Pakistan - America Relations

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/08/bin-laden-had-pakistan-support-network-obama.html

Bin Laden had Pakistan ‘support network’: Obama

WASHINGTON: Osama bin Laden had a “support network” in Pakistan but it is not clear if the Pakistani government was involved, US President Barack Obama said in his first public comments on the issue.

The fact that bin Laden turned up in leafy Abbottabad, home to the Pakistani equivalent of the West Point and Sandhurst military academies, just two hours’ drive north of Islamabad, has been greeted with incredulity.

“We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan,” Obama told the CBS show “60 Minutes,” according to excerpts of an interview released Sunday.

“But we don’t know who or what that support network was. We don’t know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that’s something that we have to investigate and, more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate.”

The Pakistani government has promised a probe but rejected charges that extremists like bin Laden are extended safe haven.

“They have indicated they have a profound interest in finding out what kinds of support networks bin Laden might have had,” said Obama.

“But these are questions that we’re not going to be able to answer three or four days after the event. It’s going to take some time for us to be able to exploit the intelligence that we were able to gather on site.”

Since the pre-dawn raid last Monday that killed bin Laden, the number one enemy of the United States, outraged US lawmakers have called for billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan to be cut back or pulled entirely.

The Obama administration last year said it would seek another $2 billion for Pakistan’s military, on top of a five-year, $7.5 billion civilian package approved in 2009 aimed at weakening the allure of extremists.

For a decade, Islamabad has been America’s wary Afghan war ally, despite widespread public opposition and militant bomb attacks across the nuclear-armed country that have killed several thousand people.

Pakistan has never been fully trusted by either Kabul or Washington, which accuse its powerful military of fostering the Afghan Taliban it spawned during the 1980s resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Pakistani intelligence officials deny the nation’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency had any idea bin Laden was holed-up in a compound in Abbottabad, which was raided in 2003 while still under construction.

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

I like the way you convey your frustration, do you know who will be most affected if the aid deficit is not met, it will be the common Pakistani, as a default by the state will result in runaway inflation, a quadrupling or more in the cost of fuel and food, so my friend, foreign aid is an essential component of Pakistan's budget and cannot just be wished away (unless of course you live in a foreign country and will not be directly affected)

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trial-in-mumbai-attacks-could-strain-us-pakistan-relations/2011/05/06/AFbSGlKG_story.html

Trial in Mumbai attacks could strain U.S.-Pakistan relations

**It could be years, if ever, before the world learns whether Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) helped hide Osama bin Laden.

But detailed allegations of ISI involvement in terrorism will soon be made public in a federal courtroom in Chicago, where prosecutors late last month charged a suspected ISI major with helping to plot the deaths of six Americans in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.**

The indictment has explosive implications because Washington and Islamabad are struggling to preserve their fragile relationship. The ISI has long been suspected of secretly aiding terrorist groups while serving as a U.S. ally in the terrorism fight.The discovery that bin Laden spent years in a fortresslike compound surrounded by military facilities in Abbottabad has heightened those suspicions and reinforced the accusations that the ISI was involved in the attacks that killed 166 people in Mumbai.

“It’s very, very troubling,” said Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees funding of the Justice Department. Wolf has closely followed the Mumbai case and wants an independent study group to review South Asia policy top to bottom.

“Keep in mind that we’ve given billions of dollars to the Pakistani government,” he said. “In light of what’s taken place with bin Laden, the whole issue raises serious problems and questions.”

Three chiefs of Lashkar-i-Taiba, the Pakistani terrorist group, were also indicted in Chicago. They include Sajid Mir, a suspected Mumbai mastermind whose voice was caught on tape directing the three-day slaughter by phone from Pakistan. Mir, too, has ISI links. He remains at large along with the suspected ISI major and half a dozen other top suspects.

Despite the unprecedented terrorism charges implicating a Pakistani officer, the Justice Department and other agencies did not issue news releases, hold a news conference or make any comments when the indictment was issued. The 33-page document names the suspect only as “Major Iqbal.” It does not mention the ISI, although Iqbal’s affiliation to the spy agency has been detailed in U.S. and Indian case files and by anti-terrorism officials in interviews with ProPublica over the past year.

