[Assam] Pakistan Struggles Against Militants Trained by Agency / TYPO -NYT

[Chan Mahanta]

Dropped the NOT in the sentence:

>  But has that NOT deterred it from
engaging them in finding a political solution?






At 10:49 AM -0600 1/15/08, Chan Mahanta wrote:
>  >  >Unfortunately, our own home-grown varieties 
>seem downright enamored with the
>>ISI and Bangladesh Intelligence (an oxymoron?).
>
>
>
>*** The comment displays a rather simpleminded view of things at best.
>
>Do the 'home-grown varieties'  associate with
>ISI, IF they DO, as their detractors claim,
>because they are 'enamored' of their ideology or
>mission?  Or they do so, because they are DRIVEN
>to seeking  help from the ENEMY of their ENEMIEs?
>
>
>*** Did these 'home-grown varieties'  begin their
>struggles against Indian rule to advance ISI's or
>Pakistan's cause?  Or were they DRIVEN to its
>fold, if they were, because of decades of Indian
>intransigence?  Could India imagine that such a
>consequence could evolve from its policies, or
>was it
>not smart enough to foresee it?
>
>Hasn't India and its apologists not been crying
>hoarse for decades that the NE insurgents are
>getting increasing help from ISI or Pakistan or
>who-have-you? But has that deterred it from
>engaging them in finding a political solution?
>
>Does it not smack of appalling hypocrisy laced
>with a liberal dose of clueless propaganda that
>would be apparent to anyone with half a working
>brain? Or is it a case of abject Indian
>stupidity? Or a combination of both?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>At 9:35 AM -0600 1/15/08, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
>>It is astonishing that the Western press is still surprised by the fact that
>>the ISI can only spew militancy, but has little or no control of such groups
>>operating in Pakistan.
>>Unfortunately, our own home-grown varieties seem downright enamored with the
>>ISI and Bangladesh Intelligence (an oxymoron?).
>>
>>--Ram
>>   ------------------------------
>>   January 15, 2008
>>   Pakistan Struggles Against Militants Trained by Agency By CARLOTTA
>>GALL<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/carlotta_gall/index.html?inline=nyt-per>and
>>DAVID
>>ROHDE<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/david_rohde/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
>>
>>ISLAMABAD,
>>Pakistan<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/pakistan/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>-
>>Pakistan's premier military intelligence agency has lost control of
>>some
>>of the networks of Pakistani militants it has nurtured since the 1980s, and
>>is now suffering the violent blowback of that policy, two former senior
>>intelligence officials and other officials close to the agency say.
>>
>>As the military has moved against them, the militants have turned on their
>>former handlers, the officials said. Joining with other extremist groups,
>>they have battled Pakistani security forces and helped militants carry out a
>>record number of suicide attacks last year, including some aimed directly at
>>army and intelligence units as well as prominent political figures, possibly
>>even Benazir
>>Bhutto<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/benazir_bhutto/index.html?inline=nyt-per>.
>>
>>
>>The growing strength of the militants, many of 
>>whom now express support for Al
>>Qaeda<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda/index.html?inline=nyt-org>'s
>>global jihad, presents a grave threat to Pakistan's security, as well as
>  >NATO<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/north_atlantic_treaty_organization/index.html?inline=nyt-org>efforts
>>to push back the
>>Taliban<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/t/taliban/index.html?inline=nyt-org>in
>>Afghanistan. American officials have begun to weigh more robust covert
>>operations to go after Al Qaeda in the lawless border areas because they are
>>so concerned that the Pakistani government is unable to do so.
>>
>>The unusual disclosures regarding Pakistan's leading military intelligence
>  >agency - Inter-Services
>>Intelligence<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/i/interservices_intelligence/index.html?inline=nyt-org>,
>>or the ISI - emerged in interviews last month with former senior Pakistani
>>intelligence officials. The disclosures confirm some of the worst fears, and
>>suspicions, of American and Western military officials and diplomats.
