9 U.S. troops reported killed in Afghanistan

[crazyinsane105]

The second sentence answers the first.

 

As for Colin, that an entry level recruit doesn't know to whom his supervisors report is hardly surprising or meaningful.

 

 

 

I don't think it matters whether or not Colin was an entry level recruit. He met and trained with some of the most vicious terrorists in the world to date, yet he barely makes references to the ISI in his book (which was my point exactly that the ISI isn't necessarily promoting world wide jihad of any kind as some members here want to believe)...

Edited July 26, 2008 by crazyinsane105

[crazyinsane105]

Mind you, it does seem to be true that the US did announce a humanitarian aid package of $43 million (that's million with an M) in May 2001. This raised US spending on such aid to Afghanistan, to $124 million for that year.

 

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/05/17/us.afghanistan.aid/

 

Many post-9/11 reports of this aid don't mention that it was humanitarian, mostly wheat and other foodstuffs, and imply that it was simply cash to the Taliban.

 

OK, 43 million dollars for food commodities....how about the other 81 million dollars?

[R011]

OK, 43 million dollars for food commodities....how about the other 81 million dollars?

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/sept_11/usaid_001.htm

[Vijay Reddy]

This is the absolute first time I'm hearing the training camps in Afghanistan were run by the ISI. Do you have source to back that up?

You are kidding, right? Bin Laden was invited to come to Afghanistan by the ISI. The arrangement was that the ISI would build camps for Bin Laden provided Bin Laden helped attract fanatical jihadists for Pakistan's covert war against India. It was a perfectly symbiotic relationship.

 

Let me first give you official US government reports. I also have juicy bits from the book and articles by Husain Haqqani, the current Pakistani Ambassador to the US.

 

In 2003, the Pentagon declassified some pre-9/11 documents relating to the Taliban and al-Qaida from the Defense Intelligence Agency. Here's a report on one of those declassified documents:

 

Bin Laden's al-Qaida network was able to expand under the safe sanctuary extended by Taliban following Pakistan directives. If there is any doubt on that issue, consider the location of bin Laden's camp targeted by U.S. cruise missiles, Zahawa. Positioned on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, it was built by Pakistani contractors, funded by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate. ... If this was later to become bin Laden's base, then serious questions are raised by the early relationship between bin Laden and Pakistan's ISI

 

This is chapter 4 of the official 9/11 commission report.

 

In October, an NSC counterterrorism official noted that Pakistan's pro-Taliban military intelligence service had been training Kashmiri jihadists in one of the camps hit by U.S. missiles, leading to the death of Pakistanis.

Also from the 9/11 commission report:

 

Pakistani intelligence officers reportedly introduced bin Laden to Taliban leaders in Kandahar, ... to aid his reassertion of control over camps near Khowst.

 

Here's an extract from a recent paper by Bruce Reidel, who was NSC counter-terror staff member in the second Clinton term. He was the South Asia point of contact as well. You need subscription to access the full paper.

 

 

In this volatile mix of Afghan and Kashmiri terrorists al Qaeda developed. Osama bin Laden has a long and complex history with Pakistan and the ISI. Bin Laden first arrived in Pakistan in 1980, only a year after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Bin Laden was a rich, twenty-three-year-old volunteer with no experience in military affairs, who began his mission organizing aid from other Saudis. He quickly became a leader in the Arab community in Peshawar, providing funds and equipment to the mujahedin groups.

 

For the next ten years, bin Laden had a close operational relationship with the ISI. The Pakistani service jealously guarded its position in the Afghan movement, welcoming support from any source but carefully maintaining control of the situation on the ground. It would have been impossible for bin Laden to operate without ISI supervision and constant interaction with its operatives (Lawrence 2005). He was also in contact with the Saudi intelligence service during this period and met on occasion with its leader, Prince Turki bin Faysal. Despite allegations to the contrary, he did not have a link to the CIA, although he was well aware the CIA was funding and arming the mujahedin.

