allies. They know it was our military might that liberated countless millions from tyranny, slavery, and oppression over the last 234 years. Yes, we do like it. As a dominant superpower, the United States has won wars hot and cold; our military has advanced the cause of freedom and kept authoritarian powers in check.

It is in America’s and the world’s best interests for our country to remain the dominant military superpower, but under President Obama’s leadership that dominance may be slipping away. It’s the result of an agenda that reeks of complacency and defeatism.

(I went on from there to talk about our need to end the negative, defeatist attitudes of those in leadership. I spoke further on American exceptionalism, and Willow and I ended a great evening with some great patriots. Sorry the media chose to report anything other than what actually happened at the event.) – Sarah Palin @ FaceBook

Faisal Shahzad Pleads Guilty In Times Square Car Bomb Plot, Warns Of More Attacks

NEW YORK – Admits Receiving Terror Training From Pakistani Taliban, Says He Wants to Plead Guilty ’100 Times More’

Faisal Shahzad pleaded guilty Monday afternoon to trying to explode a car bomb in Times Square on May 1, and to receiving terror training from the Pakistani Taliban, and warned that further attacks on the U.S. were coming.

The 30-year-old naturalized American, who was born in Pakistan and lived in Connecticut, pleaded guilty to ten different terror-related federal charges, two of which carry a mandatory life sentence.

After Shahzad pleaded guilty to the first charge, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, Judge Miriam Cedarbaum said, “I gather you want to plead guilty to all [the charges.]

“Yes,” said Shahzad, and then said he wanted to plead guilty and 100 times more,” because he wanted the U.S. to know it will continue to suffer attacks if it does not leave Iraq and Afghanistan and stop drone strikes in Pakistan.

Shahzad spent a full hour giving the judge a narrative of his failed bombing attempt, including his take on recent events and the history of the Middle East. He also admitted that he had placed the bomb in Times Square at its busiest in order to do the maximum damage.

Shahzad admitted driving a Nissan Pathfinder into midtown Manhattan on Saturday evening, May 1, when the city’s theater district was packed with tourists. He abandoned the SUV, which was stuffed with fireworks, propane, gasoline and fertilizer, after trying to use the fireworks to ignite the vehicle.

Shahzad was arrested on May 3, two days after the failed bombing, at New York’s JFK airport as he was about to depart on a Dubai-bound flight.

A federal grand jury indicted Shahzad on Thursday on 10 terror-related charges, double the number of criminal counts he originally faced. The new counts included a weapons charge and four new terror charges.

The 13-page indictment also included new details about Shahzad’s travels to Pakistan, and names the Pakistani terror group, Tehrik-e-Taliban, from which Shahzad allegedly received bomb training. The indictment also says that Shahzad received money from an unnamed coconspirator in Pakistan prior to the failed May 1 car bombing in midtown Manhattan.

“The facts alleged in this indictment show that the Pakistani Taliban facilitated Faisal Shahzad’s attempted attack on American soil,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “Our nation averted serious loss of life in this attempted bombing, but it is a reminder that we face an evolving threat that we must continue to fight with every tool available to the government.”

The indictment alleged that Shahzad received explosives training in Waziristan, Pakistan from “explosives trainers affiliated with Tehrik-e-Taliban.” It accused Shahzad of receiving $5,000 in Massachusetts sent by a coconspirator in Pakistan in February, and another $10,000 from the same coconspirator via New York. According to the indictment, Shahzad purchased a rifle in Connecticut in March that was found loaded in his car on the day of his arrest.

Authorities tell ABC News Shahzad has provided a variety of motives for his mission — that he was angry over friends killed in Pakistan by CIA missile strikes, that his personal life was in crisis — even making a claim, according to one source, that he acted under duress-and agreed to carry out the attack only because he feared harm would come to his family back in Pakistan if he did not.

Authorities are skeptical of that, but also point out that he did not plan to take his own life, he ran away from the scene, and he made a series of bumbling errors that prevented the bomb from going off and allowed authorities to track him down.

“The NYPD, FBI, and federal prosecutors deserve enormous credit for cracking  and closing  the Faisal Shahzad case so quickly,” said New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg after Shahzad’s plea. ” But we know that our city remains a top target for terrorists, and we will continue doing everything possible to keep our city safe.”