“Obviously there has been a push to be low-key,” said an Obama administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the pending trial.

The first public airing of the ISI’s alleged involvement in the Mumbai attack will begin May 16 with the trial of Tahawwur Rana, owner of a Chicago immigration consulting firm. Rana was arrested in 2009 and charged with material support of terrorism in the same case in which the four suspects were indicted. The star witness will be David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani American businessman-turned-militant who has pleaded guilty to scouting targets in India and Denmark. Rana allegedly helped Headley use his firm as a cover for reconnaissance.

Rana’s attorney, Charles Swift, contends that Rana is not a terrorist because he thought he was assisting the ISI with an espionage operation. Swift said the U.S. indictment omits the ISI in hopes of mitigating tensions.

Even before bin Laden was killed, the Obama administration had taken a tougher tone about the ISI’s alleged militant links. But a U.S. official said this month that U.S. counterterrorism agencies still think that any involvement in the Mumbai attacks was limited to rogue officers.

“No one is saying we can’t work with the ISI — people are just pointing out the problems that exist,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. “I think the problems are largely with individual officers as opposed to the institution.”

Pakistani officials deny that the security forces were involved in Mumbai. **A senior Pakistani official questioned the credibility of Headley, who was an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration when he began training with Lashkar in 2002.

“When somebody is a double agent, whatever he says in a U.S. court is not credible from our perspective,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the pending trial.**

Headley has opened a door into an underworld in which spies, soldiers and terrorists converge. Although most of the prosecution’s documents in the Chicago court file remain sealed, a recent judge’s ruling in the Rana case says Headley admitted to working for the ISI as well as for Lashkar and al-Qaeda.

“I also told [Rana] about my meetings with Major Iqbal, and told him how I had been asked to perform espionage work for ISI,” Headley testified, according to the April 1 document.

Headley described an almost symbiotic bond between Lashkar and the ISI, which helped create the group as a proxy army against India. His account has been corroborated through other testimony, communications intercepts, the contents of his computer and records of phone and e-mail contact with ISI officers, anti-terrorism officials say.

Senior ISI officers served as handlers for Lashkar chiefs and provided a boat, funds and technical expertise for the Mumbai strike, according to a report by India’s National Investigation Agency on its interrogation of Headley last year in Chicago.

Headley trained in Lashkar camps before being recruited in 2006 by an ISI officer, Maj. Samir Ali, who referred him to Iqbal in Lahore, the report says. Iqbal became Headley’s handler, according to the Indian report, which officials say repeats Headley’s confessions to the FBI.

The U.S. indictment alleges that Iqbal gave the American $28,000 for the front company in Mumbai and other expenses. Iqbal and Mir directed Headley’s scouting of luxury hotels and other targets chosen to ensure that Americans and other Westerners would die.

Headley also met at least twice with Iqbal in late 2008 to launch a Lashkar plot against a Danish newspaper that had printed cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, according to the Indian report and investigators. Prosecutors charged Mir in the Denmark case but did not mention the suspected role of the major.

Nonetheless, Headley stayed in touch with Maj. Ali and another ISI officer, Col. Shah, as he continued the Denmark plot for al-Qaeda, according to investigators. His al-Qaeda interlocutor was allegedly a well-connected former Pakistani army major, Abdur-Rehman Syed, whose ISI handler was Col. Shah and who had contacts with bin Laden, the report says.

ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

Even now the Americans are not giving the full Aid they had promised like in the current year they have given 2-300 million dollars out of the 2-3 billion dollars they had promised, and now after osama it would be very difficult for them to pacify their public regarding providing AID to Pakistan, therefore we have to adjust our expenditures accordingly. We cannot expect the Americans to fund our budget deficit always.

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

When you talk about US aid, the main consumer is Pakistan army not the Pakistani public. Sam is claiming that he has paid Pakistani army $20 Billions in last 10 years for war against terror. If that aid is stopped, the main affectee will be the army. Pakistani public is suffering since last more than three decades. chakki main pis rahay hain.

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

Of course Raymond Davis connections are bogus because US media never talked about it, US government never admitted that he was a spy, its just a conspiracy theory.

