http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4249525.stm
Pakistan pays tribe al-Qaeda debt
Wednesday, 9 February, 2005, 12:49 GMT
Pakistan says it has paid 32m rupees ($540,000) to help four former wanted tribal militants in South Waziristan settle debts with al-Qaeda.
Military operations chief in the region, Lt Gen Safdar Hussain, said the payments were part of a peace deal signed on Monday with tribesmen.
It is the first time Pakistan has admitted making such payments.
Also on Wednesday, wanted militant Abdullah Mehsud rejected Monday's peace deal signed by others in his tribe.
Offer rejected
Gen Hussain said four former wanted militants had insisted they needed the money to pay back huge sums to al-Qaeda.
Haji Sharif and Maulvi Abbas received 15m rupees each, while Maulvi Javed and Haji Mohammad Omar were each paid one million rupees.
Gen Hussain said a sum of 20m rupees was also offered to tribal leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who signed the peace deal, but that he rejected it.
The commander said the militants had initially sought 170m rupees.
The peace deal offers an amnesty in return for the tribe's pledge not to support al-Qaeda and Taleban militants or attack government installations.
Embarrassing incident
However, on Wednesday tribal militant Abdullah Mehsud, wanted for kidnapping two Chinese engineers last year, told the BBC he did not support the deal signed by Baitullah Mehsud.
Abdullah Mehsud said only a holy war would evict "US agents" from Pakistan.
Speaking to the BBC's Haroon Rashid in Peshawar by phone from an undisclosed location, he said: "Baitullah's thinking might be that he can achieve his aims by signing the peace agreement, while mine is that only a holy war against the US and Pakistani government could achieve this."
Abdullah Mehsud spent about two years in US custody in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before being released.
He fought for the Taleban in Afghanistan, losing a leg in a landmine explosion a few days before the Taleban took Kabul in September 1996.
He is wanted for masterminding the abduction of two Chinese engineers in South Waziristan last year, one of whom was killed in a rescue attempt.
The incident was highly embarrassing for the Pakistani government, which has close ties with Beijing.
Abdullah Mehsud, condemning those who appealed to China to grant him amnesty, accused Beijing of killing Muslims.
The Mehsud tribe is the dominant clan in the Afghan border region.
Shortly after Monday's accord, two journalists who attended the signing were killed when gunmen opened fire on their vehicle in Wana.
Abdullah Mehsud said on Wednesday: "My people are not responsible for the killing of the two journalists."
Pakistan believes hundreds of militants, including Arabs, Afghans and Central Asians, are holed up in the South Waziristan region.
Full Version: Pakistani government payoffs to Al Qaeda
Common Ground Common Sense > Issues that Affect Our Lives > Foreign Policy and National Defense > Foreign Policy & National Defense Issues Archive
[Replying to Pakistani government payoffs to Al Qaeda]
I have been saying this for a few years myself... that Pakistan is sucking up to BushCo and getting what they need in money and arms... but deep down, Pakistan is also gearing up to sink the USA boat when that time comes. It's only a matter of time when this all comes out... while we have our tits in serious wringers in the Middle East. Pakistan is friend to it's Middle East origins... not the invading BushCo.
I have been saying this for a few years myself... that Pakistan is sucking up to BushCo and getting what they need in money and arms... but deep down, Pakistan is also gearing up to sink the USA boat when that time comes. It's only a matter of time when this all comes out... while we have our tits in serious wringers in the Middle East. Pakistan is friend to it's Middle East origins... not the invading BushCo.
QUOTE(ghostgovt @ Feb 11 2005, 03:21 PM)
[Replying to Pakistani government payoffs to Al Qaeda]
I have been saying this for a few years myself... that Pakistan is sucking up to BushCo and getting what they need in money and arms... but deep down, Pakistan is also gearing up to sink the USA boat when that time comes. It's only a matter of time when this all comes out... while we have our tits in serious wringers in the Middle East. Pakistan is friend to it's Middle East origins... not the invading BushCo.
I have been saying this for a few years myself... that Pakistan is sucking up to BushCo and getting what they need in money and arms... but deep down, Pakistan is also gearing up to sink the USA boat when that time comes. It's only a matter of time when this all comes out... while we have our tits in serious wringers in the Middle East. Pakistan is friend to it's Middle East origins... not the invading BushCo.
The Middle East has no loyalty to us. Why would they? The people we are hunting are there own, right? I think they have given in more to political and buisness pressure than anything in this war, but they will want to have their independence on their own terms in the end. It seems to me that the first order of business down there is to lie, lie some more, and then lie some more to keep an air of resistence to the US alive among their people while their government pretends to get along with us. This is just a front they have put up, they will turn and screw us when we think it's over and done with.
Why haven't we found Bin Laden yet? Because they won't let us - I have no doubt it is as simple as that. They probably won't let anybody know anything about the cave networks they live in for fear that they will need to use them oneday themselves after they have screwed us over!
