The Marriott Bombing: ‘Pakistan’s 9/11’?

i really like ur article thnx thnx thnx

was it, in your opinion, because nobody knew, OR, because Pakistani moderates basically accepted and supported...

Pavo, you are one crazy man. Indian or Pakistani, there aren't many like you.

I have a question only for you (hopefully without offending any other Pakistani friends, who can please ignore the question).

When Pakistan was literally taking kabul city apart almost brick by brick, was there much noise in opposition and horror from Pakistani moderates? Somehow, I feel there wasn't.

If there wasn't such noise, was it, in your opinion, because nobody knew, but because Pakistani moderates basically accepted and supported and winked at the policy of destroying Afghanistan in order to bring it under Pakistani suzerainty?

#80 khyber: do you have a link to what brezhnev said, exactly? I tried google but couldn't find it. thank you

Volume 7 Number 1

www.orbat.com

January 28, 2008

Major A.H. Amin (Pakistan Army, Retired)

Waziristan

Waziristan is the testing ground, the acid test of Pakistan Army's worth in the so- called war against terrorism.
What is the Pakistani intelligence ? An intelligence operative stated that they don't have the guts to go out of a fort of FC in Waziristan. They meekly step out of a Qila (fort) and stop some truck drivers and ask what's going on. From what they scramble all the guys from Military Intelligence, the ISI , the Corps Intelligence and the FC Intelligence sit down and make a generally similar report. The guy who compares all reports in GHQ jumps with joy when he sees all these reports and states that all reports can be cross checked and are correct. There is the Sab Accha mentality since Mughal times. Sab Accha means All Correct. So in the final summing it is gleefully concluded that the writ of the Pakistani Government is established in all parts of tribal areas! Glory be to Allah.
I recently met some mid-ranking and major-general level army officers and discussed Waziristan with them. We concluded:
Waziristan is a case of clash of interests among ambitious officers trying to get a good chit (report) and serious regimental officers who see soldiering as a way of life. The fast-track guys want to bash up some villages with artillery fire and do some dog catching for Americans and improve their career index called OEI.
The first major disaster was Lt.-Gen. Safdar, a Punjabi and a careerist. He wanted a fast-track approach for the problem, .His policy was bomb everyone, kill everyone and get the feathers in the cap for being a conqueror. This was counter-productive. The armed forces lost all credibility in this area. Safdar was finally packed off to the post of director logistics in the army Headquarters a post seen as waiting area for dumped generals.
Lieutenant General Hamid Khan, a Pashtun armored corps officer from 11 Cavalry was not effective. During his tenure the army was neither here nor there. He was serving for most of the time when the Waziristan accord had been signed.
The present corps commander Masud Aslam was a Kargil Warrior! (Major Amin is not being complimentary.) He again tried to introduce the Safdar policy with disastrous results.
One Major General level divisional commander stood out. Strangely it was a Shia officer, Major General Mir Haider. Although a Punjabi he understood the Pasthun psyche and did well. His modus operandi was psy war. Healing the tribal eg . Gifting copies of Holy Quran.
Another Major General Sahi was a failure. Again he was using the Safdar approach. Kill , batter , destroy and bomb. Sahi had close links with the Quisling PML (President Musharraf's political party: the writer believes Pakistan has sold out to the Americans) as his brother was a politician from that party. In words of a direct participant officer, he was also a total failure. He was finally packed off as commandant of infantry school. Another resting place of dumped generals. In his dining out he said that he had established writ of Pakistani Government in Waziristan and was corrected there and then by a serving army officer that this was a white lie. He was challenged that he could not drive with his GOC's flag from Miran Shah to Bannu even with an escort! He was infamous in the Frontier Corps Officers for trying to prod them to attack this village or that because he wanted to get a good chit from his bosses.
A serving army officer in that area compared Pakistan Army and the FC in Waziristan to a mouse running from point A to point B while he said that the tribals were the lazy cat watching this despicable mouse.
We further concluded:
The great danger is not Pakistan but the fall-out after its demise.
The great danger to the West is not the hopeless Pakistani state but non-state actors
The more Pakistani Don Quixotes are proved to be spineless clowns in Waziristan, the more dangerous the situation becomes.
Warfare has become cheap. It is easy to rock the boat and non-state actors are good at this.
The front is unclear. The distinction between friend and foe unclear.
My assessment is that if the Americans decide to knock out Pakistan , in strategic terms , there will be no resistance in Punjab and Sindh ,only the Pashtuns will be their adversaries and the settled area Pashtuns will be as hopeless as the Punjabis and Sindhis.
Pakistan's military and political establishment is simply hopeless. This theme is discussed in my article "5 minutes over Islamabad" (the article details how the US forced Pakistan to join it's side in the GWOT.) The Pakistani military junta has already lost all credibility with the Pakistani population and cannot control the situation.
Even the Americans will not achieve much if they enter Waziristan. The terrain is bad and Americans will be a good cause for Jihad. The solution is withdrawal from Waziristan and regime change in Pakistan. The Americans should let the hopeless Paki politicians do the dirty job of all this.
As an officer who served in Pakistan Army I would sum up the situation as following:
The Pakistani High Command a Punjabi-Mohajir (Mohajirs are Pakistans who migrated from India to the new country of Pakistan in/after 1947) team lacks the grey matter or resolve to deal with the tribals.
The troops they are commanding have lost faith in the cause they are fighting for. This is the worst thing for an army.
All said and done the tribals can be dealt politically. Any Pakistani officer who is posted as commander 11 Corps is a job seeker. He is trying to be a Napoleon and a Punjabi cannot be a Napoleon with a tribal!
The present Governor of NWFP Owais Ghani has already miserably failed in Baluchistan. He is regarded as a non-Pashtun as he is the hated Hindko Punjabi (we dont know what Hindko means; Hind generally refers to India) speaking from Peshawar city just like General Kakar, whose first cousin he is.
The whole situation requires a change in command in Pakistan from top to bottom.

