Pakistan not a source of terrorism: British diplomat

[Spring Onion]

Pakistan not a source of terrorism: British diplomat

Press Trust of India

Peshawar, September 9, 2006|04:26 IST

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/7598_1791010,000500020005.htm

A senior British diplomat on Friday said that Pakistan is not a "source of terrorism," and praised the country's role in the international struggle against militancy.
"It was not possible to defeat the Taliban without the support of Pakistan," Britain's Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells said at a news conference after visiting the town of Torkham near the Afghan border.

"Pakistan is not a source of terrorism," Howells said. "It is fighting against terrorism."

Howells' comments came a day after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf held talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and acknowledged that Taliban and al-Qaida militants were crossing from Pakistan to launch attacks in Afghanistan.

However, Musharraf on Thursday denied earlier allegations by the Afghan government that Pakistan's main spy agency was helping the militants.

He also defended his government's recent agreement with pro-Taliban militants in the North Waziristan tribal region along the Afghan border, saying it was aimed at ensuring peace through a political process instead of fighting.

Under the pact, the militants are to halt attacks on Pakistani forces in the region and stop crossing into Afghanistan to attack U.S. And Afghan forces.

Howells suggested Karzai consider a similar deal on the other side of the border.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

I have not understood what this British diplomat is stating.

He says that without Pakistan's support terrorism cannot be defeated and yet in the same breath he says Pakistan is not the source of terrorism.

Indeed, why state that Pakistan's assistance is required to fight terrorism when it is not the source.

Therefore, instead of wasting Pakistan's time, shouldn't this British diplomat advice his govt to hit at the source wherever it be?

He seems to be living in a Fools Paradise. It is most ridiculous of him to think that there can be a treaty with the Taleban by Afghanistan wherein they do not attack the Western forces battling away in Afghanistan!

Mushaffar is a Moslem and the Taleban may listen to him, but to expect that the Taleban will sign a treaty to not attack what they call the Great White Satan and which is their raison d'etre if existence is most laughable!

The man is whimpering like a whipped monkey as they say in English.

 

[Sid]

I have not understood what this British diplomat is stating.

He says that without Pakistan's support terrorism cannot be defeated and yet in the same breath he says Pakistan is not the source of terrorism.

Indeed, why state that Pakistan's assistance is required to fight terrorism when it is not the source.

Therefore, instead of wasting Pakistan's time, shouldn't this British diplomat advice his govt to hit at the source wherever it be?

Clever work trying to draw conclusions from his remarks but you fall short of your aim. For a country to be assisting/supporting the fight against terrorism - lets just say doing this most than any other country; that, in no way, implies that it is the source of terrorism itself.

 

[Spring Onion]

I have not understood what this British diplomat is stating.

"Pakistan is not a source of terrorism," Howells said. "It is fighting against terrorism."

Thats what he said
But Ray we can understand why you cant understand

As far as agreement in Waziristan is concerned Kinldy read the media reports of yesterday and 2day even Bush has said that i dont not see anything worng in and Musharraf has done a right thing, the agreement is for improving the situation both for Pakistan and US .

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

Clever work trying to draw conclusions from his remarks but you fall short of your aim. For a country to be assisting/supporting the fight against terrorism - lets just say doing this most than any other country; that, in no way, implies that it is the source of terrorism itself.

Real clever isn't it?

Actually, these diplomats etc don't impress.

Their job is to "play the game"

Here is something that say things totally differently.

Ally and Obstacle: Pakistan's Role in the War on Terror
http://abcnews.go.com/International/print?id=2404348

Who is right? Who is wrong?

Such a conundrum!

Pakistan admits that terror gangs find sanctuary in border hideouts
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2348222,00.html

PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF admitted yesterday that Taleban and al-Qaeda militants were using Pakistan to carry out cross-border attacks into Afghanistan, but denied that his security services were involved.

The President himself says that the Taleban and the AQ is taking the wild areas of Pakistan as sanctuary!

Who am I to suggest otherwise?

Sanctuary is a source or what is it?

 

[Sid]

Pakistan admits that terror gangs find sanctuary in border hideouts
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2348222,00.html

PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF admitted yesterday that Taleban and al-Qaeda militants were using Pakistan to carry out cross-border attacks into Afghanistan, but denied that his security services were involved.

