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India-Pakistan
The only lesson from Pakistan
2016-11-24
[NEWINDIANEXPRESS] On November 2, many Pak dailies carried names and pictures of eight Indian High Commission officials, alleging they were spies. The fact that this was "reiterated without any corroboration by Pakistain Ministry of Foreign Affairs is against the Vienna Convention and also violates the norms of established diplomatic practice", asserted external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj in a written reply in the Parliament Wednesday, adding: "The allegations against Indian offi cials represent an afterthought on the part of Government of Pakistain." The part about the ’afterthought’ is obvious, given that the Pak exposure came a day after the expulsion of a visa offi cer at the Pak High Commission in New Delhi.

He was caught accepting classifi ed information from two Indian associates. Since then, both sides have withdrawn eight offi cials and their families from their missions in New Delhi and Islamabad. A bilateral agreement stipulates that neither side can have more than 110 staffers in their diplomatic missions. Swaraj’s assertion comes at a time when matters have escalated way beyond tit for tat expulsions. The daily deaths and injuries due to cross-border shelling and fi ring, jingoistic chest thumping by both sides, and the beheading of an Indian trooper on Tuesday has led to calls for more punitive action against Pakistain.

The clamour is likely to increase. But that is probably what the Mighty Pak Army and their Prime Minister Sharif are waiting for, so that they can use it to divert attention from their domestic problems, and also use it to draw international attention to Kashmire. Perhaps New Delhi could take a leaf out of Pakistain’s book. Take some dramatic action, but then, instead of boasting about it, deny any involvement. Or hint at ’non-state’ actors, Pakistain’s euphemism for ISI lapdogs like the Jaish-e- Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba
...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI...
. What’s good for the goose...
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Afghanistan
Karzai hints at Pakistan after gunmen attack Indian consulate in Nangarhar
2016-03-04
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The former Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
hints at Pakistain following a coordinated attack on Indian consulate in eastern Nangarhar
The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country..
province of Afghanistan, saying the attack is part of a trend of such attacks launched from Pakistain.

Karzai is currently in India, participating the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi. "They are simply attacking India’s presence in Afghanistan, whenever they get the opportunity," Karzai told The Hindu during an exclusive interview.

He said "The whole spectrum of the India-Afghan relations, the relationship itself, is the target of the attacks."

Emphasizing on emanation of terror from Pakistain being a sigle reasonfor problems between Kabul
...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either....
and Islamabad, Karzai said "What is there in the relationship between India and Afghanistan that would irk someone so much that they would come and attack the Indian consulates, or attack Afghanistan."

Karzai further added "Each of those attacks has originated from across the border, from the neighbouring Pakistain. That’s where the origin of this trouble is: the Lashkar-e-Taiba
...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI...
is from there, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ...
, Jaish-e- Mohammad, all these outfits are from Pakistain. So, the sanctuaries, the training grounds, the financial factors and the motivating factors are all inside Pakistain, and come from across the border."

At least three people including a policeman bit the dust and 19 others sustained injuries in the attack on the consulate which was launched by a group of at least 6 Death Eaters.

There were no casualties to Indian diplomats and consulate employees, the officials said, adding that a policeman and two civilians were among those killed and 19 others were maimed including women and kiddies.

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India-Pakistan
Two Jaish-e-Mohammad members sentenced to 10 years in jail
2016-02-25
[INDIATODAY.INTODAY.IN] An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Pakistain yesterday sentenced two Masood Azhar led Jaish-e- Mohammad (JeM) activists to 10 years in prison for raising funds for the banned outfit. This is the first instance of the Pakistain government cracking down on snuffies ever since India provided evidence allegedly showing Jaish-e-Mohammad
...literally Army of Mohammad, a Pak-based Deobandi terror group founded by Maulana Masood Azhar in 2000, after he split with the Harkat-ul-Mujaheddin. In 2002 the government of Pervez Musharraf banned the group, which changed its name to Khaddam ul-Islam and continued doing what it had been doing before without missing a beat...
's participation in the Pathankot terror attack.
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India-Pakistan
Taliban's nexus with militant outfits in J-K
2009-06-07
The latest report by a US Think Tank has warned Pakistan that if it fails to take action against the terrorist outfits operating from its soil in Jammu and Kashmir and rest of India, New Delhi might consider the option of propping separatist outfits in both Balochistan and Sindh. It says there is no evidence of India doing so thus far though Pakistan has been blaming New Delhi on this account for the past five years or more. Islamabad has gone to the extent of saying that Indian Consulates in Afghanistan are indulging in this task only.

Whether India will do tit for tat is a moot question because India is not Pakistan where Generals decide the foreign policy options and counter-insurgency plans.
Whether India will do tit for tat is a moot question because India is not Pakistan where Generals decide the foreign policy options and counter-insurgency plans. Yes, despite the grudge that Pakistan is not doing anything to deal with the outfits like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad. (JeM), and the growing feeling that the release from house arrest of Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Mohd Saeed Hafeez demonstrates Pakistan's lack of seriousness in the fight against terrorism, Pakistan looses no occasion to impulsively charge India for all the ills it is facing. Soon after the attack on Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, there were accusations against India, by responsible persons, that there was an Indian hand in this. A minister of North West Frontier Government recently said all the militants getting killed in Swat were Indians. He ignores the fact that the Taliban has joined hands with other militant outfits in Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as the outfits operating from Pakistan in Kashmir.

