| Dear Friends, The dastardly assault on Mumbai was obviously meticulously planned, and day by day new facts about it are coming to light…..Personally, I feel this is the handiwork of some Pakistan-based radical Islamist group…..But in this regard, certain crucial questions need to be asked, particularly regarding the Nariman House, which housed an ultra-orthodox Jewish centre, and in which some of the terrorists stayed. I do not believe in conspiracy theories that are circulating, but I am also aware of the fact that the CIA and the Mossad are known to have infiltrated certain radical Islamist outfits around the world, even instigating them to wild acts of terrorism so as to destabilise countries, inflame anti-Muslim passions and strengthen and justify the Israeli- American-led axis and imperialist interests and drive countries wrecked by radical Islamist terror into the deadly American-Israeli embrace. Of course there is also ample evidence to suggest that many of these radical Islamist groups, including the prime suspect in the Mumbai blasts, the LET, are driven by enough hatred to commit such barbarities on their own without CIA/Mossad or any other sort of external assistance……………………. The CIA's long-standing support to Islamist terror groups in Pakistan/Afghanistan in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is too well known to need recounting here, as is the fact of the very close nexus that the dreaded Pakistani secret service ISI and the Pakistani army and political establishment has enjoyed, and probably continues to enjoy, with the CIA, and the fact that the Israelis deliberately backed and helped prop up the radical Islamist HAMAS in Palestine to take on the secular PLO and to defame the Palestinian struggle as a 'jihadist' one so as to rob it of legitimacy in the eyes of the world. In this regard, I did a google search using two sets of key words: 'Nariman House' and 'Mossad Infiltration Islamic' and came up with some material, which I am pasting below. I think this material must be seriously looked at………. I am also sending below an article by a Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad that argues, and quite convincingly, that the ISI had a major role in the attack on Mumbai…This is the same ISI whom the CIA has been consistently backing, and which has, probably not without the latter's knowledge, been spreading murder and mayhem in our country. -- Yoginder Sikand 1. Jewish leader banned photos of his building, believing terrorists were seeking intel By Aaron Klein
WorldNetDaily
November 30, 2008
JERUSALEM – A rabbi killed in last week's coordinated terrorist raids in India was so fearful his Jewish outreach center would be attacked he forbade media photographers from snapping pictures inside the building, believing terrorists were seeking information on the building's layout. "[Rabbi Holtzberg] constantly spoke of his fear of a terrorist attack in the Chabad House," said Meie Alfasi, a photographer for Shterum.org, a news website affiliated with the Chabad Lubavitch Jewish outreach movement. "Once I wanted to bring a Reuters photographer to document the Chabad House activities, but he was adamantly against the idea," said Alfasi. "He said that he was afraid of pictures, afraid of photographers and afraid of unnecessary public exposure that could harm the Chabad House that is located in a very sensitive area," said Alfasi, who spent time a few months ago India, staying for a few days at the home of the Holtzbergs. Gavriel Holtzberg, his wife, Rivka, and three other Israelis, as well as a Jews from the U.S. and Mexico, were killed after terrorists stormed Nariman House, a building in the heart of Mumbai's tourist center where the Chabad headquarters is located. The Holtzbergs had duel U.S. and Israeli citizenship. It was not immediately clear whether the Jews were killed by terrorists or during an ensuing raid on the Chabad house by Indian security forces. http://www.jewishindy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8778 [QUESTION: HOW AND WHY, THEN, DID THE RABBI ALLOW THE TERRORISTS TO STAY IN CHABAD HOUSE, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT WAS OBVIOUS THAT THEY WERE NOT JEWS, AND WERE, FROM THEIR LOOKS AND ACCENT, PROBABLY PAKISTANI?] 2. Officials quit over India attacks By Soutik Biswas
BBC News, Mumbai Leopold Cafe, Locals say the orgy of killings in Mumbai began here. Three men walked into the cafe, drank beer, settled their bills and walked out. Then they fished out guns from their bags and began firing. Gaffar Abdul Amir, an Iraqi tourist from Baghdad, says he saw at least two men who started the firing outside the Leopold Cafe. He was returning to his hotel from the seaside with a friend when he saw two men carrying bags and brandishing AK-47s walking in front of them, shooting. "They did not look Indian, they looked foreign. One of them, I thought, had blonde hair. The other had a punkish hairstyle. They were neatly dressed," says Mr Amir. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7752625.stm [WHO WAS THIS BEER-GUZZLING 'FOREIGN' PUNK AND HIS COLLEAGUE WITH BLONDE HAIR?] Mumbai attack: Was Nariman House the terror hub? ……."I saw 6 to 7 boats coming in on Wednesday evening and about ten people unloaded many bags from these boats and then gradually took them into the building, Nariman House', Vitthal Tandel, a fisherman in the area said. "The building has many rooms and these are used a s guest houses by travelers, largely Israeli residents. None of us know what their names are", he said.
Virendra Ghunawat, a television journalist who has been tracking the Nariman House shootout since the time it took place Wednesday night, said even the cops have been cagey about details.
The role that Nariman House is coming to play in this entire attack drama, is puzzling. Last night, residents ordered close to 100 kilograms of meat and other food, enough to feed an army or a bunch of people for twenty days. Shortly thereafter, the ten odd militants moved in, obviously, indicating that the food and meat was ordered, keeping their visit in mind, another cop added.
" One of the militants called up a television news channel and voiced his demands today, but, interestingly, when he was asked where are they all holed him, he said at the Israeli owned Nariman House and they are six of them here", one of the investigating cops said. Since morning, there has been exchange of gun fire has been going on and the militants seem well equipped to counter the cops fire. To top it, they have food and shelter. One wonders of they have the support of the residents, a local Ramrao Shanker said.
