Saleem Shahzad’s two very important interviews
Asia Times Pakistan Bureau Chief and TRNN contributor Syed Saleem Shahzad was found murdered in Islamabad on Tuesday. In a recent report for Asia Times and a TRNN interview, Shahzad reported on splits in the Pakistan military over support for al Qaeda. Collected here are his interviews for TRNN.
Pakistan Post Bin Laden
Saleem Shahzad: Pakistan military agrees to closer US relationship as Taliban leadership moves closer to al-Qaeda
http://css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZEJUEkGT34
Transcript:
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay in Washington. Senator John Kerry was in Pakistan on what was called a fence-building mission. Fence building necessary because the US after killing bin Laden [incompre.] accused Pakistani military and Intelligence agencies of being incompetent or, worse,perhaps protecting bin Laden. This has also sent Pakistan politics into quite a bit of turmoil. Now joining us to talk about Kerry’s trip and the current situation in Pakistan. is Now joining us, is Syed Saleem Shahzad. He’s the Pakistan bureau chief of Asia Times Online, the author of the upcoming book Inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11. He’s also the Pakistan bureau chief of Asia Times Online. Thanks for joining us, Saleem.
SYED SALEEM SHAHZAD, PAKISTAN BUREAU CHIEF, ASIA TIMES ONLINE: Thank you.
JAY: So, first of all, is there any doubt amongst the military, the intelligence agencies, or Pakistan public opinion that it was in fact Osama bin Laden who was killed?
SHAHZAD: Yes, I mean, undoubtedly it was bin Laden who was killed in Pakistan. There is no doubt about that.
JAY: Now, you’ve written extensively over the last few years about a division in the military–I guess the ISI as well, the intelligence service–that before 9/11, people that were very Islamic and very connected to the Taliban in Afghanistan who were very religious were very well promoted in the military and the ISI, and after 9/11, many of them quit in opposition to Musharraf’s alliance with the United States, some were even arrested, and there was a purge of the more senior pro-Islamist elements. But you’ve talked about this division, how some of these retired officers continued to work with mid-level cadre in the army. How are they responding to the killing of bin Laden? And what does this mean for Pakistan’s politics?
SHAHZAD: Well, as far as my understanding is concerned, many of the military officers who had a religious inclination resigned or took their retirement soon after 9/11. Some of them silently sat at their home, but many joined forces with the different militant groups. I personally interacted with some of the officers who joined Commander
Ilyas Kashmiri, who is now the member of al-Qaeda’s shura. And some of those retired army officers were also behind the Mumbai attack in 2008. And, of course, bin Laden’s killing is a big event for them. And they are also assessing the new situation after bin Laden’s killing, and that is a new collaboration between the Pakistani security forces
and the US military establishment. And as you can see in yesterday’s joint statement issued in Islamabad after John Kerry’s visit, that both countries have reiterated that they would launch joint operations against al-Qaeda, new targets. And the security forces–[an] Islamabad security forces official personally told me that it means that now
Pakistani forces and the Americans would jointly work to crack high-profile Afghan Taliban leaders and the Pakistani militants and as well as al-Qaeda leaders. So the thing is that now I can clearly see a disturbance within the Pakistani establishment. And I understand that many of those retired officials, army officials, who’d use their
clout inside the Pakistan army and instigate the [incompr.] officers, tried to manipulate them to work with the jihadi forces and instigate the rebellion against the state apparatus.
JAY: To what extent do you think the Pakistan military was simply posturing about not knowing about the attack on bin Laden? I mean, it is hard to conceive that, number one, they didn’t know he was in the house down the road from their military base. It’s also hard to conceive that even the American intelligence agencies wouldn’t have known something. You’ve written before about how much the FBI and some of the other American intelligence agencies have become kind of connected to working very closely with, even sometimes controlling, you’ve written, the Pakistan ISI. What do you think happened here?
SHAHZAD: Well, as far as Osama bin Laden’s hiding cave is concerned, I don’t have any qualified opinion to share with you. But given my interaction and my exposure with some of the retired army officials who were hand-in-glove with the jihadi forces, I can safely guess that it is quite possible that some retired army officers, use their connections to keep Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, although I’m not sure that he was living over there for the last five years. I’m not sure about the time period which is mentioned by the Americans. But I think that if he was living in Abbottabad for several months, I think it was not possible without the help and connivance of some of the elements who were directly or indirectly connected with the military establishment.
JAY: Now, the leaders of the army and the intelligence service spoke in Pakistan’s Parliament a little while ago, I guess just a few days ago, in an unprecedented presentation. But you wrote what they said there was essentially riddled with contradictions. What were the contradictions?
SHAHZAD: There were many contradictions. First of all, they vent their anger, they vent their anger against the American strikes inside Abbottabad. But I think that they were very much onboard, they were very much onboard. As far as my understanding and my information is concerned, Americans did inform them about the arrival of the Navy SEALs inside Pakistan, but they did not share the information that–where they would strike and what is their exact high-value target. The name of the high-value target, that was Osama bin Laden. So that is very much in line of the previous American tactics in Pakistan. They did send Navy SEALs inside Pakistan in past years, and they did share the information with Pakistan, and Pakistan did back those initiatives. But the thing was that–they made lot of hue and cry about the drone
strikes and everything, but immediately after the parliamentary revolution, there were at least two drone strikes inside Pakistan. And there was not even a formal protest by Pakistani military establishment or by the Pakistani foreign office.
JAY: Saleem, I thought you had written that the head of the Air Force, I think, had said to Parliament that you should give us orders to shoot these drones down.
SHAHZAD: That’s true. That’s true. He said, actually, actually, Armed Forces chief tried to take parliamentary cover. But they did not mean that, no. They give the option to the Parliament, and at the same time, they also warn the Parliament that if you allow us and Pakistani Armed Forces would retaliate, we’re waiting for the American reactions, that Americans would also react in the same way–in more harsher way, rather. So, I mean, they put the option in front of theParliament, but at the same time, they also warned the Parliament. So it was–I mean, it was a sort of a defective briefing, I must say. So there were a lot of–I mean, the whole of their statement was completely riddled by contradictions.
JAY: Now, the–what exactly is the strength and role of al-Qaeda now in Pakistan? You hear everything from there’s, like, 50 al-Qaeda fighters left and they really don’t play much of a role. On the other side of it, you hear that al-Qaeda’s actually reborn itself, has new leadership, and has a very close connection with the Taliban. Where is
the truth in this as you know it?
SHAHZAD: There are two aspects. Number one, there are–first you have to understand this fact, that there are 17 Arab-Afghan groups which are operating inside Pakistani tribal areas and in Afghanistan, and most of the groups are allied with al-Qaeda, but they are not part of al-Qaeda. They have alliance with al-Qaeda, but they are not a part of al-Qaeda, number one. And the strength of those 17 Arab-Afghan groups is, like, over 1,000, approximately. Second, those who are the members of al-Qaeda are hardly, like, 100, not more than 100. The third thing is–and this is the most important thing, and that is the phenomenon of neo-Taliban, the new generation of those Afghan fighters, of the Pakistani fighters, or the fighters coming from the Pakistani tribal areas who were–previously pledged their allegiance to Mullah Omar and
the Taliban. But now they–in the last ten years, they completely absorbed al-Qaeda’s ideology inside-out, and they are more loyal to al-Qaeda than Mullah Omar or to the al-Qaeda leaders or to their jihadi commanders. So this is the new group, this al-Qaeda horizontally, not only in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the tribal areas, but all across the globe, like in Yemen, in Somalia, and other parts, even in America. So this is the new generation, on which al-Qaeda is heavily banking on. And not only those, but it also includes the new converts, white Caucasians, which are living in North Waziristan and in South Waziristan. And many of them were sent back to their countries of origin in Europe, Canada, and America, and different countries. So this was completely a new phenomenon. Al-Qaeda grew horizontally in different directions.
