The Afridi Conviction

By Ghalib Sultan
ZoneAsia-Pk

An Assistant Political Agent in FATA has sentenced Dr Afridi to 33 years in prison and a fine under the Frontier Crimes Regulations for collaborating with the US CIA in the process that led to the unilateral US action to kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. Dr Afridi is a Pakistan national domiciled in FATA though his CIA directed activities were carried out in the town of Abbottabad that is not in FATA. Pakistan must have made sure that his trial under the FCR was legally correct because of his domicile status. According to media reports Dr Afridi’s wife is a US national and if true then that may have given the CIA a coercive advantage if any was needed—material gain was definitely involved.

The US by publicly defending and championing the cause of Dr Afridi has established beyond all doubt that Dr Afridi, a Pakistan government employee, was subverted and recruited to work for the CIA. What the US has not explained is why Dr Afridi was left to face the music and why he and his family were not taken out especially when his role was sure to be discovered. The US had abandoned Cuban collaborators after the Bay of Pigs fiasco in the Kennedy era. South Vietnamese collaborators were also abandoned to a horrific fate and now the Afghans are bracing for what awaits them. Angry US law makers have now woken up and demanded that Afridi be released as he has done nothing wrong. He hasn’t under US law but can Pakistan ignore the fact that a Pakistani government official collaborated with a fToreign intelligence agency in a clandestine manner? Not if they do not want to set a precedent for others. Dr Afridi under US direction also recruited other government employees to work with him and by using a vaccination campaign as a cover discredited the government’s health care programs. US law makers have proposed a cut of US$ 33mn—one for each year of Dr Afridi’s prison term—to be deducted from the aid to Pakistan and perhaps paid to Dr Afridi as compensation. This cut comes after a proposal to cut all aid to Pakistan by half for the continued closure of the NATO logistics route. The gloves are off and the strategy is to brow beat Pakistan into compliance. Pakistan, and Dr Afridi, are learning what collaboration with the US really means.

US lawmakers are calling Pakistan an extortionist because it has demanded adequate payment for damage to its infrastructure. Pakistan has been called a schizophrenic ally—living in Alice’s wonderland and one has speculated that if this is Pakistan’s idea of cooperation then what would its opposition look like? You do not want to go down that route not with the present situation in Pakistan. Many in the US are also questioning the timing of Dr Afridi’s conviction and asking who is orchestrating policy in Pakistan. Some media anchors, analysts and writers are answering the question exactly as the US wants it answered. Pakistanis are now realizing the full implications of the change in the US’ strategic direction in South Asia away from Pakistan and decisively towards India. If the down slide in US Pakistan relations is not arrested then Pakistan’s response options will be severely restricted and the US would have effectively destabilized another country and region with disastrous consequences. The Afghans are not the only ones bracing for a catastrophe.

OBL Killing Photos: To show or not to show?

Global Post

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed court documents arguing against releasing photos and video of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s death in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch.

Justice officials said the 52 images of the deceased bin Laden were classified and could prompt violence against Americans overseas if they were made public, The Associated Press reports.

The government asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

In a declaration included in the documents, John Bennett, director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, described the photos and video recordings as “quite graphic, as they depict the fatal bullet wound to (bin Laden) and other similarly gruesome images of his corpse,” the AP reports. Images were taken of bin Laden’s body at the Abbottabad compound and during his burial at sea from the USS Carl Vinson, Bennett said.

The government’s filings were also accompanied by a declaration from Admiral William McRaven, who’s in charge of the U.S. Special Operations Command and commands the Navy SEALs who carried out the bin Laden raid, Politico reports. McRaven wrote that releasing the images would likely “make the special operations unit that participated in this operation and its members more readily identifiable in the future.”

Judicial Watch said it disagreed with the government’s arguments. “There’s always something that can be released,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

According to Politico:

The legal fight over the bin Laden photos has produced some disagreement among FOIA experts. Some expect the government to prevail in the case without much difficulty because courts are traditionally very deferential to the executive branch in litigation involving national security, particularly FOIA cases. However, a few FOIA specialists have said aspects of the government’s arguments against disclosure is weaker than in other cases, chiefly because of reliance on the harms that stem in essence from the public relations impact the imagery could have.

Judicial Watch is one of several organizations, including the AP and Politico, that has requested photos and video of bin Laden’s death, Politico reports.

The judge in the case is unlikely to rule before December, Politico reports.

