Did the United States use Kashmir's earthquake to send in intelligence?

[RayKalm]

Did the United States use the Kashmir earthquake to send intelligence operatives into Pakistan? | FP Passport

The U.S. intelligence community took advantage of the chaos to spread resources of its own into the country. Using valid U.S. passports and posing as construction and aid workers, dozens of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives and contractors flooded in without the requisite background checks from the country's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. Al-Qaeda had reconstituted itself in the country's tribal areas, largely because of the ISI's benign neglect. In Afghanistan, the ISI was actively undermining the U.S.-backed government of Hamid Karzai, training and recuiting for the Taliban, which it viewed as the more reliable partner. The political system was in chaos. The Pakistani army was focused on the threat from India and had redeployed away from the Afghanistan border region, the Durand line, making it porous once again. To some extent, the Bush administration had been focused on Iraq for the previous two years, content with the ISI's cooperation in capturing senior al-Qaeda leaders, while ignoring its support of other groups tha would later become recruiting grounds for al-Qaeda.

 

[Omar1984]

Life became harder for Pakistan and Pakistanis after the earthquake in 2005. Life was peaceful in Pakistan before 2005.

 

[Irfan Baloch]

very naive belief, Americans can gather all the intel from their assets during peace times with the help of their satellites and people like Dr Afridi and countless news anchors, lawyers and analysis’s that are obsessively hateful towards army and ISI. They don’t really need earthquakes or any other natural calamities to spread their intelligence because their aid efforts were monitored and coordinated with the army and other authorities.
If they did take any advantage during that time then they would have done it under a local banner not to arouse any suspicion.

Finally I must request that please don’t look at every American support with suspicion of some sinister designs. Most of the times it was only to build a softer and favourable image. They continued to provide food and supplies with their helicopters where we were unable to reach ourselves due to limited resources and the terrorists tried to sabotage these relief efforts by firing at the American transport helicopters but Americans continued with their efforts despite that. We might have countless reasons to criticise them but we must not overlook their help in the times of need.

 

[BATMAN]

I. Baloch, the link is given, which clearly not from Pakistan.

It is the job of the govt. to be effective, efficient & factual.

People can only correlate with end result, which is obviously going good to worst.

I guess the following govt. granted more visas without any relief need or work.

Over 50,000 Americans issued Pakistani visa from 2008 to 2011 – The Express Tribune

 

[VelocuR]

The U.S. intelligence community took advantage of the chaos to spread resources of its own into the country. Using valid U.S. passports and posing as construction and aid workers, dozens of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives and contractors flooded in without the requisite background checks from the country's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency............

ISI didn't have worry to check them? Failures....

very naive belief, Americans can gather all the intel from their assets during peace times with the help of their satellites and people like Dr Afridi and countless news anchors, lawyers and analysis’s that are obsessively hateful towards army and ISI. They don’t really need earthquakes or any other natural calamities to spread their intelligence because their aid efforts were monitored and coordinated with the army and other authorities.
If they did take any advantage during that time then they would have done it under a local banner not to arouse any suspicion.

Finally I must request that please don’t look at every American support with suspicion of some sinister designs. Most of the times it was only to build a softer and favourable image. They continued to provide food and supplies with their helicopters where we were unable to reach ourselves due to limited resources and the terrorists tried to sabotage these relief efforts by firing at the American transport helicopters but Americans continued with their efforts despite that. We might have countless reasons to criticise them but we must not overlook their help in the times of need.

Sir Irfan brother, we are disappointed with you, you are fully favor on Americans friends and their deceptions. Do you remember Haiti earthquakes, it was fully advantages for foreign spy agencies where everyone busy to focus on victims and relief attentions. It already happened.

Thank you, American helpful in the times of needs.

 

[MastanKhan]

ISI didn't have worry to check them? Failures....



Sir Irfan brother, we are disappointed with you, you are fully favor on Americans friends and their deceptions. Do you remember Haiti earthquakes, it was fully advantages for foreign spy agencies where everyone busy to focus on victims and relief attentions. It already happened.

Thank you, American helpful in the times of needs.

Hi,

And if you may recall---the nepalese troops brought cholera to haiti when they came for relief work.

Al qaeda was not hiding in haiti----I mean to say---please think before posting---for godsake.

Irfan is correct in what he is stating----you paks should not be ungratefull for what the u s done after the earthquake---. A good deed is a good deed----let us be grateful for that---if there are other issues---you have to face them----it is a world of grown men and women---so, instead of whimpering---why not take charge of your own situation and don't let a moment like that come when you need aid from others to survive---.

It has become pakistan's national habbit and pastime to sh-it in the plate that offers us food, help and resource. While other nations are helping them feed the 'stricken' paks are busy stealing the relief goods----it indeed is a matter of national pride.

 

[Developereo]

terrorists tried to sabotage these relief efforts by firing at the American transport helicopters but Americans continued with their efforts despite that. We might have countless reasons to criticise them but we must not overlook their help in the times of need.