 

ISI also played a critical role in developing bin Laden’s ties with the Taliban when he returned to Afghanistan in 1996. According to the findings of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (2004), as described in The 9/11 Commission Report, ISI set up the first contacts between bin Laden and the Taliban’s leader, Mullah Omar, when bin Laden returned in 1996. Part of ISI’s motive was to get bin Laden’s help with non-Afghan groups they had jointly worked with in the past. Indeed, bin Laden’s interaction with ISI had long gone beyond the Afghan movement. He was also involved in its efforts to create and sponsor Kashmir groups to fight in India. In 1987, the ISI worked with a group of Islamic scholars in Pakistan that included bin Laden and his then–spiritual guide Abdullah Azzam to set up Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, which would become one of the most violent and extreme of the Kashmiri organizations.

 

At first it provided Kashmiri volunteers to fight in Afghanistan, and then it began attacks into Kashmir and ultimately into India’s large cities. Bin Laden provided some of the funding to get it started and remained closely connected to the group (Wilson 2007). This relationship with ISI Kashmiri clients would continue after bin Laden returned to Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

 

On August 7, 1998, bin Laden and his new al Qaeda group carried out their first major operation, attacking the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Within hours of the attack, American intelligence had information that bin Laden was going to be visiting a training camp in Afghanistan to meet with some colleagues. President Bill Clinton ordered a military strike to kill him. Unfortunately, bin Laden changed his plans and was no longer at the target when the missiles struck, missing him by perhaps as little as thirty minutes (PBS Frontline 2006).2 What is revealing is who was at the camp with bin Laden. The camp was a Kashmiri training facility run by the ISI. The majority of the fighters in the camp were from another Kashmiri group run by ISI, the Harkat ul Mujahedin (HUM). Twenty or so Kashmiris and Pakistani trainers died in the attack (Burke 2003).3 Despite public protests to the contrary, it is clear that ISI and its Kashmiri cadre were still intimately associated with bin Laden.

 

In late 1999, the connections between bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Kashmiris, the Taliban, and ISI were even more dramatically illustrated in the hijacking of an Indian airliner from Katmandu in which one passenger was brutally murdered. The hijackers were assisted in gaining access to weapons in the airport by the local ISI station in Katmandu. The hijackers were members of the HUM group and sought the release of one of their leaders, Maulana Massoud Azhar, from jail in India. The flight was diverted to Kandahar, where the Taliban protected the hijackers and negotiated with the Indian authorities. Osama bin Laden was on the ground as well, even hosting the victory dinner when the hijackers got their demands met. The ISI took Azhar on a victory tour around Pakistan after the ordeal was over to help raise funds for the Kashmiri cause.

[R011]

I don't think it matters whether or not Colin was an entry level recruit.

So you figure entry level recruits are immediately taken into the confidence of the senior leadership and told all their most sensitive information. Okey Dokey.

[Tim the Tank Nut]

Why not? If Michael Moore is a credible source then surely anything is possible.

[Gabe]

Okay, let me understand this.

 

On 9/11/2001 a gang of terrorists attacked the US and killed thousands of Americans. They were organically linked with a medeival Islamic thug regime supported by Pakistan. According to your logic, the best thing for the US is to ignore the Al Qaeda and Taliban threat and bend over backwards to please Pakistan?

 

"Bob, these Taliban fellas are not going to stop hosting international terrorists, but remember, it doesn't matter if a few thousand of our people die. The only thing matters is that Pakistan must be happy.

 

Yes Tom, we all know that the world revolves around Pakistan. Therefore in addition to ignoring their terror support, let's given them $10 Billion for all the troubles we've caused them."

 

Are you for real?

 

US interest in Afghanistan should consist of killing Al Qaeda, not terraforming Afghanistan. The Russians tried that already. It's a matter of common sense that we are more likely to get what we want if our local partners get they want. What they want is money and security. The more we keep our objectives limited, the less we'll have to please Pakistan and Afghan warlords. And its a lot cheaper in blood and treasure too because we don't get to needlessly serve as the recruiting tool for the Taliban.

 

Bottom line, we've already achieved much of what we needed in Afghanistan. We are now rapidly approaching the point of diminishing returns.

[Colin]

You seem to be forgetting the fact that Pakistan happens to be the logistical base for NATO and the US. 80% of the fuel supplies still run through Pakistan you know...

EARLIER in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama just sounded naive. Yesterday, he sounded frightening.

 

In a speech long on bluster and short on common sense, Obama called, yet again, for withdrawing our troops from Iraq and letting al Qaeda declare victory. But he's not a peacenik: He wants to use those forces to invade Pakistan.

