The Brahmos, in its first trials for the Army, missed the target. The mission was aborted after the missile went off-target mid-course despite a successful launch on January 20, 2009 when the Indian Army Chief was a witness.
After the second trial there was silence from the Army. Then there was a third – and again silence from the Army.
In the meantime, DRDO stated that both the last two trials were a success and went so far to say that it can “intelligently” seek out a building from a cluster of building. For a cruise missile flying at supersonic speed, this kind of accuracy is a game changer in any war / conflict.
I was wondering, is it DRDO hyping its act, trying to cloak another failure. After all, Agni missiles fell way off target and Indian Navy stationed to see the “drop zone” could not see any missile “dropping” around them. DRDO claimed the missile was a huge success. I thought, is this happening again – but that statement – “can hit a building from a cluster of buildings” made me re-think that no one gives that kind of accuracy just to bluff.
However, it did not strike me that greed could be a factor. Telegraph, KOLKATA carried an extensive article on Brahmos today, that is worth the read, in its entirety.
After the failure of the first trials, in a space of just over two months, Pillai produced a missile — a supersonic cruise missile for the army — through two more rapid-fire tests that left the generals gasping for its uniqueness, for its speed and for Pillai’s sheer grit.
Pillai has made the BrahMos Land Attack Cruise Missile Mark II real despite opposition from the Indian Army that kept upping its demands and reducing the size of the targets in the tests.
The first target was the size of a factory, the second, also a factory the size of a large building and the third, a small building in a simulated urban cluster. The missile was tasked to hit the factory in the first two tests. In the third test, it was to discriminate, select and choose its target before destroying it.
The second test, on March 4, seen by deputy army chief Lt Gen M.S. Dadwal, Pillai said it was a success but the army said it was “evaluating and analysing” the results even three days after the test.
“The missile was in the target area all right,” Gen Kapoor said of the test. “But there has been one failure (on January 20) so we need confirmation and there are some technical issues.”
Then on March 29 — just last week — Pillai requested the army to send a team to witness another test. The director general of military operations, Lt Gen A.S. Sekhon, led a team.
This time, the army put up just a sheet as a target with reflectors on two sides to deflect the missile from its trajectory. Pillai’s BrahMos hit bull’s eye. Without waiting for official word from the army this time, Pillai went public, proclaiming its success.
“In 15 minutes flat,” he put it simply in his chamber inside the headquarters of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in an interview to The Telegraph, “your enemy country can be destroyed and you do not even have to go nuclear.”
“In the Iraq war, the US launched 1,000 Tomahawks in half a day,” he recalled. “You have to think on that scale. And the BrahMos is supersonic. It cannot be intercepted. Even we cannot do anything to it, once we launch it. Fire and forget. You think of the missile in hundreds, thousands, like you think of many, many arrows being fired from a quiver,” he said.
THE DIRTY TRICKS:
Then why did the Indian Army open itself to suggestions that it was not keen on the project? Clear-cut answers won’t be available to such questions. But the army has been seeing demonstrations of missiles by Raytheon Corporation. A section of the army’s artillery officers has been impressed by it. (While Telegraph writes they were impressed - I wonder how they were made to be impressed - ah well, we all know, don't we?)
For an excellent overview over how deals are made - read this article by Prasun Sengupta: The New Untouchables.
A piece of history that DRDO’s scientists are familiar with was in danger of being repeated: was another indigenous, rather, a semi-indigenous military programme going to be sacrificed in the interest of imports? And to the benefit of middlemen who would earn fat commissions? All in the name of national security? And national interest?
The vice-chief of army staff, Lt Gen Noble Thamburaj, announced at a seminar: “The BrahMos Mark II is ready for induction. The missile’s accuracy, lethality and range have made it a deadly combination.”
The army is NOW ready to raise two regiments of the BrahMos Mark II.
Sir, Sivathanu Pillai, I salute you !
REPLY BY PRASUN SENGUPTA: (His comments are valued and hence I have brought them upfront in the main article).
"Someone definitely seems to be spreading disinformation about the Indian Army not being interested in the BrahMos. And THE TELEGRAPH too seems to have fallen victim to this disinformation campaign. The fact remains that the Indian Army had two years ago begun inducting the BrahMos Block 1 into service. Therefore, the issue of the Army rejecting the BrahMos in favour of 'imported' solutions does not arise AT ALL. Nor should THE TELEGRAPH compare the on-going field evaluations of Raytheon's Javelin ATGM with those of the BrahMos. Anyway, below are some examples of how incompetent these 'desi' reporters are: The publishers and reporters of FRONTLINE MAY BE professionals in all arenas of reportage except military matters, rest assured. For one, their latest report on the BrahMos' test-firings does not explain how and when exactly GPS updates are obtained and in what phase of the operation (prior to missile launch or after missile launch). Secondly, it does not specify which GPS system is utilised: Navstar or Glonass. For pinpoint strikes the BrahMos would have to have access to Py-code GPS updates every 2 seconds, and this is only available from Glonass and not from Navstar. Therefore, to even suggest that the BrahMos went off course due to unavailability of GPS navigational updates on the day the new US President was being sworn in is ludicrous, to say the least. Thirdly, the article does not even explain how exactly the target acquisition takes place PRIOR to missile launch. In fact, in ALL articles published in any India-based magazine thus far, NO ONE has explained how exactly target acquisition takes place and what exactly is the launch sequence. They haven't even printed any of the BrahMos posters that have been shown in numerous exhibitions both in India and abroad and which clearly explain the roles played by satellites with reference to BrahMos' target acquisition/engagement sequences. Fourthly, none of these so-called 'professional' journalists have even attempted to describe what kind of firing range is made available for the test-firings of the BrahMos' land attack variant, and under what kind of limitations all such test-firings have been conducted since 2003. Even worse, they haven't even published any photo or diagram of the BrahMos' SGH X-band SAR radar--whereas I had uploaded its photo last year itself and it was also published as far back as 2004 in FORCE. That's how professional the mainstream Indian newsmedia is!"
Another question put up by TELEGRAPH: Pillai is not being given a scope to prove the submarine launched version as Indian Navy is not being able to lease out even one for undertaking the test? What's the story here?
Reply by Prasun: "The TELEGRAPH insinuation is not true since the Navy really can't spare any existing SSK for the BrahMos test-firing phase. Because once a submarine is made available, it will take at least 18 months to modify it through the installation of vertical launch cells. In addition, the Indian Navy as far back as 2000 had been committed to the plan for installing the Novator-built Club-S supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles and the subsonic 3M14E land-attack cruise missiles on board the upgraded Type 877EKM Kilo-class SSKs. There's nothing sinister in all this at all. Therefore, BrahMos Aerospace, like other potential missile vendors, is lobbying hard for having BrahMos pre-selected for the follow-on six SSKs that the Indian Navy wants to procure. And it is here that unwanted and ill-informed controversies are being fanned. To obtain clarity on this issue one has to find out what exactly will be the operational tasks of the follow-on six SSKs. Apart from waging submarine warfare, these six SSKs will also be required to undertake anti-ship missile strikes with cruise missiles that should be able to be launched from the SSK's torpedo tubes, AND NOT from vertical launch cells that, if installed, will unnecessarily increase the SSK's displacement with no clear operational advantages emerging. Another reason why vertical launch cells for the BrahMos are not preferred by the Indian Navy for the to-be-ordered six SSKs is because the RFI very clearly states that these SSKs will be required to be armed with vertically-launched missiles designed to destroy hovering ASW helicopters or low-flying MR/ASW aircraft (such a system is already under development between the DRDO and RAFAEL since 2004 and its first installation will be on the ATV). Therefore, the Navy has rightfully determined that the anti-ship/land-attack cruise missiles should be launched from the torpedo tubes, and not from vertical launch cells. Again, nothing sinister about all this at all. Regretably, the TELEGRAPH article does not go deep enough to understand the operational peculiarities of undersea warfare and instead, tries to oversimplify matters and as a consequence, dessiminate disinformation."
