Blair denies 'covert' deal with Bush to invade Iraq, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Blair denies 'covert' deal with Bush to invade Iraq

Tony Blair poses the '2010 question' to the Iraq inquiry

Tony Blair has denied striking a "covert" deal with George Bush to invade Iraq at a private meeting in 2002 at the US president's ranch.

He told the Iraq inquiry there was no secret about what was said - that Saddam Hussein had to be dealt with and "the method of doing that is open".

The former prime minister was also quizzed about the claim Saddam could launch weapons at 45 minutes' notice.

He said "it would have been better" if headlines about it had been corrected.

Mr Blair used the morning session to mount an impassioned defence of the decision to go to war, telling the inquiry: "This isn't about a lie or a conspiracy or a deceit or a deception.

"It's a decision. And the decision I had to take was, given Saddam's history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over one million people whose deaths he had caused, given 10 years of breaking UN resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons programmes or is that a risk that it would be irresponsible to take?"

'Not dissembling'

Sometimes it is important not to ask the "March 2003 question" but the "2010 question", said Mr Blair, arguing that if Saddam had been left in power the UK and its allies would have "lost our nerve" to act.

Quoting frequently from his own speeches and statements, Mr Blair answered questions about his working relationship with George Bush, the intelligence used to justify to the public and the unsuccessful diplomatic efforts at the UN aimed at averting it.

http://newageislam.com/blair-denies--covert--deal-with-bush-to-invade-iraq/islamic-world-news/d/2431

Shah Rukh Khan could be Lashkar target, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Shah Rukh Khan could be Lashkar target

New Delhi, October 30, 2009

A US government source has said from Washington that the actor "Rahul" mentioned in one of arrested Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative David Coleman Headley's emails could be Shah Rukh Khan.

The revelation comes as an Intelligence Bureau and Research & Analysis Wing team leaves for the US next week to meet FBI officials in connection with the arrest of the LeT operative.

"We do not have many details yet," the source said over the phone, " but we have gathered that the ' Rahul' mentioned in the FBI affidavit could most possibly be Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan. We presume he was codenamed thus because his characters are often named Rahul in many of the movies he has acted in." The affidavit was filed by the FBI in a Chicago court, and mentions that Headley, in an email on July 8, said, " I think when we get a chance we should revisit our last location again and say Hi to Rahul." The email was addressed to a senior LeT leader whose name the FBI merely put as ' LeT Individual A'. Headley had confessed to the FBI that ' Rahul' referred to a “prominent Indian actor" but had not divulged his real name.

He even asked the LeT leader he was conversing with whether he should stay in Rahul's city for long, to which the leader responded that it would take around two to four weeks and added he had real estate plans for a place outside Rahul's city.

http://newageislam.com/shah-rukh-khan-could-be-lashkar-target/islamic-world-news/d/2028

Linking Islam and terrorism is wrong, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

Linking Islam and terrorism is wrong

by Rizwaan Sabir

19 October 2009

n a recent article published by the Guardian, it was reported that the Prevent strand of Contest 2, the British counterterrorism strategy, was being used to collate intelligence on Muslims who were innocent, or who had no suspected involvement in terrorism. This may come as a surprise to members of the public who do not really have much to do with the subject of counterterrorism, but for those who study, analyse or take an interest in this subject, it is hardly a surprise.

On Thursday, I attended a policing conference in St Andrews. Speaking to two academics there, our conversation quickly progressed on to British counterterrorism and Prevent. I remember saying that there was something "not quite right" about Prevent, but I couldn't put my finger on what this was and decided that maybe it was just paranoia and cynicism on my part. Less than 24 hours later, I was reading the Guardian and saw the article titled "Government anti-terrorism strategy 'spies' on innocent". Reading it, I found that "the government programme aimed at preventing Muslims from being lured into violent extremism is being used to gather intelligence about innocent people who are not suspected of involvement in terrorism".

http://newageislam.com/linking-islam-and-terrorism-is-wrong/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/2092

Nuclear-armed Jihadis: Obama’s Worst Pakistan Nightmare, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

Nuclear-armed Jihadis: Obama’s Worst Pakistan Nightmare

By DAVID E. SANGER

Published: January 8, 2009

TO GET TO THE HEADQUARTERS of the Strategic Plans Division, the branch of the Pakistani government charged with keeping the country’s growing arsenal of nuclear weapons away from insurgents trying to overrun the country, you must drive down a rutted, debris-strewn road at the edge of the Islamabad airport, dodging stray dogs and piles of uncollected garbage. Just past a small traffic circle, a tan stone gateway is manned by a lone, bored-looking guard loosely holding a rusting rifle. The gateway marks the entry to Chaklala Garrison, an old British cantonment from the days when officers of the Raj escaped the heat of Delhi for the cooler hills on the approaches to Afghanistan. Pass under the archway, and the poverty and clamour of modern Pakistan disappear.