JAY: Now, al-Qaeda’s relationship and the Taliban’s relationship with the ISI and the Pakistan military has also been a matter of great debate. Many people have suggested that there’s kind of a dual policy going on, that the Taliban at the very least, if not al-Qaeda, but the Taliban, are a sort of a lever, a card that Pakistan gets to play in
Afghanistan. And there’s also been talk about this split, the Pakistan Taliban versus the Afghan Taliban, that the Afghan Taliban are focused on Afghanistan, and they have the links with the Pakistan military. But the Pakistani Taliban is closer to al-Qaeda, and they’re more targeted at overthrowing the Pakistan regime itself. So what do you
make of that?
SHAHZAD: Over the last ten years, things have become very complicated. You cannot say that in any categorical terms, that Afghan Taliban are the same person as the Pakistani establishment. Yes, part of Afghan Taliban is still in contact with the military establishment, but all their top commanders, all the top commanders of Taliban, Afghan
Taliban, are now completely in the hands of al-Qaeda. For example, the biggest Taliban Afghan commander is Sirajuddin Haqqani. He is very close to al-Qaeda. Similarly, Commander Nazir who runs the largest anti-NATO, anti-Western coalition network in Afghan province of Paktika–he has also influence in the Afghan province of Zabul and
Helmand– is completely part of al-Qaeda. People say that he is Afghan Taliban. He is very close to the military establishment. But when recently I interviewed him, he said to me in categorical terms that “I am part of al-Qaeda,” and he–and his very close lieutenant handed me check in which it was written that anybody who would be friendly with Pakistan would be considered as Taliban and al-Qaeda’s foe. So that
actually showed that the currents have completely changed in the last ten years. Asia has completely changed in the last ten years.
JAY: Thanks very much for joining us Syed and we will continue to do this conversation in Pt. 2 of this interview and please join us for that on The Real News Network.
Splits in Pakistan’s military over new agreement to cooperate with US:
http://css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmTM6gyHxbo
Transcript
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Based partly on what you’ve written, it seems that the more pressure the US puts on the Pakistan army to participate in the Afghan war and to deal with the al-Qaeda Taliban elements, the more it splits the army. How serious a division is there?
SHAHZAD: There are several dimensions of this split. Number one, you have to appreciate the Pakistani military establishment supported the Taliban regime for the last–for five years from the middle to late ’90s and early 2000. So the thing is that they not only supported the Taliban regime but they had also some agreements with the Taliban. And they had even the agreements with al-Qaeda before 9/11.
JAY: In some of your articles you have mentioned the possibilities of even a kind of mutiny. Is that possible now?
SYED SALEEM SHAHZAD, PAKISTAN BUREAU CHIEF, ASIA TIMES ONLINE: Well, it is quite possible. And if you remember, immediately after the 9/11, there were several attacks on then chief of the army staff and the president, Mr. Pervez Musharraf. And each of those attacks, there was a connection of Pakistani Armed Forces. In some cases there were southern Pakistan Air Force officials were involved. So you just cannot set aside the element of a limited mutiny in Pakistan army. There would certainly be a backlash, because you have to appreciate this fact, that Pakistan army has always been closely allied with Islamist forces. They had agreements with with the Taliban in the past when they were ruling Afghanistan, and they had even agreements with al-Qaeda when they were living in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime. They had, even, agreement with al-Qaeda, when Lieutenant General Mahmud, of the ISI, visited Kandahar after 9/11, and he met with the Taliban government. And he verbally assured Osama bin Laden that Pakistan would not mount any operation against al-Qaeda, they would not try to arrest them, and al-Qaeda would not, you know, retaliate against Pakistan, either. So, under the same very agreement, you know, Osama bin Laden and all the top al-Qaeda members were allowed to sneak inside Pakistan. And the crackdowns have mounted only in 2003, when Pakistani intelligence wrongly reported to General Pervez Musharraf that al-Qaeda was behind the attack on his motorcade in 2003. As a reaction, then Musharraf ordered a crackdown against al-Qaeda and all the jihadi organizations. And then, I mean, of course al-Qaeda also retaliated against the Pakistani military establishment and against Pervez Musharraf. So the thing is that the element of a limited revolt or mutiny within the Pakistan army is there, and you just cannot, you know, ignore that.
JAY: Now, how has the broader sections of Pakistani public opinion reacted to the killing of bin Laden and what’s going on in terms of the controversy with the military and the ISI? I mean, what do–I know there’s no such thing as most Pakistanis, but in terms of the sort of majority of urban Pakistan public opinion, you could say, what do they think?
SHAHZAD: The majority population of urban Pakistan are completely disillusioned with the Pakistani military establishment. They are least bothered about anti-Americanism. They are least bothered about al-Qaedaism. They are least bothered about Pakistan’s military role. But they do bother about two, three things. One is the economic meltdown in the whole country, the economic crisis in the country. They do bother about and they do concern about–on the question of Pakistan sovereignty, which is under siege from all sides, not only from the American side, but also from the militant side. I mean, they are very much concerned that Pakistan has turned into a proxy battleground by all sorts of forces, not only from the al-Qaeda side and the American side, but also Iranians and the Saudis are very active inside Pakistan, and they are paying money to different groups in different militant outfits to settle the score against each other. So the thing is, they are completely disillusioned with everybody, and they are looking for some new leaders who would, you know, take the country out of the crisis, of economic crisis, of the political crisis. And the issue–and the identity crisis. Pakistan’s identity crisis, that what is Pakistan is really up to. Is it a republic? Is it an Islamic Republic? Is it democratic state? Or what? So they are actually–they’re completely disillusioned with the situation.
JAY: Now, just let me ask you one final question, which I haven’t asked you before. The 9/11 attacks themselves, if in fact they were organized from bin Laden and al-Qaeda, and he was in Afghanistan but he was closely tied to at least elements, if not important sections, of the leadership of the Pakistan military and intelligence, clearly bin Laden was closely connected with sections of the Saudi royal family. Has there ever been an inquiry or a call for an inquiry into what was behind 9/11 and whether or not Pakistan or Saudi intelligence played any role in it?
SHAHZAD: You have to appreciate two things when you would investigate the 9/11 plot. Number one, the broader ideas. The broader ideas actually came from Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who actually wanted a friction between the West and the Muslim world on very broad lines. And for that, he actually wanted a flashpoint to be created. And the second element was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was not al-Qaeda’s member. He was a standalone jihadi. And he came up with this idea of 9/11. And then he proposed that idea to Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden. Ayman al-Zawahiri was the most happy person. And if you study Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri’s personality, you would be knowing that he is a silent manipulator. He cunningly manipulated Osama bin Laden’s mind, and that way he made sure that 9/11, like, even would happen in America, but because it would guarantee a massive friction in the world, and massive polarization in the world, and would divide the world on ideological lines, and that is what he was precisely looking for. So I don’t think that there is any question of the Saudi involvement, Saudi establishment’s involvement or the Pakistani military establishment involvement. No matter how close they were to the Taliban or Osama bin Laden or any other personality–even Osama bin Laden was very well manipulated by Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri.