Recently there were reports about presence of Taliban in Kashmir that raised a lot of dust across the board. There were firm denials from all quarters saying the reports could not be relied upon in the absence of any evidence. Even the militant arrested by the Security Forces from Gurez area, who was one of the group of 31 militants trying to cross over from across the LOC last month, denied such a presence. A section of local media in Kashmir thought that such reports were being circulated by those interested in spoiling the tourist season in the state.

But the matter does not end there. It may be true that so far there is no Taliban presence in Kashmir. That can not rule out the nexus between the two. As early as November 2008, noted Pakistani Journalist Amir Mir wrote in 'The News' that the trouble stricken Waziristan region had become the new battlefield for the militants operating in Kashmir as they are joining hands with anti-US and pro-Taliban elements. His report appeared after British terror plot suspect Rashid Rauf was killed in a missile attack in Waziristan in which four other Al-Qaeda militants were also died. Rauf was a close relative of Maulana Masood Azhar, who the readers may recall, was released by NDA government in exchange for passengers of Indian Airlines plane hijacked to Kandahar in 2002. Amir said that the presence of Jaish-e Mohammad militants in the Waziristan region has been confirmed by the death of Rashid Rauf in the missile attack.

Another eminent Pakistani writer, Ahmad Rashid, also pointed out in his book 'Descent to Chaos' that the erstwhile Harkat-ul-Ansar, responsible for kidnapping foreigners in Kashmir had links with the Taliban. He said "Harkat was a key ally of Taliban and Al-Qaeda, helping in running training camps in Afghanistan for Kashmiri Militants."

The possibility of some Kashmiri militants being a part of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda can not be ruled out, considering that the outfits share fundamentalism and Jihadi tendencies. It is estimated that at least 50 percent or more militants operating in Jammu and Kashmir are foreigners.

According to Indian Army Chief Deepak Kapoor, when militants get into a radicalized or fundamentalist mode they do not worry about national boundaries or nationalities at all. They will wage a so called Jihad anywhere alongside Taliban in Afghanistan or in Jammu and Kashmir. So if there are foreign Militants operating in Jammu and Kashmir there is always the possibility of some Kashmiri militants operating within Taliban and Al-Qaeda anywhere else.

Basically, there are three Pakistan based militant outfits operating in Kashmir-Harkat-ul- Mujahideen, Jaish-e- Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba. Hizbul Mujahideen chief Yousuf Shah alias Pir Syed Salahauddin, a resident of Srinagar, is also based in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

In September 2008, US forces in Afghanistan targeted a training camp of Al-Badr, a militant outfit operating in Jammu and Kashmir, much before the International media had reported the arrest of three Hizbul Mujahideen cadres in south Waziristan. After Pakistan banned the organizations in the wake of 9/11 incident they are now operating under various other names.

The question that is being asked is whether Pakistan is sincere in dealing with these outfits. It appears Pakistan wants to act against them to convince the world community that it is one with them in the war against terror. At the same time it also wants to protect the terror outfits, for use against India. The practice of releasing militants soon after their arrest under international pressure also raises doubts about Pakistan's credentials. Even after a month long operation in the Swat valley and the nearby Buner and Dir, no Taliban leader worth the name has been arrested. Waziristan, the hotbed of Talibanism has been spared. There are reports about the killing of Baitullah Mehsood and Maulana Fazulullah but these reports are not independently corroborated.

There is a growing view that the refugee crisis in Pakistan has been stepped up to earn international sympathy and shift the focus away from the real problem. Given its track record, the conjecture may not be wide off the mark.

The point is the terrorist originations in Pakistan may be down for the time being in view of the military operation against them but surely they are not out. Even today they are whisking away the youth from relief camps. The suicide attacks across the length and breadth of Pakistan are a chilling message that Pakistani state has to travel a long distance before it can claim to eradicate terrorism from the country.
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India-Pakistan
Hafiz Saeed 'expresses concern' over Geelani's health
2007-03-07
(PTI): Banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba's Founder Hafez Muhammad Saeed today spoke to Syed Ali Shah Geelani to inquire about the health of the hardline Kashmiri leader who is suffering from kidney cancer. Saeed called Geelani in Jammu and Kashmir and "expressed his concern" over the health of the Hurriyat leader, the Jamaat-Ud-Dawa, an organisation founded by Saeed and seen as the parent of the LeT, said in a release from Lahore.

The Lashkar founder's name tops the list of wanted men for the 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament, forwarded by India to Pakistan. Sayeed spoke to Geelani as officials of the two countries held the first meeting of the Joint Mechanism on Terrorism here, during which the two sides were expected to discuss cooperation relating to wanted persons.

While the Pakistan Government banned LET and the Jaish-e- Mohammad in 2001, the JUD has been kept under a "watch list" by the Pakistan Interior Ministry. The United States, however, has proscribed the outfit.
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