 

While any sensible American would agree that airstrikes and special-operations raids on al Qaeda and Taliban hideouts in Pakistan make sense, the notion of sending in a massive ground force is madness.

 

What Obama has in mind would, indeed, make Iraq look like a "cakewalk."

 

In critiquing the senator's happy-go-lucky belligerency, I have two disadvantages: Unlike Obama, I actually served in the military and, unlike the senator, I've actually been in the stretch of Pakistan he speaks so merrily of invading.

 

Here's why he's nuts:

 

* Pakistan is a nuclear power on the brink of internal collapse. Do we really want to drive it over the edge and see loose nukes in the hands of a radicalized military faction - or terrorists?

 

* The mountain ranges where the terrorists are holed up are vast. The terrain is some of the toughest in the world. An invasion would suck in hundreds of thousands of troops. And a long occupation would be required.

 

* Even those tribesmen who don't support the Taliban or al Qaeda are proud and xenophobic to extremes - they'd rally against us. And all of the senator's bloggers couldn't stop them.

 

* The Pakistani military would fight us. Right now, they're cooperating, at least to some degree - but they'd fight any invader.

 

* President Pervez Musharraf's government would fall - probably overthrown by Islamic nationalists in the military and security services. Welcome to your Islamofascist nuclear power, senator.

 

* We'd also have to occupy a big corridor through Baluchistan, Pakistan's vast southwest, since we'd lose our current overflight rights and hush-hush transit privileges on the ground.

 

An army at war needs a lot of fuel, ammunition, food, water, Band-Aids, replacements, etc. (not the sort of things armchair strategists bother about). Afghanistan is landlocked and surrounded by unfriendly states. Pakistan has been helping us keep our troops supplied. And you couldn't sustain Operation Obama by air. The senator hasn't even looked at a map.

* Along with giving away the game in Iraq, an invasion of Pakistan would create a terrorist-recruiting double whammy: The Middle East would mobilize against us - and what could we expect after we invaded a friendly Islamic state?

 

* Our troops are tired and their gear's worn out. (Obama wouldn't know, and he doesn't care.) They're fighting on in Iraq because they see progress and they have a sense of duty. But does the senator, who clearly doesn't know any soldiers and Marines, expect them to surrender Iraq - then plunge into Pakistan without a collapse in morale?

 

* Even setting aside the nuke issue, what would President Obama do when Pakistan, an Islamic nation of 170 million, broke into bits? Would we also occupy Karachi, Lahore and other megacities, after they turned into urban jungles where the terrorist became the king of beasts?

 

Go after al Qaeda? You bet. Anywhere, anytime. But we've got to do it in a way that makes military sense. A general staff recruited from MoveOn.org isn't going to enhance our security.

 

The only thing Obama accomplished with his wild-eyed pistol-waving yesterday was to make his primary opponent, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, sound like a serious wartime leader.

 

Ralph Peters' latest book is "Wars of Blood and Faith.

Article is a year old, but points are still quite valid (minus the Hillary part).

 

As I mentioned, here and elsewhere, I am painfully aware of Pakistan’s hold on our logistical short and curly’s. I want to see NATO build up other supply routes quickly and not just through Russia. Pakistan feels they can play a lot of games as they hold this hand of cards, everything we can do to limit that advantage should be done right now.

[Vijay Reddy]

US interest in Afghanistan should consist of killing Al Qaeda, not terraforming Afghanistan.

 

Wrong. US interest in Afghanistan is to prevent the recurrence of a terror sanctuary from which attacks against the US are plotted with relative safety. Just by killing of the pre-9/11 Al Qaeda leadership, the US achieves very little.

 

When a bunch of venomous snakes bite your kids and slither away to their nest what would you do? Do you just try to find the one snake that caused most bites and say "There, my job is done" and wait for its offsprings to come back for seconds? Or do you say, you know what, these snakes will just not stop slithering back to bite my kids, so let me just wipe out the entire nest and make sure I have friends in that area to prevent another nest from forming?

 

"Limiting goals" is rational when you fight an optional war. However it is sheer stupidity when you face an existential and recurring threat.

[SCFalken]

Vijay:

 

Care to take a guess at what Indian reactions (what they would do, as opposed to opinions) would be to a US/NATO invasion of Pakistan?