Photo: Pakistan’s Jihadi Bomb by Alika Cooper

Chaklala is a comfortable enclave for the country’s military and intelligence services. Inside the gates, officers in the army and the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, known as the ISI, live in trim houses with well-tended lawns. Business is conducted in long, low office buildings, with a bevy of well-pressed adjutants buzzing around. Deep inside the garrison lies the small compound for Strategic Plans, where Khalid Kidwai keeps the country’s nuclear keys. Now 58, Kidwai is a compact man who hides his arch sense of humour beneath a veil of caution, as if he were previewing each sentence to decide if it revealed too much. In the chaos of Pakistan, where the military, the intelligence services and an unstable collection of civilian leaders uneasily share power, he oversees a security structure intended to protect Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal from outsiders — Islamic militants, Qaeda scientists, Indian saboteurs and those American commando teams that Pakistanis imagine, with good reason, are waiting just over the horizon in Afghanistan, ready to seize their nuclear treasure if a national meltdown seems imminent.

http://newageislam.com/nuclear-armed-jihadis--obama%E2%80%99s-worst-pakistan-nightmare---/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/1117

Pakistan and the War on Terror: A Country on the Brink, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

Pakistan and the War on Terror: A Country on the Brink

Pakistan is at the center of a gathering fire storm engulfing south and central Asia in the most volatile confrontation since 9/11. Pakistan, Afghanistan, the US and NATO all bear heavy responsibility for the crisis. Bush had neither the inclination nor urge to do right by Afghanistan, despite pleas by President Hamid Karzai to eliminate cross-border terrorist strikes from Pakistan and effectively rebuild the country.

Senior US officers serving in Afghanistan say they begged the White House and the State Department for action in 2006, but Bush was cozy with Pakistan's former President Pervez Musharraf and Iraq occupied US attention. Meanwhile, veteran John McCain flails in effectively playing the national security card against Barack Obama because Republican policies failed to secure the homeland against future Al Qaeda attacks.

Extending the combat zone: Last year, Pakistani Taliban militias developed their own political agenda – to Talibanize northern Pakistan and create a new "sharia state"

The Pakistan military and Inter-services Intelligence (ISI) saw Bush's lack of attention as a free pass to re-engage the Taliban as a Pakistani proxy force. The army hedged its bets against possible US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan or danger of India becoming too influential in Kabul, by moving pro-Pakistan Afghan leaders into Kabul and carving out a dominating position in Afghan politics.

http://newageislam.com/pakistan-and-the-war-on-terror--a-country-on-the-brink/war-on-terror/d/849

ISI flip-flop: Anatomy of defective decision-making, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

ISI flip-flop: Anatomy of defective decision-making

BY NASIM ZEHRA

Khaleej Times Online

2 August 2008

Also in violation of a basic rule of hierarchy and reporting lines that requires individuals and institutions with narrower mandates to report to authority with a broader mandate, the PID circular announced that ISI would report to the Interior Ministry which constitutionally has a narrower mandate than that of the ISI. The ISI's mandate is to provide strategic intelligence, including external threat perceptions and covert operations, to the Prime Minister, the three Armed Forces and to the Joint Services Headquarters. It is also engaged in counter-intelligence to undermine intelligence assets of the adversary countries deployed within Pakistan. A section deals with Pakistani politics too. Hence, the ISI's mandate is far broader than that of the institution the PID notification was instructing it to report to.

http://newageislam.com/isi-flip-flop--anatomy-of-defective-decision-making/war-on-terror/d/388

20 years on, Zia's death still a mystery, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

20 years on, Zia's death still a mystery

Atul Sethi,TNN

17 Aug 2008

So, who killed Zia? A number of people had the motive, says Epstein. For instance, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, the brother of Zia's arch rival Benazir Bhutto had headed a guerrilla group since the past nine years, called Al Zulfikar whose proclaimed mission was to bring down the Zia regime. Murtaza had admitted that he had attempted to assassinate Zia on five previous occasions, even claiming credit for the Pak One explosion, in a call to the BBC soon after the crash — a claim which he eventually retracted after it became known that the U.S. Ambassador was also on board. In any event, with his sister in a position to win elections if Zia could be removed, says Epstein, Murtaza had a definite reason to pursue his mission.

Then, there were the intelligence agencies. According to a report on the technical causes of the crash prepared by the Pakistan Government's Board of Inquiry, explosives found in the wreckage indicated "involvement of a specialist organization well versed with carrying out such tasks and possessing the means and abilities for its execution." Citing this report, journalist and author Robert D Kaplan wrote in The New York Times a year after the crash, that only three organizations active in Pakistan at the time against the Government fitted that description — the KGB, the KGB -created Afghan intelligence group WAD, and the research and analysis wing of Indian intelligence.

http://newageislam.com/20-years-on,-zia-s-death-still-a-mystery/current-affairs/d/572

Time for democratic fundamentalism in Jammu and Kashmir, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

Time for democratic fundamentalism in Jammu and Kashmir

Protests in Srinagar. Time for the Centre to reiterate a few fundamental axioms.

