12.22.2007, Saturday

12.23.2007, Sunday

http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=4593.2858.0.0

The Weekend WebDecember 23, 2007 | From theTrumpet.comCatholicizing Britain, paganizing Christmas and lawyerizing life; plus, following Iran’s courageous lead, America shelves nukes!

One of the most stunning trends in modern times we often point to is that of America losing the pride in its prodigious power. Tragically, the mightiest military in history is proving to be remarkably ineffective in achieving its larger objectives. It spends it strength “in vain,” as Leviticus 26:20 reads. The reasons for this unfolding defeat are important to study, and military historian Victor Davis Hanson highlights a couple of the reasons in a remarkable essay in the Claremont Review of Books. It is, in large part, a matter of the critics of American military policy being shockingly near-sighted in their condemnations of the present war effort:

“Iraq,” swears Al Gore, “was the single worst strategic mistake in American history.” Senate majority leader Harry Reid agrees that the war he voted to authorize is “the worst foreign-policy mistake in U.S. history,” and indeed is already “lost.” Many of our historically minded politicians and commanders have weighed in with similar superlatives. Retired General William Odom calls Iraq “the greatest strategic disaster in United States history.” … Jimmy Carter takes, as usual, the loftiest view: the Iraq War, and Great Britain’s acquiescence in it, constitute “a major tragedy for the world,” and prove that the Bush administration “has been the worst in history.”

Is it true? As common as this argument has become in liberal circles, Hanson expertly exposes its outright fallaciousness.

Preoccupied with the daily news from Baghdad, we seem to think our generation is unique in experiencing the heartbreak of an error-plagued war. We forget that victory in every war goes to the side that commits fewer mistakes—and learns more from them in less time—not to the side that makes no mistakes. A perfect military in a flawless war never existed ….

He then details a number of far worse failures made in America’s victorious past wars. But several weaknesses peculiar to modern American life are ensuring that our mistakes today are doing far more to undermine our will to persist:

We care less about correcting problems than assessing blame—in postmodern America it is defeat that has a thousand fathers, while the notion of victory is an orphan. … An affluent, leisured society has adopted a therapeutic and managerial rather than tragic view of human experience—as if war should be controllable through proper counseling or a sound business plan. We take for granted our ability to talk on cell phones to someone in Cameroon or select from 500 cable channels; so too we expect Saddam instantly gone, Jeffersonian democracy up and running reliably, and the Iraqi economy growing like Dubai’s in a few seasons. If not, then someone must be blamed for ignorance, malfeasance, or inhumanity.

The insight that Hanson provides by contrasting America’s past resolute will and commitment to victory, and the present weakness of will, is well worth contemplating. His conclusion—describing the importance of understanding present troubles in a grand historical perspective—is absolutely true, as is his understanding of the fact that “our morale is as important as our material advantages.” When the will of the people falters—as it is today, under the relentless assault of so many of our politicians and so much of our press—victory in warfare becomes impossible.

Now That Iran Shelved Nukes, Everything’s Good

In yet another sign that the Bush administration no longer believes there is an “axis of evil” longing for a world without America, Secretary Condoleezza Rice said on Friday, “The United States doesn’t have permanent enemies. We’re too great a country for that.”

Last Tuesday, msnbc reported that President Bush agreed to significantly reduce America’s nuclear weapons stockpile, “cutting it to less than one-quarter its size at the end of the Cold War.“

The same day that was reported, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joined hundreds of thousands of devout Muslims on the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, where they chanted, “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” Meanwhile, Iran’s first nuclear power plant will be operational by March, providing Iran’s electrical power grid with energy by summertime. Good thing Tehran doesn’t want to build a nuclear bomb.

Fatah and Hamas Inch Closer Together

Fatah’s strongman, Mohammed Dahlan, indicated in an interview today that resolving the dispute with Hamas might be possible even if the latter retains control of Gaza. To this point President Mahmoud Abbas has called for Hamas to relinquish its control in Gaza first before the two sides might reconcile. On the Hamas side, Stratfor reported this on Friday:

Hamas is making a serious attempt to get out of the doghouse it has been in since its June takeover of the Gaza Strip. The November Annapolis, Md., conference instilled fears into the Hamas leadership that it will become sidelined by Israel and Fatah (and even Saudi Arabia) unless it revitalizes efforts to form a new power-sharing agreement with its Fatah rivals.

A Crisis of Our Own Making

Conditions in the Balkans today are “uncannily similar” to the conditions that made World War i inevitable in summer 1914 writes Neil Clark. “The present crisis in Kosovo has been caused not so much by Serbian intransigence, but by the West’s policy of intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign states.” Ten years ago Kosovo was at relative peace with Serbia, and pro-independence supporters channeled their demands for independence through the peaceful Democratic League Party. Not until the West, particularly Germany, got involved, says Clark, did Kosavar militia groups gain traction as vehicles to pursue, oftentimes violently, independence from Serbia.

As late as November 1997, the kla, officially classified by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, could, it has been estimated, call on the services of only 200 men. Then, in a policy shift whose repercussions we are witnessing today, the West started to interfere big time. The U.S., Germany and Britain increasingly saw the kla as a proxy force which could help them achieve their goal of destabilizing and eventually removing from power the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, which showed no inclination to join Euro-Atlantic structures.

Don’t let that last statement slip by: America, Britain and Germany pummeled Milosevic because he lacked the desire to integrate Serbia into European “structures.”