The President himself says that the Taleban and the AQ is taking the wild areas of Pakistan as sanctuary!

Who am I to suggest otherwise?

Sanctuary is a source or what is it?

Unfortunately for your chain of thought, sanctuary doesn't necessarily imply a source. Source in this regard (terrorism) would mean state-sanctioned which is not the case as ground realities suggest.

The sanctuaries talked about here are the 'wild areas' of Pakistan as has been put in the article probably due to the lack of good vocabulary. The title of the article uses much better wording, 'border hideouts'. These would be specific areas within the tribal belt (mostly towards Balochistan) where the government had not interferred for decades until recently and where the geography is one of the most challenging in the world, American officials admit themselves.

For a country to be a source of a phenomenon, here taken to be terrorism, that phenomenon must be highly prevalent throughout that country and be vitally embedded in society which is clearly not the case here. A visit to Pakistan is quite an eye-opener for arm-chair journalists.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

For Americans, anything is challenging.

September 7, 2006
Musharraf Vows to Aid Afghanistan in Fighting Taliban
By CARLOTTA GALL

KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 6 — President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, on a two-day visit to shore up relations, promised Wednesday to help Afghanistan combat the worsening Taliban insurgency, which operates from his country.

Relations between the nations have deteriorated badly this year as the insurgency has bloomed, and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has blamed Pakistan for providing a haven to militants and suicide bombers.

Mr. Karzai has called on the United States and its NATO allies, whose troops are deployed and dying in increasing numbers in southern Afghanistan, to press Pakistan to clamp down on the Islamic militants, which Pakistan has long used as an arm of foreign policy to pressure neighboring rivals, Afghanistan and India.

American and other foreign diplomats have been pushing for closer ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan as the only way to resolve the insurgency and regional terrorism in the long term.

The meeting on Wednesday came before state visits by General Musharraf and Mr. Karzai to Washington this month, and a meeting they are scheduled to hold with President Bush.

After a one-on-one session that ran well over its scheduled time, General Musharraf and Mr. Karzai emerged with promises of greater cooperation, but hanging over all the declarations were questions about Pakistan’s support for the insurgents, and whether General Musharraf would follow through on his promises.

“We hope very soon we can remove the obstacles between the two countries in our relations,” Mr. Karzai said at a joint news briefing at the presidential palace in Kabul. “I am very happy today that President Musharraf assured me that he is going to try his best to get rid of this sickness in the region,” he said.

General Musharraf said he had come on a “mission to iron out any possible misconceptions” as to Pakistan’s intentions for Afghanistan. “There is only one option, and that one option is to have brotherly relations between our two countries.”

Pakistan and Afghanistan have waged a war of words for the last six months, since Mr. Karzai visited Islamabad in February and presented General Musharraf with an intelligence dossier on Taliban leaders who used Pakistan as a sanctuary.

General Musharraf dismissed the intelligence as out of date and “nonsense.”

His latitude to crack down on the Taliban has been constrained by the influence of Islamic parties in his government and some popular support for Islamic militancy, particularly in the border areas where his government has limited control.

General Musharraf said an agreement his government signed with militants in the Pakistani border region of North Waziristan on Tuesday was intended to end attacks on Afghanistan and training or militant activity on both sides of the border.

“No militant activity, no training activity, they have accepted this,” General Musharraf said. “This is the bottom line of the peace agreement.”

Mr. Karzai expressed concerns about the agreement, which many analysts interpreted as allowing sanctuary for the militants in return for stopping attacks on Pakistani security forces, but he called it a positive step. “Let’s see how it is going to be implemented and what will happen,” he said.

The United States is taking a harder look at Pakistan’s role in the Taliban insurgency, Afghan and American officials here said. Seth G. Jones, a political scientist at the RAND Corporation, said that after talks with military, security and diplomatic officials in Afghanistan, there was increasing evidence that Pakistani intelligence agents had been financing, training, providing intelligence and assistance to Taliban insurgents.

The Taliban have staged a resurgence in Afghanistan, Mr. Jones said, because they benefit from a haven across the border in Pakistan and enjoy state support. Whether the orders come from General Musharraf himself is not clear, Mr. Jones said, but he said it was clear that he knew about the support, and that he so far had failed to stop the militancy.