JAY: There certainly was some evidence of connections between the Saudi royal family. There was a document from a congressional investigation that the LA Times reported on, that there were at least individual members of the Saudi royal family that have helped to finance certain members of the 9/11 participants. Has this ever been actually investigated or looked into within Pakistan? Because as you’ve–you’ve reported yourself that the ISI and military had very close connections with al-Qaeda before 9/11.
SHAHZAD: There were proofs, there were evidence of financial linkages between the Taliban and al-Qaeda and the Saudi royal family, and even within the Pakistani military establishment. But, actually, those linkages were presented larger than the life. Most of that financial assistance was meant for the NGOs which were operating in Afghanistan. And several royal family members donated the funds to those NGOs. But it was presented in a different light, in a different angle, as the royal family donated the money, royal family members donated the money to al-Qaeda for launching 9/11 operation. So that was–I don’t, you know, give much break to those evidences. Al-Qaeda is completely an anti-establishment and anti-state element. And this is the same for the whole world. Al-Qaeda is not loyal to any single state of the world. So I don’t subscribe, actually.
JAY: Okay. Just one thing, finally, then. The Americans have positioned the death of bin Laden as a possible opening for negotiations with the Taliban, that now the Taliban can separate itself from al-Qaeda and there’s some kind of a process that can now be negotiated. Do you think there’s any merit to that argument?
SHAHZAD: I don’t think so. I don’t think so. They are grieving, actually. Number one, they underestimated the–or you can say they have wrongly interpreted Taliban’s sentiments. Taliban, whether they are different from al-Qaeda or they have differences from al-Qaeda on strategy and maybe on the ideology, but they are very courteous people. And since Americans have assassinated Osama bin Laden, this is no occasion for the Taliban that they would ditch al-Qaeda and they would switch to Americans. It is quite possible that after five, six years, after many years, they would behave differently. But on this particular occasion, on this particular occasion, I don’t think that Taliban would behave in a friendly way towards Americans. I don’t think so.
JAY: Alright. Thanks very much for joining us, Saleem.
SHAHZAD: My pleasure.
JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.
Saleem Shehzad Killed..Bolta Pakistan – 31st May 2011 -1
Missing Pakistan journalist Saleem Shahzad found dead near Islamabad
Shahzad’s body was discovered less than two days after he was allegedly abducted by ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence service.
A prominent Pakistani journalist has been found dead on the roadside outside Islamabad, less than two days after he was allegedly abducted by the country’s powerful military intelligence service.
Saleem Shahzad disappeared on his way to a television interview on Sunday evening. Human Rights Watch said it learned he been abducted by the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI).
Shahzad’s body was found six miles from his car in a small hamlet on the edge of Islamabad. Local media reported that he had torture marks on his face and a gunshot wound to the stomach.
“This killing bears all the hallmarks of previous killings perpetrated by Pakistani intelligence agencies,” said Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch, noting that Shahzad had previously warned that his life was in danger from the ISI.
Hasan called for a “transparent investigation and court proceedings”. Other journalists reacted angrily, directly accusing the ISI of responsibility.
“Any journalist here who doesn’t believe that it’s our intelligence agencies?” tweeted Mohammed Hanif, a bestselling author and BBC correspondent.
Shahzad, the Pakistan correspondent for the Hong Kong-based news service Asia Times Online, vanished two days after publishing a story alleging negotiations between Pakistan military officials and al-Qaida.
The story claimed that al-Qaida attacked the Mehran naval base in Karachi on 22 May in retaliation for the arrest of two naval officials with militant links. Al-Qaida had been secretly pressing the military to release the men, Shahzad said.
Pakistani security forces battled for 17 hours to contain the assault, during which at least four heavily armed men slipped into the base, blew up two American-built surveillance planes and killed 10 soldiers.
On Tuesday Pakistani media reported that military intelligence had picked up a retired navy commando and his brother in Lahore in connection with the raid. The detained men, who allegedly have militant links, were previously questioned in connection to an earlier militant assault.
Shahzad was abducted from central Islamabad on Sunday evening as he travelled to the studios of Dunya television to discuss his report on the naval base attack. The following day, after being alerted by Shahzad’s wife, Hasan said he had been informed through “reliable interlocutors” that Shahzad was being held by the ISI.
Last October Shahzad sent Human Rights Watch an email saying he was afraid he would be killed by the ISI, Hasan claimed. In the email, intended to be released in the event of his death, Shahzad said he had been summoned to ISI headquarters in Islamabad to discuss an article about Mullah Brader, a Taliban commander captured in Pakistan with American help months earlier.
The two ISI officials Shahzad said were present at the meeting, Rear Admiral Adnan Nawaz and Commodore Khalid Pervaiz, were both naval officers. Last week Pervaiz was made commander of the Karachi naval base that was attacked.
“We believed [Shahzad’s] claim that he was being threatened by the ISI is credible, and any investigation into his murder has to factor this in,” Hasan said.
Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan called for a government inquiry into the “heinous crime”, but avoided mention of the ISI, focusing blame on the “servile policies [of] a corrupt and inept government”.
As a reporter, Shahzad was known for delving deep into the murky underworld of Islamist militancy. He had interviewed some of the most notorious leaders including Sirajuddin Haqqani, a major player in the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, and Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistani militant who works for al-Qaida.
His new book, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11, had just been published.
Pakistan is the world’s most dangerous country for journalists, according to Reporters without Borders, which says that 16 journalists have been killed in the past 14 months.
Last September Umar Cheema, another investigative reporter, was abducted from Islamabad for six hours and tortured before being released. He said he suspected that his kidnappers belonged to the ISI.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/31/missing-pakistan-journalist-found-dead?cat=world&type=article
Syed Saleem Shahzad’s News report and analysis on Mumbai attack:
MILAN – A plan by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) that had been in the pipelines for several months – even though official policy was to ditch it – saw what was to be a low-profile attack in Kashmir turn into the massive attacks on Mumbai last week.
The original plan was highjacked by the Laskar-e-Taiba (LET), a Pakistani militant group that generally focussed on the Kashmir struggle, and al-Qaeda, resulting in the deaths of nearly 200 people in Mumbai as groups of militants sprayed bullets and hand
grenades at hotels, restaurants and train stations, as well as a Jewish community center.
The attack has sent shock waves across India and threatens to revive the intense periods of hostility the two countries have endured since their independence from British India in 1947.
There is now the possibility that Pakistan will undergo another about-turn and rethink its support of the “war in terror”; until the end of 2001, it supported the Taliban administration in Afghanistan. It could now back off from its restive tribal areas, leaving the Taliban a free hand to consolidate their Afghan insurgency.
A US State Department official categorically mentioned that Pakistan’s “smoking gun” could turn the US’s relations with Pakistan sour. The one militant captured – several were killed – is reported to have been a Pakistani trained by the LET.
A plan goes wrong
Asia Times Online investigations reveal that several things went wrong within the ISI, which resulted in the Mumbai attacks.
Before the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, the ISI had several operations areas as far as India was concerned. The major forward sections were in Muzzafarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which were used to launch proxy operations through Kashmir separatist groups in Indian-administered Kashmir.
The next major areas were Nepal and Bangladesh, where both countries were used for smuggling arms and ammunition into India and for launching militants to carry out high-level guerrilla operations in Indian territory other than Kashmir.
After 9/11, when Islamabad sided with the United States in the “war on terror” and the invasion of Afghanistan was launched to catch al-Qaeda members and militants, Pakistan was forced to abandon its Muzzafarabad operations under American pressure. The major recent turn in the political situation in Nepal with the victory of Maoists and the abolishment of the monarchy has reduced the ISI’s operations. An identical situation has happened in Bangladesh, where governments have changed.