Over the following year, the kla underwent a drastic makeover. The group was taken off the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations …. Large-scale assistance was given to the kla by Western security forces. Britain organized secret training camps in northern Albania. The German secret service provided uniforms, weapons and instructors.

Clark’s reporting on Kosovo is refreshing and honest at a time when the bulk of the press is misreporting Kosovo. For more on this subject, check out the new column theTrumpet.com will post Monday morning.

Bank Credit Crunch to Worsen in 2008

Today’s Guardian reports, “Rumors were circulating in New York and London on Friday that Western banks face intense pain in the new year, with bad-debt provisions set to soar from $59 billion to more than $250 billion.”

Citigroup and Morgan Stanley already went cap in hand to foreign governments for bailouts. Now several brokers fear Merrill Lynch will be the next. In the UK, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Barklays could be seeking bailouts soon.

Britain Now Catholic Country

Britain’s Telegraph reports, “Roman Catholics have overtaken Anglicans as the country’s dominant religious group. More people attend Mass every Sunday than worship with the Church of England …. This means that the established church has lost its place as the nation’s most popular Christian denomination after more than four centuries of unrivaled influence following the Reformation.”

The trend of Protestants being reabsorbed into the Catholic Church is continuing as outlined in two recent theTrumpet.com articles, here and here.

It is highlighted by former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s official conversion to Catholicism over the weekend. Last year, Mr. Blair, who is now a Middle East peace envoy, said he had prayed to God when deciding whether or not to send UK troops into Iraq.

One of Mr. Blair’s final official trips while prime minister was a visit to the Vatican in June where he met Pope Benedict xvi.

Rule of Lawyers

At the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick highlights the frightening trend of “lawyerizing” life in Israel.

The legal establishment’s ardor for the Second Lebanon War was exposed on Tuesday with the publication of the testimonies of Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz and Military Advocate-General Avichai Mandelblit before the Winograd Committee which the Olmert government established to research the war’s failures. In their testimonies both men shared their perception of the war as a great victory of lawyers in their campaign to “lawyerize”—or assert their control—over Israeli society.

In his opening statement, Mazuz extolled the war as “the most ‘lawyerly’ in the history of the State of Israel, and perhaps ever.” He explained, “The process didn’t begin in Lebanon 2006. It … is a gradual process of ‘lawyerizing’ life in Israel.”

It’s even worse in America. Ten percent of the residents who live in Washington, D.C., are lawyers. Paul Johnson estimated that during the mid-1990s, lawyers made up 42 percent of the House of Representatives and 61 percent of the Senate.

Uneventful Year at Capitol Hill

In his column today, George Will summarizes the almost-invisible accomplishments of the first year of the Democrat-led House and Senate. This included bumping the minimum wage 70 cents—a move that helps half of one percentage point of the American workforce—and, oh yes,

mandating a 12-year phaseout of incandescent light bulbs (discussed in grin-inducing detail in this Weekly Standard piece). It also included shooting down a whole lot of initiatives because of conflicting interests.

Rep. John Campbell, a California Republican, notes that this year the House took many more votes (1,186) than ever but that only 146 bills became laws, and most of those named buildings or other things or extended existing laws.

Will’s wry conclusion: “Congress, and especially the Democratic majority, should be congratulated for this because a decrease in the quantity of legislation generally means an increase in the quality of life.”

Discovery Links Christmas to Paganism

Archaeologists in Italy have discovered a pagan shrine next door to the Church of St. Anastasia, where the December 25 observance of Christmas is believed to have started. According to the Associated Press,

In 325, [Constantine] convened the Council of Nicaea, which fixed the dates of important Christian festivals. It opted to mark Christmas, then celebrated at varying dates, on December 25 to coincide with the Roman festival celebrating the birth of the sun god, Andrea Carandini, a professor of archaeology at Rome’s La Sapienza University, told reporters Friday.

The Basilica of St. Anastasia was built as soon as a year after the Nicaean Council. It probably was where Christmas was first marked on Dec. 25, part of broader efforts to link pagan practices to Christian celebrations in the early days of the new religion, Carandini said.

For more about the true origins of Christianity’s modern observance of Christmas, see what we wrote here.

Elsewhere on the Web

Time reports here on further evidence of Iran’s influence spreading in Iraq as the Iraqi Shiite-led government is about to disband Sunni security forces.

According to Memri’s economic blog, in terms of assets, “Islamic banks have been able to achieve high growth rates in 2006 and at speeds that exceeded the average growth in the banking sector in most countries of the world.”

I think it’s safe to assume that the latest torture chamber to be discovered in Iraq won’t be getting as much media attention as Abu Ghraib.

Garry Kasparov uncovers what it’s really like under the iron leadership of Time magazine’s “Man of the Year,” with the Putin administration demolishing the free press, rigging elections, jailing and beating dissidents and generally executing democracy.

Chrysler’s ceo says his company is “operationally” bankrupt. The automaker hopes to raise over $1 billion by selling assets including old factories and unused property. “The rush to raise capital comes amid constricting access to money as more banks and other lenders face heavy losses related to subprime mortgages,” cnn reports.

It’s been a tough year for Wall Street: the bottom fell out of the mortgage industry, the dollar plummeted, investor confidence wavered and the list of worries goes on. But that didn’t stop the bonus checks for Wall Street execs rising by an average of 14 percent.

And Finally …

Last week, we were quite surprised to read this in a report from a popular Middle East website based in Tehran:

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has predicted for over 13 years that Iran would be the king of the Middle East, and that we would witness an alliance take place between Iran and Egypt. “Daniel 11:42 implies that Egypt will be allied with the king of the south, or Iran. … This prophecy indicates that there would be a radical change in Egyptian politics.”

