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9/11 a big lie, pretext to occupy Afghanistan: Ahmadinejad
Mar 7, 2010 News & Events Leave a comment
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insists the capitalist system, established by Israelis, is on verge of collapse, adding that the 9/11 was a set-up to occupy Afghanistan and wage a so-called ‘war on terror.’
The president described the September 11, 2001 destruction of the twin World Trade Center buildings in New York as a preconceived “scenario and a sophisticated intelligence measure” and emphasized that the 9/11 incident was a “big lie intended to serve as a pretext for fighting terrorism and setting the grounds for sending troops to Afghanistan.”
“Depredation, bullying and killing the reality of humanity are the outcomes of the capitalist way of thinking,” Ahmadinejad said on Saturday.
He deplored crimes by arrogant powers, saying, “They carry out heinous killings and acts of terror in the world under the guise of [defending] human rights.”
“The US attack and NATO expedition into the region were merely aimed at saving liberal democracy and the capitalist thought,” said the president.
Ahmadinejad said the September 11, 2001 attacks were part of a “scenario and a complicated intelligence move” and added, “The September 11 incident was a big lie aimed at finding the pretext to fight terrorism but it prepared the ground for adventurism in Afghanistan.”
The Iranian president pointed to the arrest of the leader of the Jundallah terrorist group, Abdolmalek Rigi, and said his capture was a disgrace for the intelligence services of the US and Israel.
Rigi was captured by Iranian security forces on February 23. He was aboard a passenger jet flying to Kyrgyzstan from the UAE when his plane was grounded in the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas.
A few hours after Rigi’s arrest, Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi said that the notorious villain was at a US base 24 hours prior to being captured by Iranian forces, adding that the Americans had issued an Afghan passport for him.
In his confessions, Rigi revealed details about his ties with some intelligence agencies such as the CIA and said that he had closely cooperated with the security services of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
US Creates Terror Groups, Hamid Gul
Mar 5, 2010 News & Events, Pakistan Leave a comment
PressTv
Former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency Hamid Gol says the United States is seeking to create and train terrorist groups in the region.
In a Wednesday interview with Fars news agency, Gol said Washington had been making efforts to destabilize the region through supporting groups like the Pakistan-based Jundallah terrorist group.
Gol went on to say that such attempts by the US intelligence agencies were in particular directed at fomenting unrest in Iran.
“The US intelligence agencies pursued just one goal by forming Rigi’s group which was provoking unrests and instability in Iran,” Gol was quoted as saying.
He also accused Washington and its western allies of seeking to strain ties between Iran and Pakistan.
The remarks come days after Iranian security forces arrested Jundallah ringleader Abdolmalek Rigi while he was aboard a Kyrgyz airliner on a flight from the United Arab Emirates to Kyrgyzstan.
In his confession broadcast by Press TV in late February after his arrest, Rigi talked about offers of unlimited support by the US spy agency, the CIA, saying the Americans offered to “cooperate with us” and “promised to give us a base along the border with Afghanistan near Iran.”
Rigi’s group has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks in Iran. The group has carried out murder, armed robbery, kidnappings, acts of sabotage and bombings inside Iran.
CNIC on Rigi lands Nadra into trouble
Mar 5, 2010 News & Events, Pakistan Leave a comment
Dawn: Nadra, which figures quite often in the media, is once again making headlines. This time the charges against the data registration authority are serious.
A Pakistani CNIC was recovered from the possession of the Jundullah chief, Abdolmalek Rigi, who was recently arrested by the Iranian authorities. Mr Rigi, a proclaimed terrorist, is not a Pakistani national. This gives the lie to Nadra’s claim of having a foolproof security and verification system in place. Initially the interior ministry claimed that the card was a forged one. But after the SMS verification system installed by Nadra and available to the public confirmed that the card was original, the government has been trying to shrug off the matter by giving explanations that are not really credible. It is to be expected that such incidents do little to enhance the people’s faith in the database authority.
The CNIC is a basic requirement for every formal transaction undertaken by a Pakistani in the country, and doubts are sown about the efficiency of the authority issuing the card when lapses become evident. True, it is difficult to point fingers at a particular organisation in a country where forging currency and manufacturing fake documents are common. This is all the more reason for government bodies issuing documents to exercise extra caution.
Nadra must ensure that its staff is trained to verify as far as possible the identity details of the person applying for a card. Carelessness or an unethical approach on the part of Nadra employees can lead to the serious misuse of documents by criminal elements. By now, the loopholes in data verification must be obvious to senior Nadra officials and attempts should be made to remove these and strengthen verification procedures by revising the checklist of the documents required. It would not be a bad idea to get the FIA to do some random checking of the documents submitted by applicants. Nadra’s task would be made infinitely easier if other government departments were to ensure that the documents and certificates being issued by them contain the correct details of the person applying for them.