Ramazan’s lost chance for an Afghan truce

A slew of questions were raised when a Chinook helicopter was shot down on 6 August in Afghanistan’s Wardak province killing 30 US servicemen – most of them elite Navy seals – and eight Afghans.

Will the heaviest loss of American lives in a single incident since 2001 heighten doubts about the Afghan mission among an already war-weary American public and Congress? Does the downing of the helicopter show the limits of America’s changed war effort that increasingly involves special operations missions? Will the blow signal a psychological shift in the war or was it a one-off? Does the incident dramatise the fragility of the transition underway, in which security responsibilities being transferred to Afghan forces have to be completed in 2014?

Most importantly what this development laid bare is the continuing tension in US policy between the declared goal of pursuing a negotiated political settlement and a military strategy still centred on kinetic actions. By the time the planned international conference convenes in Bonn this December, Washington wants to be able to announce that serious negotiations with the Taliban are in progress to end the decade long war. But are its military actions in Afghanistan serving this goal? Or are they undercutting the start of serious talks?

The answer is clouded in confusion. The helicopter incident came in the midst of escalating violence in Afghanistan. Recent months have seen a series of assassinations of high-profile Afghan officials and aggressive military actions by US/Nato forces targeting the Taliban in Kandahar, Helmand and extending to eastern Afghanistan. This cycle of violence has intensified even as trilateral meetings of the so-called core group – Afghanistan, Pakistan and the US – have been underway to discuss how to reach out to Taliban leaders and engage them in negotiations.

The Taliban’s hit and run tactics have increasingly taken the form of assassinating top Afghan government figures. Since March, several officials have been killed including President Hamid Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai in a campaign that has especially unsettled Kandahar.

Meanwhile US Special Forces have been conducting an intense campaign of kill-or-capture raids to eliminate mid-level commanders and degrade the Taliban. These have entailed controversial night raids, which have provoked sharp criticism from President Karzai and calls from Afghans for an end to the deadly operations. Nato officials say that between April and July there were around 2,832 special operations raids. The mission in which the US helicopter was shot down was one such operation.

Meanwhile the renewal of Drone-fired missile attacks into North Waziristan is part of the same US strategy of killing as many Taliban commanders as possible even as American officials accept that all Taliban groups could potentially be part of the peace process. Confusion abounds over what the US hopes to achieve by simultaneously wanting to target and talk to Taliban leaders. In this ‘kill-capture-or-reconcile’ strategy, the US expects Pakistan to assist by facilitating contacts and at the same time take action against Taliban leaders unwilling to ‘reconcile’. And this while the US itself continues to ramp up military actions against the Taliban.

This approach will produce more not less violence, and is hardly a promising setting for serious talks. The cycle of revenge killings by both sides will hinder not help the start of meaningful negotiations. That is why a change of course is essential especially as there are indications of Taliban interest in a negotiated settlement – reflected in recent statements posted on its website. Instead of pursuing the current fight-and-talk approach, Washington in fact had the opportunity to offer a Ramazan ceasefire to help prepare the ground for negotiations that it acknowledges is the only way to end its violent entanglement.

Such an offer, whether confined to selected areas or signalling an end to night raids, would have tested the Taliban’s interest in peace and given a sharp focus to the trilateral process. A halt in fighting during the holy month would have helped to ascertain who among the Taliban could be brought into the reconciliation process and which elements opposed talks. Instead violence this Ramazan has far surpassed that in the same month in previous years.

The US unwillingness so far to consider any interim confidence-building measures – suspending nighttime raids in return for the Taliban’s cessation of assassinations – may reflect the continuing lack of clarity in the Obama Administration about how to proceed in Afghanistan. Different parts of the administration seem to want different things. While the White House and the State Department appear to want the reconciliation process to accelerate and military strategy recalibrated to support that goal, it is not clear if the Pentagon and the CIA are fully on board. The US military still seems to balk at talks with the Taliban, regarding them as an admission of failure to win the war. Where the CIA stands on this is signalled by its continued use of Drones to hammer the Haqqani network in North Waziristan.

Whatever the internal dynamics in Washington, operational US strategy is still at odds with its declared objective of seeking a negotiated end to the war. A ‘pause’ in fighting – effected through a Ramazan truce or by one later – can open the diplomatic space and generate the momentum to speed up peace talks. Escalating special operation missions provide the Taliban an incentive to continue fighting and not abandon it in preference for talks.