Cops did not want to go into speculation. "Three residents of the building, all presumably Israeli residents, have also been killed since last night, allegedly by the militants. We do not have their identity and would not like to speculate on this angle", the cops said. http://www.mid-day.com/news/2008/nov/281108-Nariman-House-terror-hub.htm [THIS RAISES VERY SERIOUS QUESTIONS]
Foreign Ministry furious at Zaka's Mumbai 'meddling' Says public criticism of Indian commandos could have serious diplomatic repercussions Jerusalem Post - Jerusalem | Author: | HERB KEINON | | Date: | Dec 2, 2008 | | Start Page: | 1 | | Section: | News | | Text Word Count: | 629 | Abstract (Document Summary) "They are causing all kinds of problems," a senior Foreign Ministry official said of the six-man team that flew Thursday on its own volition to Mumbai. "They are selling all kinds of stories to journalists looking for stories, and taking credit for things they didn't do." Charges by the head of the Zaka team in Mumbai reported in The Jerusalem Post on Monday that the Jewish hostages in the Chabad House may have been killed by Indian commandos, and not by the terrorists, infuriated the Foreign Ministry, with one official saying that these types of "irresponsible comments" can have serious diplomatic repercussions. "How can they say such a thing?" one official said. "Did they do an autopsy, do they know what type of bullet caused the wound? Do they have forensic or ballistic expertise? This is not the type of thing you can determine just by looking at a body." [ http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/jpost/access/1606204981.html?dids=1606204981:1606204981&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Dec+2%2C+2008&author=HERB+KEINON&pub=Jerusalem+Post&edition=&startpage=1&desc=Foreign+Ministry+furious+at+Zaka%27s+Mumbai+%27meddling%27+Says+public+criticism+of+Indian+commandos+could+have+serious+diplomatic+repercussions] Colaba terrorists have food stocks for three days Somendra Sharma Friday, November 28, 2008 01:50 IST  Digg it
The six terrorists who have made an Israeli family hostage at Nariman House building in Colaba can battle with the security agencies for at least three days without having to worry about food, local residents claimed on Thursday. "The terrorists came to Colaba on Wednesday evening," Mukund Shelke, who runs a grocery shop at Colaba Market, said. "Before barging into Nariman House, they had purchased adequate food to last them at least three days," he said. "They had purchased around two crates of chicken and liquor worth Rs25,000 from two shops in Colaba," another resident Joseph D'Mello said. "They then entered the Nariman House building and took the Israeli family captive." http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1209852 Shock in Israel over attack on Mumbai Jewish centre (Roundup) Middle East News Nov 30, 2008, 12:14 GMT Jerusalem/New Delhi - There was still shock in Israel Sunday four days after the attack on Nariman House, a Jewish religious centre in the Indian city of Mumbai. According to Israel radio, three of the nine bodies found in the centre have not been positively identified….Azam Amir Kasab, 21, the only terrorist captured by Indian security agencies after the Mumbai siege said that their mission specifically targeted Israelis to avenge 'atrocities' against Palestinians, a Times of India report said Sunday. Investigators have told the NDTV network that Kasab, a Pakistani national, had admitted he was a member of the Lashkar-e-Toiba militant organization headquartered in Pakistan. Sources also told the Times that Kasab's colleagues killed in the operation had stayed in the Nariman House earlier. 'They have stayed in the Nariman House on rental basis identifying themselves as Malaysian students,' a source told the newspaper. The police were trying to find out how Nariman House rooms were given to non-Jews. Police also took all the record books for their investigation. http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1445775.php [QUESTION FOR INVESTIGATION: HOW/WERE NON-JEWS WHO ARE SAID TO HAVE PLANNED TO BLOW UP NARIMAN HOUSE SO EASILY ALLOWED TO STAY THERE FOR SO MANY DAYS, ESPECICALLY SINCE THEY MIGHT HAVE BEEN FOUND IT BEFORE HAND? AND IF THEY REGISTERED THEMSELVES AS MALAYSIANS, AS MENTIONED IN THIS REPORT, WOULD NOT THE RABBI HAVE GOT SUSPICIOUS SINCE MOST MALAYSIANS ARE MUSLIMS, AND ALO BECAUSE, AS A REPORT EARLIER CITED (above) MENTIONS THE RABBI WAS SO APPREHENSIVE OF A TERROR ATTACK THAT HE EVEN REFUSED PERMISSION TO A REUTERS' REPORTOR TO TAKE A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE BUILDING?] REPORTS ABOUT MOSSAD ENGAGING IN TERRORISM ABROAD AND ALSO IN INFILTRATING RADICAL ISLAMIST GROUPS, INCITING THEM TO TERROR SO AS TO PROVOKE AMERICAN/WESTERN RESPONSE AGAINST MUSLIM STATES….. THIS IS JUST A SELECTION OF A FEW ARTICLES I DOWNLOADED FROM THE NET….MORE COULD BE HAD SIMPLY BY TYPING IN 'MOSSAD INFILTRATION ISLAMIC' IN GOOGLE.COM, WHICH IS HOW I GOT ALL THESE ARTICLES. THIS LIST IS NOT EXHAUSTIVE….THERE IS MUCH MORE MATERIAL THAT CAN BE ACCESSED ON THE INTERNET ON THE SUBJECT Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said the security forces have arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence.The arrests were connected with an attack on the US embassy in Sanaa last month which killed at least 18 people, official sources were quoted saying. [2008]
Investigation: Did Mossad attempt to infiltrate Islamic radical outfits in south Asia?
by Subir Bhaumik
The Week
February 6, 2000
http://www.the-week.com/20feb06/events2.htm
| On January 12 Indian intelligence officials in Calcutta detained 11 foreign nationals for interrogation before they were to board a Dhaka-bound Bangladesh Biman flight. They were detained on the suspicion of being hijackers. "But we realised that they were tabliqis (Islamic preachers), so we let them go," said an intelligence official. They had planned to attend an Islamic convention near Dhaka, but Bangladesh refused them visa. Later, seemingly under Israeli pressure, India allowed them to fly to Tel Aviv.
