The Paks Better Home This Isn't True...

If they really did take an active hand in hiding Bin Laden, then we need to shoot up a lot more than their border outposts. Let's start with Islamabad and work out from there in ever-widening concentric circles.

In spite of denials by the Pakistani military, evidence is emerging that elements within the Pakistani military harbored Osama bin Laden with the knowledge of former army chief General Pervez Musharraf and possibly current Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani. Former Pakistani Army Chief General Ziauddin Butt (a.k.a. General Ziauddin Khawaja) revealed at a conference on Pakistani-U.S. relations in October 2011 that according to his knowledge the then former Director-General of Intelligence Bureau of Pakistan (2004 – 2008), Brigadier Ijaz Shah (Retd.), had kept Osama bin Laden in an Intelligence Bureau safe house in Abbottabad.

By: Brant

Pakistani Taliban Coming Apart at the Seams?

So, the ISI's pet troublemakers are squabbling amongst themselves and threatening the "unity" of the organization?

Battered by Pakistani military operations and U.S. drone strikes, the once-formidable Pakistani Taliban has splintered into more than 100 smaller factions, weakened and is running short of cash, according to security officials, analysts and tribesmen from the insurgent heartland.

The group, allied with al-Qaida and based in the northwest close to the Afghan border, has been behind much of the violence tearing apart Pakistan over the last 4 1/2 years. Known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban, or TTP, the Taliban want to oust the U.S.-backed government and install a hard-line Islamist regime. They also have international ambitions and trained the Pakistani-American who tried to detonate a car bomb in New York City’s Times Square in 2010.

“Today, the command structure of the TTP is splintered, weak and divided and they are running out of money,” said Mansur Mahsud, a senior researcher at the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Area) Research Center. “In the bigger picture, this helps the army and the government because the Taliban are now divided.”

The first signs of cracks within the Pakistani Taliban appeared after its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a drone strike in August 2009, Mahsud said. Since then, the group has steadily deteriorated.

Set up in 2007, the Pakistani Taliban is an umbrella organization created to represent roughly 40 insurgent groups in the tribal belt plus al-Qaida-linked groups headquartered in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province.

“In the different areas, leaders are making their own peace talks with the government,” Mahsud added. “It could help the Pakistani government and military separate more leaders from the TTP and more foot soldiers from their commanders.”

The two biggest factors hammering away at the Taliban’s unity are U.S. drone strikes and Pakistani army operations in the tribal region.

By: Brant

Pakistan is Playing Both Sides of the Fence... And It's Inarguable

They're refusing to launch any action aimed at the Haqqani network.

Pakistan will not launch an offensive against Haqqani extremists despite Washington ramping up the pressure after a series of attacks on US targets in Afghanistan, an official said on Monday.
The US and Pakistan are key allies in the war against Islamist militants in Afghanistan, but their relationship is often troubled and hit new depths after the killing of Osama bin Laden in a covert US raid in Pakistan in May.
Pakistan's army chief of staff gathered together his top generals in an extraordinary meeting at the weekend after a series of stinging rebukes from the Americans blaming the Haqqanis and Pakistani intelligence for recent attacks.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is now expected to call a rare cross-party conference, although he has dismissed the American allegations as little more than finding a scapegoat for US "disarray" in the 10-year war in Afghanistan.
"I don't think the indicators are as such," a senior Pakistani security official told AFP when asked if the army was going to launch an operation in North Waziristan, near the Afghan border, where the Haqqani leadership is based.
Instead, he said, the military needs to "consolidate gains" made against local militants who pose a security threat elsewhere in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt that Washington has branded an Al-Qaeda headquarters.
Pakistan has around 140,000 troops based in its troubled northwest and says more than 3,000 soldiers have been killed since 2001 -- more than the 2,735 Western soldiers to have died fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

But their duplicity has being going on a while. Back in 2007, they ambushed a US/Afghan delegation they'd just hosted for a meeting.