 

Falken

[Vijay Reddy]

Vijay:

 

Care to take a guess at what Indian reactions (what they would do, as opposed to opinions) would be to a US/NATO invasion of Pakistan?

 

Falken

 

There is a strain of thought among some very influential Pakistani decision makers such as former army chief Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg who have advocated a concept called "collateral deterrence." Put simply this calls for Pakistan to launch nukes into India regardless of who attacks Pakistan beyond its red lines. I cannot imagine any Indian government would not go to battlestations if a shooting war were to take place on Pakistan's Western front. What might happen further would depend on the level of communication between the US and India. Immediately after 9/11, there was some very high level contact between the US and India and based on the memoirs of senior officials, India did indeed oblige the US' request to not send troops into Afghanistan.

 

All this said, I sincerely believe that a US/NATO invasion of Pakistan is NOT the answer or even a part of the answer to the current conundrum. Some airstrikes - on specific jihadist targets - may be useful but an invasion would likely do more harm than good. Let me explain.

 

The current crop of Taliban commanders are a bunch of nobodies. Baitullah Mehsud used to be a courier. Another Pakistani Taliban leader was a former bus driver and yet another was a ski lift operator. Killing them would be cathartic but the people who set them up would find replacements in no time. The issue is that at some point in time around 2003-04, the Pakistani military establishment figured that the US would not mind if a version of the Taliban were to take over Afghanistan again, so long as Washington can be persuaded that Al Qaeda is being pursued more seriously. As usual, the experiment they created exploded in their face, because for this new version of the Taliban, the bases had to be inside Pakistan. And guess what, these Talibunnies had a brain of their own and figured they could "invite" fighters sharing their cause from all over the world. They would also not keep things quiet inside Pakistan and wanted to turn the area into Al Qaedastan. Ergo, you have the current mess.

 

At the root of all this is this obsessive compulsive tendency of the Pakistani military establishment to use jihadists for any "problem" they see. I see little evidence that Pakistani leaders want terror attacks on the US. However, they are simply unwilling to let go of their jihadist assets even if those assets tend to go out of control. The way to solve this is to:

 

1. Empower civilian Pakistani leaders who are likely to be more responsive to the basic needs of the Pakistani people as opposed to Generals who seek to punch above their diplomatic weight.

 

2. Maintain levers of influence by giving aid and economic support that would largely be without strings. That way, the US can influence some of the appointments, who gets the cash etc. inside Pakistan.

 

3. Constantly call the Pakistanis both publicly and privately on double dealings as they happen. Without this, the Pakistanis WILL cheat. Heck, even I will have a temptation to do nothing if my client gives me money but does not constantly ask for results. It's human nature. Especially when the money is given to induce me to change longstanding habits.

 

4. Lastly, should things tend to get out of control, as we see today, make it clear at the highest military and political levels as to what Pakistan can expect if things do not change , fast. In this case, President Bush should lay it out to the Pakistani leader that their country would face economic ruin, cutoff of military supplies and diplomatic humiliation if the terror camps do not come down. The US could use its clout to get China and Saudi Arabia to join in on this message. This should be a public call.

 

At the end of the day, no one can force a nuclear Pakistan to make peace with India or Afghanistan on fundamentally unacceptable terms. However, a sustained US-Western international pressure campaign, combined with carrots, can and likely will cause Pakistan to abandon specific tactics that are harmful to the whole world. In other words, the message to Pakistan should be - "Look, we understand you have issues with India etc. and that's your business. But if your only means of addressing those issues is to create global terror sanctuaries that lead to attacks on our soil, then by Golly we'll come after you."

[alfa]

Sometimes lot of people lose sight of Indian pressure on Pakistan in the aftermath of 9/11. Within hours of 9/11 Indian PM offered full support to USA and major articles appeared in Indian newspapers based on leak from Indian Govt that India is offering bases to USA to conduct strikes against Pak-Afghanistan.

 

This “coupled with” threats from USA had bent the Pakistan into reluctantly co-operating with US war. But they talked USA into permitting them to airlift almost the whole of leadership of Al-Queda and Taliban to safety in Kunduz airlift.

 

India was ratching up pressure on Pakistan by operation Parakram threatening to invade. But Al-Powel was talked into by Pakistan to cool down India without offering anything in return.

