WP, pg1: Pakistan Pressures Al Qaeda (military ops lead to alert, arrests)

[DeepModem Mom]

Pakistan Pressures Al Qaeda
Military Operation Results In Terror Alert and Arrests

By Kamran Khan and Dana Priest
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, August 6, 2004; Page A01


KARACHI, Pakistan, Aug. 5 -- An intense Pakistani military operation directed at suspected al Qaeda hideouts along the Afghan-Pakistan border has led to the seizure of a number of al Qaeda suspects and the discovery of a cache of computer information that contributed to last weekend's decision to increase the terror alert in several U.S. cities, Pakistani officials said Thursday.

The Pakistani operation has employed sophisticated American eavesdropping technology and computerized identification systems, they said. Three wanted al Qaeda operatives have been arrested, and computer files were found with detailed surveillance reports on terrorist targets and information about the whereabouts of other al Qaeda members, according to the officials.

The military effort has forced the fighters out of the rugged remote tribal areas, just inside Pakistan, and into more urban areas, where they are more visible and vulnerable to capture, they said.

The operation is being paid for with millions of dollars from the CIA, supported with equipment from the National Security Agency and carried out by Pakistani soldiers and intelligence units. It has netted more than 100 suspects in recent days, the officials said. Eighteen detainees have been identified by the officials as al Qaeda members, according to Faisal Saleh Hayat, Pakistan's interior minister.

"We have a bead on some people," a U.S. military officer said in a comment echoed throughout the U.S. government on Thursday....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43940-2004Aug5.html

[Aunt Anti-bush]

1. It's good news to hear they're cracking down on terrorism.

But it makes me wonder why we've waited this darn long. Wouldn't the * administration have been better off to be giving terrorism this kind of attention since 9-11 rather than waiting until just before the election?


:puke:

[FloridaPat]

2. The fact that the government lies about almost everything makes

me wonder exactly who they are capturing over there. Let's face it, how many people in this country can name the first 5 top al Qaeda people? Pakistan says they're al Qaeda. The US says the same thing. The captives are put in jail somewhere and tortured. No lawyers, no day in court. No press to take pictures and get answers.

[Disturbed]

3. Let them do the dirty work.

The Neo Fascists now have learned that they cannot do the torture themselves. Like in Vietnam where they stood around and let the S. Vietnamese do the torturing so it could be disavowed. How many right hand ops does Usama have anyway? Most of these confession are later recanted. The big push is on now to wow the American potential voters.

[John_H]

4. Do any Dem children have their thinking caps on?

After the Nat. Rev. article they had the perfect chance to at least partially mitigate (which they didn't) a potential peri-convention surprise (which there was, the day our convention ended) by sending some surrogates out screaming about Rove planning to use the war and Terror and a foreign government to create news to overshadow our convention. Their typically risk-averse response was to send one surrogate (Dean) on one show after the fact.

Now they have a nearly identical candidate to mitigate the effect of what this story is obviously building up to--the capture of Osama.
Are the Dems going to be smart this time? What do you think.

Now, anyone who's had any contact with a 26-year-old who perceives that they have a tiny bit of power is not going to listen to some amateurs like us over here at DU, especially those of us who promote a strategy that might potentially rock their 25k-a-yer career boats.

The problem is, the NY Times story and now this story prove that we amateurs on DU were correct. he GOP will do anything--ANYTHING--to win this election. And Rove's no fool--he's going to be perfectly happy to let Pakistan take the lead role. He knows the media will give chimp 100 percent of the credit anyway and Pakistan gives him cover of orchestrating an October surprise.

Feel free to record the following to play at the next conference call:

Attention Boys and Girls of the Revolution: If Rove pulls off Osama you will lose. You will be going to go back to your shitty jobs at some association or on the hill. There will be no GS-14 at a federal agency. The time to act is now. Speak up.

[John_H]

5. Kick

[John_H]

6. Another kick--how about writing the post asking them if they

would like to buy some mountain property in remote tribal areas, since they take everything at face value.