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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistani intelligence aids Mullah Omar's move to Karachi |
| 2009-11-21 |
| Mullah Mohammed Omar, the one-eyed leader of the Afghan Taliban, has fled a Pakistani city on the border with Afghanistan and found refuge from potential U.S. attacks in the teeming Pakistani port city of Karachi with the assistance of Pakistan's intelligence service, three current and former U.S. intelligence officials said. Mullah Omar, who hosted Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders when they plotted the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, had been residing in Quetta, where the Afghan Taliban shura -- or council -- had moved from Kandahar after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Two senior U.S. intelligence officials and one former senior CIA officer told The Washington Times that Mullah Omar traveled to Karachi last month after the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He inaugurated a new senior leadership council in Karachi, a city that so far has escaped U.S. and Pakistani counterterrorism campaigns, the officials said. The officials, two of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the topic, said Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, the ISI, helped the Taliban leaders move from Quetta, where they were exposed to attacks by unmanned U.S. drones. Bruce Riedel, a CIA veteran and analyst on al Qaeda and the Taliban, confirmed that Mullah Omar had been spotted in Karachi recently. "Some sources claim the ISI decided to move him further from the battlefield to keep him safe" from U.S. drone attacks, said Mr. Riedel, who headed the Obama administration's review of policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan last spring. "There are huge madrassas in Karachi where Mullah Omar could easily be kept." Mr. Riedel also noted that there had been few suicide bombings in Karachi, which he attributed to the Taliban and al Qaeda not wanting to "foul their own nest." A U.S. counterterrorism official said, "There are indications of some kind of bleed-out of Taliban types from Quetta to Karachi, but no one should assume at this point that the entire Afghan Taliban leadership has packed up its bags and headed for another Pakistani city." A second senior intelligence officer who specializes in monitoring al Qaeda said U.S. intelligence had confirmed Mullah Omar's move through both electronic and human sources as well as intelligence from an unnamed allied service. The official said that neither Osama bin Laden nor al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri has been spotted in Karachi. The official said the top two al Qaeda figures are still thought to be in the tribal region of Pakistan on Afghanistan's border. But, the official said, other midlevel al Qaeda operatives who facilitate the travel and training of foreign fighters have moved to the Karachi metropolitan area, which with 18 million people is Pakistan's most populous city. "One reason, [al Qaeda] and Taliban leaders are relocating to Karachi is because they believe U.S. drones do not strike there," the official said. "It is a densely populated urban area." Mary Habeck, a professor and analyst on radical Islam at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, said the reported move "suggests the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban are one and the same thing." She said that it also "shows the Taliban are not the marginalized group we have been saying they are. They can move into a major city in Pakistan and believe they are safe there." |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #3 As I've said over and over, the time has come for ending the "Pakistan" experiment. Bomb them back to the Stone Age, take over the western half of the country and give it to Afghanistan, and allow India to take over the eastern half (including Kashmir). Build a four-lane superhighway from Karachi to Kabul, with a parallel rail line. If things don't get better, exile all the Sunnis to Iran and all the Shi'ites to Saudi Arabia. Let the Christians, animists, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, and others to do what they wish in the enlarged Afghanistan. The US should administer the territory the rail/road lines are on, and hang anyone trying to damage them along the sides of the route. The US should also keep enough territory to safely station a bomb wing, a fighter wing, and a US Army division (with training grounds). It's time the rest of the world learns that if you kick us in the teeth, we're going to bite your leg off at the knee. It's also time the US acknowledges that, without a show of force, the world will consider us weak and unable to respond to their machinations. A Tomahawk missile through a window at the "Int'l Criminal Court" and the "International Court of Justice" would also signal that WE will decide if our actions are criminal in nature, not a bunch of effete politicians in Europe. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2009-11-21 17:05 |
| #2 Because it's damned hard to get a large amount supplies to Afghanistan via any other route? |
| Posted by: Pappy 2009-11-21 10:36 |
| #1 And we continue fund the enemy-Pak Army/ISI-Why? |
| Posted by: Paul2 2009-11-21 05:04 |