 

Then Pakistan set up this bogey that if India withdraws troops from Indo-Pak border then its soldiers will be actively able to control Taliban attacks in Pakistan. But when India withdrew troops then Pak army started colluding with Taliban through Frontier corps & ISI.

 

Simultaneously Pakistan persuaded USA to give it billions of dollars and F-16 but its proxies continued killing US solders & allies’.

 

I think the idea is not to Invade Pakistan. Just stop Billions of dollars, spares for F-16/other toys and drop a couple of MOAB on ISI-Army headquarters to convey the sentiments.

 

There is also a view that Benazir was killed by ISI as she was deemed too close to USA. So I think CIA also needs to pay back the regards.

 

This bogey of nukes falling into Jehadi hands to bullcr@p played by Pak Army-ISI to justify its actions. The best thing to counter is that US should set out a paper from semi-Govt institution that POTUS has authorized use of tactical nukes to take out all Pak military and nuke sites in case there is “even a chance of jehadi takeover”.

 

Lest you forget Taliban is basically a western word. Afghans call them Pakistanis.

 

Taliban + Al Queda = ISI + Pak Army

[T19]

Seems another Afghan driver did not understand the signals or threat of get away from Convoys.

 

Result, Canadian Troops after trying to wave off a civilian car rushing toward the convoy. Soldiers then fired into the car. Driver lives, two children dead. Investigation now underway. Shame

[Vijay Reddy]

Seems another Afghan driver did not understand the signals or threat of get away from Convoys.

 

Result, Canadian Troops after trying to wave off a civilian car rushing toward the convoy. Soldiers then fired into the car. Driver lives, two children dead. Investigation now underway. Shame

 

Shame indeed. But that's not going to stop the jihadists from making up a story on how NATO forces "deliberately aimed at and killed 25 children."

 

Meanwhile, a Canadian diplomat breaks the Western silence on Pakistan and calls out the ISI for its involvement in the recent attacks including the barbaric one on the Indian embassy in Kabul.

 

Link

 

THE AFGHAN MISSION: 'LET'S HAVE SOME INTERNATIONAL COURAGE ON THIS FRONT'

 

UN envoy backs Karzai against Pakistan

 

Canadian the first Western diplomat to publicly support Afghan leader's accusation that Islamabad spies are behind recent attacks

GRAEME SMITH

 

July 28, 2008

 

KABUL -- Pakistan's intelligence agents are likely responsible for recent attacks in Afghanistan, and the international community should support the Afghan government's complaints about such activity, a senior United Nations envoy says.

 

Chris Alexander, a former Canadian ambassador now serving as a UN deputy special representative in Afghanistan, says he believes the Afghan authorities, who say their neighbour's spy service is sending terrorists across the border.

 

President Hamid Karzai has accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency of plotting many spectacular attacks in his country in recent months, including an attempt on his life and an embassy bombing that killed at least 41 people in Kabul.

 

"We have to ask ourselves, was Karzai right on this point?" Mr. Alexander said in an interview. "I think the answer is yes."

 

While many foreign officials and analysts have privately endorsed Mr. Karzai's view of the ISI, Mr. Alexander is the first Western diplomat to back the accusation in public.

 

"If we support him as President of Afghanistan, and we support the cause of peace and security in Afghanistan, we should be prepared to speak lucidly about these issues as well, and not be given pause or forced to back down simply because there's a reaction from someone who, quite frankly, is speaking for the spoilers," Mr. Alexander said.

 

"Let's have some international courage on this front."

 

Western diplomats have previously said they tread carefully with Pakistan in part because of the country's fragile politics, its mistrust of foreign pressure and its nuclear arsenal.

 

When asked how Islamabad might react to blunt accusations of waging a proxy war, Mr. Alexander shrugged. "I'm not sure, but there's only one way to find out. The project on which we're embarked - with its high stakes, with its serious investment, with its sacrifices - deserves at least that level of courage with regard to this issue. Otherwise we really are pretending that Niagara Falls doesn't flow."

Edited July 28, 2008 by Vijay Reddy

[alfa]

I think he is right. US opinion is swinging between two extremes.

 

One give US 20 Billion and F-16

Second Bomb the bastards to kingdom come.