Where's the catch? The secret circular that warned of a possible hijack
"They had landing permits at Dhaka, but that's not visa," said a diplomat in the Bangladesh High Commission in Delhi. "We decided not to entertain them anymore because we cannot take chances."
The eleven had Israeli passports but were believed to be Afghan nationals who had spent a while in Iran. They had secured landing permits for Dhaka and one-way tickets on Bangladesh Biman's Calcutta-Delhi route through a Delhi-based travel agency.
"We have a right to deny travel facility to a passenger even if he has a valid ticket on security grounds," said a Bangladeshi Biman official who did not want to be named. To the Bangladesh Biman officials the eleven, who were all Muslims, appeared "too murky".
Indian intelligence officials, too, were surprised by the nationality profile of the eleven. "They are surely Muslims; they say that they have been on tabligh (preaching Islam) in India for two months. But they are Israeli nationals from the West Bank," said a Central Intelligence official.
He claimed that Tel Aviv "exerted considerable pressure" on Delhi to secure their release. "It appeared that they could be working for a sensitive organisation in Israel and were on a mission to Bangladesh," the official said. The Israeli intelligence outfit, Mossad, is known to recruit Shia Muslims to penetrate Islamic radical networks.
"It is not unlikely for Mossad to recruit 11 Afghans in Iran and grant them Israeli citizenship to penetrate a network such as Bin Laden's. They would begin by infiltrating them into an Islamic radical group in an unlikely place like Bangladesh," said intelligence analyst Ashok Debbarma. The pressure exerted on India by Israel for the release of the men, and the hurry with which they were flown back suggested an aborted operation'.
Mossad watchers say the operation was possibly blown off by "unwelcome intervention" in a friendly country, and they decided to pull out.
The Calcutta immigration authorities may have laid their hands on the wrong people. They were looking for Islamic radicals attempting hijack.
On January 11, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) issued a top secret circular (NO: ER/BCAS/PIC/CIRCULAR/99), quoting "an intelligence input" about a possible hijack attempt on a Bangladesh Biman aircraft originating out of India. Copies of the circular signed by regional deputy commissioner of security (Calcutta Airport), L. Singsit, were issued to relevant Indian agencies and Bangladesh Biman's station manager in Calcutta, Md. Shahjahan. It said that eight "Pushtu-speaking Mujahideen" had infiltrated into India for the purpose.
The circular also specified the motive behind the hijack: to secure the release of the prime accused in the Mujib-ur-Rehman assassination case including Major (later Colonel) Farooq Rehman and Major Bazlul Huda.
"Dhaka told us to take no chances," said a Bangladesh Biman official. The Sheikh Hasina government is aware of the international links of the Mujib-killers. While Libya had sheltered some of them in the 70s and early 80s, middle eastern countries helped others evade justice. Major (later Colonel) Khondakhar Abdul Rashid, one of Colonel Farooq's co-plotters, is said to be in Saudi Arabia, where he maintains close links with Pakistan's ISI.
Meanwhile, Indian intelligence officials are still on the hunt for "Pushtu-speaking hijackers". An additional director with Central Intelligence said at least four hijackers were in eastern India.
If the terrorists manage to extricate the likes of Colonel Farooq through a hijack, it will boost the'anti-Indian Islamic forces' in Bangladesh, particularly the agitation against the Hasina government.
With a less India-friendly government in Dhaka, Pakistan's ISI could step up its help to the insurgents in the northeast.
(The author is BBC's eastern India correspondent) http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/mossad_india.html | BRITS SAY ISRAEL STAGED 1976 HIJACKING Famed Israeli Raid on Entebbe Airport Culminated Shin Bet-Staged Hijacking Plot 
By Mark Glenn Documents recently made public by the British government reveal that Israel played a direct role in the notorious hijacking of an Air France plane to Idi Amin's Entebbe in 1976 and cooperated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in staging the event remembered today as 'the Entebbe Incident'
In documents recently released and now sitting in the National Archives in London, D.H. Colvin, a British diplomat working in Paris wrote that, according to sources he knew, the hijacking was the work of the PFLP, with help from the Israeli Secret Service, the Shin Bet. The operation was designed to torpedo the PLO's standing in France and to prevent a growing rapprochement between the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) and the Americans, he said. 'My contact said the PFLP had attracted all sorts of wild elements, some of whom had been planted by the Israelis. .. . Their [the Israelis?] nightmare is that after the November elections, one will witness the imposition in the Middle East of a Pax Americana, which will be to the advantage of the PLO, who will gain international respectability and perhaps the right to establish a state on evacuated territories and to the disadvantage of Israel, who will be forced to evacuate occupied territory.?
The hijacking, or the 'Entebbe Incident' as it is popularly known, gripped the attention of the world for nearly a week at that time. Hijackers seized an Air France plane bound for Paris via Athens shortly after it took off. The plane was diverted first to Benghazi, Libya, where it was refueled before going on to Entebbe, Uganda. In Entebbe, the hijackers released most of the hostages but kept 98 people, most of them Israeli citizens, and threatened to kill them unless Israel met their demands of releasing some 50
Palestinian prisoners held in Israel and in other places around the world.
In a dramatic rescue that has been the subject of several books and at least 4 films, Israeli commandos flew to the airport where shortly thereafter a 36-minute battle was fought with the hijackers and Ugandan soldiers.
In the end, six of the hijackers, 45 Ugandan soldiers, three hostages, and Col. Jonathan Netanyahu (commanding officer of the Israeli commandos and elder brother of Benjamin Netanyahu) were killed.
POISON OPINION
In the recently released document, the British diplomat went further in his analysis of the event, saying that Israel wanted to poison French opinion with regard to the Palestinian cause, for which the French had traditionally held a certain amount of sympathy. According to his analysis of the situation, Israel wished to make the threat implicit but nevertheless clear that terrorism is something that can happen in Europe just as easily as it happens in the Middle East.