Upon closer review, however, we noticed that the Fars News Agency report was a lot like the article we had posted a few hours earlier. •

12.24.2007, Monday

The Statesman (India)December 24, 2007 Monday

TWO DOZENLENGTH: 737 words

Nava Thakuria The most influential armed group of the North-east, the United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa) has links with the Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan. That is known. But what is awful for the people of the region is that 24 banned outfits maintain close ties with Pakistani agencies. This was learnt during interrogation of an ISI operative, arrested by the Assam police recently.

The more shocking revelation for the nation is that the alliance has placed the insurgent groups into the clutches of Islamic militants slowly but steadily. The Assam police believe the information is a breakthrough for warding off terrorism in the North-east. The police claim to have arrested a hardcore ISI operative in a special operation in Guwahati. The accused has been identified as SM Alam alias Mujibullah Alam alias Asfi Alam. He is from Ajampur in the Uttara police station area of Dhaka. Alam has been recognised as an important ISI functionary in charge of Assam and the North-east. Police say Alam is a member of the Jamait-e-Islami and Chatra Shibir (of Bangladesh) and joined the Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-Mujahideen in 1993. The middleaged Bangladeshi national also reportedly underwent training in Pakistan occupied Kashmir. He joined the Jamatul Mujahideen in 2005 and shifted to the restive North-east last year, with destructive plans. Alam confirmed the militant outfits ties with the ISI.

The issue was discussed in Parliament, too. Available inputs indicate that some Indian insurgent groups active in the north-eastern region have been using the territory of Bangladesh and have links with Pakistans ISI, Mr Shriprakash Jaiswal, minister of state for home, said in the Rajya Sabha on 5 December. The minister, while admitting reports of alliances among the outfits for tactical purposes of shelter, hideouts, arms procurement and training, also said New Delhi had taken up the issue with Islamabad.

Assam chief minister Mr Tarun Gogoi said Ulfa was under the ISIs grip, which is why it cannot come for talks. He also said the Ulfa leaders cannot defy the ISIs diktat as many of its leaders are taking shelter in Bangladesh. Mr Gogoi believes that Ulfa is the prime communicator from the North-east with international terrorist outfits. Talking to a New Delhi-based TV news channel on 19 December, Mr Gogoi claimed dreaded militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed had made inroads into Assam with the help of Ulfa leaders. Mr Gogoi has often said Ulfa continues to have links with jihadi groups. Earlier, a US Intelligence think-tank reported that

Ulfa was going to increase financial enterprises and enhance links with Islamist militant groups. Stratfor, in one of its reports, stated that Ulfa leaders preferred to maintain their financial network with Pakistans Intelligence agency. Though India has largely turned a blind eye to militant groups operating in its far-flung Northeast, the growing Islamisation of the region provides more than enough reason for New Delhi to start paying closer attention to its north-eastern border, the report said. Concern is expressed in an editorial of The Assam Tribune, the oldest English daily of the region as, It is a fact that presence of foreign nationals gave a chance to ISI agents and other fundamentalist forces having roots in Bangladesh to establish their bases not only in Assam but also in other states of the Northeast, which has posed a grave security threat to the nation. Quoting the revelation of the ISI operative, the editorial argued that it highlights the gravity of the situation as the Pakistani agency can always engage militant outfits having links with it to create disturbance in this part of the country without sending its own men to do the dirty work. All the security agencies involved in counter-insurgency operations must launch a coordinated effort to prevent the ISI and other fundamentalist forces inimical to India from establishing roots in the east, while at the same time coordination and Intelligence- sharing between the police forces of the North-east states must be improved to deal with the security threat. On its part, the Government of India must take steps to complete the border roads and fencing along the Indo-Bangla border and the strength of the Border Security Force should be increased along the international border, it said. (The author is a Guwahati-based freelance contributor.)

http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=950&Itemid=31

Pakistan’s Northeastern India AgendaNava Thakuria

24 December 2007The arrest of an alleged Pakistani intelligence operative by Indian police exposes a new front in the two country’s long insurgent proxy war

pak-isiLt. General Nadeem Taj, the current head of the ISI

Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, already accused of ongoing support for Islamist terrorism in Kashmir and Afghanistan, has been snagged in allegations that it is meddling in India’s troubled northeastern region.

Indian officials have long accused the ISI, as it is known, of fueling separatist movements in the northeast, aided by intelligence agencies from Bangladesh. However, on December 14, Indian police arrested a 35-year-old Bangladeshi identified as S.M. Alam and accused him of being a linchpin in a network of Pakistan-backed support for separatist groups. Using a string of aliases, including Mujibullah Alam and Asfi Alam, police officials say Alam was in charge of ISI operations in Assam state and across the northeast region. He is said to have been a member of both Jamati Islami and Chitra Shibir of Bangladesh as well as the Pakistan-based Harkat-ul Mujahideen.

Alam reportedly underwent training in a Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir before joining Jamatul Mujahideen, an outlawed Islamic group in Bangladesh, in 2005, after which he was said by police to have been recruited by the Pakistani intelligence service. Police claim he entered Assam in 2006. He had been under surveillance for several months before his arrest.