The only active forward sections were left in the southern port city of Karachi, and the former Muzzafarabad sections were sent there. The PNS Iqbal (a naval commando unit) was the main outlet for militants to be given training and through deserted points they were launched into the Arabian sea and on into the Indian region of Gujarat.
At the same time, Washington mediated a dialogue process between India and Pakistan, which resulted in some calm. Militants were advised by the ISI to sit tight at their homes to await orders.
However, that never happened. The most important asset of the ISI, the Laskhar-e-Taiba (LET), was split after 9/11. Several of its top-ranking commanders and office bearers joined hands with al-Qaeda militants. A millionaire Karachi-based businessman, Arif Qasmani, who was a major donor for ISI-sponsored LET operations in India, was arrested for playing a double game – he was accused of working with the ISI while also sending money to Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal area for the purchase of arms and ammunition for al-Qaeda militants.
The network of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, which was a major supporter of the ISI in the whole region, especially in Bangladesh, was shattered and fell into the hands of al-Qaeda when Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri, chief of Harkat, a hero of the armed struggle in Kashmir who had spent two years in an Indian jail, was arrested by Pakistani security forces in January 2004. He was suspected of having links to suicide bombers who rammed their vehicles into then-president General Pervez Musharraf’s convoy on December 25, 2003.
He was released after 30 days and cleared of all suspicion, but he was profoundly affected by the experience and abandoned his struggle for Kashmir’s independence and moved to the North Waziristan tribal area with his family. His switch from the Kashmiri struggle to the Afghan resistance was an authentic religious instruction to those in the camps in Kashmir to move to support Afghanistan’s armed struggle against foreign forces. Hundreds of Pakistani jihadis established a small training camp in the area.
Almost simultaneously, Harkat’s Bangladesh network disconnected itself from the ISI and moved closer to al-Qaeda. That was the beginning of the problem which makes the Mumbai attack a very complex story.
India has never been a direct al-Qaeda target. This has been due in part to Delhi’s traditionally impartial policy of strategic non-alignment and in part to al-Qaeda using India as a safe route from the Arabian Sea into Gujrat and then on to Mumbai and then either by air or overland to the United Arab Emirates. Al-Qaeda did not want to disrupt this arrangement by stirring up attacks in India.
Nevertheless, growing voices from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and from within India for the country to be a strategic partner of NATO and the US in Afghanistan compelled al-Qaeda, a year ago, to consider a plan to utilize Islamic militancy structures should this occur.
Several low-profile attacks were carried out in various parts of India as a rehearsal and Indian security agencies still have no idea who was behind them. Nevertheless, al-Qaeda was not yet prepared for any bigger moves, like the Mumbai attacks.
Under directives from Pakistan’s army chief, General Ashfaq Kiani, who was then director general (DG) of the ISI, a low-profile plan was prepared to support Kashmiri militancy. That was normal, even in light of the peace process with India. Although Pakistan had closed down its major operations, it still provided some support to the militants so that the Kashmiri movement would not die down completely.
After Kiani was promoted to chief of army staff, Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj was placed as DG of the ISI. The external section under him routinely executed the plan of Kiani and trained a few dozen LET militants near Mangla Dam (near the capital Islamabad). They were sent by sea to Gujrat, from where they had to travel to Kashmir to carry out operations.
Meanwhile, a major reshuffle in the ISI two months ago officially shelved this low-key plan as the country’s whole focus had shifted towards Pakistan’s tribal areas. The director of the external wing was also changed, placing the “game” in the hands of a low-level ISI forward section head (a major) and the LET’s commander-in-chief, Zakiur Rahman.
Zakiur was in Karachi for two months to personally oversee the plan. However, the militant networks in India and Bangladesh comprising the Harkat, which were now in al-Qaeda’s hands, tailored some changes. Instead of Kashmir, they planned to attack Mumbai, using their existent local networks, with Westerners and the Jewish community center as targets.
Zakiur and the ISI’s forward section in Karachi, completely disconnected from the top brass, approved the plan under which more than 10 men took Mumbai hostage for nearly three days and successfully established a reign of terror.
The attack, started from ISI headquarters and fined-tuned by al-Qaeda, has obviously caused outrage across India. The next issue is whether it has the potential to change the course of India’s regional strategy and deter it from participating in NATO plans in Afghanistan.
Daniel Pipes, considered a leading member of Washington’s neo-conservatives, told Asia Times Online, “It could be the other way around, like always happens with al-Qaeda. Nine-eleven was aimed to create a reign of terror in Washington, but only caused a very furious reaction from the United States of America. The 07/07 bombing [in London] was another move to force the UK to pull out of Iraq, but it further reinforced the UK’s policies in the ‘war on terror’. The Madrid bombing was just an isolated incident which caused Spain’s pullout from Iraq.”
Pipes continued, “They [militants] are the believers of conspiracy theories and therefore they would have seen the Jewish center [attacked in Mumbai] as some sort of influence in the region and that’s why they chose to target it, but on the other hand they got immense international attention which they could not have acquired if they would have just attacked local targets.”
Israeli politician and a former interim president, Abraham Burg, told Asia Times Online, “It was not only Jewish but American and other foreigners [who were targeted]. The main purpose may have been to keep foreigners away from India. Nevertheless, there is something deeper. This attack on a Jewish target becomes symbolic.
“I remember when al-Qaeda carried out the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen [in 2000] and then they carried out attacks on American embassies in Africa, they mentioned several reasons. The Palestinian issue was number four or five, but later when they found that it had become the most popular one, it suddenly climbed up to number one position on their priority list. Since the attack on the Jewish institution drew so much attention, God forbid, it could be their strategy all over the world,” Burg said.
Al-Qaeda stoked this particular fire that could spark new hostilities in South Asia. What steps India takes on the military front against Pakistan will become clearer in the coming days, but already in Karachi there has been trouble.
Two well-known Indophile political parties, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, a coalition partner in the government comprising people who migrated to Pakistan after the partition of British India in 1947, and the Awami National Party, another coalition partner in the government and a Pashtun sub-nationalist political party, clashed within 24 hours of the Mumbai attacks. Fifteen people have been killed to date and the city is closed, like Mumbai was after the November 26 attacks.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JL02Df05.html
“They had, even, agreement with al-Qaeda, when Lieutenant General Mahmud, of the ISI, visited Kandahar after 9/11, and he met with the Taliban government. And he verbally assured Osama bin Laden that Pakistan would not mount any operation against al-Qaeda, they would not try to arrest them, and al-Qaeda would not, you know, retaliate against Pakistan, either. ”
Nothing but fact. Mehmood Achakzai said the same thing back in MRD procession under Musharaf.
Saleem Shahzad’s news report and analysis on the OBL debacle
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s military and intelligence community was fully aware of and lent assistance to the United States mission to get a high-value target in Abbottabad on May 2. What it did not know was that it was Osama bin Laden who was in the crosshairs of US Special Forces, and what angered the top brass even more was that Washington – in clear breach of an understanding – claimed sole ownership of the operation.
Over the years since Pakistan joined the US in the “war on terror” following the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 to oust the Taliban, the US has conducted numerous covert operations – apart from unleashing the missiles of unmanned Predator drones on militant targets – deep inside Pakistan.
For instance, the Los Angeles Times reported on July 27, 2008, “On occasions, US Special Forces teams have been sent into
Pakistan. In 2006, one of the nation’s most elite units, Seal Team 6, raided a suspected al-Qaeda compound at Damadola [in the Bajaur Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas].”