A group of American military officers and Afghan officials had just finished a five-hour meeting with their Pakistani hosts in a village schoolhouse settling a border dispute when they were ambushed — by the Pakistanis.
An American major was killed and three American officers were wounded, along with their Afghan interpreter, in what fresh accounts from the Afghan and American officers who were there reveal was a complex, calculated assault by a nominal ally. The Pakistanis opened fire on the Americans, who returned fire before escaping in a blood-soaked Black Hawk helicopter.
The attack, in Teri Mangal on May 14, 2007, was kept quiet by Washington, which for much of a decade has seemed to play down or ignore signals that Pakistan would pursue its own interests, or even sometimes behave as an enemy.

They had tailed bin Laden's couriers to Abbotabad and decided it wasn't worth detailed investigation.

They shut down Afghan peace talks because they weren't at the table and claimed that they "protect" the Taliban.

Is it any wonder that you've got a US Senator calling for military action against Pakistan?

A Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee said Sunday that the U.S. should consider military action against Pakistan if it continues to support terrorist attacks against American troops in Afghanistan.
"The sovereign nation of Pakistan is engaging in hostile acts against the United States and our ally Afghanistan that must cease, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told "Fox News Sunday."
He said if experts decided that the U.S. needs to "elevate its response," he was confident there would be strong bipartisan support in Congress for such action.
Graham did not call for military action but said "all options" should be considered. He said assistance to Pakistan should be reconfigured and that the U.S. should no longer designate an amount of aid for Pakistan but have a more "transactional relationship" with the country.
"They're killing American soldiers," he said. "If they continue to embrace terrorism as a part of their national strategy, we're going to have to put all options on the table, including defending our troops."

By: Brant

Pak Army Convening Complaint Council?

Following their public verbal smack down by the US, top Pakistani army commanders are meeting among themselves. The problem is...? The ISI doesn't work for the Army. So we'll see what they can actually do about the problem.

Pakistan's army chief will convene a special meeting of senior commanders Sunday following U.S. allegations that the military's spy agency helped militants attack American targets in Afghanistan, the army said.
Senior Pakistani officials have lashed out against the allegations of support for the Haqqani militant network, accusing the U.S. of trying to make Pakistan a scapegoat for its troubled war in Afghanistan. The public spat has plunged the troubled U.S.-Pakistan alliance to new lows.
Pakistan's leaders have shown no indication that they plan to act on renewed American demands to attack the Haqqani network in their main base in Pakistan, even at the risk of further conflict with Washington, which has given the country billions of dollars in military and economic aid.
The top U.S. military officer, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency Thursday of supporting Haqqani insurgents in planning and executing a 22-hour assault on the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan on Sept. 13 and a truck bomb that wounded 77 American soldiers days earlier.
Kayani, widely considered the most powerful man in Pakistan, has dismissed the allegations, saying the charges were baseless and part of a public "blame game" detrimental to peace in Afghanistan.

By: Brant

ISI Shenanigans... Again

So the ISI helps AfPak Terrorists plan an attack on US folks in Afghanistan. It ain't the first time the ISI has misbehaved. But when the US points it out, the Paks get all indignant and publicly pissy. Hey ISI, we got a whole bag of 'waaah' over here for you!

Pakistan's foreign minister lashed out at the U.S. for accusing the country's most powerful intelligence agency of supporting extremist attacks against American troops in Afghanistan.
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar condemned the allegations and warned the U.S. that it risks losing Pakistan as an ally. She said the U.S. cannot afford to alienate the Pakistani government or its people, and if it does so, it will be at Washington's cost.
Khar spoke to Geo TV from New York City on Thursday following Congressional testimony about Pakistan from the top U.S. military officer.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency of "exporting violence" to Afghanistan.
U.S. military officials told NBC News that the Pakistani government, through its intelligence service, is "actively involved" in directing the militant Haqqani network to launch terrorist attacks against U.S. and Afghan government targets in Kabul.
The officials told NBC News the ISI, Pakistan's powerful spy agency, directed the attacks by Haqqani militants on the U.S. Embassy on Sept. 13 and on the Inter-Continental Hotel on June 28. It's suspected ISI also had a role in the massive truck bombing targeting an American base in eastern Afghanistan on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, the officials said.

By: Brant

Why *Should* We Trust The ISI?

I mean, this has been going on for years...