A 17-year-old Pakistani girl is punished in a horrific flogging by Taliban militants for being seen with a man who is not her husband.
Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan claimed responsibility for the flogging.He said it was the Taliban's right to thrash women and that the girl was being punished for coming out of her house with another man who was not her husband.
Mobile phone footage shows the girl begging for mercy as she receives 37 lashes at the hands of her brother while two others hold her down.
'Please stop it,' she begs but the men completely disregard her desperate pleas and pathetic attempts to defend herself.
But some claim the commander ordered the flogging to get revenge after the girl refused to accept a marriage proposal.
Indian Express reported: The Taliban have now issued new dictum in the areas under their sway asking parents of the grown up daughters to marry them to militants or ‘face dire consequences’.
This new force-marriage campaign is being run in most of the areas in the Pakistan's troubled NWFP through regular announcements made in mosques to congregations.
Salma, who teaches in a primary school in Peshawar, told the influential ‘Dawn’ newspaper that Taliban have told families to declare in mosques if they have unmarried girls so that their hand could be given in marriage, most probably to militants.
If they did not do so, the girls would be forcibly married off; the newspaper quoted the 30-year-old widow as saying.
She also said the Taliban in the Swat valley of NWFP have threatened women with dire punishment, if they are found outside their homes without identity cards and a male relative accompanying them.
Couples should also carry 'Nikah Nama' or marriage certificates with them when they venture out of home or they will be in trouble, she said.
"I have heard that Taliban have announced that if a girl above the age of seven is found outside her house, she would be slaughtered," Salma said.
Daily Times, Pakistan, carried an interview with Sufi Mohammad. This one is a gem.
Daily Times: You said in a 2005 interview with us that what Al Qaeda and the Taliban are doing in Pakistan is haram. Are Maulana Fazlullah’s activities over the last sixteen months also haram?
Sufi Muhammad: Yes, I said that about Al Qaeda, but not about the Taliban. Let me say...that debate on past happenings is disallowed in Islam. A hadith sharif says, what has happened in the past should not be discussed.
But how can we proceed without debating the past?
The hadith sharif says a Muslim should not discuss past happenings because he may not remember all the [details] and, therefore, he may...sin by not speaking the truth.
Imagine this scenario – As per Sufi Muhammad, one can commit crime, probably murder, but can cite hadith sharif and say “Hey, you know what, I do not remember much, and since I may lie, under Hadith sahrif, I am allowed not to discuss past happenings”. Wow! Let the floggings and killings start !
On a more serious note, DAWN newspaper is reporting: “The result of this glorification of jihad for decades is that once the militants turned their guns on Pakistan itself, which was inevitable for anyone willing to acknowledge the facts, people were completely unprepared. Yesterday’s ‘heroes’ had seemingly overnight become the new enemy, and for no convincing reason. But there are plenty of reasons to worry about militancy. One, territorial control is a key aim of the militants.
There is a historical explanation though for the climate of denial. For a generation, Pakistanis were led to believe that armed jihad was a noble cause, first of course in Afghanistan and later in Kashmir, because our security establishment deemed it necessary for the pursuit of its own narrow definition of national interest. The result: a nation with a warped sense of right and wrong.”
For the American perspective on the Af-Pak issue, click here. One of the observations: “The Bush strategy was maximalist only in its rhetoric,” comments one Hill Democratic foreign policy staffer. “It promised the Marshall plan but never delivered.” Obama’s plan “is trying to have a more flexible approach, to try and see what works. They don’t come in with an over-arching ideology. Be prepared to have one strategy in Kandahar and another strategy in Helmand. And one strategy in Kandahar when it has a good governor, and a different strategy if a corrupt one.”
Sharon Chadha sums it up best when she states: “As unbelievable as this may seem, Admiral Mullen still apparently hopes that he can count on support from Islamabad. As he told the Times reporter, "I’m completely convinced that the vast majority of the leaders in Pakistan understand the seriousness of the threat.”
Really. Is he smoking opium or what?”
Conclusion:
Information Minister for NWFP Iftikhar Hussain said on Thursday that 95 per cent of Pakistan’s problems could be resolved if the country (meaning : PAKISTAN) ‘stopped interfering in Afghan affairs’ and that Talibanisation is a ‘foreign-funded agenda supported by Pakistani agencies (meaning ISI) which has facilitated blood bath across Pakistan.’ ‘Its strange that we put others (meaning AFGHANISTAN, INDIA) in trouble and think all will be well here, if we kill them its Jihad, if we destroy their schools its Jihad, if we destroy their country it is termed jihad and if all this bounces on us than we wonder why it happened.’
Hamid Gul, the old veterans of ISI and Army who control Taliban and are themselves thoroughly immersed in the Taliban ideology - this is their biggest battle to survive.
Long War Journal reports: "A senior Lashkar-e-Taiba military commander behind the Mumbai terror assault and thought to be in Pakistani custody is directing complex military operations into India-held Kashmir.
Yusuf Muzammil, the senior operations director for the banned Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, has been overheard by Indian intelligence requesting Hizbul Mujahideen Chief Syed Sallahuddin "to push a large number of militant cadres into the state" of Jammu & Kashmir."
Dawn report & Information Minister for NWFP Iftikhar Hussain were talking about these exact machinations of Pakistan Army & ISI. If Hamid Gul & team wins - its apocalypse now !
Hafiz Md Saeed and Zakiur Rahman refuse to go to North Waziristan for fear of getting killed.
Syed Saleem Shahzad reports: After the attack on the Sri Lankan team, Pakistani military officials met with Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the chief of the Jamaatut Dawa, which is linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi. They asked the men, both of whom are under house arrest, to use their influence to get the militants to agree to a ceasefire. But Saeed and Lakhvi said they no longer had influence, and that if they ventured into North Waziristan it was most likely they would be captured or killed by the militants as they were now seen as Islamabad's proxies.
A group of militants once associated with the Harkat-e-Jihad-i-Islami and the Lashkar-e-Taiba - groups with strong roots to the struggle over divided Kashmir - a few days ago traveled to Lahore from a militant camp in the North Waziristan town of Razmak, a year-round hill station situated at the crossroads of North Waziristan and South Waziristan. After surveying a few potential targets, the militants selected the police training center for the attack on Monday morning. Several of the main gunmen were dressed in police uniforms, backed by juniors to provide them with cover.
After killing a number of cadets and taking many others hostage, the lead militants slipped away from the scene, leaving behind a few men to keep the shootout with security forces going, which they did for eight hours.
However, Baitullah Mehsud calls up BBC and other western agencies and claimed responsibility for the commando assault on the police academy in Lahore, and threatened further atrocities, not just in Pakistan but in Afghanistan and even in America.
"We wholeheartedly take responsibility for this attack and will carry out more such attacks in future,” he said. “It’s revenge for the drone attacks in Pakistan.”
Mehsud said that he had set up a council of mujahedeen (holy warriors) bringing together different militant groups “to step up attacks on US and Nato forces in Afghanistan".
He shrugged off the US bounty on his head ($5 million), saying his militants would continue their assaults in Pakistan and Afghanistan and could even mount attacks in the United States.
“You can’t imagine how we could avenge this threat inside Washington, inside the White House,” he said. “The maximum they can do is martyr me. We will exact our revenge on them from inside America. Very soon we will take revenge from America, in Washington, which will amaze the entire world."
Baitullah has risen to prominence in jihadi circles after defeating the Paksitani military during a series of hard-fought battles over the past several years. The military and government signed a peace agreement with Baitullah, which ceded control of South Waziristan to the Taliban.
Mehsud now has the support of the Pakistan militant groups that were banned in 2001, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which are largely based in Punjab. The alliance has become much broader. The peace deal in Swat, which is under the control of his group has also given him extra authority.
Baitullah statements were made one day after the Fedayeen-e-Islam, a front terror group for the Jaish-e-Mohammed, claimed credit for the attack. The Fedayeen-e-Islam operates from South Waziristan and is closely allied with Baitullah's Taliban forces.
