In Pakistan, dead men tell no tales

[seemslikeadream]

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

Pakistan's establishment recently labeled Amjad Farooqi as al-Qaeda's mastermind in the country. However, Asia Times Online contacts vigorously dispute this claim ... and they suspect that Farooqi has already been arrested in Karachi and that he will be "presented" at a later date.
- Twin hot spots near boiling point, Asia Times Online, Jun 5

KARACHI - Even as President General Pervez Musharraf played to the international gallery on his trip to the United Nations and beyond, at home, Pakistan was cooking up another treat to be served on the tour.

On Sunday, Pakistan announced that paramilitary police had killed Amjad Farooqi, a suspected top al-Qaeda operative wanted in connection with the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl two years ago, as well as for two assassination attempts against Musharraf last December.

Asia Times Online contacts, however, are adamant that Farooqi was in fact arrested some months ago, and that the "incident" resulting in his death in the southern Pakistani city of Nawabshah was in fact stage-managed by Pakistani security forces.

Pakistan's establishment recently labeled Farooqi al-Qaeda's mastermind in the country. However, Asia Times Online contacts say that, certainly, Amjad was wanted in connection with the murder of Pearl in Karachi in 2002. The contacts claim, though, that Amjad was in fact a "stand-alone" operator who did not draw support from any one organization as he was able to gather his own manpower and financial resources. Senior intelligence officers told Asia Times Online that while Farooqi was a stand-alone operator, he carried out specific operations in conjunction with local and foreign elements.

In the Punjab police criminal investigation department's "red book", Farooqi is serialized as No 1497 under the name of Amjad Hussain alias Farooqi, alias Haider Ali, son of Mohammed Afzal, a 30-year-old standing five feet seven inches (170 centimeters). He is listed as coming from Toba Taik Singh, but southern Punjab has been his main playing field. He was last seen in Karachi's Quaidabad suburb in the Tariq Hotel, on the same day that Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, a leading Sunni cleric, was assassinated. Farooqi was at some stage a member of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, a banned group of sectarian assassins who target Shi'ite Muslims.
more
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FI28Df04.html

[Minstrel Boy]

1. Pakistan can produce terrorists on demand, because

al Qaeda and ISI operatives are often one in the same.

Daniel Pearl was killed because he was getting uncomfortably close to uncovering this.

When ISI director Mahmood Ahmed authorized the $100,000 payment to Mohammed Atta in the summer of 2001, the man he gave the order to, according to phone records, was Omar Saeed Sheikh: an ISI/al Qaeda double agent now in custody for Pearl's murder.

I posted something similar - and now, eerily prophetic - by Shahzad in early August (and I love the accompanying illustration):



Pakistan produces the goods, again
by Syed Saleem Shahzad
Asia Times, August 4

The next 'target'?
Dr Aafia Siddiqui, in her mid-30s, has a PhD in neurological sciences from the US. She is believed to have Pakistani and US nationality. She is wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as an "al-Qaeda operative and facilitator" and in connection with "possible terrorist threats" in the US. September 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (caught in Pakistan) is believed to have told authorities about Aafia.

She disappeared, with her three children, a few months ago in Pakistan. Asia Times Online sources claim that she is in the custody of the ISI. All calls by her family and humanitarian groups for her to be produced in court have been ignored.

Acquaintances of Aafia say she was an ISI contact and played an active role as a "relief worker" in Chechnya and Bosnia - a role the government now does not want to reveal. She has also been connected with different Arab non-governmental organizations in the US, through which she also helped to supply aid and funds to Chechens.

However Aafia's case turns out, doubtless a number of al-Qaeda operators are already in detention in Pakistan to be produced when and as necessary.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FH04Df03.html

:hi: seens

[seemslikeadream]

2. TREASURY'S ANTI-TERROR TASK

:hi: MB
Did you see CSPAN this morning? Blew me away!