Economy, energy replace extremism as top US concern
Mar 5, 2010 News & Events, Pakistan Leave a comment
WASHINGTON: US special envoy Richard Holbrooke has told a briefing in Washington that he sees positive developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the point that his chief concern in Pakistan is not extremism.
Last week, Mr Holbrooke wrapped up his second trip to South Asia this year, and his first visit to Central Asia since President Barack Obama appointed him to his post.
On Tuesday, he briefed the media at the State Department about his visit, saying: “I think that in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, but particularly in Pakistan, there has been a movement, a shift in sentiment here. In Pakistan right now, my greatest concern is to help the Pakistanis with their economic and energy problems.”
Assessing Pakistan’s recent efforts to combat terrorism, he said: “I think they’re on the right track in this other area.”
Washington felt the need to now focus on Pakistan’s economic and energy issues, said Mr Holbrooke, adding that the Obama administration had set up a water resources task force at the State Department to help Pakistan deal with a looming water crisis.
The US envoy, who also visited Dushanbe during this trip, said that Tajikistan’s vast water resources could ease water shortages in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The US, he added, was now focussing “more and more of our attention” to helping Pakistan overcome its economic problems and was trying to increase its financial support to Islamabad.
Mr Holbrooke confirmed that last week the US paid Pakistan $349 million in Coalition Support Fund, part of some $2 billion Islamabad is trying to get reimbursed. But he did not say if considerable efforts on the US side to free up that money have played a role in greater Pakistani US security cooperation of late.
No hidden agenda: The US envoy said he believed there’s no hidden agenda behind recent arrests of some top Afghan Taliban leaders in Pakistan and also welcomed Pakistan’s success in wresting control of a strategic militant redoubt in Bajaur.
His remarks are in line with recent statements by other US officials praising what they describe as Pakistan’s renewed commitment to the fight against terrorism.
But his observations are more pertinent because they reflect on the consultations Mr Holbrooke held during his long trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
“I see no evidence to support that theory. But it’s out there,” said Mr Holbrooke when asked to comment on recent US media reports that Pakistan had arrested some Taliban leaders last month to derail the Afghan peace process.
“Conspiracy theories are stock-in-trade in not just in this part of the world. But I don’t see any evidence for it,” he added.
“And I know somewhat more than I am at liberty to disclose about the circumstances under which these events took place, and every detail tends to work against that thesis.”
Mr Holbrooke noted that Islamabad had continued its operations against the militants in the face of some pressing economic, water and energy problems.
“This is a very important sequence of events, and we hope it will continue. I don’t want to draw any strategic conclusions from it. I just want to express my appreciation to the Pakistani government and its army for what it’s doing,” he said referring to a series of actions against the Taliban militants.
“The Pakistanis are doing these things in the face of enormous, overwhelming economic problems. They’re doing it in the face of water and energy problems,” he said.
Ambassador Holbrooke also cited improvement in US-Pakistan relations over the last year as a result of high-level American engagement with the Pakistani leadership.
“Well, this is a work in progress. This administration took office just over 13 months ago. I have said before and I’ll say it again today that US relations with the government of Pakistan, civilian and military side, are much better today than they were 13 months ago,” he said.
A U.S.-Trained Pakistani Is Said to Support the Taliban
Mar 4, 2010 News & Events, Pakistan Leave a comment
By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: March 4, 2010
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — With his white turban, untrimmed beard and worn army jacket, the man known uniformly here by his nom de guerre, Col. Imam, is a particular Pakistani enigma.
A United States-trained former colonel in Pakistan’s spy agency, he spent 20 years running insurgents in and out of Afghanistan, first to fight the Soviet Army, and later to support the Taliban, as Pakistani allies, in their push to conquer Afghanistan in the 1990s.
Today those Taliban forces are battling his onetime mentor, the United States, and Western officials say Colonel Imam has continued to train, recruit and finance the insurgents. Along with a number of other retired Pakistani intelligence officials, they say, he has helped the Taliban stage a remarkable comeback since 2006.
In two recent interviews with The New York Times, Colonel Imam denied that. But he remains a vocal advocate of the Taliban, and his views reveal the sympathies that have long run deep in the ranks of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services.
Despite Pakistan’s recent arrest of several high-level Taliban commanders, men like Colonel Imam sit at the center of the questions that linger around what Pakistan’s actual intentions are toward the Taliban.
American and NATO officials suspect that retired officers like Colonel Imam have served as a quasi-official bridge to Taliban leaders and their rank and file as well as other militant groups.
Now retired, Colonel Imam (his real name is Brig. Sultan Amir) lives in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, just yards from the Pakistani Army headquarters.