Also to mention that many American (and foreign) aid workers are decent people genuinely interested in helping Pakistan without ulterior motives. Not every foreigner is a spy. Let's not get ridiculously xenophobic.

 

[Bang Galore]

US used Kashmir quake to send killer-spies into Pakistan

New York: The Pentagon used the Kashmir earthquake of 2005 to send operatives from the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC — the secretive, über-elite military unit that killed Osama bin Laden – into Pakistan, reveals a new book.

The JSOC has proven to be the most lethal weapon in the President’s arsenal, write D.B Grady and Marc Ambinder in their just-published eBook The Command: Deep Inside the President’s Secret Army. President Obama and the Pentagon leadership have increasingly made Navy Seals from the JSOC their military tool of choice. The JSOC’s counterterrorism units are credited with capturing or killing many of the most wanted terrorists and insurgent leaders, including Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

According to The New York Times, the JSOC has about 54,000 active-duty personnel from four branches of the armed services. The Navy Seals are one of the most celebrated units under its umbrella. This book comes at a time when Admiral William H McRaven, who leads the JSOC, is pushing for a larger role for his elite units who have traditionally operated in the dark corners of American foreign policy.

The book credits the secretive JSOC, which functions in a grey area, with having done more to degrade the capacity of terrorists to attack the United States than any other single entity. Counter-terrorism is only one of its many missions. It is only because of high-profile missions such as Operation Neptune Spear, which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden, that the JSOC, which is shrouded in secrecy, has attracted public attention.

Did the US use the 2005 Kashmir earthquake to send JSOC operatives into Pakistan? That’s the bold-faced charge the authors make in The Command. They say that the US intelligence community “took advantage of the chaos to spread resources of its own” into Pakistan.” Using valid US passports and posing as construction and aid workers, dozens of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives and contractors flooded in without the requisite background checks from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency.

“Al-Qaeda had reconstituted itself in the country’s tribal areas, largely because of the ISI’s benign neglect. In Afghanistan, the ISI was actively undermining the US-backed government of Hamid Karzai, training and recruiting for the Taliban, which it viewed as the more reliable partner. The political system was in chaos. The Pakistani army was focused on the threat from India and had redeployed away from the Afghanistan border region, the Durand line, making it porous once again… A JSOC intelligence team slipped in alongside the CIA,” says the book.

The authors have detailed the JSOC team’s goals in Pakistan. One was prosaic: team members were to develop rings of informants to gather targeting information about al-Qaeda terrorists. Other goals were extremely sensitive: JSOC needed better intelligence about how Pakistan transported its nuclear weapons and it wanted to penetrate the ISI and target Pakistani officers who were hand-in-glove with the terrorists.

“Under a secret program code-named Screen Hunter, JSOC, augmented by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and contract personnel, was authorized to shadow and identify members of the ISI suspected of being sympathetic to al-Qaeda. It is not clear whether JSOC units used lethal force against these ISI officers; one official said that the goal of the program was to track terrorists through the ISI by using disinformation and psychological warfare,” reveals the book.

The Obama administration finally curtailed the Screen Hunter programme after Pakistan slammed the covert US presence inside the country. Still, Pakistani outrage didn’t stop the JSOC from rotating teams of Navy Seals from DEVGRU Black squadron, aided by Rangers and other special operations forces, and establishing a parallel terrorist-hunting capability called ‘Vigilant Harvest’.

“They operated in the border areas of Pakistan deemed off limits to Americans, and they targeted courier networks, trainers, and facilitators. (Legally, these units would operate under the authority of the CIA any time they crossed the border.),” said the book.

“A senior Obama administration official said that by the middle of 2011, after tensions between the United States and the Pakistani government had reached an unhealthy degree of danger, all JSOC personnel except for its declared military trainers were ferreted out of the country. (They were easy to find using that same secret cell phone pinging technology.) Those who remained were called Omegas, a term denoting their temporary designation as members of the reserve force. They then joined any one of a dozen small contracting companies set up by the CIA, which turned these JSOC soldiers into civilians, for the purposes of deniability,” added the book.

According to media reports, unassuming office buildings around the Washington area and beyond have become “unlabeled spy centers that process untold volumes of information” extracted from JSOC’s hunting missions, with such a rapid analytic turnaround time that the “shooters” of the unit can quickly begin planning their next kills. In fact, Ambinder reports in The Command that the “integration of tactical spying within JSOC is so thorough” that it’s hard to distinguish “shooters” from analysts.

The JSOC has grown since September 11 as the US military focusses on combating terrorism. As defence secretary, Donald H Rumsfeld wanted the JSOC to work unilaterally so that it could be more aggressive in hunting down terrorists. There are concerns, however, that the JSOC operates with practically no accountability. In Iraq, they reportedly ran a torture chamber at a place called Camp Nama. In 2004, Rumsfeld gave the US military the go-ahead to carry out secret offensive strikes in more than a dozen countries, and JSOC operatives carried them out in Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia.

http://www.firstpost.com/world/us-used-kashmir-quake-to-send-killer-spies-into-pakistan-212391.html