 

I think the escalation has to be gradual:-

 

1. Public accusation

 

2. Cutting off military supplies

 

3.Cutting off aid/loans and hand outs

 

4.Focusing humaritian aid for schools, food and medical supplies directlh in kind or to recepients

 

5. Once in a while dropping bombs on ISI bases and HQ

 

6. Slowly helping in dis-integration of Pakistan so that all nuclear supplies get chance to move to Punjab where they get land locked

 

7. Tieing with India-CIS for building bases for massive airlift to Afghanistan in case Pakistan cuts off land route

 

 

Note:-

 

With US$ 10 Billion USA could have set up modern secular schools giving meals for whole of Pakistan and done more damage to jehadi culture then supplying F-16s to Taliban

[Vijay Reddy]

Reports on Pakistan TV channels are saying that some "top Al Qaeda Chemical weapons expert" was killed this morning in a missle strike on the Pakistani tribal areas.

 

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the Pakistan Prime Minister meeting President Bush at the White House today.

[R011]

Shame indeed. But that's not going to stop the jihadists from making up a story on how NATO forces "deliberately aimed at and killed 25 children."

 

Meanwhile, a Canadian diplomat breaks the Western silence on Pakistan and calls out the ISI for its involvement in the recent attacks including the barbaric one on the Indian embassy in Kabul.

 

Link

Interesting that Mr. Alexander also was interviewed on CTV today. Not for this, but because he was concerned about civilian casualties - specifically the two kids killed by Canadians that T19 mentioned.

 

More from Alexander here.

Edited July 28, 2008 by R011

[Vijay Reddy]

CIA wakes up, about the ISI?

 

 

C.I.A. Outlines Pakistan Links With Militants

 

By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT

 

WASHINGTON — A top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled secretly to Islamabad this month to confront Pakistan’s most senior officials with new information about ties between the country’s powerful spy service and militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas, according to American military and intelligence officials.

 

The C.I.A. emissary presented evidence showing that members of the spy service had deepened their ties with some militant groups that were responsible for a surge of violence in Afghanistan, possibly including the suicide bombing this month of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the officials said.

 

The decision to confront Pakistan with what the officials described as a new C.I.A. assessment of the spy service’s activities seemed to be the bluntest American warning to Pakistan since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks about the ties between the spy service and Islamic militants.

 

The C.I.A. assessment specifically points to links between members of the spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and the militant network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, which American officials believe maintains close ties to senior figures of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

 

The C.I.A. has depended heavily on the ISI for information about militants in Pakistan, despite longstanding concerns about divided loyalties within the Pakistani spy service, which had close relations with the Taliban in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 attacks.

 

That ISI officers have maintained important ties to anti-American militants has been the subject of previous reports in The New York Times. But the C.I.A. and the Bush administration have generally sought to avoid criticism of Pakistan, which they regard as a crucial ally in the fight against terrorism.

 

The visit to Pakistan by the C.I.A. official, Stephen R. Kappes, the agency’s deputy director, was described by several American military and intelligence officials in interviews in recent days. Some of those who were interviewed made clear that they welcomed the decision by the C.I.A. to take a harder line toward the ISI’s dealings with militant groups.

 

Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, is currently in Washington meeting with Bush administration officials. A White House spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, would not say whether President Bush had raised the issue during his meeting on Monday with Mr. Gilani. In an interview broadcast Tuesday on the PBS program “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” Mr. Gilani said he rejected as “not believable” any assertions of ISI’s links to the militants. “We would not allow that,” he said.

 

The Haqqani network and other militants operating in the tribal areas along the Afghan border are said by American intelligence officials to be responsible for increasingly deadly and complex attacks inside Afghanistan, and to have helped Al Qaeda establish a safe haven in the tribal areas.

 

Lt. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the acting commander of American forces in Southwest Asia, made an unannounced visit to the tribal areas on Monday, a further reflection of American concern.

 

The ISI has for decades maintained contacts with various militant groups in the tribal areas and elsewhere, both for gathering intelligence and as proxies to exert influence on neighboring India and Afghanistan. It is unclear whether the C.I.A. officials have concluded that contacts between the ISI and militant groups are blessed at the highest levels of Pakistan’s spy service and military, or are carried out by rogue elements of Pakistan’s security apparatus.

