bq. Pakistan on Monday suggested the establishment of a mechanism to involve the people of Jammu and Kashmir “at some stage” in the dialogue process to resolve the vexed issue, and said a solution that “satisfies Islamabad will satisfy Kashmiris” too. [“Rediff”:http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/jun/28talks.htm]
But before anyone could say react, JKLF responded
bq. Flaying this statement, senior JKLF leader Shabir Chaudhury said in a statement that “what satisfies Islamabad, does not satisfy even their own people in Sindh, Balochistan or Frontier, how can it satisfy Kashmiris who are neither constitutionally or legally a part of Pakistan.” Strongly protesting Khan’s remark, Choudhury said Pakistan was a party to the Kashmir issue and as a party it could only speak about its own interest. [“India Express”:http://www.indiaexpress.com/news/regional/jammu_kashmir/20040704-0.html]

Our friendly General/President next door gave a speech in which he claimed that an “iron curtain”:http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/06/1089000160510.html?oneclick=true is falling between the West and Muslims. He also made the assertion that the root of terrorism is illiteracy and poverty and not the madrassa education where a one sided view of the world is taught. “Robert Spencer”:http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/authors.asp?ID=1240 of “Jihad Watch”:http://jihadwatch.org/ has a “rebuttal”:http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14124.
bq. Musharraf is probably not familiar with numerous studies that indicate that the conventional wisdom he is purveying here is actually false. The idea that terrorists are desperately poor, uneducated, and easily enticed by the promise of a few dollars or a bit of manipulative religious twaddle that the cynical power elite purvey but don?t believe in themselves ? it flies in the face of the facts. Most recently, Marc Sageman, a former CIA case officer, has found through extensive background studies of known Al-Qaeda operatives that most Islamic terrorists are, according to a Knight-Ridder report, ?well-educated, married men from middle- or upper-class families, in their mid-20s and psychologically stable ? Many of them knew several languages and traveled widely.? Sageman strongly ruled out the idea that terrorists were misfits and sociopaths: ?The data suggest that these were good kids who liked to go to school and were often overprotected by their parents.?
bq. Last March, the acting President of the radical Muslim party Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), Qazi Hussain Ahmad, threatened to launch nationwide protests if the curriculum in Pakistan?s Islamic schools (madrassas) were reformed to eliminate verses from the Qur?an that taught violent jihad. ?To combat this,? Qazi warned, ?a major jihadi campaign has become necessary.? He sent Musharraf a pointed reminder: ?the general should note that the country came into existence on Islamic ideology and it could survive on that basis alone.? That ideology is taught daily in many of Pakistan?s 27,000 madrassas. A significant percentage of these, according to Newsweek, ?steep their students in the doctrine of holy war and function openly as jihad enlistment centers.? [“Front Page Magazine”:http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14124]

Will Osama Bin Laden, Mullah Omar or Ayman Al Zawahiri be the surprise factor in the American Elections in November ?. It seems the Bush Administration is putting pressure on Musharraf to catch the the High Value Targets according to an article in “The New Republic”:http://tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040719&s=aaj071904
bq. But The New Republic has learned that Pakistani security officials have been told they must produce HVTs by the election. According to one source in Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), “The Pakistani government is really desperate and wants to flush out bin Laden and his associates after the latest pressures from the U.S. administration to deliver before the [upcoming] U.S. elections.” Introducing target dates for Al Qaeda captures is a new twist in U.S.-Pakistani counterterrorism relations–according to a recently departed intelligence official, “no timetable[s]” were discussed in 2002 or 2003–but the November election is apparently bringing a new deadline pressure to the hunt.
bq. A third source, an official who works under ISI’s director, Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq, informed tnr that the Pakistanis “have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs before [the] election is [an] absolute must.” What’s more, this source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: “The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during [ul-Haq’s] meetings in Washington.” Says McCormack: “I’m aware of no such comment.” But according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that “it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July”–the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston. [“TNR”:http://tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040719&s=aaj071904]