I am not talking about "a" Raymond Davis, I am talking about hundreds of Raymonds who are roaming around in Pakistan. Sure they may not compare against the most wanted terrorist of the world, but a spy can cause a damage to country's major installations, security breach while terrorists like OBL were causing troubles outside Pakistan. And per news Pakistan was unaware of OBL presence (this is not according to Pakistan but according to US).

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

Oops Wrong Forum!

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/world/asia/09donilon.html?_r=1&hp

Obama and Aides Increase Pressure on Pakistan
By DAN BILEFSKY
Published: May 8, 2011

The White House national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, called Sunday for Pakistan to grant the United States access to Osama bin Laden’s three widows, who are in Pakistani custody following the secret American raid that killed the Qaeda leader last week. In addition to possibly learning more about Al Qaeda, American officials hope the women could help answer whether any Pakistani government or security officials were complicit in hiding Bin Laden.

Mr. Donilon called the volume of data and intelligence confiscated during the raid the “equivalent to a small college library.” He also acknowledged that President Obama had received “divided counsel” over whether to carry out the mission — using the phrase on Fox and ABC.

“At the end of the day, we ask our president to make the decision,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

President Obama similarly addressed U.S. ties to Pakistan, saying officials “think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan.

“But we don’t know who or what that support network was,” he said in remarks to be broadcast on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”** “We don’t know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that’s something that we have to investigate, and more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate.”**

Mr. Donilon, in his series of appearances on the Sunday talk shows, underscored the delicate tightrope the Obama administration has been walking with Pakistan. While praising Pakistan for its role in fighting terrorism, Mr. Donilon called for an investigation into how Bin Laden had been concealed in the northwestern city of Abbottabad, just 35 miles from Islamabad, the country’s capital.

“That needs to be investigated, and the Pakistanis are investigating,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And, indeed, this has been, obviously, a very big set of questions in their country about what happened and how this came about.”

Pakistan took custody of Bin Laden’s family after the May 2 raid of his hide-out, in which the Qaeda leader and four others were killed. But the Foreign Ministry has thus far not given the C.I.A. access to the wives, according to The Associated Press.

The revelation that bin Laden had been hiding in a heavily populated area with strong military ties has strained relations between the United States and Pakistan, with a growing number of officials in Washington questioning the Pakistani government’s credibility as a reliable ally against terrorism. Last week, some American officials expressed frustration with Pakistani military and intelligence officials for their refusal over the years to identify members of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, who were believed to have close ties to Bin Laden, and in particular, its S directorate, which has worked closely with militants since their fight against the Soviet Army in Afghanistan.

Some in the Pakistani military, meanwhile, have criticized the breach by the United States of Pakistan’s airspace during the mission. Mr. Donilon told CNN that Washington had seen no evidence that the Pakistani government, military or intelligence community had abetted Bin Laden’s concealment. Pakistan, he insisted, has been an important ally, noting that “more terrorists and extremists have been captured or killed in Pakistan’s soil than any other place in the world.”

But he did not rule out that the United States might proceed with another mission in Pakistan without notifying that country’s officials.

Asked on ABC’s “This Week With Christiane Amanpour” whether the United States would inform Pakistan if it decided to target Aymen al-Zawahri, the Egyptian surgeon considered the second in command in Al Qaeda, Mr. Donilon said it would depend on “the specifics of the operation.”

“This really wasn’t a matter of trusting or not trusting; it was a matter of operational security,” he said, referring to the secrecy surrounding the raid and the decision not to inform the Pakistani government.

But he called for Pakistani officials to provide the Obama administration with additional intelligence it might have gathered from the compound, while also granting access to Bin Laden’s three wives. While he declined to comment on the specifics of the raid, Mr. Donilon said that the world view was that the raid was justified. “The messages that have come back to us from around the world, and I study this fairly closely, is that this was a just action, that in fact this was a just action against a man who had committed murder, not just in the United States but around the world.”

Mr. Donilon said that the White House had put together a special task force to comb through the data and that it would work under Mr. Obama’s direction to pursue any leads the information yielded.

“The C.I.A. is describing it to us as the size of a small college library," he said in an interview with ABC News’ “This Week With Christiane Amanpour.” He would not say whether the data indicated any imminent threats to the United States.

