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Pakistan may have tried to thwart Afghan talks: report

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WASHINGTON: January's capture of top Taliban commander Abdul Ghani Baradar may have been a bid by Pakistani intelligence to thwart talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government, The New York Times said late Sunday.

Baradar was a top military strategist and trusted aide of the militia's shadowy leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.

He was arrested in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi reportedly in a secret raid by CIA and Pakistani agents, an operation that was described as a huge blow to the group.

Citing unnamed Pakistani officials, it said Pakistan's intelligence had set out to capture Baradar with the CIA's help as it wanted to end secret peace talks between Baradar and the Afghan government that excluded Pakistan, the Taliban's longtime backer.

In the weeks after Baradar's capture, Pakistani security officials detained up to 23 Taliban leaders, many of whom had been enjoying Islamabad's protection for years, the report said.

These developments resulted in the talks coming to an end.

The events surrounding Baradar's arrest have been the subject of debate inside military and intelligence circles for months, The Times said.

“We picked up Baradar and the others because they were trying to make a deal without us,” the paper quotes a Pakistani security official as saying.

“We protect the Taliban. They are dependent on us. We are not going to allow them to make a deal with Karzai and the Indians,” the official said, referring to Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President.

Some US officials say the Pakistanis may be trying to make themselves appear more influential, the report said.

“These are self-serving fairy tales,” The Times quotes one US official as saying on condition of anonymity.

“The people involved in the operation on the ground didn't know exactly who would be there when they themselves arrived. But it certainly became clear, to Pakistanis and Americans alike, who we'd gotten.”

But other US officials suspect the CIA may have been unwittingly used by the Pakistanis for the larger aims of slowing the pace of any peace talks, the report said. – AFPDAWN.COM | World | Pakistan may have tried to thwart Afghan talks: report
 
Please cite the source for this stupid article. The capture of Baradar was in coordination with US intelligence to force Talibans onto negotiation tables. It looks like some moron French wrote this piece of crap and it has made its way everywhere from ToI to DAWN.
 
Please cite the source for this stupid article. The capture of Baradar was in coordination with US intelligence to force Talibans onto negotiation tables. It looks like some moron French wrote this piece of crap and it has made its way everywhere from ToI to DAWN.

the link has been given for this stupid article...............and its not Indian

got complaints ...........tell it to Pakistani media:pakistan::pakistan::pakistan::pakistan::pakistan::pakistan::pakistan::pakistan:
 
The ISI went like,,,,,

"meri billi, mujhe hi miaow?????""
angry_cat.jpg
 
Pakistanis Tell of Motive in Taliban Leader’s Arrest


By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: August 22, 2010


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — When American and Pakistani agents captured Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s operational commander, in the chaotic port city of Karachi last January, both countries hailed the arrest as a breakthrough in their often difficult partnership in fighting terrorism.

TALIBAN-popup.jpg

A man believed to be Abdul Ghani Baradar in a 1998 photo that was provided by a former photographer for the Taliban.

But the arrest of Mr. Baradar, the second-ranking Taliban leader after Mullah Muhammad Omar, came with a beguiling twist: both American and Pakistani officials claimed that Mr. Baradar’s capture had been a lucky break. It was only days later, the officials said, that they finally figured out who they had.

Now, seven months later, Pakistani officials are telling a very different story. They say they set out to capture Mr. Baradar, and used the C.I.A. to help them do it, because they wanted to shut down secret peace talks that Mr. Baradar had been conducting with the Afghan government that excluded Pakistan, the Taliban’s longtime backer.

In the weeks after Mr. Baradar’s capture, Pakistani security officials detained as many as 23 Taliban leaders, many of whom had been enjoying the protection of the Pakistani government for years. The talks came to an end.

The events surrounding Mr. Baradar’s arrest have been the subject of debate inside military and intelligence circles for months. Some details are still murky — and others vigorously denied by some American intelligence officials in Washington. But the account offered in Islamabad highlights Pakistan’s policy in Afghanistan: retaining decisive influence over the Taliban, thwarting archenemy India, and putting Pakistan in a position to shape Afghanistan’s postwar political order.