The PFLP said to be responsible for this incident was founded by a Lebanese-educated Palestinian Christian named Dr. George Habash. Unlike the larger, centrist and more nationalistic Fatah movement of the PLO, the PFLP is a far left, Marxist-Leninist movement designated by several governments including that of the United States as a terrorist organization. Since the late 1960s it has been credited with dozens of high-profile events, including hijackings and bombings.
Along with the United States and Britain, Israel has a long and well-established history of assisting individuals and groups said to be responsible for acts of terrorism since the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.
Individuals such as the famed Abu Nidal and groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in the Occupied Territories and now, Fateh-al-Islam operating in Northern Lebanon all have at some point been creatures of Mossad, CIA and MI5 intrigue.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/israel_staged_1976_hijacking.html
On June 8, 1967, US Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty was suddenly and brutally attacked on the high seas in international waters by the air and naval forces of Israel. The Israeli forces attacked with full knowledge that this was an American ship and lied about it. Survivors have been forbidden for 40 years to tell their story under oath to the American public. This USS Liberty Memorial web site tells their story and is dedicated to the memory of the 34 brave men who died.
The Attack After surveilling USS Liberty for more than nine hours with almost hourly aircraft over flights and radar tracking, the air and naval forces of Israel attacked our ship in international waters without warning. USS Liberty was identified as a US naval ship nine hours before the attack by Israeli reconnaissance aircraft and continuously tracked by Israeli radar and aircraft thereafter. Sailing in international waters at less than five knots, with no offensive armament, our ship was not a military threat to anyone. The Israeli forces attacked without warning and without attempting to contact us. Thirty four Americans were killed in the attack and another 174 were wounded. The ship, a $40 Million Dollar state of the art signals intelligence platform, was later declared unsalvageable and sold for scrap.
The Cover Up Despite a near-universal consensus that the Israeli attack was made with full knowledge that USS Liberty was a US Navy ship, the Johnson administration began an immediate cover-up of this fact. Though administration officers continued individually to characterize the attack as deliberate, the Johnson administration never sought the prosecution of the guilty parties or otherwise attempted to seek justice for the victims. They concealed and altered evidence in their effort to downplay the attack. Though they never formally accepted the Israeli explanation that it was an accident, they never pressed for a full investigation either. They simply allowed those responsible literally to get away with murder.
In an ongoing effort to reveal the truth about the attack, the USS Liberty Veterans Association has filed with the Secretary of the Army in the manner prescribed by law a detailed, fully documented Report of War Crimes describing the circumstances of the attack on our ship and evidence that it was a crime under international law. In accordance with international law and treaties, the United States is obligated to investigate the allegations. So far, the United States has declined even to acknowledge that the report has been filed. The full text of the report can be found at http://www.gtr5.com/evidence/warcrimes.pdf
http://www.gtr5.com/ CIA, Mossad Infiltrated Muslim Organizations: Expert By Kazi Mahmood, IOL Southeast Asia correspondent KUALA LUMPUR, April 21 (Islamonline.net) - The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Israeli intelligence - Mossad - have infiltrated Muslim organizations like Hamas in Palestine, Hizbullah in Lebanon and the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) in Indonesia, says an Indonesian intelligence expert. "It is clear that the CIA and the Mossad have infiltrated such organizations and have done much more than that," Sayed Abdullah, who operates an intelligence services firm in the Indonesian island of Maluku's, told IslamOnline.net. He asserted that the spy agencies "demonstrated their capacity to control these organizations with the murdering of two Hamas leaders in a month and that is enough to understand what they are up to." Abdelaziz Rantissi, Hamas new leader in the Gaza Strip, was assassinated late Saturday, April 17, in an Israeli air strike. This came less than a month after an Israeli strike helicopter fired three missiles at 67-year-old wheelchair-bound Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin after performing the dawn prayers in a mosque near his home, killing him and at least eight others. "It is obvious the CIA and the Mossad, assisted by the Australian Special Action Police (SAP) and the M15 of England, are all working towards undermining Muslim organizations in an attempt to weaken the Muslims globally," he charged. Sayed said that the assassination of Rantissi was planned and done with the intent to hurt the Palestinian resistance movement and the Palestinians. He asserted that the Israelis would not have carried out such an act if they were not certain of the aftermath of this attack. "They know, for a certain reason, that they have control of the Hamas now and they are now forcing the organization underground which will eventually make it difficult for the Hamas to press on with Intifada. …..He argued that the Bali bombing in 2002 was "an operation clearly financed and assisted by the CIA and Mossad, made use of Muslims to carry out the final act. "Those Muslims were not innocent since they took the bait handed over by the CIA and the Mossad to bomb Bali and to avenge against the U.S. war on the Muslims in Afghanistan." The Indonesian expert argued said that "to achieve this, the CIA used one of its operatives, Omar Al-Faruq, an Arab living in the U.S. who speaks Arabic and knows a little about Islam and who was sent to Indonesia to infiltrate the so called terrorist groups. He said that Al-Faruq initially infiltrated the Laskar Jihad, a group of Muslim volunteers fighting for the safeguard of the Maluku's during the conflict of the Island. When the Laskar was winded down by its leader, Al-Faruq was sent to join the Mujahideen Council of Indonesia (MMI), created and headed by jailed Indonesian Islamic leader Abu Bakar Basyir, added Sayed Abdullah. "After he failed to be a member of the MMI and failed to get to Basyir, he decided to work on the followers of Basyir. It is then that he came into contact with some of the Bali bombers and this is how the whole Bali operation was conducted," according to the Indonesian intelligence expert. He claimed that Australia, the U.S. and even Taiwan knew that Bali was to be bombed but they did nothing about it. Al-Faruq was arrested in 2002 by Indonesian police and sent to Washington upon request by the CIA. He was said to be undergoing interrogation but was never sent to Guantanamo, Cuba where the U.S. keeps most of its terror suspects. "This also goes for the murder of the two Hamas leaders. The U.S. and surely Britain knew of the attacks and even helped in it. Hence these nations with their intelligence are doing what they feel is best for their own interests," Sayed Abdullah added. http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-04/21/article06.shtml Abu Bakar Bashir: Terrorist or CIA-Mossad Patsy?