>>
>>The interviews, a rare glimpse inside a notoriously secretive and opaque
>>agency, offered a string of other troubling insights likely to refocus
>>attention on the ISI's role as Pakistan moves toward elections on Feb. 18
>>and a battle for control of the government looms:
>>
>>¶One former senior Pakistani intelligence official, as well as other people
>>close to the agency, acknowledged that the ISI led the effort to manipulate
>>Pakistan's last national election in 2002, and offered to drop corruption
>>cases against candidates who would back President Pervez
>>Musharraf<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/pervez_musharraf/index.html?inline=nyt-per>.
>>
>>
>>A person close to the ISI said Mr. Musharraf had now ordered the agency to
>>ensure that the coming elections were free and fair, and denied that the
>>agency was working to rig the vote. But the acknowledgment of past rigging
>>is certain to fuel opposition fears of new meddling.
>>
>>¶The two former high-ranking intelligence officials acknowledged that after
>>Sept. 11, 2001, when President Musharraf publicly allied Pakistan with the
>>Bush administration, the ISI could not rein in the militants it had nurtured
>>for decades as a proxy force to exert pressure on India and Afghanistan.
>>After the agency unleashed hard-line Islamist beliefs, the officials said,
>>it struggled to stop the ideology from spreading.
>>
>>¶Another former senior intelligence official said dozens of ISI officers who
>>trained militants had come to sympathize with their cause and had had to be
>>expelled from the agency. He said three purges had taken place since the
>>late 1980s and included the removal of three ISI directors suspected of
>>being sympathetic to the militants.
>>
>>None of the former intelligence officials who spoke to The New York Times
>>agreed to be identified when talking about the ISI, an agency that has
>>gained a fearsome reputation for interfering in almost every aspect of
>>Pakistani life. But two former American intelligence officials agreed with
>>much of what they said about the agency's relationship with the militants.
>>
>>So did other sources close to the ISI, who admitted that the agency had
>>supported militants in Afghanistan and Kashmir, although they said they had
>>been ordered to do so by political leaders.
>>
>>The former intelligence officials appeared to feel freer to speak as Mr.
>>Musharraf's eight years of military rule weakened, and as a power struggle
>>for control over the government looms between Mr. Musharraf and opposition
>>political parties.
>>
>>The officials were interviewed before the assassination of Ms. Bhutto, the
>>opposition leader, on Dec. 27. Since then, the government has said that
>>Pakistani militants linked to Al Qaeda are the foremost suspects in her
>>killing. Her supporters have accused the government of a hidden hand in the
>>attack.
>>
>>While the author of Ms. Bhutto's death remains a mystery, the interviews
>>with the former intelligence officials made clear that the agency remained
>>unable to control the militants it had fostered.
>>
>>The threat from the militants, the former intelligence officials warned, is
>  >one that Pakistan is unable to contain. "We could not control them," said
>>one former senior intelligence official, who spoke on condition of
>>anonymity. "We indoctrinated them and told them, 'You will go to heaven.'
>>You cannot turn it around so suddenly."
>>
>>The Context
>>
>>After 9/11, the Bush administration pressed Mr. Musharraf to choose a side
>>in fighting Islamist extremism and to abandon Pakistan's longtime support
>>for the Taliban and other Islamist militants.
>>
>>In the 1990s, the ISI supported the militants as a proxy force to contest
>>Indian-controlled Kashmir, the border territory that India and Pakistan both
>  >claim, and to gain a controlling influence in neighboring Afghanistan. In
>>the 1980s, the United States supported militants, too, funneling billions of
>>dollars to Islamic fighters battling Soviet forces in Afghanistan through
>>the ISI, vastly increasing the agency's size and power.
>>
>>Publicly, Mr. Musharraf agreed to reverse course in 2001, and he has
>>received $10 billion in aid for Pakistan since then in return. In an
>>interview in November, he vehemently defended the conduct of the ISI, an
>>agency that, according to American officials, was under his firm control for
>>the last eight years while he served as both president and army chief.