“We picked up Baradar and the others because they were trying to make a deal without us,” said a Pakistani security official, who, like numerous people interviewed about the operation, spoke anonymously because of the delicacy of relations between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States. “We protect the Taliban. They are dependent on us. We are not going to allow them to make a deal with Karzai and the Indians.”

Some American officials still insist that Pakistan-American cooperation is improving, and deny a central Pakistani role in Mr. Baradar’s arrest. They say the Pakistanis may now be trying to rewrite history to make themselves appear more influential.

“These are self-serving fairy tales,” an American official said. “The people involved in the operation on the ground didn’t know exactly who would be there when they themselves arrived. But it certainly became clear, to Pakistanis and Americans alike, who we’d gotten.”

Other American officials suspect the C.I.A. may have been unwittingly used by the Pakistanis for the larger aims of slowing the pace of any peace talks.

At a minimum, the arrest of Mr. Baradar offers a glimpse of the multilayered challenges the United States faces as it tries to prevail in Afghanistan. It is battling a resilient insurgency, supporting a weak central government and trying to manage Pakistan’s leaders, who simultaneously support the Taliban and accept billions in American aid.

A senior NATO officer in Kabul said that in arresting Mr. Baradar and the other Taliban leaders, the Pakistanis may have been trying to buy time to see if President Obama’s strategy begins to prevail. If it does, the Pakistanis may eventually decide to let the Taliban make a deal. But if the Americans fail — and if they begin to pull out — then the Pakistanis may decide to retain the Taliban as their allies.

“We have been played before,” a senior NATO official said. “That the Pakistanis picked up Baradar to control the tempo of the negotiations is absolutely plausible.”

As for Mr. Baradar, he is now living comfortably in a safe house of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Pakistani official said. “He’s relaxing,” the official said.

Many of the other Taliban leaders, after receiving lectures against freelancing peace deals, have been released to fight again.

Exactly why the Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, became so alarmed at the Afghan peace talks is unclear. In retrospect, paranoia seems to have figured as much as national self-interest.

A senior Afghan official said that beginning late last year, his government had reached out to a number of Taliban leaders to explore the prospect of a deal. Among them were Mr. Baradar and another Taliban leader named Tayyib Agha. The Afghan official declined to say who met the Taliban leaders, but reports of such meetings have since surfaced. Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s brother, reportedly met Mr. Baradar in January, according to a former Afghan official and a former NATO official. Mr. Karzai’s brother denies it.

In another overture, Engineer Ibrahim, then the deputy chief of the Afghan intelligence service, met with a group of Taliban leaders in Dubai, according to a prominent Afghan with knowledge of the meeting. Mr. Ibrahim, now with the National Security Council, could not be reached for comment on Sunday.

A Pakistani spiritual leader close to the Taliban leadership said that, earlier this year, he had received a message through an intermediary that Mr. Karzai wanted to talk peace. “We rejected it,” he said.

The discussions with Mr. Baradar and the other Taliban were in their early phases, but they seemed promising, the Afghan official said. Their aim was to establish conditions under which formal talks could begin.

“It was the beginning of a negotiation, so both sides staked out extreme positions,” the Afghan official said. “But we sensed a readiness for peace.”

When Pakistani intelligence officials learned of the overtures, they became unnerved by what they saw as an attempt by the Afghans to strike a peace deal without them. In particular, the ISI suspected the Americans were orchestrating the talks.

In January, days before Mr. Baradar’s capture, a senior ISI official told The New York Times that his agency was hunting the Taliban leader because he was in contact with the Americans. The ISI official accused the Americans of disregarding Pakistan’s legitimate security interests.

“We are after Mullah Baradar,” the senior ISI official said. “We strongly believe the Americans are in touch with him.”