Through Alam, police told Asia Sentinel, the ISI funded as many as 24 violent militant organizations in the region. He is said to have engaged scores of operatives and sponsored indigenous armed groups, the biggest of which include the United Liberation Front of Assam

(ULFA), Muslim Tiger Force of Assam, Muslim United Liberation Force of Assam, Muslim United Liberation Army and the United Muslim Front of Assam. Local militants, particularly ULFA, which was launched in 1979, have been blamed for numerous killings, explosions and kidnappings, for which they demand huge ransoms. Some of the region’s rebel groups are so small that intelligence officials have never identified them.

Certainly the poverty-stricken seven-state enclave, surrounded by Bhutan, Tibet, Burma and Bangladesh has been alienated for generations, accusing the central government of being interested only in exploiting the region’s natural resources. The region, with 50 million people, is home to India’s second largest Muslim population. Assam alone has 26 million, a sizeable number of them Muslim migrantss from Bangladesh.

An official of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations for the country’s armed forces said that the arrest of an ISI operative in Assam was “not in (his) knowledge.” Despite a promise to check and respond, neither he nor another official did so. Queries to the agency’s website went unanswered.

Indian security agencies say they have convincing evidence that the ISI has been sponsoring violence in other parts of India as well. Retired Indian Army Brigadier S.P. Sinha, who served in the northeast for decades, claims that Pakistan's ISI has a base in Bangladesh to launch anti-India operations. In his recent book, “Lost Opportunities: 50 years of Insurgency in the Northeast and India's Response,” Sinha writes that Pakistan shifted nearly 200 terrorist training camps from the Pakistani side of the Kashmir line to Bangladesh recently.

Allegations of Pakistani links to Northeastern militants have stirred concern in the Indian Parliament. “Available inputs indicate that some Indian insurgent groups active in the northeastern region have been using the territory of Bangladesh, and have links with Pakistan's ISI," Shriprakash Jaiswal, the junior minister of state for Home Affairs, told the upper house of India’s Parliament on December 5, before Alam was arrested. The minister, describing reports of alliances for tactical purposes among insurgent groups added that New Delhi had taken up the issue with Islamabad.

Earlier, Stratfor, a US-based think tank, reported on ULFA's increasing financial clout with Islamic militant groups. ULFA leaders, Sratfor said in a recent report, maintains a financial network with Pakistan's intelligence agency and “its financial enterprise and strong links with Islamist militant groups have made it a threat that New Delhi will not be able to ignore much longer.”

The report added that “though India has largely turned a blind eye to militant groups operating in its far-flung Northeast, the growing Islamization of the region provides more than enough reason for New Delhi to start paying closer attention to its Northeastern border.” It is an area, the think tank wrote, “where ideology, religion and ethnicity hold little or no regard, as each militant group works with another to promote its cause. ULFA, in particular, has shown a growing propensity to work with Islamist militant groups in the area, and has even begun to outsource operations.”

The Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi urged New Delhi to take up the issue of terrorist camps within neighboring countries — Bangladesh and Burma — and better patrol the porous international borders.

http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=4576.2859.0.0

German Fascism Is Conquering Kosovo!December 24, 2007 | From theTrumpet.comWhat is happening in Kosovo reaches far beyond the Balkans. It is so shocking that the nations of this world would be paralyzed with fear if they truly understood! Shamefully, America is its chief architect. Gerald Flurry

Kosovo will declare its independence from Serbia any day now. Serbia, Russia and a handful of other states ardently oppose this decision, but that will not stop Kosovo from breaking away. This should make us wonder: How can such a minute little province act so boldly?

During a summit on December 14, the European Union announced it will send about 1,800 security personnel to Serbia, just in case violence breaks out when Kosovo declares its independence. The Portuguese prime minister and current head of the EU, Jose Socrates, said this about that decision: “This is the clearest signal that the European Union could possibly give that it intends to lead on the whole issue of Kosovo’s future, its status and its role in the region” (emphasis mine throughout).

A few days prior to this announcement Wolfgang Ischinger, the German diplomat responsible for representing the EU in its policy toward Kosovo, gave the world a glimpse of his vision of what Kosovo’s independence might look like. “It will be a state entity,” he said, “which will continue to be under broad international observation. The nato troops will continue to be deployed there. A further international presence of the UN and, consequently, of EU, will be ensured.” Even now the European Union is making plans to replace the UN in Kosovo.

Ultimately, this is the reason the tiny province of Kosovo can defy the powerful armies of Serbia and Russia: It has the backing of Europe.

It gets worse: The United States has been duped into supporting Germany and Europe as they back Kosovo’s quest for independence. The Serbs fought on our side in two world wars, and Germany fought against us in both of those wars. Since 1991, that alliance has been reversed, and America has supported Germany and Europe as they have helped bring about the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

History shows that Serbia is no threat to Europe or America, but Germany has routinely been a dangerous threat to Europe and the world! And whether we realize it or not, it still is today—far more so than in the past. It has often been said that truth is the first casualty of war. That probably has never been more true than in the Yugoslav wars.

Germany Backs Albania

In 1991, Yugoslavia lost the states of Croatia and Slovenia because of Germany. When those republics broke away, Bonn was the first to recognize them and then support them with troops and armaments. America (and almost the whole world) strongly opposed Germany’s undemocratic plans in the beginning. But the U.S. weakened and then even decided to support Germany in its war to control the Balkans! Europe and the United Nations meekly followed along.

Germany’s approach to taking over Yugoslavia was anything but democratic. This was good old-fashioned German fascism, supported by America and Britain. After Croatia and Slovenia, the civil war spread into Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Serbs lost control of a large portion of this republic also. Still the Germans were not satisfied, and had already begun feeding other pro-independence movements throughout the region.