Long War Journalstates: “The claims are not contradictory, as both groups work closely together under the aegis of the Lashkar al Zil, or the Shadow Army, the paramilitary terror alliance operating along the Pakistan-Afghan border. The Shadow Army is made up of elements from the the Taliban, al Qaeda, the Haqqani Network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, and a host of Pakistani jihadi terror groups.”
Hence, if LeT or JeM or Baitullah Mehsud takes credit for the Lahore attacks, they are all probably telling the truth.
ISI created Lashkar e Taiba (LeT), Jaish e Mohammad (JeM), Taliban etc and the GODFATHER of both Taliban and Lashkar e Taiba is known as Hamid Gul (retd – ISI Head).
When Baitullah Mehsud claims to attack Washington the first thing that will come to mind will be false / misplaced bravado – after all what can a rag tag Afghan hiding in the mountains have the logistics to carry out a well coordinated attack within USA. Coordinated attacks within Pakistan is one thing, but in USA – now that is a whole different ball game. In comes Al-Qaeda – the 9/11 masterminds with logistics.
However I completely disagree with this theory that Al-Qaeda too could have carried out 9/11 – the logistics, planning, cannot have been all planned by Osama bin Laden or even Khaled Sh Md (a Pakistani who was born in Kuwait and Pakistan was trying to fob Khaled Sheikh as a Kuwaiti, now in US custody).
ISI PLANNED AND EXECUTED 9/11.
I am making the charge here again. ISI planned and executed 9/11. I have written about it in: Before the next 9/11 pay the Senators off. Pakistan was a failing state prior to 9/11, economically weak - suddenly after 9/11, Washington poured billions into it, and I am sure a few American politicians and generals made few bucks too!
Hence if there is actually an attack in Washington, leave aside the conspiracy theorists who will say CIA staged the attack on its soil using “Aghan patsies” – closer to the truth will be it will again be an ISI operation. And with indirect Chinese assistance.
Baitullah Mehsud is saying what his ISI / Al-Qaeda masters are telling him to say.
Just as ISI requested Al-Qaeda to say, "India should know that it will have to pay a heavy price if it attacks Pakistan," al-Yazid said in the 20-minute video in Arabic that was received by the BBC in Islamabad. "The mujahedin will sunder your armies into the ground like they did to the Russians in Afghanistan."
Al-Qaeda was not interested in India, is the ISI which has brought about this change – a price for using Pakistan soil. Why would the ISI attack US in US when it can attack them in Afghanistan?
Pakistan senses US as a wounded superpower. A single attack which might cost Pakistan a total of USD 1 million, will cause upwards of a trillion dollar loss in US (Dow Jones tanking, dollar plummeting, confidence level nose diving, air travel etc slowing down). This will clearly slow down American adventurism and it staying power in Afghanistan. When it is thus weakened, the Taliban / Al-Qaeda combine will launch massive attacks which will make the war very costly for the US / NATO – leading to their withdrawal.
As Hamid Gul mentioned: "increasing number of troops in Afghanistan would only add to the problems of America and predicted defeat for foreign forces within two years."
Why does Pakistan feel threatened enough /brave enough to attack the US ?
The US has finally understood the double game that Pakistan has been playing with US, as far as Taliban and fighting insurgents went. And Pakistan feels it can bribe its way out of an attack, just as it did after 9/11. And if US bombs the tribal areas, no one really will get hurt other than civilians which will then get angrier with the US - something that Pakistan wants anyway.
1. Since 2001, the US has provided over $10 billion in aid to Pakistan. Billions of dollars of this aid is unaccounted for. The US has conducted more than 50 airstrikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas as well as several ground raids in an effort to dismantle al Qaeda and Taliban leadership and training nodes. During this time, the Taliban have taken over most of the Northwest Frontier Province, often via negotiations with the government. Quetta remains the location of the Taliban's executive leadership council, while the greater Baluchistan province hosts scores of training camps and recruitment centers, and large swaths are under Taliban control. Elements within Pakistan's intelligence service and the military continue to actively support the Taliban and other terrorist groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
2. The US military plans to push the troops into the hot spots, mainly Kandahar and Helmand, the two most violent provinces in Afghanistan, as well as the provinces of Kunar, Paktia, Paktika, Khost, and Ghazni in the east, where the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and Hizb-e-Islam Gulbuddin are strong. The plan is to take the fight into areas that have become enemy sanctuaries.
3. The Army and police will need to be even larger than the 2011 goal; some estimates indicate there needs to be more than 400,000 members in the Afghan security forces for them to ultimately secure the country and fight the insurgency.
4. The Taliban’s leadership and their primary sponsor, the Pakistani ISI, have systematically weeded out many Taliban members who are not ideologically committed. The US and the Coalition must take care not to waste political capital and limited resources, and avoid getting bogged down in these phantom negotiations. The senior level, as well as most of the mid-level Taliban, Haqqani, and HIG leaders are not going to reconcile. And reports of divisions between Mullah Omar and the Taliban are false. In fact, these groups have become more interdependent since the US invasion in 2001.
US now has a crystal clear view on ISI and its plans.
Where US has really upset the Pakistan, is by bringing in SCO in Afghanistan. It has not actually done so yet, but has shown intent. By bringing in Iran, China, Russia and India to play a role in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s clout for mischief will significantly go down. None of the above countries and including US want a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan - again! But Taliban take over of Afghanistan is exactly what Pakistan wants. What next?
Let us look at Hamid Gul, the Godfather of Taliban and Lashkar e Taiba. Right after 26/11, he stated that he wished for India to attack or threaten to attack Pakistan, as that will bring about the different factions of Taliban to unite under one umbrella to fight India. See this video where he almost smirks when he said " If these 10 boys could do so much damage, imagine what the situation in India if 12,000 of these boys went over."
Voila, Baitullah Mehsud (Tehrik e Taliban, Pakistan) and Mustafa Abu al-Yazid (Al Qaeda) threatened to attack India, if India dared to attack Pakistan. Very kosher !
And ISI Directorate chief Lieutenant-General Shuja Pasha hailed jihadist leaders Baitullah Mehsud and Mullah Fazlullah as “true patriots” for offering to fight India.”
And now, this same Baitullah Mehsud is attacking institutions in Pakistan. Does he still remain a patriot? (HE DOES TO HAMID GUL)
Baituallah Mehsud is merely carrying out orders of ISI. If there is anything that ISI fears most – it is neither India nor the USA. It is the entho-lingusitic forces within Pakistan raising their heads for greater freedom – be it Balochis, Sindhis, Northern Areas, or even Pashto speakers demanding Pashtunistan. The Army / ISI believe that Islam is the binding force that will keep Pakistan as a single entity and Talibanisation of Pakistan is a small price to pay for that. After all, majority within the Pakistan Army are already Talibanised. Earlier it was the bogey of Kashmir that kept the Pakistanis united - today Pakistan needs something stronger.
The process of Islamisation based on strict interpretation of Islam was started under Zia ul Haq. The religious fanatics then taken in at junior levels are now in senior positions within the Army / ISI. Musharraf was himself a harcore Deobandi and his candidature was forwarded to Zia ul Haq by Jamaat e Islami.
Hamid Gul very recently stated: (Mar 28th 2009) “We should be ready to lead the world and for this, we need ideological educational institutions," he said, maintaining that there were lot of schools pushing students against the ideology of Islam and Pakistan.
In such circumstances, there was need for ideological institutions across Pakistan, he underlined. He said Pakistan was not formed for economic gains or other petty reasons rather it was formed to lead the world after providing a practical and workable Islamic model to govern people. He said his aim of life was to promote this idea and he was not retired or tired and the enemies of Pakistan knew it well. "Pakistan and Islam are tied to each other," he concluded.
If Iran and Saudi Arabia can be run on Sharia, one took a revolution the other swords, Pakistan too can go that way with a mixture of both. Taliban brings in that potent mix to bring Sharia over the whole of Pakistan.