Mr. Donilon said that Mr. Obama had received divided counsel ahead of the raid and had shown decisiveness under pressure.

“I wouldn’t call it dissension. I would call it a divided counsel — that people had, were in favor of, different options,” he said on ABC. He said that Mr. Obama had chaired five National Security Council meetings in six weeks before making his decision to raid the compound.

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

thats strange, so how much friendly ISI chief does the Americans want? :o

CIA increases pressure on Pasha to quit

Ansar Abbasi
Monday, May 09, 2011

ISLAMABAD: **The May 2 Abbottabad fiasco has given an already furious Leon Panetta of CIA a God-gifted opportunity to pin down ISI chief Lt General Shuja Pasha and get him replaced by a “friendly” ISI chief who would tow Washington’s line. **

Already the leading American magazine, Newsweek, has demanded of the US administration to insist on the resignation of General Pasha whereas** an official source in the Pakistan Embassy in Washington confided to this correspondent that some US authorities have already sounded them about their intentions about Pasha. However, no formal demand has been put forward to Islamabad as yet by Washington to this respect.**

To the bad luck of Pasha and the ISI, the Abbottabad fiasco has hit Pakistan at a time when Leon Panetta-led CIA and Gen Pasha-led ISI were already at daggers drawn following Pasha’s insistence to curtail and bring into regular check all CIA operations in Pakistan.

The Newsweek in its latest article “A Faltering Bargain with Pakistan” writes:** “As a minimal first step, the U.S. should insist on the resignation of the chief of the ISI, Gen. Shuja Pasha, on the official grounds of a gross failure of his service, and the unofficial grounds that this would be the start of a movement toward greater responsibility and accountability in the service. The U.S. should also insist on more rapid progress in creating an effective counter-terrorism agency to coordinate Pakistan’s feuding intelligence services.”**

**Washington and the CIA have long been desirous of reducing the ISI as its subsidiary agency and for the same purpose have been pressing Pakistan to “restructure” the agency and to bring it under what the US calls “civilian control”. **

A couple of years back, reportedly on foreign pressure, a notification was issued to bring the ISI under Interior Minister Rehman Malik but it was undone immediately following military establishment’s serious objections and the general condemnation of this move by the media, political parties, retired generals, etc. Interestingly, the timing of the notification coincided with the first official visit of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani to Washington.

In the post-May 2 get-Osama operation by special US forces in Abbottabad, the CIA Chief Leon Panetta came really hard on the ISI despite the latter’s sharing of crucial intelligence information as acknowledged even by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Panetta, however, while commenting about OBL’s whereabouts suggested that Pakistan (ISI) was either accomplice or incompetent. It was the first serious charge levelled by Washington against Pakistan, which though has categorically said that it was the ISI, which provided to the CIA the initial lead that led to the final location of Ladin.

Panetta’s CIA is believed to be in a revengeful mood to teach a lesson to the ISI and Gen Pasha for how they have been treating the CIA in the recent past. Pasha, who was seen by the Americans as “usually emotional”, as reflected by the recent disclosures of WikiLeaks, has been tough with the CIA in recent times. According to the latest media report, the CIA has sought from the ISI the details of all those ISI officials who have been interacting with the al-Qaeda members in the past. In case of Osama also though the ISI provided the lead, the CIA never shared with ISI the information as it later matured.

**It is said that Pakistan Army and ISI’s reluctance to expand the military operations against militants beyond the tribal regions of South Waziristan into neighbouring North Waziristan was one of the contributing factors for the deterioration of US-CIA intelligence relationship but the sore point became the ISI’s refusal to dance to the CIA’s tunes.
**
The relationship between ISI and CIA hit a low point when the CIA was forced to withdraw its local chief in Pakistan late last year after his name was published in the Pakistani media. The CIA blamed ISI for this. Later, the tension grew further between the two after a CIA private contractor Raymond Davis was caught red-handed in a broad daylight cold-blooded murder of two Pakistanis in Lahore. Davis was put behind the bars despite American pressure for his immediate release for being a “diplomat”. Though Davis was later shamelessly released and handed over to the US following a major role reportedly played by the ISI, tensions between the ISI and CIA grew further reportedly after Gen Pasha insisted that all Davis-like CIA agents must wrap up and leave Pakistan.

