U.S. plans Al Qaeda offensive (in Pakistan). (Capture Bin Laden?)

Looks like a whole invisible war taking place right under the noses our intrepid newshounds.

There is an invisible war going on...and our newshounds are stuck on the Michael Jackson case.

"Coop you ever been bird hunting? I think what we have here is a bit of disinformation on our part..."

You may be correct that part of the plan behind these stories is directed at flushing the prey, but for at least a couple of reasons, I don't think that's the main purpose behind the recent series of stories about joint Paki/U.S. operations.

First, the President is not only the Commander in Chief of the armed forces, he's also the political leader of this country, and in that capacity there is a practical necessity to keep the "troops" (us) up to speed on major developments that have significant upsides and downsides and not spring them on us after the fact with a "oops, did I forget to mention..."!

One of those upsides is, if this Pakistan operation turns out OK, we could well end up capturing bin Laden, Zawahiri and Omar. However the big downside is that, if it goes wrong, al Qa'ida could well end up in possession of Pakistan's nukes (and that would be the mother of all "aw shucks").

In other words, I think these stories were directed primarily as a heads up to the American people (albeit, a low key heads up).

The second reason I don't think that this is primarily directed at flushing the prey, is that al Qa'ida, et al, already know we are involved in operations inside Pakistan because we've been doing that for over two years now. The only thing changing is the tempo and the stakes. But al Qa'ida already know this (heck, is was al Qa'ida that raised the stakes by going after the bait (the nukes)), hence this story is no surprise to them.

I will post more below about some info I found about our past two years of operations inside Pakistan.

--Boot Hill

"he said there is no way the Pentagon would tip our hand like this on a pending operation"

We didn't tip our hands, because it has been an ongoing operation for some time now. More about that below.

--Boot Hill

US to get THREE Pakistan Air Bases (This is the original, non-Google, source)

The news story at that link is from late Sept, 2001 and discusses three America airbases inside Pakistan. To follow along with this info...

open this Map of Pakistan in another window.

One is at Kohat, located just west of the capitol of Islamabad near the Afghani border and the Khyber Pass. This is VERY close to the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan.
The second, is Shamsi airbase midway down Pakistan near the city of Quetta and the Afghani border. Shamsi has been entirely turned over to U.S. forces.
The third airbase is at Rajanpur which is located near the middle of Pakistan, due west of Bahawalpur and due north of Rahimyar Khan. There is very little information on U.S. operations out of this base. It may have been confused with Jacobabad (see below). Or...?

I did some searching on the above airbases and found that they have been continuously active since the date of that news story. Moreover, I found other credible internet references that adds three more currently active U.S. airbases to those in your news story, and dating from the same period.

Dalbandin is an airbase located in the Balochistan Province of southern Pakistan along the RCD highway (connects Istanbul to Calcutta, for those needing more adventure in their lives) about 50 klicks south of the Afghani border. This base has been entirely turned over to U.S. forces.
Pasni is an airbase located in very southern Pakistan on the coast of the Arabian Sea, and very close to the border with Iran. Pasni is in an extremely isolated area and was originally an entirely U.S. airbase, however, it now shared jointly with the Pakis.
Jacobabad is an airbase located in central Pakistan, south of our base at Rajanpur. Reports suggest that there are several thousand U.S. troops operating out of this base including "commandos" and Marines. There have been so many protests over this base by Jamaat-e-Islami that the government set up a 5km perimeter around the entire base. As with the Pasni airbase, Jacobabad is a facility shared jointly between Paki and U.S. forces.

The only thing I can piece together to make sense of what we've been reading in FR threads lately, is that the U.S. must have first forced al Qa'ida and Taliban forces into Pakistan to destabilize it so that Musharraf would be forced to let us in to Pakistan to help clean house. On top of that, it appears we are using the Paki nukes to bait the trap. But I still want to know what are fall-back plan is for those nukes in case our plan fails and the mouse actually steals the cheese. Are we sitting on the nukes in Pakistan? If so, where are they located?

When checking out where the U.S. bases are located in Pakistan, I cross-referenced Pakistan's underground nuclear tests and discovered that our base at Dalbandin is located only 70 klicks (40 miles) west of the Ras Koh mountains, site of the 1998 nuclear weapons test. From my review, this is the most likely site for the Paki nuke stockpile.

BTW, the Kohat airbase, up by Tora Bora, also stands out. Of all U.S. bases in Pakistan, there is less information about our operations out of this base than any other base...which of course makes me very suspicious. But I suspect the secrecy has more to do with the nature of the operations conducted out of there, rather than because the Paki's store their nukes there.

Here are a several references to those additional airbases. They come from John Pike's globalsecurity.org (NO DEBKA JOKES, PLEASE!!!). However, it is easy to Google other sites that substantiate what pike's website says about these bases...

Dalbandin
Pasni
Jacobabad

(If you have problems loading any globalsecurity.org pages, let me know.)

One last thought for those among us not getting enough excitement in their lives. The Pakistan International Airlines schedule shows that they regularly fly into Dalbandin, Kohat, Jacobabad, Quetta (Shamsi) and if you've really got a really big pair hanging, you can even fly into Gilgit. Here's the link for airline and hotel reservations (don't forget to check out the all-goat floorshow at the Al Haman Hotel while you're in Dalbandin, LOL!)

Pakistan "International" Airlines

(And don't forget to ask for your "frequent terrorist flyer miles".)

--Boot Hill

BUMP> Thanks.

Was trying to remember the names Dalbandin and Pasni.

One or both of these were used as a staging point for the entry into Kandahar by the Marines. There was a major article about that.

Hadn't heard of Shamsi or Rajanpur at all.

From your link (Boot Hill):

The only thing I can piece together to make sense of what we've been reading in FR threads lately, is that the U.S. must have first forced al Qa'ida and Taliban forces into Pakistan to destabilize it so that Musharraf would be forced to let us in to Pakistan to help clean house. On top of that, it appears we are using the Paki nukes to bait the trap. But I still want to know what are fall-back plan is for those nukes in case our plan fails and the mouse actually steals the cheese. Are we sitting on the nukes in Pakistan? If so, where are they located?

When checking out where the U.S. bases are located in Pakistan, I cross-referenced Pakistan's underground nuclear tests and discovered that our base at Dalbandin is located only 70 klicks (40 miles) west of the Ras Koh mountains, site of the 1998 nuclear weapons test. From my review, this is the most likely site for the Paki nuke stockpile.

You guys are all a treasure.

He's worm food.