A second ISI official confirmed that the Pakistanis had decided to go after Mr. Baradar to shut down what they feared were blossoming peace talks.

“This is a national secret,” he said. “The Americans and the British were going behind our backs, and we couldn’t allow that.” American and British officials denied they were directly involved in talks with the Taliban.

Once the decision was made to detain Mr. Baradar, the Taliban leader was tracked to Karachi, a sprawling, violent city of nearly 20 million people. There, the Pakistani official said, ISI agents waited for him to activate his cellphone. After several days, the alarm went off, and the agency narrowed Mr. Baradar’s whereabouts to a densely populated area of about two square miles.

That was as far as the intelligence agency’s technology would go, the Pakistani official said. To pinpoint Mr. Baradar’s location, ISI agents turned to the C.I.A.

Since 2001, the C.I.A. and the ISI have maintained an uneasy relationship. They have cooperated on hundreds of operations and detained dozens of militants, but they have clashed over the ISI’s support for the Taliban.

Within minutes of Mr. Baradar’s cellphone activation, the C.I.A. sent two unarmed American technicians to join the Pakistani intelligence agency’s team, the Pakistani official said.

Activating a portable tracking device, the C.I.A. team quickly led the ISI to Mr. Baradar’s home. Only four hours after his cellphone went on, Mr. Baradar was in Pakistani custody, the Pakistani official said. According to the Pakistani official, the ISI did not inform the Americans of the identity of the target.

American officials disputed this account, saying the intelligence indicated that the target was related to Mr. Baradar. But they conceded that they did not know the identity of Mr. Baradar until after the arrest.

The Pakistanis refused to allow the C.I.A. to interrogate Mr. Baradar or even to be present when they spoke. Another Pakistani official said Mr. Baradar was taken to a safe house in Islamabad, where he was debriefed. It was only several days later that the C.I.A. learned of his identity and were allowed to question him.

The Pakistani official even joked about the C.I.A.’s naïveté. “They are so innocent,” he said.

Some American officials insist that while the C.I.A. may not have known whom the Pakistanis were capturing, the Pakistanis did not know either. They speculated that once the Pakistanis had Mr. Baradar, they may have decided to hold him to scuttle the peace talks. It was then, some American officials say, that the Pakistanis may have decided to detain the other Taliban leaders.

“We are not convinced that that was why Baradar was picked up,” an American official in the region said, referring to the Afghan talks. “But maybe that was why he was held.”

Yet other American officials said the Pakistani version seemed more credible than the C.I.A.’s. “Baradar is too high-profile for them not to have known who it was,” the senior NATO official said.

Within days of Mr. Baradar’s arrest, Pakistani agents picked up as many as 22 other Taliban leaders across Pakistan, according to an official with the United Nations in Kabul. The detentions included some of the most senior Taliban commanders, including Mullah Qayoom Zakir, Abdul Kabeer and Abdul Rauf Khadem.

“We know where the shadow government is,” the Pakistani security official said.

The official said the detained Taliban leaders were warned against carrying out future negotiations without their permission. A former Western diplomat, with long experience in the region, confirmed that the ISI sent a warning to its Taliban protégés.

“The message from the ISI was: no flirting,” he said.

Afghans close to the Taliban said the arrests of Mr. Baradar and the others illustrated the strained relationship between the Taliban and their benefactors in Pakistani intelligence. The ISI may protect the Taliban’s leaders, they said, but they also limit their freedom. “When we try to act on our own, they stop us,” the Pakistani spiritual leader said.

Since then, many of the Taliban leaders who were detained have been set free, officials said. Principal among them is Mr. Zakir, a Taliban commander who was released from the American prison at Guantánamo Bay in 2006.

Mr. Zakir, who took over for Mr. Baradar, is regarded as more brutal than his predecessor, unconcerned about civilian casualties — and less inclined to do a deal with the Karzai government.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/world/asia/23taliban.html?hp
 
And yet another effort by, yet another Indian, to present a thread with a misleading and inflamtory title.

