Posted on 07/26/2003 5:49:24 AM PDT by Paul Ross
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Bin Laden in Pakistan?
Charles R. Smith
Saturday, July 26, 2003
Pakistani Government Helping Al-Qaeda Hide
Osama bin Laden is living in Pakistan, according to a former Indian general, and members of the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) know where he is.
"Some of the ISI know his whereabouts," stated K.P.S. Gill, a former Indian general and a leading expert on international terrorism. "Certainly not the hierarchy but some of the lower-level members know."
"The footprint of every major act of international terrorism over the past decade invariably passes through Pakistan," stated Dr. Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management, an anti-terrorism foundation located in India.
"It is notable that the arrests of several senior al-Qaeda operatives, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and Yasser al Jazira, were not from localities in the madrassas-dominated poorer quarters, but from some of the best quarters of Karachi and Islamabad localities dominated by military officers and government servants," stated Dr. Sahni.
The statements by former Gen. Gill and Dr. Sahni were made during a meeting on the India-U.S. Partnership Against Terrorism, hosted by the American Foreign Policy Council, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
Gill is considered to be India's foremost expert on terrorism and counter-insurgency. Currently residing in New Delhi, he is the president of the Institute for Conflict Management and a member of India's National Security Advisory Board.
Pakistan Relocates Osama
"The fact is significant factions of the Pakistani army and the Inter Services Intelligence with the backing of various Pakistani terrorist groups have been actively facilitating the relocation of the al-Qaeda from Afghanistan to Pakistan," said Dr. Sahni.
"Each arrest of al-Qaeda top leadership in Pakistan takes place after the FBI and U.S. investigators effectively gather evidence to force Pakistani cooperation. Little of this evidence has come from the Pakistani agencies, which consistently seek to deny the presence of al-Qaeda in their country and mislead U.S. investigators to the extent possible," stated Sahni.
"This deception has been at the very highest level," noted Sahni.
The comments by Gill and Sahni came in the wake of a major terrorist strike in Kashmir that killed over a dozen Indian defense officials, including at least three army generals. Defense Minister George Fernandes accused the Lashkar-e-Taiba separatist group of mounting the raids.
"We should not get overly alarmed," Fernandes said about the latest terror attacks. "We are a big country, the challenges we are facing are big, the army is fighting them."
In addition, India accused China of crossing into its territory. According to official Indian defense sources, while Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was winding up a historic six-day trip to China on June 26, a "Chinese patrol" crossed the Line of Actual Control (LAC) into the Upper Subansiri district of the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.
Both Dr. Sahni and Gen. Gill expressed concern about the growing situation with China, North Korea and Pakistan, calling the three nations a "triangle" threatening world peace.
China Sponsors Terror States
China has supplied nuclear weapons designs and DF-11 ballistic missiles to Pakistan. In addition, recent U.S. and Indian intelligence reports show that China is acting as a go-between for exchanges of nuclear and missile technology between Pakistan and North Korea.
"Pakistan, North Korea and China are part of a triangle. Most of the advanced technology that North Korea and Pakistan are exchanging is Chinese. So we are not talking about Pakistan and North Korea exchanging indigenously developed technology we are talking about the cross-border transfer of Chinese technology, something which has been engineered by the source, and that, in fact, is China," stated Sahni.
"It is our general perception that Chinese intentions are the most dangerous when they are least suspected," concluded Sahni.
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