what the CIA,ISI,SAUDI INTELLIGENCE and British Intelligence hirelings did to Kabul and Afghanistan.....compare that with what is happening to Pakistan is not 1 % of that .....Dr Najib , a great visionary,and there are audio cassettes of these talks available warned pakistan and USA ....dont do this .....you are destroying the peace of this region for all times to come....the Pashtuns are the most progressive and most conservative people.....they brought the only successful Marxist leftist coup in Muslim world and now as talibs they are playing hell with the americans/brits and punjabis.....now why this transformation.....the punjabis were trying to use pashtuns as cannon fodder.......its all going to go totally out of control.....a state based on injustice cannot last....go see the cripples and orphans you made in afghanistan......

Well I am back after work and it seems like its getting interesting here.#79 Posted by pavocavalry... here is the problem,unfortunately Pakistan under Zia started interfering in Afghanistan when Red Army was there,What goes around comes around and truely thats what happening in Pakistan now,Zia encouraged narrow minded,conservative right wing hard liners religious fanatics,in Pakistan liberals were always discouraged and that is a conspiracy of bourgeois ,elite and imperialist's slaves of pakistan.Let me mention one more thing that in 80's one communist leader of soviet union comrade Leonid Il'iÄ? Brežnev warned CIA AND ISI that today you are using these religious fanatics aginst us and tommarow they will hurt you in your own yard and that is proved as we see what happened incidents like 9/11 and recent attacks in Pakistan,another problem in pakistan is that religion and politics were forced to work together and that is failed.Pakistani politicians are selfish and not reliable,Politicians like QAZI HUSSAIN,whose son is getting higher education in States but Qazi preach and tells kids of poor to join jihad.
Mwaqar

a very superficial,simplistic and shallow view of things.

the pakistani state in the past actively sponsored terrorism and attacks on civilians.students cafes were attacked in kabul.residential apartments were rocketed.the tribal areas are being bombed indiscriminately.

but when the punjabi heartland is struck then its very very bad.

a case of absolute dual standards

Khyber #68 {"I support Islam of MOHAMMAD(PBUH)NOT the islam of saudi arabia or zia,I do supprot Z A BHUTTO,who broguht political sense to comman man on street,who brought 90000 those soldeirswho surrendered to India,who made Pak nuclear power,who was interested to educate people.What Zia and cronies did to Pakistan,result you can see.
Mwaqar "}

Waqar Bhai,
Very good poins - may the bad rooh of Zia never cast its shadow over Pakistan again.

Karachi, 24 Sept. (AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - The alleged mastermind of last Saturday's deadly truck bombing of the Marriott hotel in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, has emerged.

The suspect, Qari Zafar (photo), has become part of Al-Qaeda's hardline Takfiri inner circle. He enjoys the protection of Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud and is believed to be hiding out in the lawless South Waziristan tribal area of North West Frontier Province.

Zafar is not only the suspected mastermind of the Marriot bomb blast, but has created a network which will shortly target strategic installations belonging to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, military headquarters in Karachi and police stations across the country, according to security officials.

"Zafar is behind the planning, arrangement of transportation and procurement of explosives for the attack against the Marriott Hotel on 20 September,� a top security source told Adnkronos International on Thursday on condition of anonymity.