One beneficiary of German support was a guerrilla army of Albanians called the Kosovo Liberation Army (kla)—though they were never freedom fighters. Many of the authorities likened them to the Mafia. Kosovo was comprised of 90 percent Albanians. These Kosovar Albanians, along with Albania and Germany, supported the guerrilla army against the Serbs.

Here is what the Albanian Telegraphic Agency wrote in 1997: “The German ambassador made evident the very good relations between the two countries [Albania and Germany] and voiced the will of his government to consolidate and promote further these relations. He highlighted the efficiency of various projects of the German assistance in Albania and stressed that they will be expanded in the coming months.

“Albanian Foreign Minister [Paskal] Milo stressed that Germany is one of the most important countries in the foreign policy of Albania” (Aug. 6, 1997). Germany has long had an intimate connection to Albania and the Serbian province of Kosovo.

Kosovar Albanians and even the kla received direct support from Germany. There are 600,000 Albanians in Germany. In the late 1990s many of the kla guerrillas left their families behind in Germany to fight against the Serbs in a civil war that the German-supported Albanians started. Is that German democracy, or German fascism?

Germany also gave financial support to the kla. Here is what bbc wrote in 1998: “In addition to money sent home to relatives [in Germany], Kosovo’s internationally unrecognized government-in-exile has been collecting a tax of 3 percent of earnings. Its prime minister, Bujar Bukoshi, who is based in Germany, has repeatedly denied that the money is used to buy arms—he says that it’s spent on running the health and education services” (Aug. 5, 1998). Does anybody believe that?

Kosovo’s “internationally unrecognized government-in-exile” had a prime minister who was based in Germany and operated freely with the blessing (perhaps even the direction) of the German government! Germany recognized Kosovo’s government-in-exile when nobody else did. The kla guerrillas didn‘t just happen. They were essentially raised up and directly supported by Germany—the powerhouse of Europe.

All of Germany’s actions in this Yugoslav war have been blatant and brutal fascism. We can call it democratic if we choose to do so, but that doesn’t make it true. This is still the country that started World Wars i and ii. And, in an unofficial way, it has already started World War iii!

In 1999, it was German spin on what was happening in Serbia that encouraged nato to attack the Serbs. The German defense minister, Rudolf Scharping, said in a March 1999 television interview on zdf that “genocide is starting.” His alarmist vocabulary caused many to think about genocide. It became common to hear that word being used in relation to Kosovo. People watched television and saw the streams of Albanian refugees. Then they totally blamed the Serbs. Most knew very little about Kosovo, yet spoke of “genocide”—the deliberate and systematic destruction of a race. Then came talk about “concentration camps.” Genocide and concentration camps—words introduced by the German defense minister.

It is true that after a powerful nato air attack, the Serbs responded violently to save what remained of their country. But there was little mentioned about refugees before the nato attacks. In fact, nato’s initial purpose in the war was to protect the Kosovar people in their homeland. That purpose shamefully failed.

Why? Because that was not what Germany wanted!

Germany Pressured nato

Stratfor issued this most alarming report in 1998: “Serbian Radio in Belgrade on September 22 broadcast a scathing commentary charging Germany with ‘warmongering’ and warning Europe against the alleged rebirth of German fascism” (Sept. 25, 1998). Call the Serbs what you like, but that is exactly what happened in Yugoslavia!

The report continued, “More pointedly, Serbian Radio cited Germany’s record in the two world wars, and charged that Germany harbors ‘open ambition to become the master of Europe.’ Questioning Europe’s silence on Germany’s behavior, commentator Milika Sundic said, ‘It is difficult to comprehend and accept that Europe has become Germany’s slave.’ Sundic went on to claim that ‘Germany contributed the most to the breakdown of the former Yugoslavia,’ and that ‘Serbia has known for some time that Germany was behind the [kla] terrorism in [Kosovo].’” Who can present any evidence to refute these powerful words?

Was the German-supported kla a band of freedom fighters, or were they terrorists? The truth is, they were German-supported terrorists—used to achieve Germany‘s fascist goals.

“The fact is that Germany [was] one of the leading voices pushing for nato intervention in Kosovo. In a meeting of nato defense ministers in Portugal on September 24 [1998], which resulted in a virtual ultimatum to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to cease the fighting in Kosovo or face nato air strikes, only Germany‘s [then Defense Minister Volker] R�he called for a firm deadline to be set for intervention. R�he said, ‘We must move quickly to an ultimatum in the next 10 days or less …. We must do something for the people on the ground and not just issue one more resolution after another’” (ibid.).

Germany’s penchant for blitzkrieg warfare was beginning to surface!

“Germany is leading the campaign for a quick and, if necessary, military solution to the conflict in Kosovo,” wrote Stratfor. Even in 1998, Stratfor saw that German ambition was driving the dissolution of the Balkans. Today Berlin’s ambition to conquer Kosovo is about to come to its fullest fruition!

Once again that ambition is being manifested by proxy. Today Germany once again relies on America to support Kosovo’s independence. But this time it has a newly empowered European conglomerate at its disposal, the European Union. The EU today is much stronger, more streamlined and more united than it was in 1999. It is the ideal vehicle for German ambition in the Balkans!

Expect German fascism to be resurrected in the Balkans under the auspices of the European Union!