Under this arrangement, the US would conduct raids against high-value targets and Pakistan would provide the necessary support, but Pakistan, for political reasons so that nobody would question that its sovereignty had been compromised, would claim responsibility for the raids.
Following the assassination of Bin Laden, though, within a few hours US President Barack Obama in an address to the American nation said that US Navy Seals had single-handedly conducted the operation.
The incident over Raymond Davis, a contractor with the Central Intelligence Agency, strained the understanding between Pakistan and the US over covert operations.
Davis killed two armed men in Lahore in January and although the US said he was protected by diplomatic immunity, he was jailed and charged with murder. He was released in March after the families of the two killed men were paid US$2.4 million in blood money. Judges acquitted him on all charges and Davis immediately departed Pakistan.
Pakistan then demanded a fresh agreement with the US that would better serve its strategic gains; it is already a major recipient of US aid and arms sales – approximately US$20 billion over the past decade. The Americans in turn wanted the continued right to undertake strikes, but specifically against high-value targets such as Taliban leader Mullah Omar, Bin Laden, his deputy Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri and a leading figure in the Taliban resistance, Sirajuddin Haqqani.
The US sent four warning letters to the Pakistan army through diplomatic channels in which it expressed its reservations on Pakistan’s cooperation in finding high-value sanctuaries. Pakistan responded by asking for better economic deals and a greater role in the Afghan end game.
The demands on both sides were such that international players were called in to mediate. These included top Saudi authorities and Prince Karim Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the Shi’ite Ismaili community. They played a pivotal role in fostering a new strategic agreement of which the Abbottabad operation was a part. That is, Pakistan was on board but was kept in the dark over the target on the explicit understanding that it would take ownership.
The Saudis included ex-ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who had been sidelined for some years through illness and palace intrigue. He had helped resolve the Davis case and set the parameters for joint surgical strikes inside Pakistan against defiant al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders to pave the way for an end game in Afghanistan.
In the first week of April, the White House released a terror report charging Pakistan with being hand-in-glove with militants. Soon after, the director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, went to the US for a very short visit that according to the Associated Press centered on “intelligence cooperation”. Security sources confirmed to Asia Times Online that the new security arrangement was high on the agenda.
Pasha, instead of returning directly to Pakistan, stopped over in Paris where he met the Aga Khan, and then proceeded to Turkey for talks with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who was in the country on an official visit, to appraise him of the new agreement.
In the last week of April, the US’s top man in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, met with Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani and informed him of the US Navy Seals operation to catch a high-value target. The deal was done.
Pakistan was therefore hugely stunned and embarrassed when Obama made his earth-shattering announcement taking all the credit for Osama’s death.
In an address to parliament on Monday, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said that unilateral actions such as the US’s killing of Bin Laden ran the risk of serious consequences, but he reiterated his earlier stance that the US Special Forces had reached the compound of Bin Laden in Abbottabad with the help of the ISI.
But White House Press Secretary Jay Carney made it clear that even if Pakistan asked for one, it would not receive an apology from the United States. “We obviously take the statements and concerns of the Pakistani government seriously, but we also do not apologize for the action that we took,” Carney said.
Despite this setback, Asia Times Online contacts say the spat does not mean the end of operations – they will go on as agreed, with all credit taken by Pakistan.
“This relationship is too important to walk away from,” Carney said this week.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/ME12Df02.html
Silenced once again
By Adnan Rehmat
Murder is the severest form of censorship and a brave Pakistani journalist has just offered proof with his life. Syed Saleem Shahzad has joined the unacceptably long list of over 70 journalists who have been killed in the line of duty in Pakistan since 2000. How has Pakistan become the most dangerous country to practice journalism?
Fundamentalism, extremism and militancy have brutalised Pakistani society since proxies that Pakistan has nurtured for two decades took on America in Afghanistan in the early part of the last decade.
As the conflict between the US and al Qaeda spilled over from Afghanistan into Pakistan, the need for reporting it grew enormously as did the attendant risks of doing so.
As fate would have it, the evolution of Pakistan’s independent broadcast media coincided with the rise of terrorism in the country as did the expansion of the al Qaeda-US fight and the co-option of Pakistan-based militants into this battle.
And as the state of Pakistan allied itself optically with the US in the war on terrorism, it marked out the military, civil society and the media as enemies of al Qaeda and its fighting forces in Pakistan represented by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The violence that has engulfed Pakistan for the last decade did not leave the media immune to its consequences.
While there have been journalists who have been killed in bomb blasts in markets, processions and funerals across the country, caught in the wrong place and wrong time, the last three years have seen a rise against target killings of journalists in Pakistan. At least 17 have been killed this way.
The number of journalists who were target-killed grew sharply after the media stopped self-censoring themselves too much in the wake of the footage of a girl being flogged by the Taliban in Swat, which proved a turning point in the media losing its fear of the Taliban.
This was the beginning of a more unrestrained narrative on terrorism which injected grim realism in reporting. The consequence of the media finding that the public was receptive to this kind of reporting promoted a culture of risk taking which first generated warnings from the Taliban to the media to “behave”. When there was no major change in the behavior and attitude of the media, the killings began.
From the tribal areas in the mountainous northwest to the coastal areas in the sandy southeast, Pakistani journalists have been hounded and killed for reporting the brutalities of a war that has claimed the lives of over 30,000 in Pakistan over the last 10 years.
While over 70 have been killed, a staggering 2,000-plus have been injured, arrested or kidnapped – a large number of them by the military regime of General Pervez Musharraf.
But while the militants had been hounding and hurting the journalists since 2002, the “Musharraf treatment” added a new dimension to the policy of intolerance for media openness and pluralisms.
In one single instance nearly 120 journalists were arrested in Karachi in one fell swoop and in another single incident about 140 in Islamabad by Musharraf’s thugs. It is this state sanction for this kind of intolerance of media independence that has now allowed the level of impunity where many journalists have been killed with the suspicion for most falling on the security establishment.
The fact that the killers of not even one Pakistani journalist killed has been found, prosecuted and punished has meant the media has been an easy target.
Saleem’s death is not ordinary even among the long list of journalists killed in Pakistan in recent years. Because his last news story attempted to establish that the security establishment had been in talks with al Qaeda to negotiate a deal that would prevent attacks on it, it is reasonable to assume that this claim was linked with his kidnap, torture and murder.
He had told a friend a day after the report was published that this was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg and that he would be filing a couple of major stories that would rattle many.
Whether it was the security establishment that killed him or the declared terrorists, the fact is he was killed for daring to attempt to share information that affected the country and its people.
The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen, not murder. Saleem’s death signals that dirty secrets will not easily be allowed to be shared with the people of Pakistan.
He, as well as the others in the long list of Pakistan’s brave journalists who have given their lives in the pursuit of being the guardians of public interest, deserves our lasting gratitude for being the watchdog of our interests.
They were purveyors of light in a land where the shadows grow long. May they rest in eternal peace. May there not be another Pakistani journalist who in the pursuit of news becomes a news item himself.
http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/31/silenced-once-again.html
Interior Minister Rehman Malik’s media address on Saleem Shehzad’s murder
http://tribune.com.pk/multimedia/videos/179919/
Zardari mafia government is responsible for his murderer. Zardari killed his brother in law and his own wife and is a known criminal. SHAME FOR ZARDARI as he could not protect an innocent life.
Pakistan’s spy agencies are suspected of ties to reporter’s death
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Last week, a prominent Pakistani investigative reporter published an article alleging that al-Qaeda had infiltrated the Pakistan navy and carried out the recent attack on a naval air base. On Tuesday, the journalist’s body — his face severely beaten — was found 100 miles from his home in this capital city, two days after he disappeared.