In 2003 or 2004, Pakistani intelligence agents trailed a suspected militant courier to a house in the picturesque hill town of Abbottabad in northern Pakistan.
There, the agents determined that the courier would make contact with one of the world's most wanted men, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who had succeeded September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammad as al Qaeda operations chief a few months earlier.
Agents from Pakistan's powerful and mysterious Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known as the ISI, raided a house but failed to find al-Libbi, a senior Pakistani intelligence official told Reuters this week.
Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf later wrote in his memoirs that an interrogation of the courier revealed that al-Libbi used three houses in Abbottabad, which sits some 50 km (30 miles) northeast of Islamabad. The intelligence official said that one of those houses may have been in the same compound where on May 1 U.S. special forces killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
It's a good story. But is it true? Pakistan's foreign ministry this week used the earlier operation as evidence of Pakistan's commitment to the fight against terrorism. You see, Islamabad seemed to be pointing out, we were nabbing bad guys seven years ago in the very neighborhood where you got bin Laden.
But U.S. Department of Defense satellite photos show that in 2004 the site where bin Laden was found this week was nothing but an empty field. A U.S. official briefed on the bin Laden operation told Reuters he had heard nothing to indicate there had been an earlier Pakistani raid.
There are other reasons to puzzle. Pakistan's foreign ministry says that Abbottabad, home to several military installations, has been under surveillance since 2003. If that's true, then why didn't the ISI uncover bin Laden, who U.S. officials say has been living with his family and entourage in a well-guarded compound for years?
The answer to that question goes to the heart of the troubled relationship between Pakistan and the United States. Washington has long believed that Islamabad, and especially the ISI, play a double game on terrorism, saying one thing but doing another.

By: Brant

Pakistan Claiming "Worldwide" Incompetence

The Paks are trying to spread the blame for a supposed intel 'failure'.

Pakistan's prime minister says spy agencies worldwide share the blame for his country's failure to capture Osama Bin Laden, who was killed by US forces.

"We have intelligence failure of the rest of the world including the United States," PM Yousuf Raza Gilani said.

Pakistan has been criticised for not locating Bin Laden, who was living near the country's main military academy.

The CIA head has said the US did not tell Islamabad of the raid in advance, for fear it would be jeopardised.

Uh, we found him. In your back yard. We didn't fail.

By: Brant

Wow, Pakistan is Embarrassed? They Should Be...

So the Paks are complaining about being excluded from the bin Laden raid.

Pakistan's president acknowledged for the first time on Tuesday that his security forces were left out of a U.S. operation to kill Osama bin Laden, but he did little to dispel questions over how the al Qaeda leader was able to live in comfort near Islamabad.
The revelation that bin Laden had holed up in a compound in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, possibly for years, prompted many U.S. lawmakers to demand a review of the billions of dollars in aid Washington gives to nuclear-armed Pakistan.
"He was not anywhere we had anticipated he would be, but now he is gone," Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari wrote in an opinion piece in the Washington Post, without offering further defense against accusations his security services should have known where bin Laden was hiding.
"Although the events of Sunday were not a joint operation, a decade of cooperation and partnership between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama bin Laden as a continuing threat to the civilized world."

Well, there's a reason that US lawmakers are asking if bin Laden was hiding in plain sight.

Incredulous lawmakers are pressing Pakistan for answers to two simple questions: What did its army and intelligence agents know of Osama bin Laden's whereabouts and when did they know it?
The al-Qaida terrorist leader behind the Sept. 11 attacks lived and died in a massive, fortified compound built in 2005 and located on the outskirts of Abbottabad, some 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad. It stood just a half-mile from the Kakul Military Academy, Pakistan's equivalent of West Point, and close to various army regiments.
Amid the high praise Monday for the successful U.S. military operation, congressional Republicans and Democrats questioned whether bin Laden was hiding in plain sight, with Pakistani military and intelligence operatives either totally unaware of his location or willfully ignoring his presence to protect him.
It was more than a rhetorical question as lawmakers raised the possibility of imposing conditions on the billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars that flow to Pakistan, largely economic aid to back an unsteady government.
"I think this tells us once again that, unfortunately, Pakistan at times is playing a double game," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a Senate Armed Services Committee member who indicated that Congress could put limits on funds for Pakistan.

Maybe if the ISI was working for the Pak government, instead of being OBL's crony network, the country would be a little less embarrassed.