The notion that more fighting will force the Taliban into negotiations means pursuing elusive battlefield gains without the assurance that the Taliban will respond to these methods. Bringing military pressure to bear in an effort to soften the adversary’s negotiating stance is a well-rehearsed tactic. But there comes a point when this runs it course and a pause in fighting is essential to pave the way for negotiations. That moment arrived when the Obama Administration declared months ago that it sought a political settlement and supported Afghan reconciliation.

The historical record of peace processes suggests that they start with some form of agreed stand down leading to a negotiated cease-fire. Pakistan has long advocated the need to advance the reconciliation process by peace building measures. It has stressed the importance of properly sequencing the steps necessary to secure a negotiated settlement. In recent exchanges with the US, top Pakistani military officials have said that the concept of ‘Afghan reconciliation’ needs to be turned into an operational plan. This means ensuring that the political strategy determines the military mission and steps taken in that regard advance a political settlement.

Pakistan has argued that a mutual reduction of violence will help to create the political conditions for dialogue. It has proposed a roadmap for an Afghan-led peace process that involves three phases and starts with a reciprocal de-escalation of violence to create the conditions for peace efforts. This is seen as setting the stage to persuade the Taliban to renounce Al-Qaeda – the most important strategic goal shared by the core group. Once this is achieved talks can make real progress. The third and final phase aimed at securing acceptance of the Afghanistan Constitution can follow later in a process in which the Afghan parties can discuss modifications to arrive at a new constitutional consensus.

It remains to be seen how the three parties in the core group are able to evolve agreement on translating the reconciliation objective into an implementable plan. What can give the early stage of this process a decisive impetus is if the US accepts mutual cessation of violence as a necessary starting point. A plausible and credible plan can then be crafted for a peace process that can over time deliver a negotiated settlement.

Pakistan Let China Sample Crashed US “Stealth” Copter

The Telegraph

Pakistan gave China access to the previously unknown U.S. “stealth” helicopter that crashed during the commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May despite explicit requests from the CIA not to, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

During the US operation one of two modified Blackhawk helicopters, believed to employ previously unknown stealth capability, malfunctioned and crashed in Abottabad forcing commandos to abandon it

The disclosure, if confirmed, is likely to further shake the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, which has been improving slightly after hitting its lowest point in decades following the killing of bin Laden.

During the raid, one of two modified Blackhawk helicopters, believed to employ unknown stealth capability, malfunctioned and crashed, forcing the commandos to abandon it.

“The U.S. now has information that Pakistan, particularly the ISI, gave access to the Chinese military to the downed helicopter in Abbottabad,” the paper quoted a person “in intelligence circles” as saying on its website.

It said Pakistan, which enjoys a close relationship with China, allowed Chinese intelligence officials to take pictures of the crashed aircraft as well as take samples of its special “skin” that allowed the American raid to evade Pakistani radar.

One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters there was reason to believe Pakistan had allowed the Chinese to inspect the aircraft. But the official could not confirm it happened with certainty.

No one from the Pakistani army was available for comment, but the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), Pakistan’s top spy agency, denied the report. The paper said Pakistan’s top general, chief of army staff Ashfaq Kayani, denied that China had been given access.

The surviving tail section, photos of which were widely distributed on the Internet, was returned to the United States following a trip by U.S. Senator John Kerry in May, a spokesman for the U.S. embassy told Reuters.

Shortly after the raid, Pakistan hinted that it might give China access to the helicopter, given its fury over the raid, which it considers a grievous violation of its sovereignty.

“We had explicitly asked the Pakistanis in the immediate aftermath of the raid not to let anyone have access to the damaged remains of the helicopter,” the Financial Times quoted the source as saying.

In an incident such as the helicopter crash, it is standard American procedure to destroy sophisticated technology such as encrypted communications and navigation computers.

DISPLEASURE

Pakistan is a strategic ally to the United States but the relationship has been on a downward spiral since the killing of the al Qaeda leader in the raid by U.S. forces.

Islamabad was not informed in advance and responded by cutting back on U.S. trainers in the country and placing limits on CIA activities there.

The fact that the al Qaeda chief lived for years near the Pakistani army’s main academy in the northwestern garrison town of Abbottabad reinforced suspicions in Washington about Islamabad’s reliability in the war against militant Islamists.

There are also growing frustrations with Pakistan over its reluctance to mount offensives against militant factions in the northwest who are fighting U.S.-led foreign forces across the border in Afghanistan.