Syed Saleem Shahzad’s killing was payback, other journalists and human rights activists said they believed — not from militants, but from Pakistan’s fearsome spy agencies. Shahzad had written before about their dealings with Islamist insurgents, and intelligence officers had warned him.
“I am forwarding this email to you for your record only if in case something happens to me or my family in future,” Shahzad, 40, wrote last October to the Pakistan representative of Human Rights Watch, sharing details of a meeting he had just had with officers from Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. Shahzad suggested that they had threatened him, an experience that Pakistani journalists, activists and politicians say is not uncommon.
But those threats rarely end in killing, and Shahzad’s death immediately sparked fresh criticism of Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus. The “agencies,” as they are known here, last month faced unusual public condemnation for their apparent failure to locate Osama bin Laden in a garrison city, as well as allegations that they had harbored him.
On Tuesday, the focus was on activities Pakistan’s spies are better known for domestically: punishing those who cross the powerful military, the main locus of power in a nation with a weak civilian government.
An ISI official denied that the agency was involved in Shahzad’s death. “Show us the proof. Otherwise, it’s totally absurd,” the official said.
Shahzad’s killing also renewed attention on the alleged crossover between militants and Pakistan’s security forces, some of which he outlined in his recent article for the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online, for which he was the Pakistan bureau chief. According to Shahzad’s reporting, last week’s attack on a Karachi naval base was a response to the Pakistani navy’s detection of al-Qaeda cells within its ranks, and it followed failed discussions between the navy and al-Qaeda about the release of naval officers arrested on suspicions of links to the terrorist group.
On Monday, Pakistani media reported that a former navy commando had been detained for questioning in the attack.
U.S. intelligence analysts are skeptical that al-Qaeda has penetrated Pakistan’s armed forces. “There’s not likely to be an organized al-Qaeda cell within the Pakistan navy,” a U.S. official said.
But U.S. officials said that there is a long-standing concern over the presence of Islamic militants — what one official referred to as “onesies and twosies” — among Pakistan’s military branches. Pakistan’s leaders privately share this concern, U.S. officials said.
On the radar
The author of a new book on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, Shahzad was considered well connected to both the military establishment and militant groups. He persisted though the ISI had warned him several times about articles they “deemed detrimental to Pakistan’s national interests or image,” according to the Asia Times Online.
In October, Shahzad told Human Rights Watch, the ISI summoned him over an article that said Pakistan had released Abdul Ghani Baradar, an Afghan Taliban commander arrested in Karachi in early 2010, so that he could play a part in reconciliation talks in Afghanistan. An ISI official asked Shahzad to identify his source and write a denial; Shahzad said he declined, allowing only that the story was leaked by intelligence and confirmed by “the most credible” Taliban source.
Then, Shahzad said, the official added what he called a “favor,” telling him a militant had recently been arrested.
“The terrorist had a hit list with him,” the ISI official said, according to Shahzad’s written account. “If I find your name on the list I will certainly let you know.”
Shahzad disappeared Sunday evening as he drove through a genteel sector of Islamabad on the way to an interview at a television station. Before his body was found, Human Rights Watch said “credible sources” said they believed that he had been abducted by intelligence agents but that the sources indicated Shahzad would be released. Instead, police announced Tuesday that his body had been found, and photos aired on television indicated he had been beaten.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani condemned the killing and ordered an investigation.
Ali Dayan Hasan, the Pakistan representative for Human Rights Watch, said it would have been difficult for anyone unaffiliated with the security agencies to abduct a man and his car from Islamabad, a city riddled with police checkpoints.
More important, he and journalists said, Shahzad’s disappearance and treatment bore the hallmarks of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies — a topic few here are willing to discuss openly. Politicians whisper about being harassed and spied on. Nationalist activists in the province of Balochistan, whom the security establishment views as insurgents, are regularly abducted or killed.
In April, the main opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, sharply criticized the spy agencies and vowed to bring evidence about their extralegal activities to parliament. In a recent interview, however, opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said it would not be “appropriate” to detail those allegations until the government asked for them, which it has not.
“There should not be states within states. There should not be parallel policies being run by intelligence agencies,” he said.
Of the intelligence services, a Pakistani government official said: “They have two purposes in life: One is keeping control at home, and the other is the five letters,” a reference to the Pakistan military’s main foe, India.
Inhibiting newsgathering
In a nation where the big story is Islamist insurgency and the military’s fight against it, Pakistani journalists regularly receive threats from both sides, Hasan said. As a result, few journalists among Pakistan’s boisterous press corps are willing to openly criticize the military.
“It is becoming very dangerous indeed for journalists to perform their professional duties,” Hasan said.
Pakistan was the world’s most dangerous place for journalists in 2010, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which said eight reporters were killed, most in militant attacks. Other journalists were abducted, including Umar Cheema, an investigative reporter for the News, an English-language daily.
Cheema, who had written several articles scrutinizing the army, says he was kidnapped from Islamabad and beaten for six hours. He has since spoken out about his ordeal, which he said he has determined was carried out by the ISI. In an interview, Cheema said he harbored doubts that the agency would go so far as to kill Shahzad. Nevertheless, he said, he and his colleagues now feel more vulnerable.
“It’s a very strong message to the journalist community,” Cheema said. “If the ISI is not involved, they should come up with some evidence who has done it. Just denying it won’t work. It won’t remove the suspicions of the people.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/pakistans-spy-agencies-are-suspected-of-ties-to-reporters-death/2011/05/31/AGhrMhFH_story.html
Journalist murdered after writing about links between al Qaeda and Pakistan’s navy
A Pakistani journalist has been tortured and murdered just days after writing about links between al Qaeda and the country’s navy.
The death of Syed Saleem Shahzad, who wrote for Asia Times Online and an Italian news agency, has sent shock waves through the country’s newsrooms amid suspicions that he fell foul of the country’s shadowy intelligence agencies.
He was reported missing in the capital, Islamabad, on Sunday.
On Tuesday police said family members identified a body pulled from a canal almost 100 miles away as that of the 40-year-old journalist.
They said his body bore signs of torture.
He disappeared two days after writing an investigative report in Asia Times Online describing how al-Qaeda carried out last week’s attack on a naval airbase in Karachi.
Militants held commandos at bay for 18 hours, in an attack that humiliated the country’s armed forces.
Mr Shahzad’s explosive report claimed the navy had been in talks with al-Qaeda who wanted the release of officers arrested on suspicion of terrorist ties.
He also said he had been called in by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency last year after writing that Pakistan had released Mullah Baradar, who was second-in-command of the Afghan Taliban until he was detained in Karachi.
Ali Dayan Hasan, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said Mr Shahzad had complained about being threatened.
“The other day he visited our office and informed us that ISI had threatened him. He told us that if anything happened to him, we should inform the media about the situation and threats,” said Mr Hasan.
A senior intelligence official dismissed the allegations as “absurd”.
The death of the father-of-three from Karachi is a reminder of the risks faced by journalists in Pakistan.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says the country was the deadliest for reporters in 2010, with at least eight killed in the line of duty.
Six of the journalists in Pakistan were killed in suicide attacks, the group said.
They have also been targeted for ransom by militants.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8548794/Journalist-murdered-after-writing-about-links-between-al-Qaeda-and-Pakistans-navy.html
WikiLeaks: Pakistani intelligence ‘continues to offer support to terrorist groups’
Pakistani intelligence officers continue to offer to support to terrorist groups threatening regional security, according to a diplomatic cable circulated by Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state.