>>
>>Mr. Musharraf dismissed criticism of the ISI's relationship with the
>>militants. He cited the deaths of 1,000 Pakistani soldiers and police
>>officers in battles with the militants in recent years - as well as several
>>assassination attempts against himself - as proof of the seriousness of
>>Pakistan's counterterrorism effort.
>>
>>"It is quite illogical if you think those people who have suffered 1,000
>>people dead, and I who have been attacked thrice or four or five times, that
>>I would be supportive towards Taliban, towards Al Qaeda," Mr. Musharraf
>>said. "These are ridiculous things that discourages and demoralizes."
>>
>>But some former American intelligence officials have argued that Mr.
>>Musharraf and the ISI never fully jettisoned their militant protégés, and
>>instead carried on a "double-game." They say Mr. Musharraf cooperated with
>>American intelligence agencies to track down foreign Qaeda members while
>>holding Taliban commanders and Kashmiri militants in reserve.
>>
>>In order to undercut major opposition parties, he wooed religious
>>conservatives, according to analysts. And instead of carrying out a
>>crackdown, Mr. Musharraf took half-measures.
>>
>>"I think he would make a decision when a situation arises," said Hasan
>>Askari Rizvi, a leading Pakistani military analyst, referring to militants
>>openly confronting the government. "But before that he would not alienate
>>any side."
>>
>>There is little dispute that Pakistan's crackdown on the militants has been
>>at best uneven, but key sources interviewed by The Times disagreed on why.
>>
>>Most Western officials in Pakistan say they believe, as Pakistani officials,
>>including President Musharraf, insist, that the agency is well disciplined,
>>like the army, and is in no sense a rogue or out-of-control organization
>>acting contrary to the policies of the leadership.
>>
>>A senior Western military official in Pakistan said that if the ISI was
>>covertly aiding the Taliban, the decision would come from the top of the
>>government, not the agency. "That's not an ISI decision," the official said.
>>"That's a government-of-Pakistan decision."
>>
>>But former Pakistani intelligence officials insisted that Mr. Musharraf had
>>ordered a crackdown on all militants. It was never fully carried out,
>>however, because of opposition within his government and within ISI, they
>>said.
>>
>>One former senior intelligence official said that some officials in the
>>government and the ISI thought the militants should be held in reserve, as
>>insurance against the day when American and NATO forces abandoned the region
>>and Pakistan might again need them as a lever against India.
>>
>>"We had a school of thought that favored retention of this capability," the
>>former senior intelligence official said.
>>
>>Some senior ministers and officials in Mr. Musharraf's government
>  >sympathized with the militants and protected them, former intelligence
>>officials said. Still others advised a go-slow approach, fearing a backlash
>>against the government from the militants.
>>
>>When arrests were ordered, the police refused to carry them out in some
>>cases until they received written orders, believing the militants were still
>>protected by the ISI, as they had been for years.
>>
>>Inside the ISI, there was division as well. One part of the ISI hunted down
>>militants, the officials said, while another continued to work with them.
>>The result was confusion.
>>
>>In interviews in 2002, Kashmiri militants in Pakistan said they had been
>  >told by the government to maintain a low profile and wait. But as Pakistani
>>military operations in the tribal areas intensified, along with airstrikes
>>by
>>C.I.A.<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/central_intelligence_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org>-operated
>>drones, militant groups there issued highly charged and sometimes
>>exaggerated accounts of women and children being killed.
>>
>>The first suicide bombing attack on a military target outside the tribal
>>areas came days after an airstrike on a madrasa in the tribal area of Bajaur
>>in October 2006 killed scores of people.
>>
>>Another turning point came last July when Pakistani forces stormed the Red
>>Mosque in Islamabad, where militants had armed themselves in a compound less
>>than a mile from ISI headquarters and demanded the imposition of Islamic
>>law. Government officials said that more than 100 people died. The militants
>>have insisted that thousands did.