In a show of displeasure over Pakistan’s cutback in U.S. trainers, its limits on visas for U.S. personnel and other bilateral irritants, the United States has suspended about a third of its $2.7 billion annual defense aid to Pakistan.

Despite this, both sides have tried to prevent a breakdown of relations.

The head of Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lieutenant-General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, visited the United States last month for talks with U.S. government and intelligence officials, which both sides said went well.

Despite the billions in aid, Pakistan still considers China a more reliable ally than the United States. China is a major investor in predominantly Muslim Pakistan in areas such as telecommunications, ports and infrastructure. The countries are linked by a Chinese-built road pushed through Pakistan’s northern mountains.

Trade with Pakistan is worth almost $9 billion a year for Pakistan, and China is its top arms supplier.

In the wake of attacks that left 11 people dead in the China’s western region of Xinjiang in late July, Pakistan dispatched the ISI’s Pasha to Beijing.

Pak Army shrugs off ‘punitive’ aid cut-off by US

The Pakistan Army has decided not to reverse its decision to expel US military trainers and scale back the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives in the country despite Washington’s punitive move to withhold $800 million worth of assistance.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the corps commanders chaired by Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on Tuesday to discuss the fallout of the US step, said a military official. “We are not going to reconsider some of the decisions we have taken with regards to the activities of CIA in Pakistan,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

The security establishment, which was irked by the unilateral US raid that killed al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in May, launched a crackdown against the ‘CIA network’ to limit its activities.

Meanwhile, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff General Khalid Shameem Wynne told a top visiting US commander that Pakistan would not accept conditional aid and regretted the lack of acknowledgement by Washington for Pakistan’s “sacrifices in the battle against militancy.”

General James N Mattis, Commander US Central Command (Centcom), was on an announced trip to Pakistan to discuss regional security in the wake of recent developments. However, there was no official word if the top US general met General Kayani.

It is believed that in recent months General Kayani has made deliberate efforts not to publicise his engagements with US officials after being perceived to be too close to the Americans in the wake of the Bin Laden debacle.

A statement issued by the ISPR after the corps commanders meeting appeared to play down the US decision to suspend military assistance. “The forum reiterated the resolve to fight the menace of terrorism in our own national interest using our own resources,” the statement read.

However, it did not reveal if thousands of Pakistani troops would be pulled out from the Pak-Afghan border region if relations with the US deteriorated.

The somewhat mild reaction was attributed to the fact that the military hopes to settle the issue of withholding of aid through dialogue with American authorities, said military sources.

However, sources say, the corps commanders expressed their concern over the US decision, noting that it would not help the anti-terrorism campaign and will also cast a negative impact on the Pak-US bilateral cooperation in the fight against terrorism.

The top brass was also irked by the many strings attached to the US assistance. “No country has done more than Pakistan to eliminate al Qaeda and its affiliate groups,” said a senior military official. “Yet we remain in the eye of the storm, which is unfair.”

The official added that military commanders assert that the US must keep in mind the sacrifices of the Pakistani armed forces before making such harsh decisions.

According to an ISPR spokesman, the army chief appreciated the conduct of the ongoing operations. Referring to Mohmand Agency, he instructed that all efforts must be utilised in coordination with the civil administration for safe repatriation of the IDPs.

He said that the aim of the operation in Kurram Agency was to clear the area of miscreants involved in terrorism, kidnapping, killing of locals and blocking of roads connecting lower and upper Kurram.

Incompetence institutionalised

By Javed Hussain

It took two Black Hawk helicopters carrying US commandos two hours to humiliate Pakistan and alter the dynamics of the Pak-US relationship. After a series of contradictory statements, the air force finally suggested that the stealth capability of the helicopters enabled them to evade the radars.

In order to minimise these limitations of the radars, the air defence command had raised in the 1960s what were known as mobile observer units (MOUs). Deployed at prominent points along the border, the MOUs were required to report, in real time, sightings of intrusions, the number and type of aircraft, their direction of flight and the altitude and speed at which they are flying. If the intrusions were not picked up by the radars, immediate action was taken on the observers’ reports by scrambling fighters, who were then assisted by them to the extent possible. Had these been in place, the Black Hawks would surely have been sighted and intercepted. But since this did not happen, the MOUs, presumably, no longer exist.