Media reports though suggested that along with Raymond Davis dozens of undercover CIA operators were also made to pack up, the details of the quid pro quo over Davis’ release were never shared by the government, ISI or the army with the media.

Surprisingly the Raymond Davis’ release instead of improving relations between the CIA and the ISI brought them to all-time low.

After Raymond’s case the ISI reportedly asked CIA to disclose the location of its agents in Pakistan and share with the ISI the nature of their emplacement in Pakistan. After repeated questioning CIA kept denying that they have so many operatives in Pakistan.

**In the recent past, spats between the ISI and the CIA got worsened when DG ISI went to USA for talks with the US officials including Panetta. He started with one point agenda that ISI will not support any CIA activity in Afghanistan or Pakistan if the CIA did not declare their operatives in Pakistan. **

The ISI is said to have prepared the list of 438 US officials who were in Pakistan but were not part of any consulate or embassy staff in any city. Their whereabouts were asked from CIA, to which they gave the funny reply that many of them have been lost. :smiley: **The CIA, it is said, claimed that these operatives were used in FATA area for the war on terror but in various incidents they have either been kidnapped or killed by Taliban, so now they were no more in Pakistan. **

“This stupid reply was totally non-digestible to DG ISI,” a source claimed, adding that in his concluding remarks the DG ISI gave a clear and stern reply to CIA officials that if they don’t know where their operatives were in Pakistan, then ISI was well aware of CIA operatives in the Middle East and we can tell those governments about their presence and activities. Panetta never expected such reply from Pasha.

The two reportedly were embroiled in heated arguments and it all ended up in Pasha returning to Pakistan from Washington within hours of his reaching there. Panetta was furious with Pasha, as he never thought that the intelligence chief of a country like Pakistan would confront the CIA chief this way. So he resolved to pin down Pasha and the ISI.

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/09/pakistani-media-reportedly-outs-cia-chief/

Pakistani Media Reportedly Outs CIA Chief
Published May 09, 2011
| FoxNews.com

Media broadcast the name of a man they said is the CIA’s Islamabad station chief and if it was an attempt to out the agent following the killing of Usama bin Laden.

The raid by U.S. Navy SEALs that resulted in the Al Qaeda leader’s death put further strain on the already tender relationship between the two countries. Pakistan has adamantly denied that it had any knowledge that bin Laden was hiding for years in a military city not far from its capital.

The alleged name of the Islamabad station chief – one of the CIA’s most significant and sensitive assignments – was first broadcast Friday by ARY, a private Pakistani television channel, The Wall Street Journal reported. The channel was covering a meeting between the station chief and the director of the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s spy agency.

While the Associated Press learned that the name reported was incorrect, ARY’s Islamabad bureau chief told The Journal that not broadcasting the name would have hurt the story’s credibility.

There are currently no plans to withdraw the chief from assignment, and neither the CIA nor Pakistan’s spy agency would respond to the newspaper for comment.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/09/pakistani-media-reportedly-outs-cia-chief/#ixzz1LrCA9s6u

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/09/pakistani-media-reportedly-outs-cia-chief/#ixzz1LrC5nz9d

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

Some good action by Pasha. Pasha should not be forced to resign if CIA/US is asking for it.

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

yes that was my reaction too, after reading that part! :)

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

well inqalab inqalab inqalab

the only one change we might be need in pakistan to say a GOOD good bye to uncle sam, he is neither good for us as a friend nor as enemy, hame hamare hal par chor dou uncle sam. and our politicans/army they need money even its dollars or yens/wons/rupee whatever, they could get it from china. and we pakistanis never get a single of Damdi for us SO i think we are okay without USDs aid.

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/09/pakistan-backlash-mounts-does-opportunity-new-terror-targets/

As Pakistan Backlash Mounts, So Does Opportunity for New Terror Targets
Published May 09, 2011
| FoxNews.com

**As Pakistan cries foul over the U.S. raid on Usama bin Laden’s compound, President Obama could once again be forced to decide whether to go over the Pakistanis’ heads – or, under their radars – to capture or kill another high-value terror target. **

**Evidence from the scene where bin Laden died – described as the largest intelligence find ever from a senior terror leader – could lead the United States to other terrorists on Pakistani soil.
**
With analysts combing through the files for clues on the whereabouts of Al Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri or Taliban chief Mullah Omar, some are calling on Obama to strike while Al Qaeda and its allies are staggering.