"Some of his men have been arrested in Punjab which further confirms his involvement in the whole scheme,� the official added.

The connection to Zafar was established from phone numbers found on the mobiles of some of those arrested in Punjab.

According to security agencies, the chances of arresting Zafar are slim as he rarely moves from his alleged hideout in South Waziristan to visit the various cities of North West Frontier Province.

To most Pakistanis he is an obscure figure, and is considered by security agencies to be a ghostlike figure whose trail went cold after he managed to escape from custody last year.

But he is known to international intelligence services which credit him with fox-like cunning and great bravery when organising and carrying out attacks against identified targets.

Originally from Karachi, Zafar was previously named as the leader of the banned militant Laskhar-i-Jhangvi group.

In 2007, he escaped from the custody of security services in the Punjabi capital, Lahore.

The United States government has put a 5 million dollar bounty on Zafar, according to the Rewards for Justice website.

Zafar is wanted for questioning in connection with the 2 March, 2006 bombing of the US Consulate in Karachi.

The attack killed three Pakistani citizens and US diplomat David Foy. Zafar is suspected of being a key figure involved with this attack

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.2509917874

1977-79. Two events take place. Iranian revolution and Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

EFFECT: A mock jihad supported by Brezinski's Christianity in favour of Muslims. A covert Sunni jihad against Shias supported by USA, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Creation of Kuwait fund for Balochistan. In parallel, advent of Sipa E Sihaba that kills Shias, fans insurgency of Sunni dissidents in Iran. Later splits into Jhangvi, Jaish and so many other loose groups.

1997-98. US bombing of Afghanistan, Pakistani militant camps hit. The sectarians join hands with Taliban and al Qaeeda.Some caught in Kashmir. taken prisoners, compromised, exchanged. Omar Sheikh (British intelligence pawn) mysteriously forgets his diary in Indian Jail.
9/11. These sectarians react by killing christians and attacking churches. Omar and Khalid sheikh kill Daniel Pearl. According to BB, Omar also kills OBL.They attempt at Musharraf. FIA building. US consulate. Sheraton and .....

NOW. The most dangerous suicide bombers emerging from a sectarian group merge into the general strain of Taliban.

Taliban become Cicero the poet and get killed for bad verses.

#41 Posted by usamamunir on

Ghabra mat yaar, Indians ke pass abhi time nahin hai, aur Indians ko jaroorat bhi mehshoosh nahin hoti Pakistan ka kutch bigaadne ki...
jab tak unke pass time hoga (ya jaroorat mehshoosh hogi) tab tak Pakistan apne aap hi apni aisi-ki-tesi kar chuka hoga.... Khuda ke bande hain bhai, sab khuda ke liye kar rahe hain,,, kya-kya kar rahe hain bas ye kisi ko idea nahin.. (sabhi kutch karte hain, drug trafficking, terrorism, deceit, lie aur kya bacha hai khuda ke liye:-))

Re: # 59

Mr Khyber

People u talk about are ideologically driven, for them ethnicities dont matter much. I agree with you that they have spread into Punjab but do you know their largest mosque or training center is in Karachi (Binori) which has produced some of their finest.

If you wish to counter this plague then u have to hit them where it hurts and that is their ideological and financial support center, Saudi Arabia. Hit does not imply physical hit but a public acknowledgement where the problem originates, pressure from the foreign office and executive level would stem the financial aid and passing of laws that restricts and formalizes funding based on religious content.

Finally, some honest introspection and acknowledgement is required.

hamidm

well, those problems will always be there - I mean, do you think suicide bombing will ever go away in land full of pure muslims?... same goes for 'atta shortage' as well - since every able-bodied momin worth his pajama is after his count of 72 virgins, who the heck is tilling the khet and growing the wheat?...

How long are the kashmiris going to wait?... 60 years is down the drain already...

khyber: " for the last 60 years pakistani elite and bourgeious class did not encourage education aggressively in pakistan and tribal areas,"

on the contrary, privately funded schools for the very poor are thriving in Pakistan. I know because I have been contributing to these efforts for over 30 years now. It is the taliban "elite" that, far from contributing to education, burns down schools! (at least one of the many schools burnt in Swat by the taliban was funded by almost exclusively expatriate Pakistanis in the US.

So - easy to rant about "panjabi elites" and what not. Hard to look at the facts.

Re: # 69

mohar mian,

... at present we have bigger problems than kashmir - load shedding, atta shortage, suicide bombings, the restoration of the droopy eyed cj ..... kashmir can wait