The cable, released by WikiLeaks, which was sent to American embassies, dated December 2009, ambassadors and charge d’affaires are given a series of “talking points” to raise with host governments.
In Pakistan, they are told to ask the Islamabad government to take action against the Haqqani network, which is fighting international forces in Afghanistan, and to enforce sanctions against Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
“Although Pakistani senior officials have publicly disavowed support for these groups, some officials from the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) continue to maintain ties with a wide array of extremist organisations, in particular the Taliban, LeT and other extremist organisations,” it says.
“These extremist organizations continue to find refuge in Pakistan and exploit Pakistan’s extensive network of charities, NGOs, and madrassas.”
The revelations will further undermine relations between Pakistan and America, which have sunk to an all-time low in the aftermath of the secret US operation to kill Osama bin Laden.
Diplomats in Islamabad believe Pakistan’s leadership has gradually turned its back on the Jihadi groups it once fostered in Afghanistan and Kashmir.
However, there are suspicions that lower level operatives retain links.
American agents are sifting through a trove of data retrieved from bin Laden in search of evidence that he was sheltered by Pakistan’s intelligence networks.
Saleem Shehzad was warned by ISI over terror reports
Soon after Shahzad went missing on Sunday evening while on the way to a TV station from his Islamabad home, a representative of Pakistan’s Human Rights Watch, Ali Dayan Hasan, told the Daily Times of Pakistan that “credible sources” claimed Shahzad was apprehended by the ISI. Members of Shahzad’s family told the editor of Asia Times that many of Shahzad’s friends believed him to be in ISI custody and that he was “safe and would be released after 48 hours”.
” He told us that if anything happened to him, we should inform the media about the situation and the threats,” Hasan said.
Shahzad had on several occasions been warned by ISI officers over his reports they considered ” detrimental to Pakistan’s national interest” . His last report on May 29 gave details of contacts between the Pakistan navy and al-Qaida operatives and how the terror group had infiltrated the Mehran base in Karachi and helped organize the devastating attack on May 22.
Police said Shahzad’s body was found near his white Toyota Corolla car at Sarai Alamghir near Jhelum town. After police informed Shahzad’s family, a relative went to the site and identified the body. Shahzad’s family had earlier told the media that the description provided by police did not match with that of the missing journalist , which initially led to hope that he might be alive.
While scores of angry and shocked journalists gathered at his Islamabad home to pay their last respects, there was no word from the government or the army on the killing and neither did any authority visit his home.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/Slain-scribe-was-warned-by-ISI-over-terror-reports/articleshow/8673748.cms
Slain Pakistani Journalist ‘Had Complained Of Threats’ From Intelligence Service
Fears have arisen over possible threats by Pakistan’s powerful intelligence services after a journalist was found dead following articles about alleged links between the Pakistani navy and Al-Qaeda.
Syed Saleem Shahzad, who worked for an Italian news agency and a Hong Kong-registered website, had talked of threats — allegedly by Pakistan’s intelligence services — on a number of occasions. He was said to have complained of the threats to police and fellow journalists.
The 40-year-old reporter for “Asia Times” and the Adnkronos International news agency had left home on May 29 to take part in a television talk show but never arrived.
Instead, Shahzad’s body was found near his abandoned car outside Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. Police said Shahzad’s body showed signs of torture.
Shahzad had gone missing on May 29, just two days after he wrote an article asserting that Al-Qaeda carried out last week’s attack on a naval air base in Karachi to avenge the arrest of navy officers suspected of links with the terrorist organization. He was on his way to the studios of Pakistan’s Donya television to discuss the article, which turned out to be the last he penned.
The article, published on Asia Times Online, claimed that Al-Qaeda carried out the attack after talks between the navy and the terrorist network failed. According to Shahzad, Al-Qaeda was negotiating with the navy over the release of officers accused of ties to that group.
It wasn’t the first time that Shahzad, who specialized in security issues and terrorism, had reported on such sensitive topics. According to friends and colleagues, Shahzad was aware of the risks of his reporting.
The secretary-general of Pakistan’s Federal Union of Journalists, Shamsul Islam Naz, told RFE/RL that Shahzad had expressed fears that Pakistan’s military intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), planned retaliation against him for his journalistic work.
“Mr. Saleem Shahzad himself, before his disappearance, told his friends and the police that he had been given a threat by a sensitive agency of the Pakistani ISI that he would be killed if he did not give up his investigative reporting and hitting the ISI and other armed forces agencies [for] involvement and blaming them for any act of commission and non-commission,” Naz said.
Naz added that Shahzad had been also summoned over his last story by “some investigative agencies” that had asked him to identify the source of his information.
“On his refusal, he was given a threat of the dire consequences” of not cooperating, Naz said, citing Shahzad’s account.
Ali Dayan Hasan, a Pakistan-based senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, said Shahzad had told him that he was under threat from Pakistan’s military intelligence agency.
“We can’t say for sure who has killed Saleem Shahzad,” Hasan was quoted as telling Reuters. “But what we can say for sure is that Saleem Shahzad was under serious threat from the ISI, and Human Rights Watch has every reason to believe that that threat was credible.
The killing highlights the dangers of reporting in Pakistan. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, it was the deadliest country for journalists in 2010, with eight reporter deaths.
With Shahzad’s death, three journalists have now lost their lives this year after being targeted in connection with their work.
Shahzad told Human Rights Watch that he was summoned to ISI headquarters in October after he published another controversial story.
According to Shahzad’s own written account of the meeting, two ISI officials, Rear Admiral Adnan Nawaz and Commodore Khalid Pervaiz, asked him to reveal the source of his story and to write a denial.
In his account of the meeting, which he e-mailed to HRW’s Hasan, Shahzad said that he had refused to comply with the demands.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has expressed grief over Shahzad’s death and called for an immediate inquiry into his kidnapping and murder.
based on RFE/RL and Radio Mashaal reporting
Pakistani Journalist Who Covered Security and Terrorism Is Found Dead
By CARLOTTA GALL
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A well-known Pakistani journalist has been found dead after being abducted over the weekend in an upscale neighborhood here and receiving repeated threats from Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency.
The journalist, Syed Saleem Shahzad, 41, wrote predominantly about security and terrorism issues for the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online and the Italian news agency Adnkronos International. He disappeared Sunday evening in the center of this capital just two days after writing an article suggesting that a militant attack on the navy’s main base in Karachi on May 22 was carried out because the navy was trying to crack down on cells from Al Qaeda that had infiltrated the force.
Pakistan’s armed forces, specifically the navy, have been highly embarrassed by the 16-hour battle that ensued at the base when six attackers climbed over a wall and blew up two American-made naval surveillance planes. Ten people were killed in the attack, and American and Chinese technicians working on the base only narrowly escaped injury as they were driven out through a hail of bullets.
A former navy commando, Kamran Malik, was arrested Friday, along with his brother, in a sweep by Pakistani intelligence agents in connection with the attack.
Coming soon after the American raid on May 2 that killed Osama bin Laden, which caught the Pakistani Army and Air Force flat-footed, the attack on the naval base has shocked the entire country. The armed forces chiefs have been deeply angered by the humiliation they have suffered from both episodes, and in particular the many questions raised about their competence by Pakistan’s increasingly rambunctious news media.
Journalists reacted to Mr. Shahzad’s death on Tuesday with horror and said the military and the chief intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, were sending a warning to others.
Mr. Shahzad’s body was found Monday about 100 miles from his abandoned car and was identified from photos by his family on Tuesday. Pictures of his body shown on television revealed that his face had been severely beaten.