Cover Up
C-SPAN, Washington Journal
Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
ID: 183594 - 3 - 09/27/2004 - 0:45 - No Sale

Lance, Peter, Author
Mr. Lance talks about his book Cover Up: What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War on Terror, published by Regan Books. The book focuses on information missed by the September 11 Commission and the Bush administration in its investigations of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He also writes about potential conflicts of interest of some September 11 Commission members and staff with the agencies they were investigating. He will respond to telephone calls, faxes, and electronic mail from viewers.
Mentioned Paul Thompson also.

WATCH THE RERUN!
He said the only way the truth will come out is through private lawsuits, mentioned Baker representing the Saudis

.....

And: It's impossible to know if Riyadh's reforms will work at all. The 9/11 Commission noted that Saudi co-operation with U.S. financial authorities was "ambivalent and selective" until late last year — when al Qaeda started attacking the kingdom itself. There's also compelling evidence that Saudi officials who were once in charge of directing state money to charities ignored repeated warnings that those charities were funding al Qaeda — raising questions about the kingdom's renewed assertions that it can adequately police itself now without strict outside oversight.

"The critical data necessary to assess the implementation and enforcement of many of these announced reforms are generally nonexistent or not publicly available," The Council of Foreign Relations said in a June report.

The council also noted that suspected Saudi terrorist financiers remain free within Saudi Arabia: "The universal application of the rule of law to prominent persons, especially those close to members of the Saudi family, also remains uncertain."

Banks here need the extra prodding as well — they aren't immune to turning a blind eye to sources of lucrative fees. Federal banking regulators voiced concern last year that Washington-based Riggs Bank had "overlooked" millions of dollars in suspicious transactions executed by Saudi diplomats, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

But Treasury still isn't drilling deep enough. American banks should be examining each of their Saudi customers and Saudi transactions.

more
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/30868.htm

[Minstrel Boy]

3. We don't get CSPAN up here in Soviet Canuckistan.

I'll see if I can watch it online.

The new Peter Lance book looks good. I've been searching for it, but haven't seen it in the stores yet.

[seemslikeadream]

5. I'm gonna watch the rerun

Try and take notes. He was amazing!

[seemslikeadream]

4. Warren Report-Watergate II

Peter Lance has followed-up his book, 1000 Years for Revenge (reviewed at lewrockwell.com on Saturday, 9/11/04), with a new blockbuster, Cover Up: What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War On Terror. Out of necessity, Lance restates the details outlined in his first book at the beginning of Cover Up.

In 1000 Years for Revenge Lance demonstrated that culpability for what happened on 9-11 ran through the three presidential administrations of Bush I, Clinton and Bush II. The FBI infiltrated a terrorist cell operating within a Brooklyn mosque in 1991 but then drove off their "mole" prior to Ramzi Yousef joining the cell in 1992. Yousef went on to mastermind the plot and build the explosive device used in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

Yousef escaped New York after the bombing and set up another terrorist cell in the Philippines with his uncle, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM). In the early 1990’s Yousef and KSM planned three terrorist plots together: the assassination of the Pope, the simultaneous bombing of eleven commercial airliners and the "crashing of airplanes into buildings" tactic used on 9-11.

All three of these plots were uncovered in 1994 when a man associated with Yousef and KSM was captured and successfully interrogated by Philippine authorities. Their findings were forwarded on to the U.S. embassy in Manila which passed them on to the FBI in 1995.

Around this time Yousef was captured in an Osama bin Laden–sponsored boarding house in Pakistan and handed over to FBI officials in that country. Incredibly, KSM was staying in the same compound but went undiscovered by the FBI. A TIME magazine reporter, however, found KSM while the FBI was taking over the arrest of Yousef and interviewed him (using KSM’s real name) for an article about how Yousef was captured

more
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/tofte4.html

[varun]

6. What happened to the guy who was on death row for Pearl killing?

I remember him being arrested a year or so ago..and he was produced in front of the court in Pakistan. I havent heard about that for a while. Was he put to death?

I know one thing for sure - Musharraf and ISI are playing Bush and Co like a finely tuned guitar. They know when to produce a "High Value Target", and get generous gifts from Bush.