Report: Pakistan Is Funding, Training Taliban in Afghanistan
June 13, 2010
FoxNews.com Reuters

For at least two years there have been reports that half of the aid monies that Pakistan received during the Bush administration just simply disappeared. The American people are funding a nation that basically couldn’t care less how long the war in Afghanistan goes on and certainly doesn’t care if half of the Islamic-degenerates in their North West provinces get whacked in the process. All that the civilian and military rulers of Pakistan care about is the deep pockets of good ‘Ole’ Uncle Sam. This is just outrageous. And the beat goes on with the Obama administration.

KABUL — Pakistani military intelligence not only funds and trains Taliban fighters in Afghanistan but is officially represented on the movement’s leadership council, giving it significant influence over operations, a report said.

The report, published by the London School of Economics, a leading British institution, on Sunday, said research strongly suggested support for the Taliban was the “official policy” of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).

Although links between the ISI and Islamist militants have been widely suspected for a long time, the report’s findings, which it said were corroborated by two senior Western security officials, could raise more concerns in the West over Pakistan’s commitment to help end the war in Afghanistan.

The report also said Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was reported to have visited senior Taliban prisoners in Pakistan earlier this year, where he is believed to have promised their release and help for militant operations, suggesting support for the Taliban “is approved at the highest level of Pakistan’s civilian government”.

A Pakistani diplomatic source described that report as “naive”, and also said any talks with the Taliban were up to the Afghan government.

“Pakistan appears to be playing a double-game of astonishing magnitude,” said the report, based on interviews with Taliban commanders and former senior Taliban ministers as well as Western and Afghan security officials.

“DUPLICITY”

In March 2009, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, said they had indications elements in the ISI supported the Taliban and al Qaeda and said the agency must end such activities.

Nevertheless, senior Western officials have been reluctant to talk publicly on the subject for fear of damaging possible cooperation from Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state Washington has propped up with billions of dollars in military and economic aid.

“The Pakistan government’s apparent duplicity — and awareness of it among the American public and political establishment — could have enormous geo-political implications,” said the report’s author, Matt Waldman, a fellow at Harvard University.

“Without a change in Pakistani behaviour it will be difficult if not impossible for international forces and the Afghan government to make progress against the insurgency,” Waldman said in the report.

The report comes at the end of one of the bloodiest weeks for foreign troops in Afghanistan — more than 21 have been killed this week — and at a time when the insurgency is at its most violent.

More than 1,800 foreign troops, including some 1,100 Americans, have died in Afghanistan since U.S.-backed Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban in late 2001. The war has already cost the United States around $300 billion and now costs more than $70 billion a year, the report said, citing 2009 U.S. Congressional research figures.

VIOLENT REGIONS

The report said interviews with Taliban commanders in some of the most violent regions in Afghanistan “suggest that Pakistan continues to give extensive support to the insurgency in terms of funding, munitions and supplies.”

“These accounts were corroborated by former Taliban ministers, a Western analyst and a senior U.N. official based in Kabul, who said the Taliban largely depend on funding from the ISI and groups in Gulf countries,” the report said.

Almost all of the Taliban commanders interviewed in the report also believed the ISI was represented on the Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s supreme leadership council based in Pakistan.

“Interviews strongly suggest that the ISI has representatives on the (Quetta) Shura, either as participants or observers, and the agency is thus involved at the highest level of the movement,” the report said.

The report also stated that Pakistani President Zardari, along with a senior ISI official, allegedly visited some 50 senior Taliban prisoners at a secret location in Pakistan where he told them they had been arrested only because he was under pressure from the United States.

“(This) suggests that the policy is approved at the highest level of Pakistan’s civilian government,” the report said.

Afghanistan has also been highly critical of Pakistan’s ISI involvement in the conflict in Afghanistan. Last week, the former director of Afghanistan’s intelligence service, Amrullah Saleh, resigned saying he had become an obstacle to President Hamid Karzai’s plans to negotiate with the insurgents.

In an exclusive interview with Reuters at his home a day after he resigned, Saleh said the ISI was “part of the landscape of destruction in this country.”

“It will be a waste of time to provide evidence of ISI involvement. They are a part of it. The Pakistani army of which ISI is a part, they know where the Taliban leaders are — in their safe houses,” he told Reuters.