When U.S. President Obama called Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to tell him the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed by U.S. citizens in a lightening raid not far from the Pakistani capital last night, he also instructed his team to similarly inform their Pakistani counterparts. The question is, who was surprised when they picked up the phone?
That bin Laden had been living in a specially constructed compound less than an hours' drive from Pakistani military HQ, and in the same town as the country's premier military academy, makes the near constant denials by Pakistan's intelligence agencies that the terror group leader was in the country difficult to swallow. Sure, there are at times a Keystone-cops element to the operational methods of the agencies - those assigned to trail foreign journalists in the country are less than subtle in their surveillance methods: One once asked me my address, as he was sitting in my house, another decided that quizzing my driver about my activities was far less work than actually following me to interviews - but bumbling or not, they are ubiquitous. The crackle and click of telephone lines is the constant reminder that no conversation over the phone is private, the crew-cut men in beige that materialize whenever I start asking questions proof that one is never quite alone in Pakistan. So the idea that absolutely no one but American intelligence knew who was living in that multi-million dollar compound beggars belief.
Obama was careful to thank Pakistani assistance in the raid, but how, exactly, the Pakistanis assisted will be a key part of understanding the relationship between Pakistan and the U.S. going forward. Just a few weeks ago, U.S. Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen told Pakistani English-language newspaper Dawn that the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had a "relationship" with the al Qaeda affiliated Haqqani network:
"It's fairly well known that the ISI has a longstanding relationship with the Haqqani network….Haqqani is supporting, funding, training fighters that are killing Americans and killing coalition partners. And I have a sacred obligation to do all I can to make sure that doesn't happen…..So that's at the core - it's not the only thing - but that's at the core that I think is the most difficult part of the relationship."

Maybe if the ISI wasn't too busy protecting the Taliban they could try to find the most wanted man in the world in the town with their military academy...

By: Brant

ISI Playing Both Sides? ADM Mullen Thinks So

ADM Mullen has publicly admitted what everyone has "known" for a while: Pakistan's ISI spy has "militant links"

The US military's top officer, Adm Mike Mullen, has accused Pakistan's spy agency of having links with militants targeting troops in Afghanistan.

He said Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had a "long-standing relationship" with a militant group run by Afghan insurgent Jalaluddin Haqqani.

The comments came as he held talks in Islamabad on Wednesday. Pakistani officials are also in the US for talks.

Pakistan routinely rejects charges of collusion with militants.

The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that US officials have in the past spoken anonymously or in circumspect terms about associations between the Pakistani establishment and insurgents.

But that with this blunt statement Adm Mullen has for the first time claimed a clear link between the two, our correspondent says.

"It's fairly well known that the ISI has a long-standing relationship with the Haqqani network," Adm Mullen told Pakistan's Dawn newspaper.

"Haqqani is supporting, funding, training fighters that are killing Americans and killing coalition partners. And I have a sacred obligation to do all I can to make sure that doesn't happen."

He said the spy agency's support of the network remained at the "core ... and the most difficult part of the relationship" and that he would take it up with Pakistan's army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani.

By: Brant

Pakistan's ISI Sees Militants As Greatest Threat

India is no longer the top threat to national security, according to Pakistan's main spy agency. It remains to be seen how this shift in focus will affect relations between Pakistan and India, as well as the conflict in Afghanistan.

A recent internal assessment of security by the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's powerful military spy agency, determined that for the first time in 63 years it expects a majority of threats to come from Islamist militants, according to a senior ISI officer.

The assessment, a regular review of national security, allocates a two-thirds likelihood of a major threat to the state coming from militants rather than from India or elsewhere. It is the first time since the two countries gained independence from Britain in 1947 that India hasn't been viewed as the top threat. Decades into one of the most bitter neighborly rivalries in modern history, both countries maintain huge troop deployments along their Himalayan border.

"It's earth shattering. That's a remarkable change," said Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism specialist and professor at Georgetown University. "It's yet another ratcheting up of the Pakistanis' recognition of not only their own internal problems but cooperation in the war on terrorism."

It is unclear whether the assessment of the ISI—a powerful group largely staffed by active military officers—is fully endorsed by Pakistan's military and civilian government. The assessment's impact on troop positioning and Pakistan's war against militants remains to be seen.