bq. In a sign of growing concern over Islamic militants’ training camps in Pakistan, the Department of Homeland Security has ordered its inspectors at America’s largest airports to scrutinize all travelers of Pakistani descent _including U.S. citizens_ in an effort to catch terrorist trainees who might try to enter the United States, officials said Wednesday.
bq. In particular, agents are being told to look for signs of injuries that could have been received during paramilitary training such as rope burns, unusual bruises and scars…Most of the camps in Pakistan are thought to be overseen by militants who belong to fundamentalist Islamic organizations with links to Al Qaeda, the official said. He added that they were probably less sophisticated than the training operations that Al Qaeda oversaw in Afghanistan before the U.S.-led military campaign to destroy them in late 2001…Even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, U.S. authorities and their counterparts in India were closely monitoring such camps. They contend that the camps have trained Islamic militants fighting along with Pakistan against India in the contested area of Kashmir. [“Los Angeles Times”:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pakwarn1jul01,1,6709170.story?coll=la-headlines-nation (regn reqd)]
These are the benefits of being the citizens of a “Non-Nato Major Ally”:https://varnam.org/archives/000365.html. It is not just the Americans. As Kamran Shafi writes
bq. In the end, and in light of the foregoing, let me give a short comparison of how the world looks at India and us. As of now, the Schengen States do not issue more than a three-month validity visa for those Pakistanis lucky to get one; Indians are allowed, hold on to your chairs, 10-year visas! So much for our front-line state against terrorism status; so much for our major non-Nato ally nonsense. [“Daily Times”:http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_1-7-2004_pg3_3]

Terrorism against India now comes from Bangladesh sponsored by some pro Al-Qaeda groups.
bq. Confessions made by one Mohammed Yasin Ali, a district commandant of the militant Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Asom (MULTA), have revealed that pro-Qaeda armed groups in Bangladesh have been “talent-scouting” among Muslim settlers in Assam.
bq. According to the MULTA militant, potential hitmen are lured into Bangladesh and provided a six-month crash course in handling weapons and planning operations, besides a monthly stipend of Rs 2,000. “The recruits are straightaway taken to a training camp at Kurikilam in Jaipur area of Bangladesh,” Ali’s statement said. ?The six-month training is extendable by another six months if recruits fail certain tests. Completion of the course ensures the monthly stipend, which is payable for three years.? [“Hindustan Times”:http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5922_853538,0015002200000100.htm]
“Islamic militancy has been on a rise”:http://www.nirajweb.net/mt/niraj/archives/001962.html in Bangladesh and the “militants consider it a safe haven”:http://www.nirajweb.net/mt/niraj/archives/002036.html, but as usual the BNP Govt. denies it. Bhutan, a friendly neighbor of India, “launched operations”:https://varnam.org/archives/000285.html against separatist groups based in Bhutan working against India. But you cannot expect any pro-India actions from Bangladesh.

Few days back, Musharraf “kicked out”:http://www.nirajweb.net/mt/niraj/archives/002584.html the Prime Minister Jamali in what is known as a democratic process in Pakistan. Now B. Raman has a detailed explanation of why the first Prime Minister from Balochistan was sent packing.
bq. An aggravating factor was Jamali’s failure (in the eyes of Musharraf) to vigorously explain to the people and to support in public the operations launched by the Army in the South Waziristan area of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in its hunt, under US pressure, for the dregs of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The operations have caused considerable resentment not only among the tribals, but also in the lower and middle ranks of the Army and have been bitterly opposed by the religious parties.
bq. Since the middle of last year, Jamali himself was showing signs of unhappiness over what he perceived as his increasing marginalisation by Musharraf and by the prominence given to Shaukat Aziz. Before Musharraf’s visit to Camp David in the US in June last year for talks with President Bush, there were indications of growing US concerns over the rogue proliferation activities of Abdul Qadir Khan, the so-called father of the Pakistani atomic bomb, and his cronies in Pakistan’s nucear and missile establishment and the Army.
bq. In order to divert suspicion from himself and the Army, Musharraf ordered Shaukat Aziz to inspect the security and accounting procedures in the Kahuta uranium enrichment plant and took Aziz along with him to the US to reassure the US that everything was in order in the nuclear establishment.
bq. Before this, no civilian political leader of Pakistan had ever been allowed by the Army to visit any of the nuclear and missile establishments. Jamali was put in a highly embarrassing position when questions were raised as to why this task of seeming civilian supervision over the nuclear and missile establishment was given to Aziz and not to him (Jamali) and why Aziz reported his findings directly to Musharraf and not through Jamali. [“SAAG”:http://www.saag.org/papers11/paper1038.html]