**“We have no right to keep our troops on the defense dying, when we know where some of the highest-ranking people in the Taliban are,” Bing West, former assistant defense secretary, told Fox News on Monday. **

**Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said that if the U.S. gets bin Laden’s deputy – presumed to be al-Zawahiri – in its sights, “the same calculus” that was used on bin Laden should apply.
**
**But if high-value terrorists are discovered to be in Pakistan, Obama could be forced to order a strike on that territory, and the thought already has Pakistani leaders fuming. **

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani defended his country in an address Monday, suggesting that while Pakistan is relieved bin Laden is dead, the U.S. had better not try another raid like that without first informing the government in Islamabad.

He said his country would not relent in rooting out terrorists, but warned any “overt or covert” attack against its assets would be met with a “matching response.”

“Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force. No one should underestimate the resolve and capability of our nation and armed forces to defend our sacred homeland,” he said.
One senior Pakistani government source told The Telegraph newspaper the country would act if there is another “violation” of its air space. “We’ll take appropriate action if any further violation takes place. We will defend our air space by any means we have,” the source is quoted saying.

Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., also told “This Week” that the Pakistani government wants to continue “joint operations,” but is concerned about the nature of the raid last weekend.

“Nobody said that we didn’t want Usama bin Laden taken out. What we are offended by is the violation of our sovereignty,” he said. “Now, we’ve heard the American explanation. But at the same time, try and put yourself in the position of a Pakistani leader who has to go to votes from the same people who will turn around and say, ‘You know what? You can’t protect this country from American helicopters coming in.’”

He said America “has a selling job to do in Pakistan” to convince its people the U.S. is their “ally.”

So far, the White House is not pushing back on these calls.

U.S. officials say the burden is on Pakistan to take action, particularly considering the billions in U.S. aid going toward Pakistan, but barring that, the United States will act.

The president reserves the right to enter Pakistani territory to act against terror suspects if Pakistan will not, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said last week.
National Security Adviser Tom Donilon told ABC’s “This Week” that another unilateral stealth raid would “depend on the operation” and the risk involved.

Obama, in an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” confirmed that he did not inform Pakistani officials of the raid in advance, though he praised Pakistan’s cooperation considering “we’ve been able to kill more terrorists on Pakistani soil than just about any place else.”

However, Obama also questioned whether anybody inside the Pakistani government might have known about bin Laden’s location all along.

“We were surprised that he could maintain a compound like that for that long without there being a tip-off,” Obama said. “We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan. But we don’t know who or what that support network was. We don’t know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that’s something that we have to investigate and, more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/09/pakistan-backlash-mounts-does-opportunity-new-terror-targets/#ixzz1LsLTwuKl

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http://i54.tinypic.com/2u73ndk.jpg

http://i51.tinypic.com/dywqxy.jpg

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/world/asia/10intel.html?_r=1&hp

U.S. Braced for Fights With Pakistanis in Bin Laden Raid
By ERIC SCHMITT, THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: May 9, 2011

WASHINGTON — President Obama insisted that the assault force hunting down Osama bin Laden last week be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if confronted by hostile local police officers and troops, senior administration and military officials said Monday.

In revealing additional details about planning for the mission, senior officials also said that two teams of specialists were on standby: One to bury Bin Laden if he was killed, and a second composed of lawyers, interrogators and translators in case he was captured alive. That team was set to meet aboard a Navy ship, mostly likely the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea.

Mr. Obama’s decision to increase the size of the force sent into Pakistan shows that he was willing to risk a military confrontation with a close ally in order to capture or kill the leader of Al Qaeda.

Such a fight would have set off an even larger breach with the Pakistanis than has taken place since officials in Islamabad learned that helicopters filled with members of a Navy Seals team had flown undetected into one of their cities, and burst into a compound where Bin Laden was hiding.