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said this about the European Union in October 1995: “You have not anchored Germany to Europe; you have anchored Europe to a newly dominant, unified Germany. In the end, my friends, you’ll find it will not work.” She didn’t see Germany as a democracy-loving country, but as “a newly dominant” country.

Mrs. Thatcher clearly said the European Union was not a democratic union. It is dominated by Germany. But it seems nobody wants to admit that the Germans have not repented of their fascist, Nazi past. Let the world beware!

Bernard Connolly, in The Rotten Heart of Europe, said the European Union was only a “cloak for German ambitions.” Don’t you think America and Britain ought to at least consider such authoritative voices?

The Germans want to control Europe. To do so, they must gain control of the Balkans, where their fiercest enemy is the Serbs. For the most part, the Serbs have been silenced, and will be silenced further when Kosovo declares independence. Do you realize that 75 percent of the nato

military power in the 1999 Kosovo conflict was supplied by the U.S.? That means Germany actually pressured and directed nato—especially the U.S.—to carry out its own fascist ambitions within Europe!

We are going to pay the supreme penalty for such a dangerously misguided foreign policy. America today continues in its tradition of supporting Germany and Europe’s efforts to conquer Kosovo! Germany had all of nato fighting for its cause, and it seems nobody wants to even discuss how it all began.

Is it so hard to understand why the Serbs are enraged? Their country has been systematically destroyed—primarily by Germany. What country would not fight against such an outrage? Does any nation really see the Serbs’ point of view?

Since they were our allies in both world wars, we of all people should see their side of the story. On March 26, 1999, the New York Times wrote, “For the first time since the end of World War ii, German fighter jets have gone to war, taking part in the attack on Yugoslavia as part of a nato force and marking this country’s definitive emancipation from post-war pacifism. … Still, the German participation in air raids on Yugoslavia is potentially explosive, for it will confirm every dark Serbian suspicion about the West. If there has been a single obsession in Serbian policy this century, it has been to prevent what Belgrade sees as German expansionism in the Balkans.”

Germany and Europe already have troops stationed in Serbia, operating under the auspices of nato and the UN. Now they are sending more forces into Serbia, just in case violence breaks out. Germany and Europe have their fingerprints all over the situation about to explode in Kosovo, yet the press and media today refuse to talk about what’s going on in the Balkans in this context!

The truth is, the United States and the mainstream press are pushing for increased German and European involvement in Kosovo. They continue to be duped into throwing their support behind Germany and the EU as they drive Kosovo toward independence.

In Ezekiel 23:12, God condemns Israel—primarily America and Britain—for doting on the Assyrians, or Germans. Verse 17 says the mind of Israel is “alienated” from the Chaldeans, or the German-led Holy Roman Empire. The recent history of the two world wars shows you this is indeed the case. God condemns Israel for making the Germans our lovers and not trusting Him. Unless we wake up, the Holy Roman Empire will betray us and fight against us! Then we shall know very deeply what God thinks about our “lovers”!

What has happened in former Yugoslavia over the past decade is a major sign of how close Germany is to achieving its worldwide ambition.

The history of Germany reveals where the events in Europe and the Balkans today are leading. More importantly, God’s prophecies give us a preview of what is about to occur in Europe—and how it will affect the whole world. For more information, please read The Rising Beast—Germany’s Conquest of the Balkans. •

12.25.2007, Tuesday

http://www.lebanonwire.com/0712MLN/07122516STR.asp

Global Intelligence, Stratfor, December 25, 2007

Iran, U.S.: A Diplomatic Stalemate and Iraqi Stability

Summary

Iran has rejected U.S. preconditions to direct negotiations, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Dec. 24. Iran has seen little need to play ball with the United States since the recent release of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate and the Russian delivery of nuclear fuel. But the longer U.S.-Iranian talks remain stalled, the greater the chances of renewed Sunni-Shiite violence in Iraq.

Analysis

Iran rejects U.S. preconditions to direct negotiations, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Dec. 24. Mottaki’s announcement came in response to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s Dec. 21 declaration that the United States is open to talking to Iran but would first have to see a halt to Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which could include “even a short suspension.”

While Iran has been emboldened to ignore U.S. overtures of late, the betterment of the security situation in Baghdad could depend on the renewal of U.S.-Iranian negotiations.

Nullifying the threat of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was largely a policy move by Washington meant to set the stage for serious negotiations with Iran. After the NIE release, however, Russia delivered nuclear fuel to Iran’s Bushehr plant, leading the Iranians to act even more belligerent on all things nuclear, with a new announcement each week on how enrichment will continue at unprecedented rates, how 19 additional nuclear power plants will be built and how there is no current need for talks with Washington.

Washington has exercised patience with these antics, waiting for the Iranians to reciprocate for the NIE while carefully hinting that the U.S. position on Iran’s nuclear program can just as easily be reversed. The United States even dangled the possibility that Rice would have raised the level of Iranian-U.S. ambassadorial talks scheduled for Dec. 18 in Baghdad by meeting directly with Mottaki during her surprise visit to Iraq, which likely is what prompted a statement from Tehran that higher-level talks are not needed for the time being. As far as the Iranians are concerned, they have regained the upper hand and can afford to drag their feet in the negotiations. Tehran also could use some extra time to figure out its next step, given the curveball the Russians threw Iran on Dec. 20, when Moscow said that Bushehr will not even become operational for at least another year.

