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RedditThe lead story in today's New York Times reports a definitive connection between the Lashkar-e Taiba ("Army of the Pure") terrorist group and Pakistan's ISI intelligence service. The Times points out, though, that there is no evidence that ISI was involved in the planning of the attack--yet. Here are two important quotes from the article, both from U.S. officials, who points out that ISI provided funding and training for Lashkar:
"It goes beyond information sharing to include some funding and training. And these are not rogue ISI elements. What's going on is done in a fairly disciplined way."
But:
"It's one thing to say the ISI is tied to Lashkar and quite another to say the ISI was behind the Mumbai attacks. The evidence at this point doesn't get you there."
Indian officials, meanwhile, aren't quite allowing for that nuance. The Post quotes a senior Indian source saying: "We have the names of the handlers. And we know that there is a close relationship between the Lashkar and the ISI."
That handler, according to the Times report cited above, may be a man named Zarrar Shah:
"American and Indian officials believe that one senior Lashkar commander in particular, Zarrar Shah, is one of the group's primary liaisons to the ISI. Investigators in India are also examining whether Mr. Shah, a communications specialist, helped plan and carry out the attacks in Mumbai. 'He's a central character in this plot,' an American official said."
The Wall Street Journal has a good profile of Lashkar today.
The Times notes that the Lashkar chief, Haffiz Muhammad Saeed, openly preached his sermon near Lahore, in Pakistan, on Friday, including this gem: "Now Condoleezza Rice has rushed to India and Pakistan because infidels are united. If infidels do not stop their anti-Muslim activities, the Muslims are second to none in taking revenge." If Pakistan doesn't crack down on psychotics like Saeed, well, let's not think about that. So far, at least, there are no reports of Indian or Pakistani troop mobilizations, except for the brief Pakistani alert called after a hoax or prank call to Pakistan's president from a man purporting to be India's foreign minister. But India's actual foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, did say that India will "act decisively ... with all the means at our disposal."
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Robert Dreyfuss
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It's a dilemma.
If ISI is protecting the Lashkar-e Taiba, then Pakistan won't budge because ISI runs Pakistan (effectively).
But the Indians aren't going to just "let it go" (nor should they).
And for our part, we've got an Administration in transition, so officially nothing can be done by Obama for six weeks and Rice and Bush aren't exactly good at diplomacy (nor have much moral standing).
The only good thing is both sides (P & I) aren't insane and don't want a major war that they know will be catastrophic.
Posted by Mask at 12/08/2008 @ 09:17am
One thing these past 7+ years have done is make me extremely skeptical with anything from the inteligence community. We don't know who did it and we don't know who was involved. Even if the lone captured attacker is talking we have no reason to believe him. I just hope cooler heads prevail and we dont see some counter strike by a radical indian group.
Posted by Extraneous at 12/08/2008 @ 1:00pm
Just send D-Rum and K-Rove over, they'll help figure out who did it!
How do these events make us feel? We have been shown (AGAIN!) as the most childish and most petulant country in the world...this time by India and Pakistan!
At least they're not foolish enough to act like they're the only people to have terrorism strike their country in the history of the world.
Posted by TexasFlood at 12/08/2008 @ 1:20pm
Posted by TexasFlood at 12/08/2008 @ 1:20pm
That's actualy kind of ironic, because a typical American neo-con would be caught in a paradox...
do they- (A) support a retaliatory strike of any degree by India against Pakistan for "harboring and aiding terrorists" (as they say their defense policy is based on and as they SAID it was based on with Iraq)....and risk a nuclear war...
or (B) oppose their own philosophy out of (B1) common sense, given the nuclear war scenario and (B2) the fact that Pakistan is one of the "allies" that they kept claiming????
Posted by Mask at 12/08/2008 @ 2:05pm
At least they're not foolish enough to act like they're the only people to have terrorism strike their country in the history of the world.
Posted by TexasFlood at 12/08/2008 @ 1:20pm
Hate to break it to you bro, but those two have been at each others throats for years. It was only a matter of time before one of them swung off on the other. Kinda reminds me of watching drunken bar fights.
Posted by ACook at 12/08/2008 @ 2:30pm
Posted by ACook at 12/08/2008 @ 2:30pm
What are you breaking to me exactly?
Something I already knew? Gee, thanks!
Posted by TexasFlood at 12/08/2008 @ 2:48pm
Pakistan militants torch 100 NATO vehicles: police 1 hour ago
'PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) -- Armed militants on Monday launched a second raid in as many days on NATO depots in Pakistan, torching nearly 100 more vehicles destined for the alliance's forces in Afghanistan, police said.