March 3rd, 2005
The United States and Australia wanted Abu Bakar Bashir, supposedly the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, to spend the rest of his life in prison for the Bali bombing. Instead, Bashir was "sentenced Thursday to 2 1/2 years in prison for conspiracy," although the United States and Australia "were hoping for a lengthy prison term to deter terrorism in the world's most populous Muslim nation [Indonesia]," according to ABC News. "We'd have liked a longer sentence," lamented Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
Jemaah Islamiyah is described as a militant Islamic separatist movement dedicated to the establishment of a fundamentalist Islamic state in Southeast Asia, in particular Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, and the south of Thailand and the Philippines, as noted by Wikipedia. It is said Jemaah Islamiyah is an al-Qaeda franchise and is connected to Abu Sayyaf, a separatist group based in and around the southern islands of the Philippines, primarily Jolo, Basilan, and Mindanao.
It is interesting Bashir stands accused of leading Jemaah Islamiyah and yet claims both Jemaah Islamiyah and al-Qaeda are CIA ops designed to "to persecute Muslims throughout the world," according to Richard S. Ehrlich of the Bangkok Post.
According to Sayed Abdullah, who operates an intelligence services firm in Indonesia, "It is clear that the CIA and the Mossad have infiltrated such organizations [Jemaah Islamiyah, Hamas, and Hezbollah]." Abdullah told Kazi Mahmood of IslamOnline the he believe it "is obvious the CIA and the Mossad, assisted by the Australian Special Action Police (SAP) and the M15 of England, are all working towards undermining Muslim organizations in an attempt to weaken the Muslims globally."
"By way of deception, thou shalt do war," is the motto of Mossad, according to Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad agent. "Supporting the radical elements of Muslim fundamentalism sat well with the Mossad's general plan," writes Ostrovsky. In fact, as UPI correspondent Richard Sale documents, Israel actively funded Hamas. Brig. Gen. Yithaq Segev, the military governor of Gaza, told Sale Israel funded "Islamic movements as a counterweight to the PLO and communists."
As Sayed Abdullah sees it, the Bali bombing was a classic false flag operation. Bali was "an operation clearly financed and assisted by the CIA and Mossad, made use of Muslims to carry out the final act. Those Muslims were not innocent since they took the bait handed over by the CIA and the Mossad to bomb Bali and to avenge against the U.S. war on the Muslims in Afghanistan." Abdullah said "to achieve this, the CIA used one of its operatives, Omar Al-Faruq, an Arab living in the U.S. who speaks Arabic and knows a little about Islam and who was sent to Indonesia to infiltrate the so called terrorist groups."
"Former State Intelligence Coordinating Board (BAKIN) [Badan Koordinasi Intelijen Negara, the Indonesian intelligence agency] chief A.C. Manulang has said that Kuwaiti citizen Omar Al-Faruq, a terrorist suspect who was arrested in Bogor, West Java, on June 5, 2002 and handed over to the US three days later, is a CIA-recruited agent," Tempo Interactive reported on September 19, 2002. According to Time Magazine, however, "al-Faruq was one of bin Laden's top representatives in Southeast Asia, responsible for coordinating the activities of the region's disparate Islamic militant groups and employing their forces to conduct terror attacks against the U.S. and its allies."
It should be noted that Osama bin Laden worked for the CIA in Afghanistan and al-Qaeda would later appear in Bosnia to help "Kosovo rebels battle for independence from Serbia with the financial and military backing of the United States and NATO," according to the National Post. "The United States, which had originally trained the Afghan Arabs during the war in Afghanistan, supported them in Bosnia and then in Kosovo. When NATO forces launched their military campaign against Yugoslavia … they entered the Kosovo conflict on the side of the KLA, which had already received 'substantial' military and financial support from bin Laden's network, analysts say."
http://forum.mpacuk.org/showthread.php?t=2873
Iranian Daily: 'Extremist Jews Plotting to Assassinate Chirac,' Mossad Agents Behind Najaf Blast 'Mossad Agents in Najaf Blast' …."An Iraqi analyst said traces of Mossad agents were found at the Najaf blast site where Ayatollah Seyed Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), and more than 80 others were martyred on Friday. The analyst, who requested anonymity, told the Mehr News Agency that Zionist intelligence agents have made great efforts to infiltrate Iraqi groups in order to thwart efforts to create national unity. "After Saddam Hussein was ousted, the Zionist regime took advantage of a lack of cooperation among the Iraqi Shia and sent a large number of extremist Jews and Mossad agents to Iraq, with the help of the occupying forces, to infiltrate Islamic groups and obtain information, the analyst said. "He added that a few months ago, a Mossad agent who knew Arabic and was quite familiar with Iraqi Muslim groups made a great effort to infiltrate organizations in southern Iraq and even influenced these groups. According to some reports… members of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) have helped Zionist operatives in this mission…" [2] http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP56303 CIA-Mossad Sponsored «Rebels» Attack Iran's Border © INDYMEDIA (http://sf.indymedia.org)
CIA-Mossad Sponsored "Rebels" Attack Iran's Border.
by repost Tuesday, Jan. 03, 2006 at 12:10 AM
by Kurt Nimmo
It makes perfect sense for the CIA to be attracted to Iran's Baluchistan province. First, the area has well established drug smuggling routes—and the CIA has an insatiable hunger for profits to be gleaned from illegal drugs—and second Baluchistan is a neglected tribal backwater where Hanafi Sunni Islam has a foothold in contrast to Iran's Shia majority. In other words, Iran's Sistan Baluchistan province is a perfect place to stir up trouble and make some money for covert ops in the process.
