Monday, 22 February 2010, 14:22
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 ISLAMABAD 000416
SIPDIS
NEW DELHI PLEASE PASS TO FBI DIRECTOR MUELLER,S PARTY
EO 12958 DECL: 02/22/2030
TAGS PREL, PGOV, PTER, PK
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR FBI DIRECTOR MUELLER'S FEBRUARY 24
VISIT
Classified By: DCM Gerald M. Feierstein, Reasons 1.4 (b)/(d)
1. (C) Summary: Embassy Islamabad warmly welcomes your February 24 visit to Pakistan. You will participate in a trilateral cooperation meeting with Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik and Afghan Interior Minister Hanif Atmar, followed by bilateral meetings with senior Pakistani officials, including Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Director General Zafarullah Khan, Intelligence Bureau (IB) Director General Javed Noor, and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Director General Ahmed Shuja Pasha.
2. (C) You should express to your Pakistani interlocutors appreciation for ongoing law enforcement cooperation and express our readiness to enhance such efforts. You may want to register U.S. concerns about terrorist threats to U.S. citizens and U.S. interests that emanate from Pakistan, and encourage continued Pakistani action to counter these threats. You should press the Pakistanis to follow through on their prosecution of the seven Mumbai defendants. End Summary.
Domestic Overview
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3. (C) Pakistan continues to face extraordinary challenges on the security and law enforcement front. The country has suffered greater military, law enforcement, and civilian casualties in fighting extremism and terrorism than almost any other country. Pakistan's military is currently engaged in combat operations against militant groups in the Malakand Division of North West Frontier Province (NFWP) and six of the seven agencies of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the Pak-Afghan border. At the same time, Pakistan has experienced an alarming increase in terrorist attacks against government and civilian targets in Pakistan's major cities, resulting in several hundred deaths in recent months. In your meetings, you should acknowledge the sacrifices made by Pakistan's law enforcement agencies and the pressure the terrorist attacks have placed on their resources.
4. (C) In the midst of this difficult security situation, Pakistan's civilian government remains weak, ineffectual, and corrupt. Domestic politics is dominated by uncertainty about the fate of President Zardari. He enjoys approval ratings in the 20 percent range and has repeatedly clashed with key power centers, including the military, politically ambitious Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif. In December, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the November 2007 National Reconciliation Ordinance, promulgated by then-President Musharraf, which provided legal amnesty for Benazir Bhutto, Zardari, and key figures in their party, enabling them to participate in 2008 elections. The Court's ruling has paved the way for a revival of corruption cases against a number of officials, including Interior Minister Rehman Malik. Whether corruption cases can be revived against Zardari himself is less certain, as Pakistan's constitution includes a clause providing sitting presidents with criminal immunity.
5. (C) While we have had major successes in our military and law enforcement cooperation with Pakistan, cooperation has frequently been hampered by suspicion in Pakistan's military and intelligence establishment about U.S. intentions and objectives. Among other things, the Pakistanis believe that we have favored India over Pakistan -- most notably, by approving civil-nuclear cooperation with India -- and that we aim to dismantle Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, which, in light of their conventional military disadvantage vis-a-vis India, they consider critical to their national security. The military and intelligence establishment is also concerned that we are working with Pakistan's civilian leadership to limit the military's prerogative in determining Pakistan's national security policies. As a result of these concerns, the military and intelligence establishment has taken steps since Spring 2009 to hamper the operations of the
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Embassy. These steps include holding up the issuance and renewal of Pakistani visas for permanent Embassy staff and TDYers; denying import permits for armored vehicles for Embassy use; sabotaging our contract with DynCorp International to provide enhanced protective support for Consulate General Peshawar personnel; slowing down importation of U.S. assistance for the Pakistani government, including equipment for Pakistani law enforcement agencies; shutting down our Anti-Terrorism Assistance (ATA) training program at Pakistan's Sihala Police Academy; putting up roadblocks for our acquiring additional land for the Embassy's expansion; and harassing Embassy personnel by stopping and detaining Embassy vehicles. Some of these problems have recently abated in response to our repeatedly raising them with the highest levels of the Pakistani government. However, we expect we will have to continue to push back against such impediments for the foreseeable future.
Federal Investigation Agency
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6. (C) The FBI's primary Pakistani counterpart is the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). On December 7, the government replaced FIA Director General Tariq Khosa with Zafarullah Khan. While Khosa was ostensibly given a promotion by being named Secretary of the Ministry of Narcotics Control, a number of press reports maintained that Khosa was removed from his FIA position for his aggressive pursuit of corruption cases against government officials and businessmen. Khosa had developed close cooperation with the U.S. on a host of law enforcement issues, including on the Mumbai case. While Khan has a strong law enforcement background, he has not shown an inclination to be as forward-leaning on cooperation as Khosa was.
Counter-Terrorism Finance
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7. (S) In the past year, Pakistan has made steady progress in combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Earlier this year, the FIA partnered with the State Bank of Pakistan to crack down on large licensed and unlicensed money service businesses that were violating foreign exchange laws and contributing to money laundering. In January, the National Assembly passed new Anti-Money Laundering (AML) legislation; the bill is currently awaiting Senate action. In the interim, the legislation is in force through its promulgation as an ordnance signed by President Zardari. Separately, during a February 12 meeting in Islamabad, Assistant Treasury Secretary David Cohen provided the Pakistanis with a compilation of tearline information on the financial activities of terrorist organizations in Pakistan -- including their use of the formal financial sector -- and affiliated charities, businesses, and individuals. Cohen encouraged the Pakistanis to exploit these leads in the pursuit of additional inform ation to identify key terrorism donors, fundraisers, and financial facilitators. Cohen also passed declassified terrorism finance information to four Pakistani banks.