In the interviews, Colonel Imam denied any continued link to the Taliban. But he admitted that some “freelancers” — meaning former Pakistani military or intelligence officials — might still be assisting the insurgents.
If Colonel Imam personifies the double edge of Pakistan’s policy toward the Taliban, he also embodies the deep connection Pakistan has to the Afghan insurgents, and possibly the key to controlling them.
Once a promising protégé for the United States, he underwent Special Forces training at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 1974, learning in particular the use of explosives, and he went on to do a master parachutist course with the 82nd Airborne Division.
On his return to Pakistan, he taught insurgent tactics to the first Afghan students who fled the country’s Communist revolution in 1978, among them future resistance leaders Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ahmed Shah Masood. He then worked closely with the C.I.A. to train and support thousands of guerrilla fighters for the Afghan resistance against the Soviet Army throughout the 1980s.
Once the Soviets were pushed out, the Taliban emerged and Colonel Imam, then serving as a Pakistani consular official in Afghanistan, provided critical support to their bid to rule the country, Western officials said.
By his own account, he was so close to the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, that he visited him in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, and left only when the American bombing campaign began later in 2001. He says he has not returned since. His parting advice to Mullah Omar, he said, was to fight on, but stick to guerrilla tactics.
Today, Colonel Imam speaks highly of the Americans he worked with. But he predicts failure for the United States in Afghanistan. While his views are clearly colored by his ardor for the Taliban cause, they also carry the weight of someone who knows his subject well.
The Taliban cannot be defeated, he said, and they will not be weakened by the recent capture of senior commanders, including the No.2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
The Taliban movement is so devolved, he said, that commanders on the ground make most of their own decisions and can raise money and arrange for weapons supplies themselves.
“The Taliban cannot be forced out, you cannot subjugate them,” he said. “But they can tire the Americans. In another three to four years, the Americans will be tired.”
He criticized President Obama’s decision last year to send more American troops into Afghanistan. “They are doing what you should never do in military strategy, reinforcing the error,” he said.
“They will have more convoys, more planes, more supply convoys, and the insurgents will have a bigger target,” he added. “The insurgents are very happy.”
The plan by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of American forces in Afghanistan, to win over the Afghan people while pressing the Taliban militarily could have worked in 2003 or 2004, when the Taliban were weak and had less support, but now the Taliban had a presence in virtually every province, he said.
He also said the idea of paying members of the Taliban to change sides would not work and only bogus figures would come forward. “It is shameful for a superpower to bribe,” he said.
Meanwhile, he has nothing but praise for Mullah Omar, who is suspected of hiding in Pakistan today. Of all the thousands of men he trained, he said, religious students like Mullah Omar were the most “formidable” opponents because of their commitment.
The Taliban had been tainted in recent years by bad characters joining the movement and committing crimes, and Mullah Omar was now cracking down on them, he said.
He pointedly criticized the Pakistani Taliban who turned to fight the Pakistani Army in Swat last year and unleashed a wave of bombings in Pakistan’s cities. They were “troublemakers” that should be “neutralized,” he said.
Yet for Afghanistan, the solution was to negotiate with the Taliban leadership, he said. Mullah Omar wants peace and is capable of compromise, he said.
He was also the only leader who could keep Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan or in abeyance, including Osama bin Laden, he said. Mullah Omar’s popular support was such that Mr. bin Laden would have to listen, he said.
Mullah Omar had refused to hand over Mr. bin Laden, the Qaeda leader, in 2001 because he calculated that if he did, it would be only the first of many demands placed on him, he said.
‘US debt-based money printing biggest theft in history’
Mar 4, 2010 News & Events Leave a comment
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asserts that the lingering global financial crisis has exposed the dark side of the capitalist economic system in the West, adding that the US will go down in history as the biggest-ever thief.
In a Tuesday meeting with representatives of the Developing Eight countries (D8), Ahmadinejad reiterated that western-style capitalism is the main reason behind the endless wave of problems plaguing global financial organizations, particularly in the US.
The Iranian president added that Western countries should face up to the fact that the greed of capitalism has pushed it into the brink of collapse.
“The whole idea of capitalism is based on emptying the pockets of world’s nations to secure the interests of a selected few,” he emphasized.
“Based credible reports, the US treasury over the past 30 years has printed more than USD 29,000 billion (USD 29 trillion) in debt-based banknotes and has given it to nations in exchange for goods this method is the biggest theft in human history,” said the Iranian president.
Ahmadinejad also urged D8 member states to drop the American dollar in their various financial dealings and business transactions in the future.
Representatives from the D8 member states have gathered in Tehran to discuss ways of promoting economic and industrial cooperation.
The D8 members consist of Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey.
Indian’s hate against Pakistan
Mar 3, 2010 News & Events, Videos Leave a comment