One senior Obama administration official, pressed on the rules of engagement for one of the riskiest clandestine operations attempted by the C.I.A. and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command in many years, said: “Their instructions were to avoid any confrontation if at all possible. But if they had to return fire to get out, they were authorized to do it.”

The planning also illustrates how little the administration trusted the Pakistanis as they set up their operation. They also rejected a proposal to bring the Pakistanis in on the mission.

Under the original plan, two assault helicopters were going to stay on the Afghanistan side of the border waiting for a call if they were needed. But the aircraft would have been about 90 minutes away from the Bin Laden compound.

About 10 days before the raid, Mr. Obama reviewed the plans and pressed his commanders as to whether they were bringing along enough forces to fight their way out if the Pakistanis arrived on the scene and attempted to interfere with the operation.

That resulted in the decision to send two more helicopters carrying additional troops. These followed the two lead Black Hawk helicopters that carried the actual assault team. While there was no confrontation with the Pakistanis, one of those backup helicopters was ultimately brought in to the scene of the raid when a Black Hawk was damaged while making a hard landing

“Some people may have assumed we could talk our way out a jam, but given our difficult relationship with Pakistan right now, the president did not want to leave anything to chance,” said one senior administration official, who like others would not be quoted by name describing details of the secret mission. “He wanted extra forces if they were necessary.”

With tensions between the United States and Pakistan escalating since the raid, American officials on Monday sought to tamp down the divisions and pointed to some encouraging developments.

A United States official said that American investigators will soon be allowed to interview Bin Laden’s three widows now being held by Pakistani authorities, a demand that Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, made on television talk shows on Sunday.

American officials say the widows, as well as a review of the trove of documents and other data the Seals team collected from the raid, could reveal important details, not only about Bin Laden’s life and activities since fleeing into Pakistan from Afghanistan in 2001, but also information about Qaeda plots, personnel and planning.

“We believe that it is very important to maintain the cooperative relationship with Pakistan precisely because it’s in our national security interest to do so,” said the White House spokesman, Jay Carney.

In an effort to help mend the latest rupture in relations, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, will meet soon with his counterpart, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, head of the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or I.S.I., “to discuss the way forward in the common fight against Al Qaeda,” an American official said.

On Sunday, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. “Mullen just wanted to check in with him,” said a senior military official. “The conversation was civil, but sober, given the pressure that the general is under right now.”

In describing the mission, the officials said that American surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft were watching and listening to how Pakistan’s police forces and military responded to the raid. That determined how long the commandos could safely remain on the ground going through the compound collecting computer hard drives, thumb drives and documents.

American forces were under strict orders to avoid engaging with any Pakistani forces that responded to the commotion at the Bin Laden compound, senior administration officials said.

If a confrontation appeared imminent, there were contingency plans for senior American officials, including Admiral Mullen, to call their Pakistani counterparts to avert an armed clash.

But when he reviewed the plans, Mr. Obama voiced concern that this was not enough to protect the troops on the mission, administration officials said.

In planning for the possible capture of Bin Laden, officials decided they would bring him aboard a Navy ship to preclude battles over jurisdiction.

The plan, officials said, was to do an initial interrogation for any information that might prevent a pending attack or identify the location of other Qaeda leaders.

“There was a heck of a lot of planning that went into this for almost any and all contingencies, including capture,” one senior administration official said.

In the end, the team organized to handle his death was called into duty. They did a quick forensics study of the body, washed it, and buried it at sea.

But the officials acknowledged that the mission always was weighted toward killing, given the possibility that Bin Laden would be armed or wearing an explosive vest.

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

..and you do understand the context of this surah and at what time and what situation it was revealed?
because I can similarly show you verses that talk about respect for people of the book.
who needs uber right wingers in the west to use selected verses, when some among the muslims will do it themselves.

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

Another drone attack in South Waziristan

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

[mod]PA is to discuss the political aspects in worldly perspectives. Please avoid discussion of scriptures and theology in this forum. Religious forum is provided to the posters to discuss the religious aspects.. please respect the theme of the various forums..[/mod]

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Re: Pakistan - America Relations

reading Hussain Haqqani's statements sometimes it seems that even he is more powerful than Pakistani government