The latest attack on a container terminal near the northwest city of Peshawar came a day after Taliban militants launched the biggest such raid to date, destroying nearly 200 vehicles in the area.
This time, the attackers set nearly 100 vehicles alight including jeeps and 20 supply trucks after dousing them with petrol, police said.
Firefighters called to the scene managed to save another 40.
"It was almost the same type of attack as the one conducted by 200 armed militants" the previous night, police official Anwar Zeb told AFP.
"The militants fled from the scene when police arrived," he added.
A security guard confirmed that around 200 armed men had attacked the terminal in the early hours of Monday before fleeing.
Such attacks occur frequently in Pakistan and have become bigger and more sophisticated in recent months.
But the US Monday downplayed them as having an "insignificant" impact on the overall US and NATO military effort in Afghanistan...........'
"Insignificant"? Okay...whatever you say. Deeper and deeper into the quagmire. So US and NATO military depots are unguarded or guarded only by a few Pakistani police? What other military equipment and weapons are kept at these depots?
Posted by OneVote at 12/08/2008 @ 3:19pm
So, when will India begin invading the wrong country...
I hear it's still a toss up between New Zealand and Mongolia.
Posted by TexasFlood at 12/08/2008 @ 8:18pm
The Bush administration has tied itself to Pakistan. (The CIA tied itself to the Pakistan intelligence service, the ISI, nearly 30 years ago, at the beginning of the war against the Soviets in Afganistan.) The ISI has been training, arming, and supporting Islamic fundementalists for 30 years, about half of that time with CIA support and more than half with US money. (We are STILL sending money to Pakistan.) The funding not supplied by the US was/is supplied by the Saudis. Some of the Saudi money goes thru the Pakistan military to the Taliban or terrorist groups that attack India. Money for al Qaeda probably doesn't go thru the Pakistani government. The ISI will help the US (to some extent) against al Qaeda as long as the money from the US keeps coming, but our money is extra - they get enough from the Saudis that they could get along without our money. So the ISI will NEVER act against the Taliban or the terrorist groups that act against India, because that would cause their funding from the Saudis to stop, and the economy would probably collapse. Neither the US or India has any way of cutting off the funding from the Saudis, so unless and until we are willing and able to credibly threaten to bring general economic sanctions to bear on Pakistan, we have no way of stopping the ISI from continuing their support of the Taliban and other terrorist groups.
Posted by dick_data at 12/09/2008 @ 02:01am
I think one will never get a clear answer to the question of if the ISI did it or not, so in some ways we need to look beyond this. Clearly a fair enount of evidence points to certain links in this attack and from the past of ISI's connections with terrorist activities. The question is now as to what Pakistan is going to do about these obvious connections? Any one with a remote knowledge of Pakistan's history will say that the government will do nothing, which is what they have done for years. BUt the times are different now and the threats are bigger and more deadly, Pakistan is caught in a serious situation between these allegations and the US war along the Afghan border and needs to strike a delicate balance. Both Zardari and Obama need to make some hard choices on where they would like to see the world in 2009, a continuation of the failures of 2008 or a move in a better direction to end this horrible decade.
Posted by Ambika at 12/09/2008 @ 05:33am
Sorry to disappoint you, LVLIB, but...
1. Gitmo will close. MCCAIN promised to do it too, in case you forgot.
2. We're not going to go to war against Iran (I know, I know...it's disappointing).
Posted by Mask at 12/09/2008 @ 07:17am
2. We're not going to go to war against Iran (I know, I know...it's disappointing).
Posted by Mask at 12/09/2008 @ 07:17am | ignore this person | warn this person
we cannot go to war with anyone in this economic situation.
hell, we're involved in two more wars than we should be in...
unless we are prepared to institute permanent "war socialism" and start printing ration coupons...
perhaps we should look at some variety of this idea, sans war, where the gov aggressively sells "development bonds" and promotes such, as well as "buying american" as the patriotic thing to do...sort of have a ww2 without a war...
Posted by ibbleblibble at 12/09/2008 @ 10:07am
Posted by ibbleblibble at 12/09/2008 @ 10:07am
Yes, I know. Poor LVLIB in terrible straits. All those "terrorists" (of which a handful have been proven to be) going to go be "set free" (i.e. moved to Federal prisons)....
and he doesn't get to vaporize Teheran.
Been a bad Autumn for him....heheh
Posted by Mask at 12/09/2008 @ 12:21pm
It is in no one's interest to see a war between two nuclear powers like India and Pakistan. Certainly any relationship between the ISI and terrorist's need to be dealt with by the Pakistani government, but we don't need any media hysteria about the guilt or innocence of any country.
Posted by P. J. Casey at 12/09/2008 @ 3:38pm