Talking to a private news channel Hamid Gul said the drone attacks were counter-productive and were an infringement of sovereignty of the country.He said the people of Pakistan have already voiced through the parliament their anguish and dismay over the drone attacks.
Whatever Baitullah is saying – is it any different from Hamid Gul’s? No, it is not.
Hamid Gul wanted to get rid off Benazir and it was Baitullah Mehsud who gave Hamid Gul his cherished wish.
DIGRESSION: CURIOUS CASE OF HAMID GUL, OSAMA BIN LADEN AND NAWAZ SHARIF:
Hamid Gul, Nawaz Sharif, and Osama bin Laden conspire to assassinate Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. ISI Director Hamid Gul contacted Osama bin Laden, who was then known to provide financial support to Afghan mujaheddin, to pay for a coup/assassination of Bhutto. Gul also brings Nawaz Sharif, then the governor of Punjab province and a rival of Bhutto, into the plot. Bin Laden agrees to provide $10 million on the condition that Sharif transforms Pakistan into a strict Islamic state, which Sharif accepts.
NOTE: THE DREAM TO MAKE PAKISTAN INTO A STRICT ISLAMIC STATE WAS AGREED UPON BY SHARIF AND BROKERED BY HAMID GUL & OSAMA BIN LADEN.
NAWAZ SHARIF TO OSAMA: I LOVE JEHAD !
Nawaz wanted to meet Osama in person and this was arranged in Saudi Arabia town of Medina at Green Palace Hotel.
In one of the meetings Osama reportedly asked Nawaz to devote himself to jihad. Nawaz replied, 'I love jihad'. Unimpressed, Osama stood up and pointing to a pillar in the room said, "Yes, you may love jihad, but your love for jihad is this much," indicating a very small part of the pillar. 'Your love for your children is this much," pointing to a larger portion. "And your love for your parents is this much," he continued, pointing towards the largest portion. "I agree that you love jihad, but this love is the smallest in proportion to your other affections in life."
However, to Osama's dismay the argument went over Nawaz Sharif's head. (LOL!)
Gul further said : “No super power could change the destiny.”
Let us go back to what Gul said earlier: “We should be ready to lead the world and for this, we need ideological educational institutions”. Of course these educational institutions are madrassas that are run on Deobandi curricula.
What is Gul trying to say – when he talks about : “Pakistan leading the world, No one can change destiny, Pakistan and Islam are tied to each other.”
To understand this – one has to go looking into religious books and Hadiths.
(Will discuss this over 3 parts in this month – giving just a small perspective here).
Hadith: They are oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (SAW). Hadith collections are regarded by all traditional schools of jurisprudence as important tools for determining the Muslim way of life, the sunnah.
A hadith consists of two aspects: the text of the report (matn) containing the actual narrative; and the chain of narrators (isnad, or sanad), which documents the route by which the report has been transmitted. The "sanad" is so named due to the reliance of the hadith specialists upon it in determining the authenticity or weakness of a hadith. The sanad consists of a ‘chain’ of the narrators each mentioning the one from whom they heard the hadith until mentioning the originator of the matn along with the matn itself. The first people who received hadith were the companions; so they preserved and understood it, knowing both its generality and particulars, and then conveyed it to those after them as they were commanded. Then the generation following them, the Followers received it thus conveying it to those after them and so on. So the companion would say, “I heard the Prophet say such and such.” The Follower would then say, “I heard a companion say, ‘I heard the Prophet.’” The one after him (after the Follower) would then say, “I heard someone say, ‘I heard a Companion say, ‘I heard the Prophet …’’” and so on.
The important thing is that even thought Hadiths can be considered weak – they are never considered false. Hence, weak hadiths too have been used to serve a purpose. The following Hadith is a weak Hadith, yet the Salafi / Deobandi followers abide by it as this is what is indoctrinated in them by their religious teachers.
Taliban was a brainchild of ISI and Hamid Gul, based on the following Hadith:
“Narrated by Hazrat Abdullah bin Masood (RA) that Prophet (SAW) said: A Nation will come from the east with black flags and they will ask for some “Khair” (because of them being needy) but the people will not give them, then, they will fight and win over those people (who did not give them what they asked). Now the people will give them what they asked for but they will not accept it until they will hand it over to a person from my progeny who will fill this earth with justice just as it was previously filled with oppression and tyranny. So if anyone of you finds this nation (i.e. from the east with black flags) then you must join them even if you have to crawl over ice.”
Prophet Muhammad (SAW) lived most his life in Makkah and the last 10 years in Medina in present day Saudi Arabia. Geographically there are only three Muslim countries, today, in exact east of Saudi Arabia i.e. Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. So it becomes easy for us to establish that whoever this army of black flags is, it belongs to one or more of these three countries.
We have been told that the black banners will conquer Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and other countries leading upto Palestine and hejaz.
At-Tuwaijiri's Ithaf al-Jama'a, Vol. 1, pp. 365-366.
Ghazwatul Hind:
Thawban - may Allah be pleased with him - that the Messenger of Allah (sallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam) said, "Two groups of my umma Allah has protected from the hellfire: a group that will conquer India and a group that will be with 'Isa b. Maryam - 'alaihimas- salat was-salam." Reported Ahmad, an-Nisa'i, and at-Tabarani.
Na'im b. Hammad in al-Fitan reports that Abu Huraira - may Allah be pleased with him - said that the Messenger of Allah (sallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam) mentioned India and said, "A group of you will conquer India, Allah will open for them [India] until they come with its kings chained - Allah having forgiven their sins - when they return back [from India], they will find Ibn Maryam in Syria."
Incidentally both the falgs of Taliban (army) and Al-Qaeda are black in colour (Taliban has a white flag that deals with government) . The flag of Taliban army was deliberately made black, by the ISI, to ensure that this Hadith comes alive.
These warriors of Islam cannot really be expected to fight the final battle without having nuclear weapons and it has been Al-Qaeda’s cherished desire to own at least one.
PAKISTAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN SARGHODA:
In my previous article I had written that almost all of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are kept in Sarghoda air-base and nearby places. Hamid Gul is himself from Sarghodha. And Sargodha is just west of Lahore. Destabilizing Lahore with attacks that Baitullah Mehsud carried out, brings Hamid Gul to his cherished desire of laying his hands on the nuclear weapons of Pakistan. As the head of Taliban, he can then lead the Taliban warriors to the glorious path as laid out in the Hadith. It is well known that Dr AQ Khan is a member of Lashkar e Taiba. The religious affliations of Khalid Kidwai are not known.
Many of you will have a desire to laugh this off and think it is too far fetched. All I can say, look back at events and incidents and you will see a pattern emerging. And in future too, this will run its course.
BuA (Bengal Under Attack) analysis:
1. ISI created Taliban not only for strategic depth in Afghanistan but to take control of oil & gas reserves of Central Asian regions who have Islamic dispensation.
2. To further the religious base of Taliban, the story of “army with black flags” taking over India and ending with planting of their flag over Al-Asqa mosque in Israel drove in the recruits for a holy war.
3. It is being taught to the militants that the US knowing of this Hadeeth and other such writings are putting up their bases along the so-called path that these warriors will take from Khorasan (present day Afghanistan) to Israel.
4. ISI and Pakistan Army’s game of double dealing with Taliban has been found out – hence they have to take steps one way or another. Rather than supporting US / NATO forces, the ideological forces in ISI are planning to hit USA where it hurts most to bring about their economic downfall. An attack inside mainland US will have disastrous consequences within USA. If the US feels that it was carried out by a bunch of rag tag Taliban, then they cannot fight and win the war. If however US targets Rawalpindi HQ of Pakistan Army – it will win the war.
5. The nuclear assets of Pakistan are already in the hands of Taliban sympathizers within Pakistan Army. Look at the close co-ordination between Pakistan Army and LeT in Mumbai attacks. Col. Sadatullah was just one name that was openly mentioned.