As evidence the CIA has been busy at work in the province, back in 2002 the neocon-Israel friendly DEBKAfile reported "a CIA undercover unit has entered Iran through Zabul, in the Sistan Baluchistan province. Its assignment is to stir up dissent among the largest population in the area, the Baluchi tribes." Moreover, according to DEBKAfile, in December of 2001 "al Qaeda fugitives, including some 4,000 Saudis, began using these obscure [drug smuggling] routes on their way from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Lebanon and other points in the Middle East. The CIA's undercover unit has undertaken the tall order of closing this al Qaeda escape route, while gathering intelligence on its nefarious traffic." In other words, the CIA is working hand-in-glove with "al-Qaeda" (a term used to describe useful idiot Muslim fanatics and patsies), probably smuggling drugs and also importing "dissent" among the Sunni Baluchi tribes, who hate and distrust the Shia regime in Tehran.
Now the Khaleej Times reports "Iran on Sunday confirmed that nine of its soldiers were 'missing' after a little-known Sunni Muslim rebel group said it had kidnapped them, the official IRNA news agency reported…. On Saturday a caller speaking for the Jundollah (God's Soldiers) told the Al Arabiya television station that the group wanted Tehran to release 16 of its jailed members in exchange for the soldiers." A Google search on Jundollah turns up little except a mention that the shadowy group is also active in Kurdish areas. As has been well-documented, Israeli "military and intelligence operatives are active in Kurdish areas of Iran, Syria and Iraq, providing training for commando units and running covert operations that could further destabilize the entire region," according to the Guardian, citing ace reporter Seymour Hersh. Of course, for the Straussian neocons and their Jabotinsky Zionist fellow travelers and mentors in Israel, the current "effort" in the region is all about destabilizing the entire region.
It is also well-known that the CIA and Israel's Mossad share a special if murderous relationship and undoubtedly work together plotting and executing covert and black ops in the neighborhood. The CIA's "ties with the Israeli Mossad date as far back as 1951," writes Dean Klovens for the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin. One of the more infamous collaborations between the two spook agencies occurred in 1986 when the La Belle disco was bombed in Berlin, killing two American soldiers and providing a handy pretext for Reagan to attack Libya, killing at least 30 civilians, including many children. In 1998, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF television) ran a documentary presenting "compelling evidence that some of the main suspects in the 1986 Berlin disco bombing… worked for American and Israeli intelligence," a German correspondent writing for WSWS reported at time.
It is also assumed the CIA and Mossad, along with the Israeli military, collaborated on the assassination of the elected president of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, who was in fact a Phalange (fascist) stooge for the Zionist state (Gemayel's assassination was pinned on Habib Tanious Shartouni, a member of the pro-Damascus Syrian Social Nationalist Party and an alleged agent for Syrian intelligence). It should be noted that former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, John Gunther Dean, had urged Gemayel "to stop seeing Israeli Mossad officers," according to the North Korea Times, and thus earned the wrath of the Zionist state. As a result, according to Dean, Mossad attempted to kill him and his family on August 27, 1980. Dean also blames Mossad for the assassination of Pakistan's president, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and a U.S. general were also killed in the plane crash that claimed Zia-ul-Haq's life).
For many Muslims, it is a no-brainer that the CIA-Mossad (and Britain's MI6 and Australia's Special Action Police) axis is behind the creation and spawning of Islamic terrorist organizations. "It is clear that the CIA and the Mossad have infiltrated such organizations and have done much more than that," Sayed Abdullah, who operates an intelligence service firm based on the Indonesian island of Maluku, told Kazi Mahmood of the IslamOnline website. Specifically, in regard to the first Bali bombings, Abdullah singles out Omar al-Faruq as a Mossad-CIA operative who infiltrated Jemaah Islamiyah, itself long ago compromised by Indonesian intelligence (see John Sidel, Cracking Down in Indonesia, the Jakarta Post). A.C. Manulang, a former Indonesian State Intelligence Coordinating Board chief, also accuses al-Faruq of working for the CIA. "Anti-Islam intelligence agencies committed the bombings in Indonesia. They have been trained for this and they are very organized," Manulang told Tempo Interactive.
It is interesting that at approximately the same time we learn of the "kidnapping" of Iranian border guards in Iran's Baluchistan province by a little-known Sunni terrorist group, we also discover that "al-Qaeda," the Sunni Wahabbi wonder creation of the CIA (or the smoke and mirrors visage of a fearsome terrorist group), is busy at work in Gaza. "Al Qaeda operatives are establishing a base in Gaza for launching attacks against Israel and neighboring pro-American Arab regimes, current and former Israeli security officials say," the pro-Zionist Forward reports. "Officials in Jerusalem and Washington are following this development with concern, Israeli and American sources said. They see the move as part of Al Qaeda's long-term plan to attack U.S. interests in the region. Using Gaza as a base of operations, Al Qaeda would be able to launch attacks against Israel, as well as against Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Israeli and American terrorism experts say." Of course, the conclusion is that the recent violence in Gaza by the Palestinians was instigated by al-CIA-duh. "They are already there to take advantage of the negative potential in Gaza: the instability, the chaos, the lack of Palestinian Authority control. They will use it to establish an operational base or to control, from there, Al Qaeda cells in the West Bank," retired Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon told the Forward. Of course, the Forward does not bother to mention that the Israelis were caught red-handed in 2002 operating a fake "al-Qaeda" cell in Gaza, as Agence France-Presse reported at the time.
If we can be certain of anything, it is that the Straussian neocons and their Likudite allies, working together with the CIA and Mossad, who engineered the current virulent strain of Islamic terrorism, will continue to unleash violence in preparation for the Strausscon version of World War Four. The Baluchistan province incident is simply another small indication that the United States and Israel, working together on the Zionist master plan to destabilize the Muslim world, are chipping away at Iran's border security as they prepare to attack the country and ultimately open the gates for the sort of chaos and violence required to splinter and balkanize the region into small tribal serfdoms malleable to rule by tribal clients who follow to the letter the diktat of Zionists and their neoliberal collaborators in Tel Aviv and Washington. http://www.borrull.org/e/noticia.php?id=55411&id2=3358
| Is the Kidnapping of CARE's Margaret Hassan a CIA-Mossad Op? by Kurt Nimmo | | |
It makes absolutely no sense.