Look at what the article actually says:

Baradar was a top military strategist and trusted aide of the militia's shadowy leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.

He was arrested in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi reportedly in a secret raid by CIA and Pakistani agents, an operation that was described as a huge blow to the group
.


So if the CIA was in the lead to arrest this barader fellow, how is it that Pakistan sought to thwart Afghan talks, isn't it the case that if the arrest was an attempt to do this, that is to say thwart the talks, that it was the US that was in the lead to thwart the talks???
 
And yet another effort by, yet another Indian, to present a thread with a misleading and inflamtory title.

Look at what the article actually says:

.


So if the CIA was in the lead to arrest this barader fellow, how is it that Pakistan sought to thwart Afghan talks, isn't it the case that if the arrest was an attempt to do this, that is to say thwart the talks, that it was the US that was in the lead to thwart the talks???

Why dont you just read the article urself instead of ranting by picking up a line.

Citing unnamed Pakistani officials, it said Pakistan's intelligence had set out to capture Baradar with the CIA's help as it wanted to end secret peace talks between Baradar and the Afghan government that excluded Pakistan, the Taliban's longtime backer.





But other US officials suspect the CIA may have been unwittingly used by the Pakistanis for the larger aims of slowing the pace of any peace talks, the report said.
 
Indians on this forum seem to lose their ability to reason critically:

Citing unnamed Pakistani officials

In other words, made up rubbish.

US officials suspect the CIA may have been unwittingly used by the Pakistanis

Butter will not melt in the mouths of these CIA types

And yet for our Indian forum members, none of this matters.

Instead of highlighting the obviously duplicity of the US policy and policy makers, they propagate lies. Why can't Indians think when it comes to Pakistan?
 
Instead of highlighting the obviously duplicity of the US policy and policy makers, they propagate lies. Why can't Indians think when it comes to Pakistan?

Perception is reality.
 
Indians on this forum seem to lose their ability to reason critically:
Some critical thinking for you about your Intelligence Agency's role below.

As a response to your
Citing unnamed Pakistani officials
In other words, made up rubbish.
Yeah right...what we would want ideally is a full-length tabloid with a photo-spread of the Pakistani officials, with name, designation, file and rank going on record as to what are the true intentions of the ISI ??? I mean, how gullible can Pakistani people get, and on top of it, P@ki "think tanks" on this forum. Yeah, we know that CIA is no saint. But the ISI is digging a bigger grave for the nation in the days to come. It is playing with the Taliban, double-dealing with the CIA while in bed with the Quetta Shura, and all the while trying to cut a deal with the Haqqani syndicate.


And yet for our Indian forum members, none of this matters.
Please let us know as to the squeaky-clean image of the ISI ; The rice is as dry in the mouths of the ISI as the unmelted butter in CIA's mouths. All in all, the ISI is as complicit in the current chaos in the AF-P@K region as the CIA's failed policies to differentiate between the Taliban have been. In my opinion, the good Taliban-bad Taliban conundrum has been created not because of any inherent goodness rankling within the Taliban, but because of the age-old paradigm of "Divide and Conquer".

Instead of highlighting the obviously duplicity of the US policy and policy makers, they propagate lies. Why can't Indians think when it comes to Pakistan?
This is because of the insincerity of a section of the Pakistani officials in tackling the true scourge of Terrorism in the AF-P@K region ; When a fire rages in your house, your first job is to douse it, not search around for the arsonist. And Pakistan needs to douse the fires of Terrorism raging within, by concretely tackling the issue ; Yes, it will devastate Pakistan if and when it goes after the Hekmatyars and the Haqqanis in NW ; but in the long run, it will boost Pakistan's image, and heck even common folk like me will definitely see that Pakistan has effectively undertaken steps to bring peace to our Subcontinent. Instead we see "mind-wanking" on "Strategic Assets" and "Strategic Depth".
 
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