But the longer the negotiations remain stalemated, the more precarious the security situation in Baghdad becomes. The U.S. exit strategy for Iraq depends on the success Washington has achieved in decreasing the level of violence in Iraq, particularly by co-opting the bulk of Iraqi Sunni insurgents through the formation of Sunni tribal As-Sahwa (Awakening) militias. The U.S. Army is in charge of these Sunni recruits, whom it pays $10 dollars per day to continue their fight against al Qaeda and maintain order in Iraq’s most volatile Sunni regions. But what will make or break this strategy is the integration of these Sunni militias into Iraq’s Shiite-dominated — and Iranian-allied — government in Baghdad.

Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite party, first welcomed the success of these As-Sahwa militias and gave clear indications that the Sunnis would become a formal part of Iraq’s security apparatus. But in coordination with Iran’s stalling tactics, al-Hakim has backtracked in recent weeks, and he now is saying that the 70,000-strong Sunni militias should be limited to a “supporting” role to the government. The Shiite parties are drawing up plans to integrate the Sunni militiamen into civilian and private sector roles in order to disarm them. The Iraqi Shiite parties’ biggest fear — and, by extension, the Iranians’ biggest fear — is that the same Sunni militias the Americans have fostered will turn on the Shia once U.S. troops leave. Iran also cannot

be completely sure that the United States will not nurture these Sunni militias into a fighting force to suppress the Iraqi Shia, in the event that things between Washington and Tehran sour again.

In light of these tensions between Iraq’s Sunni and Shiite factions, clashes were reported between the Sunni As-Sahwa militias and Shiite militias in the Dora area of Baghdad on Dec. 24. This incident could be a harbinger of things to come should Washington and Tehran fail to get their negotiations back on track sooner rather than later.

This article is published at Lebanonwire by agreement with www.stratfor.com, the world's leading private intelligence provider. For any questions or comments on this article please write to analysis@stratfor.com

12.26.2007, Wednesday

The Toronto StarDecember 26, 2007 Wednesday

Instability aids Taliban comebackBYLINE: Olivia Ward, Toronto StarSECTION: WORLD AND COMMENT; Pg. AA04LENGTH: 1035 words

Dissatisfaction with governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan enables militants to gain strength

It's a bizarre war: one fought against tailors, barbers, housewives and school children. Not to mention medical workers, aid officials and rock fans.

Even the dead are not immune. Ancient works of art, such as statues of Buddha are targeted. But the focus of the most persistent assaults are Canadian soldiers and their NATO partners posted in the southern and eastern border areas.

Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters headed for the hills of Afghanistan in the winter of 2001, as a coalition of heavily armed Western forces swept through the country.

But six years later, village by village and metre by stony metre, they are back - along with an assortment of extremist and criminal groups who are undermining Afghanistan's fragile recovery with primitive ideology and evermore sophisticated tactics.

The resurgence is at the heart of a painful debate in Canada and other troop-contributing countries. Critics argue that their mission has failed, and some insist that the forces are only fighting the inevitable.

But those who know Afghanistan well say that the problem goes far beyond military operations.

"Everybody talks about Talibanization," says Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan's former foreign minister, who was attending a conference in Ottawa this month. "But the situation is more complicated than that. There are cracks in people's trust in the Afghan government that have allowed the Taliban to gain more territory."

Across the border in Pakistan, too, a crisis of confidence in authority is profiting the Taliban: President Pervez Musharraf has been battling pro-democracy critics, as extremist religious groups spread their influence on the lawless frontiers and wage guerrilla war in Afghanistan.

"Islamabad has lost what control it had over the Taliban, and Talibanization is spreading out of Pakistan's peripheral Pashtun areas and into its Punjabi heartland," says Kamran Bokhari, director of Middle East analysis for Strategic Forecasting Inc. "State assets have turned against the state."

Evidence of Taliban gains

and those of other extremist groups - is thick on the ground on both sides of the porous border, largely populated by ethnic Pashtuns.

In Afghanistan, says Seth Jones, an Afghan expert with the RAND Corporation, "things are getting worse. When I was there 10 months ago I could drive to Wardak, due west of Kabul, in about two hours. A month ago the drive was too dangerous."

Jones, who testified this month to a Senate committee in Ottawa, said that the Taliban and their wannabes "are no longer in exit mode," and insurgent attacks have escalated by 400 per cent, and deaths by 800 per cent, between 2002-'06.

"It isn't just that they establish control over territory, they infiltrate and co-opt local tribes and sub-tribes. There are also criminal groups operating."

And says Jim Burroughs, an American filmmaker whose book Blood on the Lens details his experiences in Afghanistan since 1986, the strength of the Taliban movement, in spite of the NATO-led military campaign, is unsurprising.

"When the U.S. bombed the Taliban in 2001 they had an estimated 50,000 fighters. Only 10,000 were accounted for as casualties or prisoners. Some of the 40,000 who were left took off their turbans and blended into Afghan society. But they were so hated at the time most crossed into Pakistan. They are there now, recruiting more, and nobody is stopping them. In that area, there has never been control from Islamabad."

In Pakistan, the Taliban and their sympathizers are "entrenched and aggressively spreading" says Hassan Abbas, a research fellow of Harvard University's Belfer Center and former police official in the territory. And he says, "brothers in arms" are making the area their base.

"A lethal combination of Musharraf's political predicament and declining public support, a significant rise in suicide attacks targeting the army and the reluctance of soldiers in the area to engage tribal gangs" is adding to the crisis, he said in the Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Monitor.