Margaret Hassan, director of the humanitarian group CARE International, who has joint British-Iraqi citizenship, was kidnapped yesterday morning in Iraq. Although nobody has claimed responsibility for abducting Ms. Hassan, the immediate assumption is she was grabbed by the Iraqi resistance or al-Zarqawi, the latter accused of all manner of barbarity, including beheading kidnap victims. But why would the resistance kidnap somebody who has provided humanitarian assistance to the people of Iraq for 25 years? Is it possible the Iraqi resistance wants to deny the Iraqi people humanitarian assistance? Of course not. In America, the corporate media answers the above question every day—the Iraqi resistance is fanatical, murderous, nothing more than a loose confederation of terrorists, criminals, Islamic madmen, demented sadists who blow up car bombs in crowded market squares and kill women and children, their own neighbors. However, there is another possible explanation: the kidnapping of Margaret Hassan is part of a counterinsurgency operation devised to make the resistance look bad and thus turn world opinion against it. Before you tell me to don my tinfoil hat, consider the following: as crack investigative journalist Seymour Hersh ( www.uruknet.info/?p=3694 )reported in June, Mossad is busily at work in Iraq, primarily in the Kurdish areas of the country. A senior CIA official confirmed this, according to Hersh. In April, the Canadian National Post reported the existence of U.S. military special operations troops in civilian clothes, "illegally hunting down civilians and government figures, sabotaging civilian facilities and arming selected local thugs to execute reprisals, flouting the international laws of war," as Henry Michaels of WSWS characterized it. Michaels notes the following:
( www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/cia-a08. … )
Consider, as well, the appointment of John Negroponte as the Bush administration's ambassador to Iraq. Negroponte played a key role in Reagan's illegal contra war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. "Honduras became the main staging ground for attacks on Nicaragua by the right-wing contra army," writes Lance Selfa ( www.dissidentvoice.org/May2004/Selfa0509.ht … ). "A huge increase in military aid turned Honduras into a virtual U.S. base. Meanwhile, the Honduran military used its power to suppress not only those in the country who opposed the contra war, but also virtually anyone who fought for human rights and workers' rights." (Note: CARE – www.care.org/ – does not specifically bill itself as human rights group, but rather a "humanitarian organization fighting global poverty.") "Negroponte will be Washington's man in Baghdad just as he was Washington's man in Honduras," Selfa predicts, "organizing 'private contractors' and shadowy militias into death squads against 'insurgents.' Or directing the torture of suspects in Iraq's military prisons. Or turning the U.S. embassy into the biggest nest of spies in the region." CIA covert operations have a long and sordid history, going back to the founding of the organization in the late 40s. On June 18, 1948, the National Security Council issued directive 10/2 authorizing "propaganda; economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberations [sic] groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world." (See U.S. Covert Actions and Counter-Insurgency Programs, posted on the GlobalSecurity web site: www.globalsecurity.org/intell/ops/intro.htm … ) The CIA has conducted "thousands of operations over the years," writes John Stockwell, a former CIA agent, and "there have been about 3,000 major covert operations and over 10,000 minor operations… all designed to disrupt, destabilize, or modify the activities of other countries." ( www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Stockwell/JStock … ) In addition to sabotage and "demolition," the CIA has a track record of killing innocents with suicide bombs. On March 8, 1985, 80 people were killed and 200 injured when a car bomb exploded in Beirut, Lebanon. "The bomb went off outside a block of flats and close to a mosque as worshippers were gathering for Friday night prayers in a densely populated Shia Muslim suburb … near the home of a leading fundamentalist Shia Muslim cleric, Sheikh Muhammad Husain Fadlallah," explains the BBC. Reagan and his CIA director, William J. Casey, according to the Washington Post, were responsible for planning and executing, along with the Saudis, the terrorist attack against Fadlallah ( www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27452-20 … ) More than a few of the kidnappings in Iraq appear to be CIA, military intelligence, or Mossad operations. For instance, when Simona Pari and Simona Torretta of the Italian humanitarian organization Bridge to Baghdad were kidnapped recently, witnesses described the kidnapping as "extremely professional" and said a well-dressed man wearing a suit and tie had led the operation, according to the Guardian ( www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,129952 … ). Of course, it is possible the Iraqi resistance, or a criminal gang interested in ransom, pulled off the kidnapping of Pari and Torretta, but the question remains: why are so many kidnappings directed against humanitarian organizations, obviously not the preferred target of a resistance determined to drive the United States out of Iraq? It simply does not make sense—unless the kidnappings and bombings are designed to foment chaos and portray the resistance as murderous nihilists and cold-blooded criminals. Since it is obviously impossible for the United States to defeat the Iraqi resistance, it makes perfect sense for the CIA—possibly in alliance with other covert intelligence operations, for instance the documented Mossad operation in northern Iraq—to covertly engage in terrorism, which the White House and the corporate media subsequently blame on the resistance. In fact, Mossad and other Israeli intelligence organizations have a well-documented history of doing precisely this sort of thing—from the Lavon Affair ( www.mideastweb.org/lavon.htm ) to funding Hamas ( www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=18062002-051845-8272r ) and deceiving the United States into bombing Libya. The motto of Mossad is: "By way of deception thou shalt do war." ( users.cyberone.com.au/myers/ostrovsky.html ). According to former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky, Israel has supported radical fundamentalist Muslim groups for years (see previous link). Ostrovsky also claims Mossad "trained both sides in the bloody ongoing civil unrest in Sri Lanka: the Tamils and the Sinhalese, as well as the Indians who were sent in to restore order." Is it possible Mossad and the CIA are also responsible for the creation of the elusive super-terrorist al-Zarqawi and have planned and executed suicide, car bombings, and beheadings? Finally, for those who harbor doubts the United States would organize, front, and unleash terrorist groups against innocent civilians, consider Operation Northwoods ( www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/Northwoods.htm … ), a terrorist operation against Cuban civilians designed to be blamed on Castro, as proposed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962. "The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States," suggests the declassified memo sent to then Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara. "We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States … Harassment of civil air, attacks on surface shipping … Hijacking attempts against civil air and surface craft." Luckily, for innocent Cubans, McNamara and Kennedy rejected Operation Northwoods, although they were hardly admirers or Cuba and Fidel Castro. Is it possible Iraqis are not so luckyhttp://www.williambowles.info/spysrus/cia_mossad.html | | Bali II: Another Elusive Terror Mastermind on the Loose by Kurt Nimmo | | | | Global Research, October 3, 2005 | | Another Day in the Empire | |  Email this article to a friend