6. Hamid Gul will try to engineer another spectacular attack within India prior to elections. Remember how just prior to 9/11, Ahmed Shah Masoud was killed in Afghanistan. The Indian attacks will be the one such prelude to a bigger attack (hope it is not the other way around).
7. A few more attacks within Pakistan, and Taliban who are already in the cities, will actually take over. The nuclear assets in Sarghodha are in a clear and present danger. Even if India / USA are dithering on this issue, I am sure Israel has very different plans. But alone it can do nothing.
8. Nawaz Sharif once promised to both Osama bin Laden and Hamid Gul that when he comes to power he will make Pakistan a strict Islamic state (meaning: Sharia is imposed). We must never lose sight of this fact or incident !
And as we hear that Security agencies in INDIA have been placed on high alert following an intelligence report that 7-8 trained pilots and around a dozen women fidayeen (suicide bombers) have entered the country on a mission to carry out terror strikes and hijackings - do you really think that Baitullah Mehsud will be sending them? Will he from his remote hideout carry out the logistics of terrorists undertaking courses on flying an aircraft?
Of course not. This will be again a covert Pakistani military operation, handed out to terror outfits who will then hand it further down. Baitullah Mehsud can well call up and say that he takes credit, but please do not insult our intelligence here !
However important this time will be the speed and ferocity of Indian response after such an attack.
My wish: India just blasts away the terror camps in POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir), blows the house of Dawood Ibrahim to smithereens and Brahmos takes out the ISI building (after all DRDO claims its Block II version can find a "building" from a cluster of buildings).
And if the trained terror pilots' mission is to free Kasav, then we will never negotiate - let them blow the plane - we must never give in. Period !
QUOTATION FROM BHAGWAD GITA TO MY POLITICIANS:
Action is greater than inaction. Perform therefore thy task in life. Even the life of the body could not be if there were no action.
One of the most important geo-political event to take place in the coming week is the launch of Taepodong 3-stage missile from North Korea.
Let us look back to July 2006 – when North Korea last started preparing to launch Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile.
The US which had trumpeted the need for missile defense, had begun deploying the first interceptors at a base in Alaska. Bush and Rumsfeld ordered the military to try to blow the North Korean missile out of the sky.
ADM. TIMOTHY J KEATING
The man put in charge of the efforts was Adm. Timothy J Keating, the commander of the U.S. Northern Command. For six weeks in the summer of 2006, the military had prepared to launch ground based anti-missile interceptors from Vandenberg Air Force base in central California and from Fort Greely, the Army launch site about 100 miles south east of Fairbanks, Alaska. The idea was to blow up the Taepodong over the Pacific, demonstrating that America’s missile defenses were a real first line of defense against rogue states.
CLICK ON IMAGE FOR AN ENLARGED VIEW
It was a huge risk as tests of missile defense system had often ended in embarrassing failures. Yet, Rusfeld and other enthusiasts of the missile defense system, there might not be another opportunity as good one to test out the system. After all the North Koreans were not shooting up several warheads to overwhelm the missile defense system, nor did the missile have the sophistication to spew out chaff and decoys that could fool the antimissile interceptors.
The main US worry was what was in the cone of the missile – was it a dummy load, a satellite or a weaponized warhead? The US had to assume the worst and were prepared to launch interceptor missiles.
On JuLy 4th 2006, the Taepodong missile left its launchpad – Keating and Rumsfeld had between five and fifteen minutes to decide whether to launch the interceptors to take out the Taepodong. Satellites detected the launch at 4:01 pm, but Keating and Rumsfeld never got to test their prized new system. Forty two seconds into the flight, the Taepodong broke up, either because of a launch failure or because of the North Koreans aborted the flight.
North Koreans tried to cover this embarrassment by calling the Chinese embassy on October 9th the same year of an impending nuclear explosion. At 11:36 am, Pyongyang time, the US Geological Survey picked up a 4.2 magnitude quake on the Korean peninsula. The blast was not much more impressive than the Taepodong launch. It was nearly a dud and many suspect it was not a real bomb at all, but just a small controlled nuclear explosion. The yield was below a kiloton.
The contours of the North Korean nuclear program was hardly a secret to the US. While the plutonium path was known, the US started getting evidence that North Korea was buying equipment for a secret, undeclared program to enrich uranium – an alternative path to the bomb. The CIA had tracked shipments from Russia of aluminum tubes which are critical working part of a modern gas centrifuge. There were close to a hundred other items related to uranium enrichment that analysts had followed. Some of them came aboard a cargo plane commandeered by A.Q. Khan.
In July 2008, AQ Khan publicly stated for the first time about sending centrifuges to North Korea. He told “It was a North Korean plan and the Pakistani army had complete knowledge about it and the equipment.”
In June 2008, the North Koreans blew up the cooling tower at Yongbyon. However, in characteristic North Korean style, they tore the seals off their reprocessing facility and announced they would resume making bomb fuel.
As stated in an earlier article both North Koreans and Pakistanis realized that US / NATO do not mess with countries who have nuclear arsenals and they can pretty much bargain for food / money / aid by feigning to go into abyss from time to time to deflect mounting pressure from US.
Did North Koreans conduct nuclear explosion in Pakistan?
On June 10, 1998, an Air Koryo chartered plane took off the runway of the Islamabad International Airport of Pakistan. No one had anticipated the significance of this Pyongyang-bound flight in the affairs of the Korean peninsula. On board the plane were the 20 North Korean nuclear scientists who had conducted an underground nuclear test at Pakistan's Balochistan nuclear test site. In addition, the plane was loaded with the nuclear test equipment and test data.
Pakistan has conducted six nuclear tests. On May 28, 1998, Pakistan exploded 5 nuclear devices simultaneously at the Chagal Hills (Ras Koh range) nuclear test site. One of the devices was a boosted fission device. Two days later, a 14 KT nuclear device was tested at the Balochistan test site. This device is believed to be a plutonium bomb flown in from North Korea.
The people of Pakistan were relieved and overjoyed at the news of Pakistani nuclear tests in the aftermath of India's nuclear tests of the same scale (including a boosted bomb) a few days earlier. In stark contrast to the festive mood prevailing in Pakistan, the dark cloud of American spy planes and satellites shadowed the Pakistani nuclear facilities, and a horde of US CIA and DIA agents swarmed to Pakistan's capital.
Pyongyang had no time to celebrate its Balochistan nuclear test success because it had the daunting task of extracting its nuclear scientists, test equipment and test data safely from Pakistan. Hundreds of American spies and agents were out to grab North Korean scientists and nuclear materials. Even if the plane took off safely, it might have been shot down or forced to land by American planes.
North Korea had anticipated dirty plays by the Americans and worked out detailed counter measures for the safe return of its nuclear assets. Little has been published about this super secret operation. Several American news articles have revealed certain aspects of the operation, however.
The Los Angeles Times has published two articles related to the operation. On June 7, 1998, one week after the Balohsitan test, a gunshot rang out in the darkness of the night in the exclusive residential district of Islamabad. The district referred to as "E-7" is for high-ranking military officers and nuclear scientists, and as such, it is highly secured. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of the Pakistani bomb, lives in the district. In fact, the gun was fired only a few meters from Dr. Khan's residence. The victim was Kim Sa-nae, a North Korean woman. There was no eyewitness and Pakistani plainclothes men investigated the incidence. Kim Sa-nae was reportedly well-known for her cold-noodles, a famed North Korean dish.
Kim's death was duly reported on Pakistani newspapers but few paid attention at the time, when the news of the nuclear tests dominated the news at the time. The Pakistanis said that Kim Sa-nae was a North Korean diplomat. Her mysterious murder was forgotten until the Los Angeles Times picked it up one year later. The Los Angeles Times story went far beyond what was reported by the Pakistanis. It had some sinister twists added to the unsolved 'murder'.