>>
>>Several weeks later, militants carried out the first direct attacks on ISI
>>employees. Suicide bombers twice attacked buses ferrying agency employees,
>>killing 18 on Sept. 4 and 15 more on Nov. 24. According to Pakistani
>>analysts, the attacks signaled that enraged militants had turned on their
>>longtime patrons.
>>
>>The Militant
>>
>>One militant leader, Maulana Masood Azhar, typifies how extremists once
>>trained by the ISI have broken free of the agency's control, turned against
>>the government and joined with other militants to create powerful new
>>networks.
>>
>>In 2000, Mr. Azhar received support from the ISI when he founded
>>Jaish-e-Muhammad, or Army of Muhammad, a Pakistani militant group fighting
>>Indian forces in Kashmir, according to Robert Grenier, who served as the
>>Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Islamabad from 1999 to 2002.
>>The ISI intermittently provided training and operational coordination to
>>such groups, he said, but struggled to fully control them.
>>
>>Mr. Musharraf banned Jaish-e-Muhammad and detained Mr. Azhar after militants
>>carried out an attack on the Indian Parliament building in December 2001.
>>Indian officials accused Jaish-e-Muhammad and another Pakistani militant
>>group of masterminding the attack. After India massed hundreds of thousands
>>of troops on Pakistan's border, Mr. Musharraf vowed in a nationally
>>televised speech that January to crack down on all militants in Pakistan.
>>
>>"We will take strict action against any Pakistani who is involved in
>>terrorism inside the country or abroad," he said. Two weeks later, a
>>British-born member of Mr. Azhar's group, Ahmed Omar
>>Sheikh<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/ahmed_omar_sheikh/index.html?inline=nyt-per>,
>>kidnapped Daniel
>>Pearl<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/daniel_pearl/index.html?inline=nyt-per>,
>>a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was beheaded by his captors. Mr.
>>Sheikh surrendered to the ISI, the agency that had supported
>>Jaish-e-Muhammad, and was sentenced to death for the kidnapping.
>>
>>After Mr. Pearl's killing, Pakistani officials arrested more than 2,000
>>people in a crackdown. But within a year, Mr. Azhar and most of the 2,000
>>militants who had been arrested were freed. "I never believed that
>>government ties with these groups was being irrevocably cut," said Mr.
>>Grenier, now a managing director at Kroll, a risk consulting firm.
>>
>>At the same time, Pakistan seemingly went "through the motions" when it came
>  >to hunting Taliban leaders who fled into Pakistan after the 2001 American
>>invasion of Afghanistan, he said.
>>
>>Encouraged by the United States, the Pakistanis focused their resources on
>>arresting senior Qaeda members, he said, which they successfully did from
>>2002 to 2005. Since then, arrests have slowed as Al Qaeda and other militant
>>groups have become more entrenched in the tribal areas.
>>
>>Asked in 2006 why the Pakistani government did not move against the leading
>>Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, and his son Sirajuddin, who are based
>>in the tribal areas and have long had links with Al Qaeda, one senior ISI
>  >official said it was because Pakistan needed to retain some assets of its
>>own.
>>
>>That policy haunts Mr. Musharraf and the United States, according to
>>American and Pakistani analysts. Today Pakistan's tribal areas are host to a
>>lethal stew of foreign Qaeda members, Uzbek militants, Taliban, ISI-trained
>>Pakistani extremists, disgruntled tribesmen and new recruits.
>>
>>The groups carried out a record number of suicide bombings in Pakistan and
>>Afghanistan last year and have been tied to three major terrorist plots in
>>Britain and Germany since 2005.
>>
>>Mr. Azhar, who once served his ISI mentors in Kashmir, is thought to be
>>hiding in the tribal area of Bajaur, or nearby Dir, and fighting Pakistani
>>security forces, according to one former intelligence official. Militants
>>who took part in the Red Mosque siege in Islamabad in July were closely
>>affiliated with Mr. Azhar's group. This fall, his group fielded fighters in
>>the Swat Valley, the famous tourist spot, where the militants presented a
>>challenge of new proportions to the government, seizing several districts
>>and mounting battles against Pakistani forces that left scores dead.
