Posted on 06/17/2005 11:59:35 AM PDT by Saberwielder
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
UPI Editor at Large
Jun. 17, 2005 at 1:39PM
Washington, Jun. 17 (UPI) — No sooner did the FBI arrest two Pakistani-Americans, father and son, in Lodi, Calif., and allege the young man, Hamid Hayat, 22, was trained at an al-Qaeda terrorist training camp near Rawalpindi, Pakistan, than Islamabad's military regime went into deep denial. How could Osama bin Laden's terrorists operate a training facility near the army's principal garrison town where President Pervez Musharraf has his residence at Army House? The very idea was too ridiculous to be taken seriously.
Think again.
According to an early draft of the FBI complaint, circulated to the media in error by the Justice Department after the arrests last week, Hayat's father, Umer Hayat, 47, told investigators that he had paid his son's airfare to Pakistan and a stipend of $100 a month while he was training at a jihadi facility called Tamal.
Hayat senior added that the camp was run by a close friend of his father-in-law the complaint names as Maulana Fazlur Rehman.
It so happens there is just such a jihadi training facility -- known as Dhamial --within the sprawling army city of Rawalpindi, just 20 minutes from Islamabad, the capital.
But it isn't run by firebrand politician Fazlur Rehman.
Rehman is one of the two co-chairmen of the six-party Islamic coalition called the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, which emerged from Pakistan's elections in 2002 as the third largest bloc in the National Assembly -- and which governs two of Pakistan's four provinces.
No, the top honcho at Dhamial (which the FBI appear to have phonetically morphed into Tamal) is another Islamic extremist, a man long associated with Pakistan's shadowy underworld of jihadi terror groups, by the name of Fazlur Rehman Khalil.
Dhamial has trained hundreds of youngsters to become good jihadis. But Musharraf has had to develop a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality that aims to distinguish between those the U.S. considers terrorists and those Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency considers patriotic jihadis -- the Islamic holy warriors who backed Taliban rule in Afghanistan before Sept. 11, 2001, and fight for the return of Indian-held Kashmir to the Pakistani motherland.
Musharraf is committed to eradicating al-Qaida and is convinced he speaks the truth when he assures his U.S. allies there is no such thing as a terrorist training camp in Pakistan. But if he were serious about eliminating militancy that is borderline terrorism he would have ordered Dhamial closed.
Instead, it has been allowed to train jihadis with impunity, both before and since Sept. 11. Thus, deep denial became policy.
One knowledgeable Pakistani who is familiar with Musharraf's split personality that speaks one language to U.S. interlocutors and another to Islamist leaders is Husain Haqqani, an associate professor of international relations at Boston University. Haqqani served in a wide variety of key functions in his native Pakistan that included a job in Inter-Services Intelligence, ambassador to Sri Lanka, and adviser to Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, two former prime ministers who are Pakistan's principal democratic leaders, both in exile abroad and banned from returning by Musharraf.
In his latest book, "Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military" (Carnegie 2005), Haqqani says, the military regime's priority appears to be to suppress or deny bad news rather than to change the circumstances that give rise to it.
Rehman Khalil, Haqqani reminds us, was one of the signatories of Osama bin Laden's 1998 fatwa against the United States and all Americans, and was reported to be in the Afghan camp President Clinton ordered hit by Tomahawk cruise missiles in 1998, after the attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Following Sept. 11, and Musharraf's decision to answer affirmatively President Bush's are-you-with-me-or-against-me phone call, Rehman Khalil's Harkat-ul-Mujahideen organization was banned. He quickly popped up again as the leader of the equally extremist Jamat-ul-Ansar.
Bugged by U.S. questions about the wisdom of letting Khalil run free, Musharraf ordered him arrested in March 2004 -- only to have him surface seven months later a free man. When news broke of the FBI arrests in Lodi -- where 2,500 of the town's 62,000 residents are Pakistanis and Pakistani-Americans -- Khalil slipped underground and the authorities said they couldn't find him.
As Haqqani points out, the same government that kept Benazir Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari in prison for eight years without a conviction has somehow never found sufficient grounds for detaining all manner of jihad-preaching extremists.
Nor can Musharraf accede to repeated U.S. requests to gain direct access to Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and the Don Corleone of a nuclear black market that sold America's enemies -- North Korea, Iran and Libya -- the wherewithal to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Suspicion is growing in U.S. intelligence circles that those protecting Khan wish to keep the option of a lucrative nuclear black market open for future years. But there is also the fact that Pakistan's national hero being subjected to CIA interrogation would most probably trigger widespread riots in the country's major cities.
Abu Ghraib prison pictures, the Newsweek story about Korans flushed down the toilet, Amnesty International's preposterous and insidious comparison of Guantanamo to the Soviet forced labor concentration camps, Sen. Richard Durbin's odious description of U.S. prison guards' behavior being no different from what Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot once did, and the insurgency in Iraq, all have been force multipliers for anti-U.S. feelings in Pakistan and in the rest of the Muslim world.
Pity poor Karen Hughes, who as the Bush administration's image-improvement czarina has to swim against this rip tide -- without any salmon-like attributes.
It is this same powerful current that keeps Musharraf from cracking down on Taliban's Pakistani support group. "Pakistani authorities cannot eliminate the international terrorist network or the sectarian militias without decapitating the domestic jihadi groups," writes Haqqani. What the FBI did in California, President Musharraf cannot do in his own country.