1). The Pakistani police refused to disclose the true identity of Kim Sa-nae. The US intelligence claims that Kim was the wife of Kang Thae-yun, a mid-level staff member at the North Korean Embassy in Pakistan, and that Kang was in fact an agent of North Korea's Chang-kwang Trading Company, which sells weapons overseas. The Americans claim that Kang was no diplomat - he was a weapons salesman. Kang left Pakistan one month after Kim's death. On the other hand, the Pakistanis claim that Kim Sa-nae was one of the twenty North Korean nuclear scientists, who were staying at the guest house of Dr. Khan's residence when Kim was shot.
2). The Pakistani police has not disclosed the murderer of Kim Sa-nae. There have been three different speculations. One says that a cook working next door to Dr. Khan borrowed a gun from a guard and fired it by accident. The second story says that one of Dr. Khan's neighbors fired his gun accidentally while cleaning it. Dr. Khan has stated that Kim's death was accidental. In contrast, the American intelligence claims that Kim Sa-nae was an American spy and provided information on North Korea's nuclear tests to the Western intelligence agents, and that she was killed while trying to defect.
3). The Los Angeles Times article claims no autopsy was done on Kim's body and that the Pakistani police was told to close the book on her case. The American intelligence claims that her body was returned to Pyongyang on June 10th, four days after her murder on a Pakistani cargo plane, and that her coffin contained two centrifuge machines for enriching uranium and associated manuals. In those days, Air Koryo had two flights per month to Islamabad. In fact, an Air Koryo plane was at Islamabad at the time of Kim's murder. Then, why would Kim's body be on a Pakistani plane?
The truth is most likely that there was no Kim Sa-nae. She was made up by North Korea to create confusion to cover up the extraction of its nuclear assets. On the other hand, the Americans went along to hammer in their claim that Pakistan provided enriched uranium technology to North Korea (and therefore, North Korea 'has' an enriched uranium nuclear program).
The Kim Sa-nae 'murder' was a fabrication to draw away American spies in Pakistan from the imminent departure of the Air Koryo plane carrying North Korean nuclear scientists, test equipment and test data. It was a cat and mouse game, in which North Korea won.
Cut back to present : March – April 2009.
The new player in the block this time is Japan which is probably trying to test its expensive missile defense shield. Japan's Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada on Friday ordered the Japan Self-Defense Force (SDF) to prepare to destroy any ballistic missile fired from North Korea if it looks like hitting the country. YASUKAZU HAMADA
Many believe that under the pretext of a satellite launch, North Korea is poised to test-fire a long-range ballistic missile to boost national prestige ahead of the Supreme People's Assembly starting on April 9. This date is also the 16th anniversary of Dear Leader Kim Jong-il's rise to chairman of the National Defense Commission of North Korea.
There is widespread speculation among military experts that North Korea will launch a third-stage version of the newly developed Taepodong-2 missile, which has a range of up to 8,000 kilometers. Many countries, such as the United States and South Korea, are concerned that a successful test-firing will provide Pyongyang with the capability for inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
The Japan Maritime Self Defense Force is deploying the Kongou and the Chokai - the two Aegis-equipped ballistic missile defense (BMD) destroyers fitted with SM-3 missiles among Japan's six Aegis-equipped destroyers - to the Sea of Japan. One Japanese Aegis-equipped destroyer called Kirishima will also be sent to the Pacific to detect and track the North Korean projectile's path and to collect data on it to figure out whether it is a satellite or a missile. Kirishima has no ability to intercept it.
The Japan Air Self-Defense Force will shift its Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) ground-based interceptor missiles currently deployed at the Hamamatsu base in Shizuoka prefecture to Japan Ground Self-Defense Force bases in Akita and Iwate prefectures in northeastern Japan, where rocket debris from a failed launch might fall.
Japan's BMD Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) can intercept inter-continental ballistic missiles at an altitude of about 100 kilometers and the PAC-3 has a range of about 20 kilometers. Thus, the ground-based PAC-3 is responsible for the lower range of the shield and is designed to intercept incoming missiles the SM-3 misses.
Hence the difference this time (2006 LAUNCH VS 2009):
1. Japan is the front runner to shoot down the missile this time, with US giving backup 2. Probably a 3 stage Taepodong and a more confident North Koreans this time
THE IRANIAN HELP THIS TIME - THE OTHER MAJOR DIFFERENCE:
Japan's Sankei Shimbun newspaper claimed that a 15-strong delegation from Tehran has been in the country advising the North Koreans since the beginning of March 2009.
The experts include senior officials from the Iranian rocket and satellite producer Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, the newspaper said.
The Iranians brought a letter from President Ahmadinejad to the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il stressing the importance of co-operating on space technology.
If the missile is a failure or is aborted, this will result in serious embarrassment for the North Koreans. And if the launch is a success and Japan and US fail to intercept the missile – it will be an embarrassment for them.
Either which way, someone is going to be embarrassed with this launch going ahead . We will have to wait and see what happens.
Assuming that the launch is a success and Japan manages to shoot the missile down, the region can very quickly descend into an abyss with unknown consequences. While North Korea will not launch any nuclear strike as the military leadership there knows (as I suspect our Pakistani military counterparts know) that in that event their life expectancy will be like that of a FIREFLY.
What North Koreans might well do is to have another nuclear blast, this time going above the 1 kiloton level to regain respectability. And when it does, the world can clap the Pakistanis for it.
CHAKLALA AIRBASE - CLOSE TO J&K
While the world pays attention to AQ Khan, the person more important is Khalid Kidwai – the keeper of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenals. Kidwai oversees the entire security structure meant to keep Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and fuels out of the hands of its enemies. Kidwai is based about three-quarters of a mile down the road from Chaklala military base, within the walls of the garrison and barely marked in a small compound for Strategic Plans.
His schooling was from Sargodha – a place that remains important to him as Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is stored there and nearby. Sargodha airbase can be seen on the map above, to the left of Lahore.
KHALID KIDWAI
On Nov . 23, 1971 when war broke out with India, Kidwai then a young second lieutenant was captured and held as a prisoner of war for two years in Allahabad.
And the world is paying the price for India releasing one more Pakistani from its jails.
One must remember that Bush included North Korea in the axis of evil only to make it look kosher – as he is supposed to have said – we cannot have all three countries in Axis of Evil to be coming from the Islamic world. Pakistan which gave the nuclear technology to the so-called Axis of Evil, itself continues to dodge the stigma of an evil empire – however it knows and the world knows how Pakistan is being looked at in the hushed corridors of powers.
The success or failure of Taepodong will reverberate in the corridors of India and Pakistan too – it will be fascinating to watch for the drama to unfold in the next few days.
Graham Allison, a Harvard professor and an authority on nuclear terrorism stated: “If you can build a nuclear reactor in SYRIA without being detected for 8 years, how hard can it be to sell a little plutonium to Osama bin Laden?”
Allison’s derogatory remarks on the intelligence ability of the US was not without reason. For 8 years, the US had its eyes peeled at non-existent Iraqi nuclear reactors – and the Syrian one was just a few kilometers away from the Iraqi border.
MEIR DAGAN
The American stupor was broken one day in late April 2007 when Meir Dagan, the chief of Mossad called the White House and asked for an urgent meeting with NSA Stephen Hadley. In May 2007, thanks to the work of Israeli agents, Dagan spread out a treasure trove of photos taken from inside the “facility”, inside the curtain walls where satellites could not penetrate. What they showed solved the mystery of Al-Kibar. Dagan also pulled out a photo of two men standing near the Syrian nuclear complex – Ibrahim Othman: the head of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission and on his left was Chon Chibu: North Korean scientist who managed the production of fuel at North Korea’s main nuclear weapons site at Yongbyon.
What surprised the Americans was that the innards of the Syrian nuclear plant bore a striking resemblance to the reactor at North Korea’s main nuclear complex. A carbon copy, in fact. On September 6th 2007, the Israeli F-15s crossed into Syria soon after midnight, screaming undetected over the desert, headed for their target deep in the Euphrates valley. They traversed 2/3 of the country, barely setting off air defenses that the Syrians had paid Russia millions to construct. In minutes they swooped over the tiny town of Al-Kibar and left a pile of concrete and rubble. They had splintered apart a baseball-diamond field-sized building that the Syrians had been working on in deepest secrecy.