 

With Pakistan’s new civilian government struggling to assert control over the country’s spy service, there are concerns in Washington that the ISI may become even more powerful than when President Pervez Musharraf controlled the military and the government. Last weekend, Pakistani military and intelligence officials thwarted an attempt by the government in Islamabad to put the ISI more directly under civilian control.

 

Mr. Kappes made his secret visit to Pakistan on July 12, joining Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for meetings with senior Pakistani civilian and military leaders.

 

“It was a very pointed message saying, ‘Look, we know there’s a connection, not just with Haqqani but also with other bad guys and ISI, and we think you could do more and we want you to do more about it,’ ” one senior American official said of the message to Pakistan. The official was briefed on the meetings; like others who agreed to talk about it, he spoke on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic delicacy of Mr. Kappes’s message.

 

The meetings took place days after a suicide bomber attacked the Indian Embassy in Kabul, killing dozens. Afghanistan’s government has publicly accused the ISI of having a hand in the attack, an assertion American officials have not corroborated.

 

The decision to have Mr. Kappes deliver the message about the spy service was an unusual one, and could be a sign that the relationship between the C.I.A. and the ISI, which has long been marked by mutual suspicion as well as mutual dependence, may be deteriorating.

 

The trip is reminiscent of a secret visit that the top two American intelligence officials made to Pakistan in January. Those officials — Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, and Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director — sought to press Mr. Musharraf to allow the C.I.A. greater latitude to operate in the tribal territories.

 

It was the ISI, backed by millions of covert dollars from the C.I.A., that ran arms to guerrillas fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It is now American troops who are dying in Afghanistan, and intelligence officials believe those longstanding ties between Pakistani spies and militants may be part of an effort to destabilize Afghanistan.

 

Spokesmen for the White House and the C.I.A. declined to comment about the visit by Mr. Kappes or about the agency’s assessment. A spokesman for Admiral Mullen, Capt. John Kirby, declined to comment on the meetings, saying “the chairman desires to keep these meetings private and therefore it would be inappropriate to discuss any details.”

 

Admiral Mullen and Mr. Kappes met in Islamabad with several high-ranking Pakistani officials. They included Mr. Gilani; Mr. Musharraf; Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the army chief of staff and former ISI director; and Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj, the current ISI director.

 

One American counterterrorism official said there was no evidence of Pakistan’s government’s direct support of Al Qaeda. He said, however, there were “genuine and longstanding concerns about Pakistan’s ties to the Haqqani network, which of course has links to Al Qaeda.”

 

American commanders in Afghanistan have in recent months sounded an increasingly shrill alarm about the threat posed by Mr. Haqqani’s network. Earlier this year, American military officials pressed the American ambassador in Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, to get Pakistani troops to strike Haqqani network targets in the tribal areas.

 

Gen. Dan K. McNeill, the senior NATO commander in Afghanistan until last month, frequently discussed the ISI’s contacts with militant groups with General Kayani, Pakistan’s military chief.

 

During his visit to the tribal areas on Monday, General Dempsey met with top Pakistani commanders in Miramshah, the capital of North Waziristan, where Pakistan’s 11th Army Corps and Frontier Corps paramilitary force have a headquarters, to discuss the security situation in the region, Pakistani officials said.

 

North Waziristan, the most lawless of the tribal areas, is a hub of Al Qaeda and other foreign fighters, and the base of operations for the Haqqani network.

 

On Tuesday, Pakistani security forces raided an abandoned seminary owned by Mr. Haqqani, Pakistani officials said. No arrests were made.

[Vijay Reddy]

For folks who did not have the patience to wade through the previous gazillion posts, here's a simple summary.

 

1. Before 9/11, Pakistan WAS the Taliban. And also via the ISI the nation directly supported and took help from Al Qaeda, including running joint training camps.

 

2. After 9/11, Pakistan was given a choice of "a. With us, b. against us." They chose "c. We'll take your money and still do our thing"

 

3. After seven years of analysis the CIA has finally figured out that all the aid has had one positive effect. Whereas before 9/11, the ISI directly supported Al Qaeda, nowadays they merely support intermediaries like Jalaluddin Haqqani who in turn support Al Qaeda.To put it pictorially:

 

 

PS: Image courtesy of Bharat-Rakshak

[JimC]

CIA wakes up, about the ISI?