NATO members have also added their voices to Afghanistan’s pleas for more pressure to be brought upon General Musharraf to contain Taliban insurgents.

General Musharraf visited on the same day that Afghanistan signed an agreement with NATO on greater cooperation. Ambassadors of the North Atlantic Council have been visiting Afghanistan this week to look at security in the south, troop levels and plans for NATO to assume military command of eastern Afghanistan in coming weeks.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, secretary general of NATO, said the agreement showed NATO’s long-term commitment to Afghanistan. Mr. Karzai welcomed it for bringing more stability to the country.

But even as the agreement was signed, Canadian troops in the southern province of Kandahar continued to wage heavy battles against hundreds of Taliban insurgents hemmed in a district west of Kandahar.

The commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David Richards, said he sensed that the operation, which had already cost hundreds of lives, including those of 19 NATO service members, was turning in NATO’s favor. “They are feeling the pressure,” he told journalists during a flying visit to Kandahar.

Mr. Jones, of RAND, said NATO and the American-led coalition had evidence of Pakistan’s role, and specifically the role of Pakistani intelligence, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or I.S.I., in aiding the insurgents. “The evidence suggests the I.S.I. is involved in several ways,” he said.

Pakistani intelligence agents have provided intelligence to the Taliban about coalition plans and tactical operations, he said, tipping off Taliban forces and allowing them to flee. Western military forces have intercepted the tips and know they are from people connected to Pakistani intelligence, Mr. Jones said.

Mr. Jones said there were numerous accounts that Pakistani agents were providing assistance to wounded Taliban fighters who made their way back to Pakistan, paying their medical bills and ensuring their care.

The Pakistani intelligence agency was providing support, housing and security for the Taliban leadership, including the reclusive leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, he said.

It was also directly or indirectly involved in training fighters in camps, preparing them to fight either in Kashmir or Afghanistan, and in providing finance and possibly weapons, he said.

“The U.S. government also believes they have given monetary assistance and maybe weapons,” he said.

American Embassy and military officials have said Pakistan is cooperating by deploying thousands of soldiers along the border with Afghanistan to try to check the infiltration of militants.

Yet the overwhelming consensus in Afghanistan, including among foreign diplomats and members of Mr. Karzai’s administration, is that Pakistan is orchestrating, or at least turning a blind eye, to the campaign against Afghanistan to keep the country unstable, and to retain influence through its clients.

Pakistani officials stressed, as General Musharraf did, that it was in Pakistan’s interest to see a stable, prosperous Afghanistan.

General Musharraf said he had raised concerns that India, Pakistan’s rival to the east, was establishing consulates close to the Pakistani border in Afghanistan.

“This is our concern,” he said. “I have brought it to President Karzai.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/07/w...page&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

 

[Sid]

See, now you're mixing it up! Al Qaeda and Taliban are not 'same' group or in any way one in the same thing as is common knowledge. What Musharraf is being quoted repeatedly as saying, is that some Taliban elements are operating from their mountain hideouts along the Pak-Afghan border and that is quite different from how this arguement started in the first place (your assertion that Pakistan is a source of terrorism). Clearly the NY Times has labelled the Taliban activities well, 'insurgency' and not 'terrorism' which is Al Qaeda's ball game.

 

[sigatoka]

Clearly the NY Times has labelled the Taliban activities well, 'insurgency' and not 'terrorism' which is Al Qaeda's ball game.

Terrorism is an "action" that can be performed by any group which is the killing of civilians in the course of conflict. Whether it be AQ ramming planes into buildings, Islamic jihad blowing up buses or Israeli planes hitting civilians these are all acts of terrorism. The U.S. when it orders marines to kill all military age men in a geographic area in Iraq is also engaging in terrorism.

AQ is called a terrorist group because they engage predominantly in terrorism. Taliban is not because the vast bulk of their fighting is conventional resistance that doesnt predominantly target civilians (or no more than western forces).

 

[Quwa]

The diplomat said Pakistan does not support terrorism and it helps the WOT coalition; how hard is that to understand? Taliban has one thing that AQ does not have - public support. It is very difficult to fight an enemy which whole heartedly thinks it is fighting for the right cause. Within Afghanistan, Taliban does not feel that it is pissing the Afghans off; whereas AQ and those sort of extremists know that their own the fringes of society and Islamic society as well.