You know, I keep going back to this and it probably is starting to sound really corny, but Native Americans use to live in caves networks too. They put markings on the cave walls that told stories about battles, how they took place, and where their enemies entered the caves to attack. I wonder if the US military has looked for cave markings inside afghan caves for clues on where to find him? I would think if there are any markings, they would be in their native languages. I have studied a lot of Native American and Egyptian history and I simply can't see ancient caves being around without something being written/carved on the walls. Instead of blowing them up, they should look on the inside of the walls for "directions" on where to look. If there are markings on the inside of the caves, they probably want us to blow them up so we destroy them, that way they don't have to be responsible to the afghan's for defacing anything. Probably works out for them nicely. I am sure there are plenty of anthropologists out there that would be able to help the military with this.
Maybe they have already tried this, I don't know, but I think if they really want to get rid of this threat, unraveling the mystery of their cave network will be very important to doing so. Payoff's will probably be pretty ineffective in this situation, they are probably just letting us think that we are making progress when in fact we are just spinning our wheels. Understand who these people are, how they communicate, and how the cave networks are set up, then it will be a whole new ballgame.
This is all part of the hypocrisy of the Bush administration. Paskistan helped to create the Taliban.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../ixnewstop.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../ixnewstop.html
QUOTE
Pakistan 'still training Islamic militants'
By Peter Foster, South Asia Correspondent
(Filed: 06/08/2004)
Pakistan was claiming victory in the fight against al-Qa'eda yesterday just as fresh evidence emerged that elements of the military establishment were still assisting in the training of Islamic militants.
General Musharraf: confident that he is winning the fight against terrorist networks
President Pervaiz Musharraf said he was confident that his intelligence services were on top in the fight against the terrorist network. "We are certainly winning, that's my assessment," Gen Musharraf told the Pakistani English-language newspaper Dawn.
But his remarks were undermined by an interview with a young Pakistani man, published in the New York Times, who was captured while fighting for the Taliban against American forces three months ago.
The 17-year-old prisoner said he had been trained in Pakistan's tribal areas, where several thousand militants are assisting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
Sidestepping the issue, the US state department instead heaped praise on Gen Musharraf, who has became an indispensable ally in America's war on terrorism.
However, there are several reasons to question whether Pakistan's commitment to the war on terror can always be taken at face value, despite the high-profile arrests of several key al-Qa'eda figures in the last month. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency created the Taliban regime that gave safe haven to Osama bin Laden and other key al-Qa'eda operatives in the 1990s.
When Gen Musharraf accepted a US ultimatum to be "with us or against us" in the aftermath of September 11, large segments of Pakistan's military establishment did not support that decision.
Cynics in Pakistan are also quick to point out that for Gen Musharraf the war on terrorism has become the "goose that laid a golden egg". Last month Congress voted to give Pakistan $3 billion (£1.6 billion) in direct aid and debt relief over the next five years, including $300 million in this financial year for "military assistance".
Gen Musharraf's supporters in Washington cite recent military action against Islamic militants in Waziristan as evidence of Pakistan's determination to confront the threat from Islamic extremism.
But a report this year by the independent International Crisis Group said Gen Musharraf, far from tackling extremism, had completely failed to fulfil his promise of 2002 to rein in Pakistan's 10,000 madrassas, or Islamic schools, that serve as militant recruitment centres.
23 April 2003: Afghans urge Pakistan to help rein in Taliban
9 January 2002: Musharraf speech is crucial for stability
By Peter Foster, South Asia Correspondent
(Filed: 06/08/2004)
Pakistan was claiming victory in the fight against al-Qa'eda yesterday just as fresh evidence emerged that elements of the military establishment were still assisting in the training of Islamic militants.
General Musharraf: confident that he is winning the fight against terrorist networks
President Pervaiz Musharraf said he was confident that his intelligence services were on top in the fight against the terrorist network. "We are certainly winning, that's my assessment," Gen Musharraf told the Pakistani English-language newspaper Dawn.
But his remarks were undermined by an interview with a young Pakistani man, published in the New York Times, who was captured while fighting for the Taliban against American forces three months ago.
The 17-year-old prisoner said he had been trained in Pakistan's tribal areas, where several thousand militants are assisting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
Sidestepping the issue, the US state department instead heaped praise on Gen Musharraf, who has became an indispensable ally in America's war on terrorism.
However, there are several reasons to question whether Pakistan's commitment to the war on terror can always be taken at face value, despite the high-profile arrests of several key al-Qa'eda figures in the last month. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency created the Taliban regime that gave safe haven to Osama bin Laden and other key al-Qa'eda operatives in the 1990s.
When Gen Musharraf accepted a US ultimatum to be "with us or against us" in the aftermath of September 11, large segments of Pakistan's military establishment did not support that decision.
Cynics in Pakistan are also quick to point out that for Gen Musharraf the war on terrorism has become the "goose that laid a golden egg". Last month Congress voted to give Pakistan $3 billion (£1.6 billion) in direct aid and debt relief over the next five years, including $300 million in this financial year for "military assistance".
Gen Musharraf's supporters in Washington cite recent military action against Islamic militants in Waziristan as evidence of Pakistan's determination to confront the threat from Islamic extremism.
But a report this year by the independent International Crisis Group said Gen Musharraf, far from tackling extremism, had completely failed to fulfil his promise of 2002 to rein in Pakistan's 10,000 madrassas, or Islamic schools, that serve as militant recruitment centres.
23 April 2003: Afghans urge Pakistan to help rein in Taliban
9 January 2002: Musharraf speech is crucial for stability
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