On Jan 1, Pervez Musharraf wrote an Op-Ed piece in NY Times preaching what he called _enlightened moderation_. Now there is a rebuttal of the same piece by Samina Ahmed and John Norris.
bq. First and foremost, he continues to avoid handing real power back to democratically elected officials. While the Bush administration repeatedly holds up Iraq as a nation that could serve as a shining example of Islamic democracy in action, it continues to offer a blank check to a Pakistani government in which all power resides in the military. Curbs on democratic freedoms in Pakistan remain draconian. To discourage domestic dissent, the government has sentenced Javed Hashmi, leader of Musharraf’s main political opposition, to 23 years in prison for daring to offer criticism. And it deported an exiled opposition leader, Shahbaz Sharif, when he had the temerity to attempt to return home after the Supreme Court confirmed the right of all citizens to actually reside in Pakistan.
bq. The Pakistani government has taken a similar approach to jihadist organizations. The growth of jihadist networks continues to threaten both domestic and international security. After declaring that no group would be allowed to engage in terrorist activities in Indian-controlled Kashmir, the government ordered a number of extremist groups to do little more than change their name. One extremist leader was allowed to run for parliament, and won, even though he had been charged with more than 20 violent crimes. The leaders of other banned groups, designated as terrorist organizations by the United States, continue to preach freely their sectarian and anti-Western jihad. Pakistan has also notably failed to adequately address important issues such as terrorist financing, including money laundering, making the country a favorite base of operation for all too many extremist organizations. [“NY Times”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42030-2004Jun14.html]
Musharraf is one person who has learned to milk the West for doing absolutely nothing and the entire Bush Administration remains enamored with him hoping that he will deliver Osama very soon. But Ahmed Rashid, the author of “Taliban”:https://varnam.org/archives/000266.html says
bq. Karzai’s presence in Washington holds some peril for Bush as well, because it’s an occasion to raise the embarrassing question of what happened to the search for Osama bin Laden. In February, 20,000 U.S.-led coalition forces announced, with much fanfare, a major offensive to crush the Taliban, capture its leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, and track down Bin Laden. But U.S. military officers in Pakistan and Afghanistan now privately say it is highly unlikely that the Al Qaeda leader will be nabbed or killed before the U.S. election. [“LA Times”:http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-rashid13jun13,1,2991974.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions]

Madeline Albright and Robin Cook have a “commentary in Los Angeles Times”:http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-albright7jun07,1,2981694.story on Nuclear Proliferation.
bq. Third, the G-8 nations must bring to bear all the incentives and sanctions they have at their disposal to stop proliferation. This includes closing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty loophole that enables states like North Korea to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of programs to produce nuclear energy. [“LA Times”:http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-albright7jun07,1,2981694.story (regn reqd)]
Read through the whole article and there is no mention of the biggest “proliferator”:https://varnam.org/archives/000306.html of all. If only Madeline Albright had read a report by “David Albright, a former IAEA Inspector”:https://varnam.org/archives/000290.html. But then whatever Pakistan does is totally transparent to the entire Western World.

“B Raman”:http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/may/12raman.htm, has more details on the “animals who murdered Nick Berg”:http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_05/003895.php. He thinks that the denunciation of Pakistan’s military dictator Musharraf indicates the involvement of Pakistani Jihadis. He also has “more details on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi”:http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/may/12raman.htm, the man in the video.
bq. The video-recording of the beheading as displayed on the jihadi web site linked with Al Qaeda was titled ‘Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American.’ But reliable sources in Karachi, who had seen the video, say the murder has the clear fingerprints of the three organisations which kidnapped and killed Pearl.
bq. Pearl was murdered by a group of Pakistani jihadi terrorists belonging to the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen-Al Alami and Jaish-e-Mohammad. All are members Osama bin Laden’s International Islamic Front, whose worldwide activities are now being co-ordinated by Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Tayiba.
bq. If Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was indeed the person who did the beheading, it proves that these three Pakistani organisations are working in tandem with Abu Musab’s outfit.
I agree with Jivha when he says, “Words Fail Me”:http://www.jivha.com/blog/. While all religions preach peace and asks us to love our neighbor, if you look around, you will find that “religion is used to butcher people”:https://varnam.org/archives/000377.html left and right.

The U.S Department of State has released its reports on terrorism called Patterns of Global Terrorism – 2003. In the section for India it is mentioned that

In the states of Jammu and Kashmir, killings of civilians by foreign-based and Kashmiri militant groups continued and included the murder of numerous political leaders and party workers. The Indian Government asserted that Lashkar-i-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed were behind a number of high-profile attacks in the state, which included the massacre of 24 Hindu civilians in southern Kashmir in March and an attack on 17 October outside the Chief Minister?s residence compound in Srinagar.

If you read the whole report, you will find that the foreign land from where militant groups enter Kashmir is never named. The state department is oogling over Musharraf and for them Pakistan continues to be the most important ally in the US war on terror aka Finding Osama. The ally is so trustworthy that US forces are now going in and out as they please
The section on Pakistan is all about how well they are doing in their war on terror with absolutely no word about how they are supporting terrorists, who are creating problems in India and Afghanistan. Even if the Americans in the field suspect the Pakistani sincerity or if the ISI is inviting journalists to their meetings with terrorists, where it is declared that, “Nobody can deviate us from our goal of liberating Kashmir.”, the State Department is turning a blind eye to it.