We should just go bomb the hell out of it and deny the whole thing afterwards.
Terrorists are terrorists. And Pakistan is the unstable cradle of terrorism.
Some names here that you might be interested in.
And Pakistan is the unstable cradle of terrorism.
And Saudi Arabia is the unstable cradle of terrorism.
And Iran is the unstable cradle of terrorism.
And Syria is the unstable cradle of terrorism.
And Albania is the unstable cradle of terrorism.
Everyone knows where Al Qaeda'a base is.
SAUDI ARABIA!
http://www.saag.org/papers15/paper1420.html
JIHAD IN US: FROM PAKISTAN WITH LOVE
Hey, all that money the USA has sent Pakistan is paying off.
Jihadi camps are wired!! Broadband. Pentium 10's. The little jihadis are better educated than their forebearers. It's like an extension of the nochildleftbehind for Pakistan.
No Jihadi Left Behind
Ping to above - I know, redundancy redux.....
You simply haven't a clue - Your above comments make this clear regarding what you claim Musharraf is letting happen along with your silly assumption of what we expect from him -
Neither thought is any where near accurate - Nor is your oddly childish comment (on the duplicate thread that was pulled) claiming I see Musharraf as some type of "hero".
Simply childish on your part - But again, you are appearing more and more like those Democrats who constantly want to blame President GWB for everything....yet offer no actual alternatives....(that can be implemented!!).
We are fighting and wining the GWOT - We continue to fight the most successful unconventional war in history!! (but again, just like the Democrats you continually suggest we aren't doing it well enough! - Please!).
Musharraf is dealing with a very complex situation. Much more complex than your silly postings (after post after post) of about faults within how the Pakistan political situation works. - With what Musharraf is dealing with he has done a pretty damn good job!
That is the bottom line - But again, you know more than our Military Command, our President, our SecDef and our SecState.....I know, I know.
You act as if Musharraf can magically make all sorts of changes and actions within Pakistan...and make them happen instantly..... the reality of the real world is much different (especially in a Country where a large segment does not necessarily like America that much) - It would be like criticizing GWB for not having private accounts yet with Social Security! - He is doing about as much as he can...but he needs the House and Senate to pull their weight as well (same holds true for Musharraf to a large extent).
Have you even bothered to read my posts before? You want alternatives? How about NOT sending F-16s until ALL terrorist camps are closed down? How about conditioning delivery of the payoffs that go into Musharraf's pocket based on the arrest and prosecution of terrorist leaders who train American Muslims in Pakistan's cities?
You have concocted the ridiculous idea that Bush wanted terrorist camps to be run in Pakistan as part of some grand plan. Tell that publicly and you'll be laughed out of the place. Do you have a single shred of evidence to support your idea that the US wanted these camps to be run deliberately? I thought so.
I for one WILL not accept that everything a government, even one led a Republican that I voted for, will always be perfect. By your logic, no one can criticize the current immigration policy because we "don't know better than the POTUS, Homeland Security Chief" etc. Why don't we all sing kumbiya and stop worrying about security, immigration etc. because the "people who know" are taking care of the problem?
In your world, everyone can sleep tight because "the government knows better." Suit yourself. But don't lash out just because you see some news you don't like.
I know one thing about America - we are a great nation because our informed citizens use the power of the ballot to steer our leaders when they stray from the path, instead of being subject drones.
Again, not an actual REAL alternative. Simply drivel.
But if you think we can shut down ALL camps in a Country where over 1/2 the population doesn't really like America that much....well if we can do that there.....Why don't we stop giving any and all new funding here in the States to any police departments until ALL unsolved murders are solved!
While we are at it why don't we just STOP all murders here in the United States. Lets just put every murderer in prison where they belong. I mean if we can just STOP these things by demanding they be stopped.
Wow, why hasn't anyone thought of this unique concept before! Genius.
Exactly - and you are drone here with your senseless continuous criticism's of Musharraf (who is doing about as well as we can expect!).
It is you who is foolishly suggesting (a la the Democrat party of today) that we aren't winning the GWOT "good enough" - That we should be winning it "better" (for lack of a better term) -
The fact is the situation regarding Pakistan is extremely frustrating and complex. It is not as black and white as you suggest. Nor do you have any real alternatives. You simply want to b*tch about what Musharraf isn't doing (but give no intellectual thought to the actual realities on the ground within Pakistan!).
And lastly I will d*mn well guarantee you that you do NOT know more about what is going on in Pakistan than does our Military Command, nor our CIC, nor our SecDef, nor our SecState!
So, go on and NOT accept whatever is you will not accept (you have me confused here) - but just go about not accepting, even though you don't even have a full clue to what you are talking about. Strange way to live.
And if you can't see the forest for the trees regarding certain camps within Pakistan. Then simply stay angrily in the dark.
I'll let all the Freepers who worry about immigration and other issues know that DevSix has just discovered that their worries are for nothing. The government knows all and knows what's best. Everything bad happens for a reason. Why do ordinary Americans like us have to worry about things we have no business worrying about? Them smart guys up in Washington know what's good for us. That is sooooooooooo comforting.
Yes, that would be swell.
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