Law Enforcement Assistance
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8. (SBU) Pakistan's terrorism threats necessitate substantial strengthening of the country's law enforcement capabilities. The State Department's International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) Bureau is providing significant training, equipment, and infrastructure assistance to the police in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), i.e., the province most affected by terrorist attacks. This assistance -- $40.5 million in FY2009 and $34.6 million in FY2010 -- focuses on the NWFP police's Elite Force, a "heavy" police force with SWAT-like capabilities established in 2008. Equipment we are providing the Elite Force includes vehicles, armored personnel carriers, protective vests, night vision goggles, and communications gear. We are hardening police checkpoints with Hesco-like barriers and are rebuilding three police
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stations in NWFP's Malakand Division that were destroyed by militants. INL is also funding a variety of police training courses implemented by the Department of Justice's ICITAP program that are open to nationwide participation.
9. (C) The Department of State's Anti-Terrorism Assistance (ATA) program has separate activities aimed at enhancing the counter-terrorism capabilities of Pakistan's law enforcement agencies. A key component of the ATA program is focused on "hard skills" tactical training, including explosives detection and disposal, quick reaction, and VIP protection. Unfortunately, the ATA program is now under threat of termination. Following false press reports that our ATA trainers are using the training center provided by the Pakistani government, i.e., the Sihala Police Academy, for nefarious purposes -- including to gather information on a nearby Pakistan nuclear installation -- the government has decided to end our use of that facility and has not yet provided an acceptable alternative site.
Mumbai Case
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10. (C) Pakistan's prosecution of the seven suspects it arrested in the Mumbai case -- i.e., XXXXXXXXXXXX and terrorism financiers XXXXXXXXXXXX-- is proceeding, though at a slow pace. The defense lawyers have aggressively filed motions challenging varying aspects of the case. On November 25, an Anti-Terrorism Court finally framed the charges against the seven defendants, allowing the court proceedings, which are being held in camera, to move to the trial phase. Four FBI expert witnesses are expected to be called to testify for the prosecution. The government has continually reassured us that the prosecutors will win convictions against all the defendants after a trial lasting several months, though it has a stronger case against the five LeT operatives than against the two terrorism financers. There are concerns that some of the convictions could be overturned at the appellate level, where the courts set an extremely high evidentiary bar. On October 12, a Pakistani court quashed all remaining cases against Hafiz Saeed, the head of LeT alias Jama'at-ud-Dawa (JuD). Those cases were not related to the Mumbai attack. The government has repeatedly told us that it would need much more evidence of Saeed's direct involvement in the Mumbai attacks to move forward with Mumbai-related charges against him.
David Coleman Headley
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11. (S) In December, an FBI-DOJ team briefed Pakistani officials from the ISI, Ministry of Interior, FIA, IB, and MFA on the David Coleman Headley investigation, providing them with tear-line information on Headley's statements to U.S. authorities. ISI officials said they had very little information to identify the Pakistanis mentioned in the statements. They discussed their investigation into First World Immigration Service, a business front used by Headley and his co-conspirators. The ISI said while they would not grant direct FBI access to co-conspirator Major (retd.) Abdurrehman Syed, who was in ISI custody, the FBI could submit questions for Syed through the ISI. The FIA and Ministry of Interior informed the FBI that it would be difficult to introduce Headley-related evidence in the government's prosecution of the Mumbai defendants, including because Headley's statements to U.S. authorities would be treated as hearsay with little evidentiary value in court.
Sargodha Five
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12. (C) The Pakistanis continue to pursue their own case against the five American citizens from Northern Virginia who were arrested in Sargodha, Punjab province, on December 8, following suspicions they had travelled to Pakistan to engage
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in jihadist activities. They have not acted on our request that the five be returned to the United States. The Pakistani prosecutor has repeatedly asked for continuations in the case because he is not yet prepared to move forward with charges. The five suspects, who claim to have been abused while in custody, were denied bail at a February 16 court hearing. The next hearing will take place sometime in March.
Aafia Siddiqui
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13. (C) There has been widespread condemnation here of the February 3 guilty verdict against Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani citizen who was tried in Federal Court in New York on charges of attempting to murder U.S. soldiers and law enforcement authorities in Afghanistan. Many Pakistanis were taken by surprise by the verdict because one-sided Pakistani media coverage of the case reported only on her defense and not the prosecution's case, leading local observers to conclude her acquittal was a near certainty. We have stressed to the Pakistanis that Siddiqui received a fair trial and has a right to an appeal. A number of our Pakistani interlocutors have suggested that President Obama consider pardoning Siddiqui, and Prime Minister Gilani told Senator Kerry on February 16 that Siddiqui should be transferred to Pakistan to serve out her sentence here. PATTERSON
US embassy cables: Pakistan punishes US diplomats for 'siding with India' | World news | guardian.co.uk