The US raid has made the air force and ISI appear in bad light. The ISI erred by surrendering the initiative to the CIA when they passed on to them the leads they got from time to time. The fact that the CIA was not sharing with them the progress made on these leads, presumably because of the trust deficit, should have alerted them. Had they carried out a parallel investigation, they just might have got to the house near Kakul earlier than the CIA.

Since the failure of the air force and ISI is incomprehensible, the question that is agitating the minds of Pakistanis is: Is there more in this sordid affair than meets the eye?

Twenty days later, it took a handful of terrorists one hour to inflict further humiliation on Pakistan. But the man at whom the buck stops tells the world, dressed in combat fatigues, that there was no security lapse and that the terrorists were well-trained.

The vulnerable area (VA) in question has two vulnerable points (VPs) – PNS Mehran and PAF Faisal. A simple methodology for developing a tactical plan for the defence of VAs and VPs is to first establish the threat perceived, then consider all the possibilities open to the enemy. From this emerges the requirement of resources to guard against all the possibilities hypothesised. The plan is then presented to the planners’ next superior officer (NSO), who keeps his NSO, the chief, in the loop. Next, the forces that will execute the joint plan are subjected to intensive training by the VA/VP commander. Last, but not least, the efficacy of the plan is tested by inviting special forces to act as the enemy.

Surprise is the main weapon of guerrillas and commandos. They employ stealth, or deception, or both, to achieve it. In the Mehran raid, stealth was employed; in the GHQ raid; deception. But when the element of surprise is compromised, the mission almost always fails.

On that fateful night, the top minds of two services were outwitted by the terrorists and their masterminds. The blame can thus be clearly apportioned.

The Mehran raid has once again raised the question of the ‘enemy within’ – servicemen brainwashed and recruited by terrorists. Apparently, very little seems to have been done to eradicate this menace, even after it was established that they had collaborated in the attacks on Musharraf, the Tarbela SSG mess and GHQ. The presence of the ‘enemy within’ adds a dangerous dimension to national security as it makes the tasks of external intelligence services that much easier. Eliminating the fifth columnists, therefore, is one of the main challenges facing the service chiefs, their counter-intelligence and the ISI.

Their other main challenge is securing their VAs and VPs against future attacks. Only when this has been assured should they focus their minds on evolving counter-terrorism policies and strategies – create strong foundations, then build on them, else the whole edifice will crumble.

Like the crises of 1965, 1971 and 1999 (Kargil), the crises of May 2011 were also the creation of a handful of men who failed to come up to the expectations of the people. Since incompetence pervaded all fields of human activity long ago, the international community is right in thinking that, like corruption, incompetence has also become institutionalised in Pakistan.

A DEADLY NARRATIVE

By: Ismail Khan

As high level US visitors come to Pakistan the impression is that efforts are being made to revamp end reorient the US-Pakistan relationship after the Raymond Davis and OBL incidents. This may or may not be so but much more is happening on the street and a narrative is taking shape that is getting more and more takers. It would be folly to ignore this reality.

If confused and convoluted official statements are ignored then what eye witnesses and some from the forces that battled the attackers in Karachi’s Mehran Base have said is eye-opening. It is being reported that there were up to 11 Chinese on the base. No one has explained why they were there when the base was home to US supplied P3c Orion Aircraft – especially when US sensitivity to transfer of their technology to China is well known and clearly communicated to Pakistan. It is clear from events as they unfolded that the primary objective of the attack were the US supplied aircraft and not the Americans on the base for maintenance and training. There is plausible evidence that the attackers attempted to take the Chinese hostage but the Americans were not targeted. It is said that some of the attackers had tattooed arms-a typically American habit but frowned upon in this part of the world. One such tattooed person who looks to be an American was shot dead in a bush and had communication equipment with him indicating that he was controlling the operation. Reports on the number of attackers vary from

12 to 25 and most believe the higher figure. The talk of help to the attackers from inside the base is now leaning towards the notion that this help came from the Americans on the base and not, as people are being tutored to believe, from penetration of the Navy by militants. The journalist Salim Shahzad was probably killed because he was peddling the story about ‘Al Qaeda within the Pakistani ranks’ – something of which there is no evidence. There is, however ample evidence of covert American presence in Pakistan after they used their moles to gain access through liberally supplied visas. If Raymond Davis was not enough then the stand-off in Peshawer just a day ago is a more recent event-diplomats when checked identify themselves, they don’t sit and sulk behind locked doors and black tinted glasses in their host country defying the laws of the land.