The assessment reflects the thinking in the mainstream of the ISI. But U.S. officials worry that elements of Pakistan's military establishment, which they say includes retired ISI officers, continue to lend support to militants that shelter in Pakistan's tribal regions, an effort these people say is aimed at building influence in Afghanistan once the U.S. pulls out.

By: Shelldrake

CIA vs ISI - Friendly Enemies? Antagonistic Friends?

There's friction. There's cooperations. There's nothing quite like the relationship between the CIA and the ISI.

Publicly, officials credit Pakistani collaboration with helping kill and capture numerous al-Qaida and Taliban leaders. Privately, that relationship is often marked by mistrust as the two countries wage an aggressive spy battle against each other.

The CIA has repeatedly tried to penetrate the ISI and learn more about Pakistan's nuclear program. The ISI has mounted its own operations to gather intelligence on the CIA's counterterrorism activities in the tribal lands and figure out what the CIA knows about the nuclear program.

Bumping up against the ISI is a way of life for the CIA in Pakistan, the agency's command center for recruiting spies in the country's lawless tribal regions. Officers there also coordinate Predator drone airstrikes, the CIA's most successful and lethal counterterrorism program. The armed, unmanned planes take off from a base inside Pakistani Baluchistan known as "Rhine."

By: Brant

Order of Battle: Pakistani Taliban

Here's a quick rundown of the different military groups in the AfPak region.

TEHRIK-E-TALIBAN PAKISTAN (Taliban Movement of Pakistan)

The most notorious of the Pakistani Taliban groups, the TTP is the organization most influenced by al Qaeda and focuses much of its energy on attacking the Pakistani state.

Formed by militants of the Mehsud tribe in South Waziristan, its first leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in August 2009 in a U.S. drone strike. His successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, was thought to have been killed in a similar strike in January, but two tapes released last weekend showed that he is still alive.

His fighters regularly ambush trucks taking supplies through the Khyber Pass to Afghan government and Western forces across the border.

The TTP has links to both al Qaeda -- because the two share a geography -- and it works closely with Punjabi militant groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammad and Laskkar-e-Jhangvi.


HAQQANI NETWORK

Based mainly in North Waziristan and adjoining provinces in Afghanistan, the Haqqani Network is headed by a hero of the anti-Soviet jihad, Jalaluddin Haqqani, although day-to-day operations are run by his son, Sirajuddin.

The Haqqani network was for long an ally and asset of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, and they are believed to maintain links.

It mostly attacks U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Attacks against Pakistani forces and civilians are rare. The Haqqani Network has close political ties with Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad but maintains its military independence.


LASHKAR-E-JHANGVI

The LeJ is a Punjab-based militant group formed to battle Pakistan's Shi'ite minority community, but since its formation in 1996, it has branched out, targeting a church, Western oil workers and possibly kidnapping and murdering American journalist Daniel Pearl.

Its ties with Mullah Omar and the Taliban in Afghanistan go back years, but since it started attacking Pakistani security forces, that relationship has frayed.


QUETTA SHURA

The Quetta Shura is the remains of the Afghan Taliban government overthrown and driven into Pakistan by the 2001 American invasion of Afghanistan.

Headed by Mullah Omar, the so-called "Commander of the Faithful," it is believed to be based in the city of Quetta in Baluchistan near the southern Afghan border.

Pakistani intelligence agencies reportedly maintain good relations with the Quetta Shura. While recognized by the TTP for spiritual guidance, tensions persist because of Hakimullah Mehsud's operations against Pakistan.


JAISH-E-MOHAMMAD

The JeM (Army of Mohammad) was formed in 2000 to liberate what it considers Indian-occupied Kashmir. But since then, it has splintered.

It is blamed for numerous attacks against Pakistani civilian and military targets and has also been blamed for Pearl's murder.


LASHKAR-E-TAIBA

Long considered the most cohesive and deadly of the Punjab-based groups, it is careful to avoid attacks inside Pakistan and instead focuses on Kashmir and India.

It is blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people, and reports say it maintains ties to the ISI -- a source of great tension between India and Pakistan.

By: Brant

Surge In Afghanistan? Finally Paying Off!

Is the US surge gamble finally paying off in Afghanistan?

Pakistan captured at least five other prominent militants at about the same time as arresting Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Afghan Taleban’s second-in-command, in Karachi two weeks ago, Afghan and Pakistani officials have revealed.

