Posted on 12/27/2007 9:00:15 AM PST by bw17
Terror threat in Pak, security agencies on high alert 27 Dec 2007, 1510 hrs IST,PTI
SMS NEWS to 58888 for latest updates ISLAMABAD: Security agencies in the Pakistani capital have been put on high alert following an intelligence report that terrorists may strike in the city and target top politicians and religious leaders.
A senior officer said police and the city administration had been warned by the Interior Ministry that suicide attacks could take place in Islamabad.
According to the Interior Ministry's letter, terrorists could target high-profile politicians and religious leaders.
Security had been tightened in and around the capital and the high alert would stay in force till the January 8 general election, the officer told Dawn newspaper.
Three wings of the paramilitary Pakistan Rangers, personnel from the "Elite Force" of Punjab Constabulary and city police have been deployed at sensitive places in Islamabad to avert any attack.
A senior police officer said security has been provided to top politicians, including Pakistan People's Party (PPP) chairperson and former premier Banazir Bhutto, and religious leaders who faced threats. They have been provided with police motorcades for moving around the city and police forces have been deployed at their homes.
The administration and police have reviewed security arrangements in the city and started restructuring police pickets. Law enforcement personnel have also started checking hotels, inns and bus stands.
"We have been keeping a strict vigil on suspicious people staying in hotels and inns and moving around bust stops," an officer said.
Intelligence agencies have been asked to keep an eye on suspicious people and send reports to the city administration.
The federal government has also directed all provinces and the Islamabad capital territory to step up security around 10 Shia individuals and political leaders following intelligence reports that Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud had placed them on his hit list.
Sources said the hit list prepared by Mehsud, who was recently named chief of newly formed Tehrik Taliban-e-Pakistan, contained the names of 10 individuals.
The Tehrik Taliban-e-Pakistan, which comprises Pakistani Taliban groups from different parts of the country's restive northwestern tribal areas, recently claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on an army convoy in Swat that killed nine persons.
The sources also said militants from the Dara Adam Khel area had been given the task of targeting persons on the hit list.
Among the persons believed to be on the hit list are retired judge and PPP leader Ibn-i-Ali; his son, Additional Sessions Judge Ehtisham Ali; former provincial assembly member Qalb-i-Hassan; and Fazal Abbas, the Pir of Kalaya. The list also includes the caretakers of three Shia 'imambargahs' in Kohat.
fyi
Thanks for the post.
We will one day suffer the consequences of our intelligence failures as 3rd world nuclear countries are overrun by islamofacist crazies.
What you said might be true, but it sure sounds like the intelligence groups there got it pretty close to correct. This was internal to that country, and not our own intelligence agencies
“Why is it that failure to act on intelligence is seen as a failure of that intelligence rather than a failure of the politicians who took no action?”
Because it is the coward’s way of not blaming the liberal politicians, who refuse to listen to the intel, as it is counter to their Hate America Agendas.
It’s not, if you read the article, their intelligence groups got it right... and they DID act upon the intelligence. They simply FAILED to protect Bhuto.
I wasn’t talking directly about this terror/assassination plot, but back when our CIA and other lettered agencies missed Pakistan nuclear program until it tested it’s first bomb.
Ah... well, sure, that already has bitten us a few times now.
But, yeah, you’re right on that. Sorry, I thought your comment was related to the thread.
I think the poster was referring to our own intelligence agencies failure to detect a Paakistani nuclear program until after they conducted a nuclear test. Failure to detect a majority Muslim nation developing nuclear weapons may end up having been the greatest inelligence failure of our time.
Better late than never except in Bhutto’s case.
Sadly, some of those “failures” were quite deliberate in an effort to make whatever the political point of the moment might have been. How long before the NIE bites us on the behind—all because the “intelligence” saw fit to lie through their teeth in an effort to harm this presidency—and the war in Iraq?
We will one day suffer the consequences of our intelligence failures
"We" & "our", refers to us, (as in U.S.,) not the turd world Pakistan intel folks.
I read it exactly that way.
The thread title, and the article isn’t referring to those things.
I’ll point out something else here.
Rioting has started. I give them 24 hours. Either they quell it, or it will blow up completely, there will be an attempt on Mushariff and someone will get their hands on nukes.
Either way, this assassination is a trigger for something much bigger, which our intelligence agencies haven’t had any control over, and DO understand and see.
(And no offense ASA Vet, but originally I DID read your comments exactly as you pointed out, but the article neither referred to our agencies, nor were those things on the watch of Bush. They were on President Clinton’s watch. So, any discontinuity in our HUMINT is not from Bush, or Bush Sr, or Reagan. We had eight years of CRAP under Clinton.... and people want HER back in office again? (LOL))
I am sure Mushy was only too interested in making sure Bhutto wasn’t killed /Sarcasm
Aside from just staying in power, there was the matter of $20B in no strings attached US Aid that has been pouring into the country.
The main thing that might fall on the President’s watch is that he failed to clean out the intelligence agencies when he took office. I know, many say it couldn’t be done—but regardless, it’s a failure. So bad intel still exists, some of it deliberate to score a political point.
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