There is more on the street. A Tehrik Taleban (TTP) spokesman speaking from Mohmand (a supposedly subdued tribal agency of FATA) has said that even if the Americans/NATO leave Afghanistan their fight against Pakistan would go on because they are fighting to bring ‘Islamic rule’ in Pakistan and that Pakistan’s nuclear assets are not in danger because these are Islamic assets to be used in the service of Islam. These pronouncements come when the US is being asked to pull out after the OBL killing and after pulling out rely on small forces carrying out focused operations. Pakistan has been pushing for a shift to political resolution in Afghanistan balking at the pressure to get into North Waziristan in tandem with US led military operations in Afghanistan and stepped up Drone strikes. The reports of US drones targeting the anti-Pakistan TTP and the new revelations of TTP’s global agenda as well as long term designs on Pakistan are all coincidentally timed to ramp up the pressure on Pakistan even as the Hedley courtroom drama makes headway in incriminating the ISI – already reeling from the US delivered below the belt blow in Abbottabad. The earlier reports of Raymond Davis’ contacts with TTP now start making sense because the best option would be to stay covert and get the TTP to do the dirty work in Pakistan with careful pay-offs using Indian RAW and Afghan NDS assets as well as old Pakistan hating loyalists like the ex NDS chief now operating from the background. Cleverly orchestrated this could keep the TTP in the dark about who they were actually working for. Add to all this the fact that post OBL and post Mehran the military and the ISI are in the dock and severely downgraded domestically – something that surely gladdens the hearts of the US, the Indians and the Afghan government.

What does all this add up to? It gives the Pakistani street a narrative that fits neatly into anti-American sentiment. To many the logic is simple – use covert operations to launch the overt OBL raid. Use covert operations and local assets to launch a ‘terrorist’ attack that sends the message about not transferring US technology. Use covert contacts to create the pressure that will get Pakistan into North Waziristan to help create the environment for the Obama promised withdrawal in July. If this narrative is flawed then it is time for the US to start telling the Pakistanis what they are up to and to end the charade of de-hyphenation when it is actually a trilateral hyphenation against Pakistan – the CIA, RAW and NDS behind the smoke screen that is the TTP. A civil-military confrontation, public opinion and media running down the military and ISI, lawlessness and internal breakdown are bonus dividends not to be scoffed at.

CIA allowed to search bin Laden compound

Pakistan has agreed to allow the CIA to send a forensics team to examine the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed, giving the agency permission to use sophisticated equipment in a search for al-Qaeda materials that may have been hidden inside walls or buried at the site, U.S. officials said.

The arrangement would allow the CIA for the first time to enter a complex that it had previously scrutinized only from a distance, using satellites, stealth drones and spies operating from a nearby safe house that was shuttered when bin Laden was killed.

U.S. officials said that a CIA team is expected to arrive at the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, within days and that the objective is to scrub the site for items that were not recovered by American commandos during the raid early this month or by Pakistani security forces who secured the facility afterward.

“The assault team was there for only 40 minutes,” a U.S. official said. The aim is to return to the site “to do another, more thorough look.” The official, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

CIA Deputy Director Michael J. Morell negotiated access to the Abbottabad site during a trip to Islamabad last week, when he met with Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the head of Pakistan’s main intelligence service, officials said.

Pakistan’s agreement is considered an encouraging sign that the two spy services will continue cooperating despite anger in Islamabad about the American operation to kill bin Laden and a series of recent ruptures between the CIA and its Pakistani counterpart.

Pakistan has also agreed to allow the CIA to examine materials that Pakistan’s security forces hauled away from the compound in the days after the raid, officials said.

In turn, the CIA has asked Pakistan’s spy agency, known as the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), for assistance in analyzing some of the records that were seized and brought to a CIA document exploitation facility in Northern Virginia.

In particular, U.S. officials said the CIA is seeking help with deciphering references to names of people and places. The agency has turned to the ISI for help identifying and locating people who were seen entering and leaving the compound during the months it was under near-constant American surveillance.

U.S. intelligence officials have described the materials from the bin Laden compound as the largest intelligence haul ever recovered relating to a terrorist network. The materials include dozens of computer storage devices as well as thousands of pages of documents.

Even so, U.S. officials said they want to be sure that other material has not been overlooked. The CIA plans involve the use of infrared cameras, X-ray equipment and other devices capable of identifying items embedded behind walls, inside safes or under floors.