The arrests appear to represent an important breakthrough in co-operation between Pakistan and the US, which has been pressing Islamabad for years to take stronger action against militants sheltering in its territory.

Among those arrested were Mullah Abdul Salam and Mullah Mir Mohammad — the “shadow governors” of the northern Afghan provinces of Kunduz and Baghlan respectively.

They were detained ten days ago by Pakistani intelligence agents in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan, according to Engineer Mohammad Omar, the Governor of Kunduz.

“Two other Taleban who seem to be their bodyguards were also captured with them,” he told The Times.

The capture of Salam, 35, is especially significant because he commanded the Taleban across northern and northwestern Afghanistan, and masterminded many attacks on German forces based in Kunduz.

Mohammad Dawood, the head of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security in Kunduz, also said that Salam had been arrested by Pakistani agents.

The men’s capture appears to have coincided roughly with that of Baradar, who led the defence of Kunduz in 2001 in a joint US-Pakistani raid in Karachi, which has been confirmed by both countries.

Looks like the Taliban's underground government is slowly being rolled up. That's what's really needed to show the locals that they can survive without the Islamofascists ru(i)nning the place.

Another similar article.

Two Taliban shadow governors from northern Afghanistan have been arrested by Pakistani authorities, an Afghan official told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The reported arrests occurred about the same time as the capture of the Afghan Taliban's No. 2 figure, who was apprehended in the Pakistani city of Karachi. The loss of several key figures from the militant leadership is likely to be a severe setback to the Taliban — at least in the short term — as they come under military pressure from U.S.-led forces in the south.
Mohammmad Omar, the official governor of Kunduz province, said Mullah Abdul Salam, the Taliban governor of Kunduz and Mullah Mohammad, his counterpart in Baghlan, were arrested about 10 to 12 days ago in Pakistan.
Both were key figures in the Taliban's expansion to northern Afghanistan, where their forces threatened NATO supply lines coming south from Central Asia and raised alarm that the militants were extending their influence nationwide.
Two Pakistani intelligence officials said Salam was arrested in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad. One of the officials said Salam's arrest was the result of information gleaned from Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, second in command after Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

By: Brant

Pakistan Claims Afghanis Trying to Destabilize Their Country

Up is down.
In is out.
Steve is good-looking.
Afghanistan is destabilizing Pakistan.

There, the world makes sense now.

The Pakistani ISI is claiming that the unrest in Pakistan is the fault of the Afghans.

Pakistan's intelligence agency (ISI) says terrorists cross Afghanistan into their side, urging Kabul to do more to stop the border crossing by Taliban and al-Qaeda linked militants.

The drug mafia in Afghanistan is supporting terrorists who are creating unrest within Pakistan, the ISI chief, Ahmad Shuja Pasha said while giving a detailed briefing on new US policy on Afghanistan and issues relating to the country's national security during a Parliamentary committee meeting in Islamabad.

“Interference in Pakistan is being made through Afghanistan, and conspiracies are being hatched to destabilize Pakistan,” a Press TV correspondent quoted Pasha as saying late on Tuesday.

He said that anti-state elements in Afghanistan conspire to destabilize Pakistan and that through diplomatic and military means the matter has been taken up with the Afghan government.

Dear Kettle:
You're black.
- Love, the Pot


By: Brant

New ISI Chief Drawing Tentative US Support

Following up our earlier report on the new head of the ISI, it appears that he has at least the tentative support, if not respect, of the US defence establishment

By: Widow 6-7

New Head of ISI for Pakistan

The Associated Press: Pakistan's powerful intel agency gets new chief

Pakistan has named a new chief for its main intelligence service, a change sure to be closely scrutinized by the U.S., which has questioned the spy agency's loyalties in the war on terror.
Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, previously the director general of military operations, was named the new head of Inter-Services Intelligence, according to an army statement late Monday.
The statement listed several other new postings in what appears to be a major shake-up of the military leadership.

We'll bring you more as it develops. We're trying to find a little bit more about Pasha's political leanings, but there's a lack of reporting on his support (or lack thereof) for AQ anywhere. This is likely to be a good thing, because it seems to minimize the likelihood he's in bed with AQ - at least not as overtly as other elements of the ISI.

By: Brant