The Syrians, embarrassed, denied the incident at first and later tried to say that the planes hit empty buildings. However, US satellite images from above told a completely different story.
As North Korea itself gets ready to test its ballistic missile in the next few days, there is intense speculation whether the US or the Japan will try to shoot it down, and if so at what stage, or if at all? The best kept secret in all this, is the nuclear stockpile that Japan has. Will come to this another day. Dr A.Q. Khan’s connection to the North Korean nuclear program as well as the Iranian ones are well documented. The Libyan operation took the lid off the lucrative deals.
North Korea’s dear leader learnt that even if he had no food grains to feed his people, if he put nuclear missiles on his roof it would be a brilliant survival strategy. The strategy: “If the rest of the world, specially its neighbours didn’t bring him oil, gas and take out food, he would blow the place sky high.” The amazing thing was that this strategy was working; the neighbors did not want any trouble. (See any similarities here with Pakistan’s strategy?)
The Iranians, a proud nation and an ancient civilization, surely needed the nuclear bomb – it was the ultimate symbol of self reliance. Moreover, Pakistan had nuclear arsenal and it being a Sunni nation – Pakistan’s bomb was called the de-facto Sunni bomb. Saudi Arabia looked at Pakistan’s nuclear assets as its own and as I have shown in an earlier article the very close military relationship that Saudi Arabia has with Pakistan.
There were voices from Pakistan that made Iran even more nervous. Al Qaeda leadership safely ensconced in Pakistan due to ISI’s hospitality (covert & overt), came out with a statement that Hezbollah is its enemy as it is a Shia force.
And (have touched on this earlier) Pakistan Army together with Osama bin Laden, targeted the largely Shia controlled Northern Areas & Gilgit and forcibly killed and changed demographics of the area. In 1988, as a Brigadier charged with suppressing a Shia revolt in Pakistan occupied Gilgit-Baltistan, Gen Musharraf used Islamist 'irregulars' from the North West Frontier Province, under the command of OSAMA BIN LADEN, to execute a campaign of pillage, arson, rape and slaughter, in which hundreds of Shia were killed. These Islamist irregulars were Sunni hardliners – the ISI formed Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) – from where LeJ (Lashkar e Jhangvi) was later formed.
Thereafter, Gen Musharraf was intrinsic to the 'demographic re-engineering' of the illegally occupied region, through which large numbers of Pashtun and Punjabi 'outsiders' were forcibly settled there, to alter the existing demographic balance that overwhelmingly favoured the Shias. After decades of this policy, while Shias continue to maintain a slim - though diminishing - majority, the proportions have been altered from 1:4 in their favour, to 3:4.
Dera Ismail Khan- one of the southern Districts of the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan has become the slaughterhouse for the Shia community. The banned Sipah-e-Sahaba has indiscriminately killed dozens of innocent Shias including women and children. The venomous anti-Shia organizations like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi have no remorse in killing Shias in their mosques, whereas Lashkar-e-Taiba has stated that they will not kill Shias while they are praying in their mosques (but outside mosques – ok to kill !).
Iran has been noting with growing disquiet the increased Talibanisation of Pakistan and the increased attacks on the Shia community as a direct function of this.
September 15th 1998: "Iran must know that if the soil of Afghanistan is attacked, we will target Iranian cities and the entire responsibility will rest with Iranian authorities," Taliban spokesman Wakil Ahmed told the independent Afghan Islamic Press.
The last thing Iran wants is nuclear blackmail from a Sunni nation – or even a threat from a rag tag bunch of Deobandi/Wahabbi Sunni mindless warriors threaten the great nation of Iran.
Just as the Israelis had, in another spectacular attack, bombed Saddam’s nuclear reactor Osirak in 1981, Saddam Hussein bombed Iran’s nuclear site at Bushehr. Saddam was not about to allow the mullahs to obtain nuclear fuel ahead of him. Unfortunately for Iran, Pakistan beat them to it.
Iran wanted the “bomb” desperately and it came to realize that Dr A Q Khan is on the market. For him Shia – Sunni did not matter – only dollars mattered and an ego massage. Later in 1994, two officials from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards showed up at the Dubai office of Dr A Q Khan with suitcases stuffed with US $ 3 million in cash – a partial payment – and left with detailed plans for the P-2 and with parts that fit an older model. The Iranians were angry at the inferior equipment, but it was better than nothing and it helped kick start their program.
OLLI HEINONEN
The Iranians went about their job efficiently. On a frigid Monday morning in Vienna in late February 2008, Olli Heinonen summoned ambassadors and experts from a dozen countries into the boardroom of IAEA. While presenting, he saved Project 111 for the last.
The first slide was a status report on Project 111 written in Farsi. The opening page bore an epigraph which when translated read: “Fate changes no man, unless he changes fate.” The remainder of the slides, also in Farsi, detailed work on how to design a warhead so that it could be placed in the nose cone of Iran’s most sophisticated long range missile, the Shahab-3.
One of hardest documents for the Iranians to explain was a chronology showing the arc of a missile’s flight. It indicated when the altitude meters would be switched on, when the detonators on the warhead would be fired, and it showed the warhead exploding at about 600 meters above the ground.
Heinonen’s message was clear. No one would detonate a conventional weapon at that height, but as any nuclear weapon designer would attest, that it is roughly the height at which an atomic bomb, detonated over a city, can do the most damage.
Obviously the Iranians had moved far ahead from the suitcase days, and the Americans were in a bind. The Israelis were preparing to launch attacks but the countries most apoplectic were neither the US nor Israel, they were Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt. They clearly stated that if Iran possessed nuclear weapons, they too would restart their programs – some dormant, some semi-active.
The message to the US was clear. The Iranians are not building the bomb to attack Israel – because if they did, Iran will be obliterated not only by Israel but by US too (Hillary Clinton was at her polite best – when she said: “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president we will attack Iran,” Clinton said. “In the next ten years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them).”
No Hillary, Iran does not want to nuke Israel. Iran wants to possess the nuke so that: 1. The US / Israel does not attack it or tries to bring in regime change through coercive means 2. To counter the Sunni bomb of Pakistan 3. To counter Talibanization of Pakistan – the threat to Iran grows manifold 4. To bargain better with the civilized world 5. To take control of middle eastern affairs and reaffirm its rightful place in the region.
Iran came to realize pretty early that US does not mess with nations who have nukes – however small the quantity of nukes or however small the nation – otherwise the noose on Saddam is a constant reminder of what US can do if countries do not have nukes.
For India : With apologies to Israel, it is in India’s interest that Iran have this Shia bomb. Iran and India have been traditional allies over centuries (barring minor instances). The Shia bomb is an excellent counterfoil to the Sunni bomb. Also US’s position in the middle east becomes tenuous if Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia embark on nuclear weapons. This does not harm India’s interests, but it does harm the interests of US and Europe.
One must recall that US’s wink allowed Pakistan to develop the nukes and we should return the compliment to them. Let them deal with this. Iran will not let go of its nuclear ambitions, and why should it? If Pakistan has the nukes, then Iran must have nukes too.
INDIAN HAS TO GET ITS ACT TOGETHER:
The United States thwarted a suspect shipment from North Korea to Iran by persuading the Indian government to deny clearance for the North Korean flight to travel through Indian airspace,.
Nine weeks after the flight was diverted in August, the Bush administration removed North Korea from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism in a bid to salvage an accord to end Pyongyang’s nuclear programs.
U.S. officials suspect the North Korean plane, an Ilyushin-62 jet owned by the North Korean state airline, was carrying sophisticated technology — such as ballistic missile parts — that could be used in a program for weapons of mass destruction.
The jet stopped in Burma on Aug. 7 and sought permission to cross Indian airspace to reach Iran. India is not part of the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative, but officials in New Delhi agreed to a U.S. request to deny access.