ISI still has links with Taliban/AQ...gee you think? It would have been more of a shock to find out they they would let go of their prized assets.

[Old Tanker]

For folks who did not have the patience to wade through the previous gazillion posts, here's a simple summary.

 

1. Before 9/11, Pakistan WAS the Taliban. And also via the ISI the nation directly supported and took help from Al Qaeda, including running joint training camps.

 

2. After 9/11, Pakistan was given a choice of "a. With us, b. against us." They chose "c. We'll take your money and still do our thing"

 

3. After seven years of analysis the CIA has finally figured out that all the aid has had one positive effect. Whereas before 9/11, the ISI directly supported Al Qaeda, nowadays they merely support intermediaries like Jalaluddin Haqqani who in turn support Al Qaeda.To put it pictorially:

 

 

I don't have a problem with that.

 

What I do note however is that at times they lay low in the weeds and between Mushy gone , Bhutto dead and Pakistan/Afganistan now being greener grass than Iraq for other Jihad orgs. they are becoming more overt.

[Vijay Reddy]

OT,

 

The problem is that the US, after all the lessons learned and money spent post 9/11, is essentially still doing what it did before 9/11 - playing defense and hoping that "allies" would deliver.

 

You have a group of guys who have hit the US homeland before. They have rejuvenated and are planning more attacks. They have been successful in targeting Europe.

 

It's simply a matter of statistics that when you have thousands of people training for one goal with relative freedom, sooner of later they will succeed, no matter how tight your homeland defense is. The other day, I was at a lecture on transnational threats by a recently retired US Homeland Security official. He put the probability of an IED blast based attack within the US as 45% over the next 5 years.

[crazyinsane105]

The other day, I was at a lecture on transnational threats by a recently retired US Homeland Security official. He put the probability of an IED blast based attack within the US as 45% over the next 5 years.

 

That is very open to interpretation. An IED can represent a simple pimp bomb made out of off the shelf components, or it can mean rigging several dozen 155 mm artillery shells together as a daisy chain style bomb. It is not difficult at all to make a an IED, depending on the type you want. You can call the truck bombs Al Qaeda and the one used in the Oklahoma City bombing as VBIEDs, or you can call the regular pipebombs made by some nutcase who goes around blowing up abortion clinics as IEDs as well. Unless of course the official was referring to a chain of IED blasts taking place in the US (aka three different terrorist cells planting IEDs all over three different cities and setting them off one by one, similar to the ones that took place in India just a few days ago), and that's a totally different thing.....

 

Oh, BTW, its been reported that Iraqi insurgents were able to travel to the US and back to Iraq quite a few times. Newsweek had reported back in 2006 that the US military had found off of a dead Iraqi insurgent a passport that indicated he was in Boston a few weeks earlier. There are other sources which hint at the fact there have been North American Muslims that have fought in Iraq as well, though there hasn't been any substantial proof for this claim, just word of mouth. So if you take these small facts into consideration, honestly, it doesn't matter how much security the US puts up. There's no way to identify who has fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir, etc. etc. Somebody is bound to slip through and do some damage.

[Vijay Reddy]

The person was referring to jihadist cells, not home grown nuts. BTW, I thought you disappeared after I gave you the page after page of evidence directly linking ISI to Al Qaeda. Has that entered your mind or are you still sticking to the:

 

The camps were being run by the ISI? his is the absolute first time I'm hearing the training camps in Afghanistan were run by the ISI. Do you have source to back that up?

[crazyinsane105]

The person was referring to jihadist cells, not home grown nuts. BTW, I thought you disappeared after I gave you the page after page of evidence directly linking ISI to Al Qaeda. Has that entered your mind or are you still sticking to the:

 

OK, so let's say the ISI was supporting Al Qaeda and all the evidence you have shown is real....then do explain why back during 9/11, the Bush administration never decided to take action against Pakistan's ISI. Wouldn't that have been the perfect opportunity for the Bush administration to go against all supporters of Al Qaeda? Why has the US given such a soft hand against such hard core supporters of Al Qaeda? That is what doesn't make too much sense. If the Bush administration really was concerned about Al Qaeda, why isn't more being done against those who support it? Or is Al Qaeda simply being used as an excuse to pursue other agendas?