Pakistan agreed in part because it does not have comparable equipment, officials said, and was convinced that more intrusive search methods – such as breaking through portions of the structure – might risk destroying any items hidden inside.

U.S. intelligence officials have said they think that bin Laden became remarkably complacent during the years he spent in hiding at the compound and appeared to have no plan to escape or destroy sensitive materials as commandos made their way toward his upstairs room.

Still, CIA veterans said that an exhaustive search was warranted, given bin Laden’s importance to al-Qaeda and the risk of overlooking even minute clues to the whereabouts of other senior leaders in the network.

“Even if he got very complacent, you would think he still would have had some sort of hiding area or safe, like [most people do] at home,” said a former senior CIA official who had been involved in the pursuit of bin Laden. “You wouldn’t do it for every run-of-the-mill high-value target, but you would do it for him.”

In addition to searching the compound for a vault, CIA experts are likely to collect swab samples of surfaces in bin Laden’s living area to look for clues.

DNA material could show whether Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s second in command, or other senior figures visited bin Laden. Clothing samples sent to U.S. labs could determine whether bin Laden came into contact with chemical or biological agents that he directed al-Qaeda to pursue.

Even a substance as innocuous as pollen could provide information about where bin Laden or visitors had traveled in Pakistan, the former CIA official said.

The agency also has equipment that could be used to recover information that has been burned or otherwise damaged. U.S. officials have said that residents burned their trash inside the compound’s walls.

The CIA deployed similar forensics teams to Afghanistan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The agency’s experts are part of its Directorate of Science and Technology, although the CIA frequently turns to other agencies, including the FBI and the Energy Department, for some technical capabilities.

U.S. officials said they have seen no evidence that there were tunnels beneath the compound.

One official said the CIA concluded before the raid that any underground escape routes for bin Laden were unlikely to exist because a high water table in Abbottabad probably would submerge passageways under the compound walls.

The CIA has been given access to three of bin Laden’s wives who were taken into custody by Pakistan after the raid. But officials said none of them has cooperated with U.S. interrogators or provided meaningful intelligence.

The agreement on the compound followed what U.S. officials described as a frank and productive discussion between the ISI director and Morell, who is in line to serve as interim director of the CIA if Leon Panetta is confirmed as defense secretary.

Morell’s trip was also aimed at repairing a relationship that has appeared on the verge of collapse in recent months. Recent ruptures include Pakistan’s arrest of a CIA contractor who fatally shot two Pakistani men in Lahore, as well as U.S. suspicions that the ISI deliberately exposed the identities of two undercover CIA operatives in the past six months.

Pakistani news accounts suggested that Pasha used his meeting with Morell to reiterate demands that include a dramatic reduction in the number of drone strikes.

The U.S. official declined to comment on the matter but said that despite signs of progress – such as Pakistan’s decision to return the U.S. helicopter damaged in the raid – the two spy agencies are proceeding warily.

Agreeing to grant the CIA access to the compound “is another good sign,” the U.S. official said. “But there’s still some issues to sort out.”

Correspondent Karin Brulliard in Islamabad contributed to this report.

A Paranoid Nuclear Nation

By Fatima Rizvi
ZoneAsia-Pk

Pakistan should be one, not both; and its people should choose between paranoia and power before it’s too late

For Pakistan, the writing on the wall is clear: Since 2001, we sided with the US in its War on Terror, which was actually a War OF Terror. After 2004, Pakistan became a frontline state in this war, instead of being the passive participant it had been in the three years before. It was not long before Pakistan became embroiled in a multi-front war: one with the US because of divergent goals in the region and mutual mistrust, one with regional adversaries like India and Karzai-led Afghanistan, one with terror proxies like Al-Qaeda, the TTP, Jundullah, HuJI, JeM, SSP, LeT, BLA, BLUF, BRA, IMU and other groups. This last battlespace is an unconventional war where non-state actors are being trained, financed, motivated and deployed by powerful external powers to undermine the military and intelligence organizations from within for the final external assault; this has become possible after softening up civil targets and demoralizing as well as scaring the Pakistani public over the last few years. But our civil and military leadership continues to be oblivious to these increasingly overt signals. Such insensitivity only contributes to the paranoia of the Pakistani people, who are wondering which of their assets are going to be used against them now.