By Harish Khare

Let us also be clear about the nature of the “Kashmir problem.” A section, possibly about a quarter, of the Kashmiris was always in thrall of the Muslim League ideology and wanted merger with Pakistan. It is this section that has remained un-reconciled to the idea of secular India. It is this section of the Kashmiris that the Hurriyat factions represent; all the Hurriyat leaders also know that their constituency is a limited one and that they do not speak for the majority of the Kashmiris. Instead, the Hurriyat and other separatist leaders have cleverly used the mosques and the militants to crank up dissent and dissatisfaction.

It needs to be understood clearly that the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan (ISI) and its guns have used the Amarnath Yatra controversy to try and retrieve the situation for the hardliners and the militants, who had been pushed off centre-stage. The mobs of self-styled “nationalists” in Jammu created precedence for the Hurriyat to whip up crowds in Srinagar, Anantnag, Baramulla, and Sopore. A stand-off between mobs and the security forces anywhere is an unpredictable affair; and the Kashmiri separatists are experienced agents provocateurs. In the current phase the turning point was the killing of the Hurriyat leader, Sheikh Aziz. But it remains far from clear as to whose bullet it was that killed him.

http://newageislam.com/time-for-democratic-fundamentalism-in-jammu-and-kashmir/current-affairs/d/624

Islamic Pakistan: A Torture House for the West, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

Islamic Pakistan: A Torture House for the West

UK outsourcing torture to Pak

MPs Call For Probe As New Evidence Arises

Rashmee Roshan Lall | TNN & AGENCIES

The demand lends credence to rumours repeatedly circulating in the three years since the July 7, 2005, bombings that the British authorities have allowed, even encouraged, a few British citizens of Pakistani origin to be picked up and subjected to torture during interrogation.
John McDonnell, the Labour member for Hayes and Harlington, and Andrew Tyrie, Conservative member for Chichester, said the allegations should be examined by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), the Westminster body that oversees the Security Service, MI5, and the Intelligence Service, MI6.
The MPs’ made the demand after hearing accounts of three people being abducted and subjected to torture and, in some cases, released without charge.
In the first case, a medical student says he was abducted at gunpoint just a month after the July 7 bombings and held for two months at the offices of Pakistan’s Intelligence Bureau opposite the British Deputy High Commission in Karachi. The student claims he was whipped, beaten, deprived of sleep, threatened with execution and forced to watch other inmates being tortured.
The second case is of a taxi driver, Tariq Mahmood from Birmingham, who alleges he was abducted on October 23 in Rawalpindi and released five months later. His family suggested the hand of British and American security agencies in his abduction.

http://newageislam.com/islamic-pakistan--a-torture-house-for-the-west/war-on-terror/d/241

Rumours of War: Is Bush Gearing Up to Attack Iran?, Current affairs, NewAgeISlam.com

Current affairs

Rumours of War: Is Bush Gearing Up to Attack Iran?

By Conn Hallinan, Portside. Posted June 5, 2008

ust what is not clear, but over the past several months, several moves by the White House strongly suggest that the Bush administration will attack Iran sometime in the near future. According to the Asia Times, "a former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community" said an air attack will target the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force garrisons. Not even the White House is bonkers enough to put troops on the ground amid 65 million Iranians.

There is a certain disconnect to all this, particularly given December's National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concluding that Iran had abandoned its program to build a nuclear weapon. The NIE is the consensus view of all 16 U.S. intelligence services. At the time, the report seemed to shelve any possibility of war with Iran.

http://newageislam.com/rumours-of-war--is-bush-gearing-up-to-attack-iran?/current-affairs/d/78

Pakistan: The Real Threat, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

Pakistan: The Real Threat

A Times of India editorial, 12 Jun 2008

For anyone who's wondering how the Taliban manages to successfully destabilise Afghanistan despite the presence of 34,000 US troops and 26,000 troops drawn from other countries, a study by the RAND corporation, an influential US think tank, provides an answer.

According to the study, members of Pakistan's intelligence services and its paramilitaries are supporting Taliban insurgents as they enter Afghanistan to attack Afghan, NATO and US forces.

The report warns that unless Taliban bases in Pakistan can be eliminated, the inter-national effort to stabilise Afghanistan cannot succeed.

But the fact that radical Islamic militants find refuge in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan is not a problem for Afghanistan alone.

According to US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Michael Mullen, if the US gets hit in a terror strike again the attack will originate from the Al-Qaida leadership in FATA.

http://newageislam.com/pakistan--the-real-threat/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/91