Ali Dayan Hasan, the country representative for Human Rights Watch in Pakistan, said his abduction and killing bore all the hallmarks of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies. “It is quite clear by his own account and from his reports that they were deeply unhappy with his reporting,” Mr. Hasan said.
Mr. Shahzad had been receiving threats from the ISI for about three years because of his reporting, which often relied on sources inside the intelligence agencies and inside the Taliban and other militant groups. Mr. Hasan said he had managed to confirm Monday that Mr. Shahzad was being held by the ISI.
Mr. Shahzad moved from his hometown, Karachi, to the capital several years ago after receiving threats. In October, he was called in by senior ISI officials, who delivered a clear death threat to him if he did not reveal his sources on a recent article he had written, Mr. Hasan said.
According to Mr. Shahzad’s own written account after the encounter, the two officials were naval officers, Rear Adm. Adnan Nazir, the director general of the media wing of the ISI, and his deputy, Commodore Khalid Pervaiz, who has just been appointed to replace the commander of the Mehran naval base in Karachi after last week’s attack. Calls to the ISI and the military press office for comment went unanswered.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani expressed deep grief over the death of Mr. Shahzad and ordered an immediate inquiry into his kidnapping and death, the government news agency Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
Mr. Shahzad was driving to a television studio on Sunday evening to be interviewed about his latest article when he was abducted. He never arrived for the interview and did not return home afterward. His wife called Mr. Hasan at Human Rights Watch because he was one of the people Mr. Shahzad told her to contact in the event of his disappearance.
Mr. Hasan said he was able to establish that Mr. Shahzad was being held by the ISI through senior government officials and unofficial channels. He was told that Mr. Shahzad would be released Monday night, but in fact it seems he was already dead by then.
Mr. Shahzad found himself, like a growing number of Pakistani journalists, caught between the intelligence agencies, which act outside the law in detaining and pressuring journalists, and increasingly ruthless militant groups, Mr. Hasan said. “It makes it very dangerous to report between the two,” he said.
Pakistan became the deadliest country in the world for journalists last year as eight journalists were killed there in the course of their work, the Committee for Protection of Journalists reported. Six of the eight were killed in suicide bombings or cross-fire as the insurgency has intensified in Pakistan, but journalists have also suffered beatings, disappearances, and threats from the military and intelligence service as well as from militant groups.
An award-winning investigative reporter, Umar Cheema, was kidnapped and beaten over six hours on the outskirts of Islamabad last September. Mr. Cheema had written several articles for The News, a prominent daily, that were critical of the army. He blames the ISI, which is an integral part of the military, for his abduction.
“This is the law of the jungle, of armed actors who can kill you or hang you upside down until you are dead, and one of them is a state body, and that is appalling,” Mr. Hasan said.
Still, Mr. Shahzad was undaunted. A young reporter, Ihsan Tipu, who worked with Mr. Shahzad, said he consulted him just days ago about the dangers of reporting in Pakistan. “He said, ‘Don’t quit, look at me, I have faced threats and I am still reporting,’ ” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/world/asia/01pakistan.html
Missing Pakistani journalist dead, ISI hand suspected
A Pakistani journalist, who was allegedly abducted by the country’s military spy agency on Sunday after writing about links between the armed forces and al Qaeda, was found dead in eastern Pakistan, officials said on Tuesday.
Osama was panning ‘grand coalition’ of militant groups
Five type of militant groups operating from Pak: Report
eporter with Italian news agency AKI, was found in Sarai Alamgir, 150 km southeast of Islamabad. He was buried on Monday and was identified from pictures taken before the burial.
Human Rights Watch said Shehzad had complained of being threatened by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
The body, the police said, bore torture marks. Shehzad, 40, went missing after he left his Islamabad home to take part in a TV talk-show.
He disappeared two days after writing a report that al Qaeda carried out the May 23 attack on the Mehran naval air base to avenge the arrest of officials suspended for links with the terror outfit.
“This killing bears all the hallmarks of previous killings perpetrated by Pakistani intelligence agencies,” said Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Missing-Pakistani-journalist-dead-ISI-hand-suspected/Article1-704144.aspx
EDITORIAL: Saleem Shahzad: the price of truth
The body of Syed Saleem Shahzad, one of Pakistan’s best investigative journalists, was found yesterday from Mandi Bahauddin. Mr Shahzad was Pakistan bureau chief of Asia Times Online. He went missing on May 29, 2011 from Islamabad when he was on his way to a local television channel to participate in a talk show but he never made it. Reports suggest that he disappeared between 5:30-6:00 pm from a high security area in Islamabad. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), Mr Shahzad had voiced his concerns that a sensitive intelligence agency could harm him. In an interview with TIME magazine, HRW’s Ali Dayan Hasan said: “To date, no intelligence personnel have been held accountable for frequently perpetrated abuses against journalists. Tolerance for these practices has to end, now.” Saleem Shahzad’s last story for Asia Times Online revealed how al Qaeda had penetrated the Pakistan Navy. The attack on PNS Mehran took place “after talks failed between the Navy and al Qaeda over the release of naval officials arrested on suspicion of al Qaeda links,” wrote Mr Shahzad in his report on May 27. This was the first part of his report but he was abducted before the second part could be published.
It is a sad day, nay black day, for journalism in Pakistan that a journalist was picked up from the capital and his tortured body dumped in another town while the perpetrators of this gory crime roam free. This is not the first time that a journalist has lost his life for honest reporting. In the past we have been witness to the deaths of many brave journalists in Pakistan, especially in Balochistan, FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is not without reason that Pakistan has been dubbed as the most dangerous place for journalists by Reporters without Borders. Journalists in Pakistan are between a rock and a hard place: they face threats both from the militants and our intelligence agencies. When journalists write or speak against terrorists, they receive threats. When they expose our military’s links with terrorists, they are harassed. Threats, harassment, abduction and even murder is what journalists in Pakistan are victims of all too frequently.
Syed Saleem Shahzad’s brutal murder seems like a warning to Pakistan’s journalist community that if they continue to report honestly, they can be killed. If the people of Pakistan, especially the media community, does not wake up and speak out against such brutalities, every sane voice in the country will die a silent death. If we remain quiet, this will be our own self-inflicted Holocaust. Prime Minister Gilani has ordered an inquiry into Mr Shahzad’s murder. The question is, will this be like any other inquiry that takes place here, with no results? We must urge the government to probe into this matter and make the results of the investigation public.
This should also serve as an eye-opener for those who have been apologising for the military and the Taliban alike. How many more innocents have to die before we realise that our country is a war zone where no one is safe from either our so-called saviours or the terrorists. Mr Shahzad and many others like him paid the price for reporting the truth. We must stop blaming external forces for what we are facing right now. In a country where terrorists, murderers, rapists and criminals roam free, deaths of innocents are all but inevitable. How many more people will have to sacrifice their lives before we finally call a spade a spade? Pakistan is in a deep mess right now and it is all our own doing. Let’s wake up to this reality before our soil turns completely red (if it has not already) with the blood of our citizens. RIP Saleem Shahzad; we cannot condemn or mourn your death adequately in words. Our only salvation now lies in bringing Mr Shahzad’s murderers to book. *
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011%5C06%5C01%5Cstory_1-6-2011_pg3_1
جس دھج سے کوئی مقتل میں گیا، وہ شان سلامت رہتی ہے
یہ جان تو آنی جانی ہے، اس جاں کی تو کوئی بات نہیں
یہ بازی عشق کی بازی ہے جو چاہو لگا دو ڈر کیسا
گرجیت گئے تو کیا کہنا، ہارے بھی تو بازی مات نہیں