Read Complete Article: http://www.zoneasia-pk.com/ZoneAsia-Pk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4706:a-paranoid-nuclear-nation&catid=70:free-talk&Itemid=84

The Wikileaks rumour mill in Pakistan

By: Ghalib Sultan
ZoneAsia-Pk

DAWN falls into CIA’s limited hangout trap

In November 2010, the world had been caught in a storm when Julian Assange, founder of whistleblowing website Wikileaks, revealed that he had uncovered a treasure trove of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables that reflected secret correspondence between State Department officials. These cables were classified and confidential for a reason: they reflected the “true and honest” opinion of US diplomats, and revealed the extent to which wheeling and dealing takes place in international politics. As Assange got mired in his own legal troubles – thanks to personal taste and the usual manly follies – and the hype about Wikileaks died down, even though it continued releasing cables every now and then. Now, the Wikileaks storm is contained within a teacup, and this teacup can take the form of any national/local news media organization.

After getting help from the New York Times and the Guardian, Assange/Wikileaks seeked help from over 60 news media organizations “in a bid to help speed the publication of its massive trove of secret US diplomatic memos” according to Assange. This is being done for “maximum impact” of the material, as Assange himself expressed frustration with the slow pace of the release of the secret diplomatic cables, and said that releasing country-specific files to selected local media would serve to push them out faster.

Assange said that all the newly recruited media organizations are being asked to agree to the same rules originally struck with The Times and other publications. The newspapers are asked to remove potentially harmful names or secrets that could endanger people’s lives and those cables are then submitted to WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks in turn times the cables’ release to coincide with the papers’ articles.

In reality, Julian Assange and Wikileaks are part of an elaborate CIA plan to control the ‘rumour mills’ as well as the official news domain. Wikileaks, according to renowned conspiracy theorist Webster Tarpley, is the “Cognitive Infiltration” operation demanded by Cass Sunstein. Wikileaks and its impaired boss represent a classic form of limited hangout or self-exposure, a kind of lurid striptease in which the front organization releases doctored and pre-selected materials provided by the intelligence agency with the intent of harming, not the CIA, nor the UK, nor the Israelis, but individuals and entities on a classic CIA enemies’ list.

A limited hangout operation is a unique kind of propaganda operation: also called a partial hangout, it involves the release of previously hidden information in order to prevent a greater exposure of more important details. It takes the form of deception, misdirection, or coverup often associated with intelligence agencies involving a release or “mea culpa” type of confession of only part of a set of previously hidden sensitive information, that establishes credibility for the one releasing the information who by the very act of confession appears to be “coming clean” and acting with integrity; but in actuality, by withholding key facts, is protecting a deeper operation and those who could be exposed if the whole truth came out. In effect, if an array of offenses or misdeeds is suspected, this confession admits to a lesser offense while covering up the greater ones. And this is what you can find just from Wikipedia.

DAWN’s angle is quite simple and straightforward: it wants to become the sole representative of Wikileaks in Pakistan, while furthering Assange’s business interests as his leaks further theirs. DAWN has sole access to Assange’s Wikileaks, which must now be taken at face value and believed to be true just because Assange – the operator – and DAWN – the local mouthpiece – have a secret agreement between each other. Of course, all the Wikileaks could just be coded and formatted rumours to cause a little bit of pain to the US and its foreign policy, but to completely shatter the myths and fake auras created by national political leaders in their own countries. Of course, it was DAWN that knew how leaking the Wikileak about the Pakistan Army wanting more drone attacks would sell more newspapers; the perception of NATO permanent ambassadors about President Zardari as being incompetent (or ill-prepared) is obviously another jab at the weak, corrupt and incompetent civilian government, as is the leak about no contender for the Pakistani PM slot actually being worth the position (in the eyes of the US, or Anne Patterson, at least).

So DAWN News is going to continue churning out half-lies and half-truths, because that is what the US State Department essentially deals in. They lie to the host country, then compile those lies and inform Washington about the progress and situation report. Then Washington tells them the truth, the lies, and the interests of the US in a given issue: the diplomats then proceed to lie, cheat and steal in order to get their way in the host country. Nowhere other than Pakistan has this been proven more true, where mainstream politicians actually afforded the US Embassy power over Pakistan’s internal affairs by seeking help, favors and currying favor with Ambassador Patterson, who was all too keen to play the role of Viceroy.

DAWN News’ action also reminds one of Cyril Almeida “leaking” Gen Kayani’s strictly secret backgrounder, and earnestly hopes that Almeida does not get caught in a sex scandal of his own. Unless the spooks in Aabpara are behind this entire charade, and conducting a limited hangout propaganda operation of their own.