>>
>>One militant from a banned sectarian group who joined Mr. Azhar's group,
>>Qari Zafar, now trains insurgents in South Waziristan on how to rig roadside
>>bombs and vests for suicide bombings, according to the former intelligence
>>official.
>>
>>Cooperation against the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan has improved since
>>2006, and three senior Taliban figures have been caught, according to
>>Western officials and sources close to the ISI. Yet doubts remain about the
>>Pakistani government's intentions.
>>
>>Senior provincial ISI officials continue to meet with high-level members of
>>the Taliban in the border provinces, according to one Western diplomat. "It
>>is not illogical to surmise that cooperation is on the agenda, and not just
>>debriefing," the diplomat said.
>>
>>"There are groups they know they have lost control of," the Western diplomat
>>added. But the government moved only against those groups that have attacked
>>the Pakistani state, the diplomat said, adding, "It seems very difficult for
>>them to write them off."
>>
>>The Agency Now
>>
>>Western officials say that before Mr. Musharraf resigned as army chief in
>>December, he appointed a loyalist to run the ISI and appears determined to
>>retain power over the agency even as a civilian president.
>>
>>"For as long as he can, Musharraf will keep trying to control these
>>organizations," a Western diplomat said. "I don't think we should expect
>>this man to become an elder statesman as we know it."
>>
>>That puts Mr. Musharraf's successor as army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez
>>Kayani, who headed the ISI from 2004 to 2007, in a potentially pivotal
>>position. General Kayani, a pro-American moderate, is loyal to Mr. Musharraf
>>to a point, according to retired officers. But he will abandon him if he
>>thinks Mr. Musharraf's actions are significantly undermining the standing of
>>the Pakistani army.
>>
>>Mr. Musharraf will maintain control over the agency as long as his interests
>>coincide with General Kayani's, they said, while the new civilian prime
>>minister who emerges from February's elections is likely to have far less
>>authority over the agency. Opposition political parties already accuse the
>>agency of meddling in next month's election. The Western diplomat called the
>>ISI "the army's dirty bag of tricks."
>>
>>Since Ms. Bhutto's assassination, members of her party have accused
>  >government officials, including former ISI agents, of having a hidden hand
>>in the attack or of knowing about a plot and failing to inform Ms. Bhutto.
>>
>>American experts played down the chances of a government conspiracy against
>>Ms. Bhutto. They also said it was unlikely that low-level or retired
>>officers working alone or with militants carried out the attack.
>>
>>But nearly half of Pakistanis said in a recent poll that they suspected that
>>government agencies or pro-government politicians had assassinated Ms.
>>Bhutto. Such suspicion stems from decades of interference in elections and
>  >politics by the ISI, according to analysts, as well as a high level of
>>domestic surveillance, intimidation and threats to journalists, academics
>>and human rights activists, which former intelligence officials also
>>acknowledged.
>>
>>Pakistani and American experts say that distrust speaks to the urgent need
>>to reform a hugely powerful intelligence agency that Pakistan's military
>>rulers have used for decades to suppress political opponents, manipulate
>>elections and support militant groups.
>>
>>"Pakistan would certainly be better off if the ISI were never used for
>>domestic political purposes," said Mr. Grenier, the former C.I.A. Islamabad
>>station chief. "That goes without saying."
>>
>>Pakistani analysts and Western diplomats argue that the country will remain
>>unstable as long as the ISI remains so powerful and so unaccountable. The
>>ISI has grown more powerful in each period of military rule, they said.
>>
>>Civilian leaders, including Mrs. Bhutto, could not resist using it to secure
>>their political aims, but neither could they control it. And the army
>>continues to rely on the ISI for its own foreign policy aims, particularly
>>battling India in Kashmir and seeking influence in Afghanistan.
>>
>>"The question is, how do you change that?" asked one Western diplomat.
>>"Their tentacles are everywhere."
>>
>>
>>     Copyright 
>>2008<http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html>
>>The
>>     New York Times Company <http://www.nytco.com/>
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