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| | Azahari bin Husin, said to be the explosives "mastermind" behind the Bali bombings this past weekend, has a very interesting background. He is not your average rural madrassa religious fanatic or "al-Qaeda" goat herder of the sort captured in Afghanistan. Husin is a "former university lecturer and gifted mathematician," according to the Sydney Morning Herald. "He returned home to obtain his degree, and at the end of the 1980s went to Reading University in England, where he impressed his tutors so much they persuaded him to stay on to complete a doctorate." Husin's future was promising as a lecturer at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia at Skudai in the southern state of Johor—and then he suddenly experienced a fanatical religious "epiphany" under the sway of the late Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Bashir, followers of the Darul Islam ideology and co-founders of Pondok Ngruki and eventually Jemaah Islamiyah, an Islamic separatist movement supposedly dedicated to the establishment of a fundamentalist Islamic state in Southeast Asia. I say "supposedly" because there are doubts (never mentioned in the western corporate media) about the legitimacy of Jemaah Islamiyah, as I noted in an earlier blog entry (subsequently posted on the Muslim Public Affairs Committee website). According to Sayed Abdullah, who operates an intelligence services firm in Indonesia, "It is clear that the CIA and the Mossad have infiltrated such organizations [Jemaah Islamiyah, Hamas, and Hezbollah]." Abdullah told Kazi Mahmood of IslamOnline the he believe it "is obvious the CIA and the Mossad, assisted by the Australian Special Action Police (SAP) and the M15 of England, are all working towards undermining Muslim organizations in an attempt to weaken the Muslims globally." Abdullah believes the Bali bombing of 2002 was "an operation clearly financed and assisted by the CIA and Mossad, made use of Muslims to carry out the final act…. Those Muslims were not innocent since they took the bait handed over by the CIA and the Mossad to bomb Bali and to avenge against the U.S. war on the Muslims in Afghanistan." The Indonesian expert argued said that "to achieve this, the CIA used one of its operatives, Omar Al-Faruq, an Arab living in the U.S. who speaks Arabic and knows a little about Islam and who was sent to Indonesia to infiltrate the so called terrorist groups. He said that Al-Faruq initially infiltrated the Laskar Jihad, a group of Muslim volunteers fighting for the safeguard of the Maluku's during the conflict of the Island. When the Laskar was winded down by its leader, Al-Faruq was sent to join the Mujahideen Council of Indonesia (MMI), created and headed by jailed Indonesian Islamic leader Abu Bakar Basyir, added Sayed Abdullah. "After he failed to be a member of the MMI and failed to get to Basyir, he decided to work on the followers of Basyir. It is then that he came into contact with some of the Bali bombers and this is how the whole Bali operation was conducted," according to the Indonesian intelligence expert. He claimed that Australia, the U.S. and even Taiwan knew that Bali was to be bombed but they did nothing about it. As noted in yesterday's entry here, Omar Al-Faruq "was assigned to infiltrate Islamic radical groups and recruit local agents within these groups" for the CIA. "After the CIA obtained complete data on this matter, they then made Al-Faruq disappear. It's common in intelligence world," former Indonesian State Intelligence Coordinating Board chief A.C. Manulang told Tempo Interactive in September, 2002. Azahari bin Husin's British connection should be examined, especially in light of the revelations that Haroon Rashid Aswat, the so-called mastermind of the 7/7 London Bombings, worked for British Intelligence, as noted by former Justice Department prosecutor and terror expert John Loftus on, of all places, Fox News. Steve Watson wrote for Infowars on August 2: John Loftus went on to spell out that British Intelligence and the US dept of Justice had protected Haroon Rashid Aswat: "Back in 1999 he came to America. The Justice Department wanted to indict him in Seattle because him and his buddy were trying to set up a terrorist training school in Oregon… we've just learned that the headquarters of the US Justice Department ordered the Seattle prosecutors not to touch Aswat… apparently Aswat was working for British intelligence…" This information is startling and again highlights how Al Qaeda exists as an organized body only where the intelligence services have created, funded and employed it. Loftus points out that several weeks before the London Bombings, Aswat was again located by the South African Intel agency but again allowed to slip away, this time to London: "He was a British intelligence plant. So all of a sudden he disappears. He's in South Africa. We think he's dead; we don't know he's down there. Last month the South African Secret Service come across the guy. He's alive… the Brits know that the CIA wants to get a hold of Haroon. So what happens? He takes off again, goes right to London. He isn't arrested when he lands, he isn't arrested when he leaves… He's on the watch list. The only reason he could get away with that was if he was working for British intelligence. He was a wanted man." It would seem the Brits and the United States have greasy fingers when it comes to capturing potentially dangerous Islamic fanatics and al-Qaeda operatives. In fact, they are simply recycling trusted intel operatives (or their painstakingly engineered reputations). http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1034 | | Al-Qaeda 'hijack' led to Mumbai attack By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times, Hong Kong http://www.atimes. com/atimes/ South_Asia/ JL02Df05. html
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-administer ed 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.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@ yahoo.com |
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Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye
Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping
The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping
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