“This was very, very important,” said a senior U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the incident involved U.S. intelligence. “It was frankly a success that we stopped North Korea from doing this."
Surely India should be pursuing its foreign policy for its own interests first. As I have stated earlier, the US did not favours to India as it allowed nuclear proliferation to go on unabated by Pakistan.
Obama is trying diplomacy – it is a welcome gesture but it will not slow down Iranian efforts at bomb making in the least. But good relations with Iran does open up alternate supply routes to NATO in Afghanistan (discussed earlier).
I wish Mohsen Fakrizadeh – the Iranian military scientist sitting atop the entire nuclear project and his team “godspeed”.
"The danger of having such a program is that the United States — or some other country — might attack and destroy the associated facilities. Therefore, the North Koreans created a high level of uncertainty as to just how far along they were on the road to having a nuclear device and as to how urgent the situation was, raising and lowering alarms like a conductor in a symphony. The Iranians are following the same strategy. They are constantly shifting from a conciliatory tone to an aggressive one, keeping the United States and Israel under perpetual psychological pressure. The Iranians are trying to avoid an attack by keeping the intelligence ambiguous. Tehran’s ideal strategy is maintaining maximum ambiguity and anxiety in the West while minimizing the need to strike immediately. Actually obtaining a bomb would increase the danger of an attack in the period between a successful test and the deployment of a deliverable device.
What the Iranians get out of this is exactly what the North Koreans got: disproportionate international attention and a lever on other topics, along with something that could be sacrificed in negotiations. They also have a chance of actually developing a deliverable device in the confusion surrounding its progress. If so, Iran would become invasion- and even harassment-proof thanks to its apparent instability and ideology. From Tehran’s perspective, abandoning its nuclear program without substantial concessions, none of which have materialized as yet, would be irrational. And the Iranians expect a large payoff from all this."
One of the commentators RAY said "Iran has been threatening recently that it will conduct its petro-transactions in Euros instead of the tanking dollars. If that happens, and if fellow OPEC nations follow suit, US will suffer an economic disaster, much worse than what is happening right now. Iran is being "convinced" by the US president to follow the norms and not rebel against the dollar. If Iran complies, some economic sanctions will be lifted and the threat of war taken away. Otherwise it will suffer the same fate as Iraq (Saddam actually implemented his petrotransactions in Euros. That is the main reason for invasion).
I apreciate the Iranian people, their culture, their cuisine, their movies. And India should quickly get back into the trio of friendship that existed : Iran, Russia, India – the original backers of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.
Navroz Mubarak !
(Note: Most of the above material sourced from David Sanger's book: The Inheritance)
American Thinker reports: Rajeev Gandhi’s untimely death left Sonia Gandhi extremely wealthy. The true extent of her wealth became known only when the Soviet archives were thrown open following the collapse of the Soviet Union. KGB archives revealed that as far back as 1982, when Indira Gandhi was still prime minister, Soviet trading agencies were channeling funds into a company controlled by her son and future Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
This was also brought to light by Harvard Russian scholar Yvgenia Albats in her book The State Within A State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia. The Swiss newsmagazine Schweizer Illustrierte (November 11, 1991) provided more details. Citing newly—opened KGB records, it reported that Sonia Gandhi, widow of the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was controlling a secret account worth 2.5 billion Swiss francs (about 2 billion dollars at current exchange rates) in a Swiss bank in her minor son's name.
This was of course, the tip of the iceberg. India is number one in the world as far as stashing black money in Swiss Banks.
Now, we have figures for Swiss banks only - there are other offshore banking centres – Cayman Islands etc. One can therefore surmise that amounts stashed in Swiss Banks are also just the tip of the iceberg. Let us see that “tip of the iceberg”.
India is world’s number 1 in stashing black money – a whopping $1.4 trillion dollars = $ 1400 billion dollars = $ 1,400,000 million dollars = Rs 70,00,000 Crores.
And we are talking just about Swiss Banks only ! Daily Times Pakistan reports : “India with $1456 billion or $1.4 trillion has more money in Swiss banks than rest of the world combined. This must be unaccounted money earned in India by wrong means as otherwise any Indian wanting to open a bank account abroad has to take permission of the Reserve Bank of India and records do not show any such permissions granted for deposits in Switzerland. In March 2005, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) published a research finding demonstrating that $11.5 trillion of personal wealth was held offshore by rich individuals across the globe. The findings estimated that a large proportion of this wealth was managed from some 70 tax havens.”
A rare accolade to the Communist Party of India
Communist Party of India (CPI) Deputy General Secretary S Sudhakar Reddy said that Government should take steps to bring back $1456 billion. This is allegedly the unaccounted money deposited by Indians in Swiss banks.
"Who could deposit this amount and why at a far of place like Switzerland not preferring banks in India? The answer is simple. This is black money, this is the money unaccounted," he said.
"These depositors are shameless betrayers of the nation and money deposited by them should be confiscated through all legal means immediately and brought back to India," he said in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Even if it is $1400 billions, it is almost twice to country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 15 times more of its budget. If distributed equally among the Indians, each will get approximately Rs one lakh, Reddy said.
"While 36 crore people in the country are living below poverty line, it is unpardonable that a few rich keep the huge amount in Swiss banks," he added.
Milap Choraria submitted 2 application under RTI Act, 205, to the Prime Ministers Office to know actual volume of Indian (black) money deposited in Switzerland’s Banks as per rough estimates of the Government of India and that what action have been taken to retrieve such money from Switzerland to strengthen Indian Economy?
United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), gave a chance to retrieve such money from Switzerland, provided India make appropriate law to that affect to recover such stolen Indian Money and prevent them to retain such money any further. But, till date India not ratified such Convention, and wanted to know that what are the reason and hurdles in rectification of such Convention? But, Government failed to supply appropriate information, rather trying to escape on the alleged pretext of alleged exemptions under RTI Act, 2000.
As we all go to vote, we must try to find out who ruled India most for all these years, whose money is “hiding” in the Swiss vaults, who has endangered India’s security where even the Pakistani Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Tanvir Mehmood Ahmed threatened – “We have made the whole of PAF a nuclear force.” He said the PAF had achieved such a deterrence level that no one could cast an evil eye on the motherland. We fought two wars with India in 1965 and 1971 and prevented three imminent wars in 1998, 2002 and in the recent days in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks.”
True, India sits calmly as it braces for another attack, which will be followed by platitudes and empty threats emanating from Indian politicians.Our holes in defense are a function of slush money parked in compromised military purchase. And those slush money is now staring at our faces mocking us from the vaults of Switzerland as we face real mocking from Pakistani military and militants.
Pakistan’s ex-President Musharraf did concede, in recently concluded India Today Conclave, the fact that India may have to brace with more Mumbai type attacks. Brilliant that he could simply say that as a matter of fact – and the truth is – India is in a comatose, probably impotent.
(My view on this nuclear threat from Pakistan: Personally I give a fig leaf to this alleged threat. The threat may be real, but the threat to Pakistan is greater and in this scenario of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) - it pretty much cancels it out. Even in the case of a nuclear strike, India will be hurt and hurt badly but will not cease to exist - Pakistan will cease to exist. Hence, all these threats from Pakistan mean nothing to me - except empty rhetoric and trying to scare the shit out of our corrupt politicians who hold the nuclear button. Hence, we need to have ex-intelligence / armed forces person to lead India - a la PUTIN to "right certain wrongs". Don't get me wrong - I am well aware of Putin's stashed billions too - but as far as Russia's security is concerned - he does not compromise on that. Our politicians do that as a normal course - that is the difference. And I cannot stand it that they sit smug while cheating our nation of its resources, of its strength and of its security. Time to rob them off their slush funds !).
And in the current global meltdown, that slush money has no business to be sitting anywhere else but in India.
I wish to categorically state that I am not AGAINST Islam. I am against Deoband, Wahhabi form of Islam that propagates terrorism in the name of religion and indoctrinate for their own gains !