Using sophisticated electronic tools - including web images of beheadings, remote-controlled explosives and global positioning devices - the extremists have fear at their disposal. In the villages where they hold sway, women are forced to wear head-to-toe burqas, men to grow their beards, and girls to stay away from school. There are reports of preteen children pressured to become suicide bombers. Even listening to pop music in cars can bring draconian punishment from self-appointed morality police.

Feared and resented on both sides of the border, the Taliban, Al Qaeda and their supporters present themselves as the alternative to chaos. But, says Abdullah, it is a mistake to believe that Afghans embrace them willingly because their own views are traditionally conservative.

"People all over Afghanistan are conservative. But they also participated in elections. It is not the same country it was in the early 20th century." But, he adds, "if the government cannot protect their lives from the Taliban, if it cannot deliver services to people in need, ensure the rule of law and bring a minimum of reconstruction and development, what is their choice?"

The Afghan government is increasingly seen as weak and corrupt, he says. "It should not make excuses for inaction. Nobody is stopping it from making progress against corruption. It has to deal with that."

Aziz Hakimi, a former policy adviser to President Hamid Karzai, says the government's failure to heal splits in Afghan society after decades of conflict has added to the instability and boosted the Taliban.

"Tribalism has pushed people into the arms of the Taliban," says Hakimi, now head of the Killid Group, an independent Afghan media company. "It's become one tribe against the other, with no common ground.

"NATO doesn't understand that a military campaign is only one part of the struggle. People in the cabinet are not committed to the national agenda. There is an urgent need to rethink the kind of state-building that can lead to long-term stability. That is the only way to make sure the loss of lives by Afghans and Canadians has been worthwhile."

http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=4599.2867.0.0

Enriched Confidence: Post-NIE IranDecember 26, 2007 | From theTrumpet.comFollowing Washington’s disastrous intelligence estimate, Tehran is taking advantage of the situation. By Philip Nice

Tehran is prowling the streets of the Middle East with a new swagger to its step. Following December 3’s National Intelligence Estimate (nie), which claimed Iran had a clandestine nuclear weapons program but abandoned it four years ago, Tehran has been getting all the political and strategic leverage it can out of the situation, which is quite a bit.

In response to the report, the man who wants Israel wiped off the map in “one storm” and looks forward to “a world without America” claimed “victory” for Iran and said, “It was in fact a declaration of surrender.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his politico-religious bosses were represented in the report as “rational actors” who responded to international pressure and incentives.

Pop quiz: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s résumé includes which of the following? Participation in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy; a stint as interrogator at Evin Prison, where Tehran’s political prisoners are brutalized; commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps department that fills orders for spying, sabotage, terrorist attacks, assassinations and other assorted services; alleged responsibility for murdering Kurds in Austria and Germany; participation in multiple militias responsible for disciplining Iranians who infringe Islamic rules of conduct and dress; and praying for the coming of the Mahdi—in front of the United Nations.

If you answered “all of the above,” you get 50,000 points; one for each nuclear centrifuge Ahmadinejad plans to build in response to the nie.

His murky mullah puppet masters, who hold the real power in Iran, built the world’s most murderous Islamic theocracy, specializing in forming, arming, supplying and dictating to terrorist groups all over the world.

Thanks to the nie, however, we now know that these men are “rational actors,” and have been since before 2003, which, ironically, is right about when U.S. troops started dotting the Iraqi desert.

Shortly after the intelligence report was published, Russia shipped Tehran long-awaited nuclear fuel for its Bushehr installation on December 17. The fuel is the last major element Iran needs to bring Bushehr online.

The U.S. administration has downplayed the Russian shipment, saying that the uranium is not enriched enough to be weapons-grade material; President George W. Bush said, “If the Iranians accept that uranium for a civilian nuclear power plant, then there’s no need for them to learn how to enrich.”

The Iranians, meanwhile, are continuing to enrich uranium.

Soon after the Russian fuel arrived, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Gholam eza Aghazadeh, announced that Iran would continue to enrich uranium at its Natanz plant, which is where Iran wants to increase an estimated 3,000 centrifuges to 50,000. Aghazadeh also announced on December 17 that a new nuclear installation will be built in Darkhovein.

The mere possibility or partial construction of further nuclear facilities gives Iran a long lever with which to pry open a steady stream of political concessions and compromises.

Beyond that, should an emboldened Iran actually desire to rattle more than just its proverbial saber, it should be noted that Bushehr could produce enough plutonium by-product for a small, crude nuclear weapon—every week. Moscow and Tehran have signed papers saying Iran will ship the spent fuel back to Russia, but Stratfor reports the only thing that could guarantee that the fuel isn’t siphoned off for weapons would be International Atomic Energy Agency inspections, which Tehran frequently blocks.

At any rate, Stratfor reports that with the Russian fuel, “the Iranians now have all the technologies and materials they need to grope their way forward alone” (December 17). Up to this point, Tehran has been dependent on Russian assistance to complete its nuclear facility—one reason why Moscow dragged its feet for so long in delivering it. Moscow is not particularly interested in one of its regional opponents wielding a nuclear weapon, but Washington and Tehran coming to the negotiating table over Iraq has prompted the Kremlin to destabilize the situation back to its own advantage.

In the post-nie world, as it snubs the West and softly twists Russia’s arm, Iran has options. Stratfor reported December 18:

With the nuclear card back in its hand, Iran can afford to push the nuclear envelope with the United States to bolster its position in the Iraq negotiations. It comes as no surprise, then, that the Iranians seem to be dragging their feet in the talks and were likely the main impetus behind postponement of a meeting with U.S. officials in Baghdad that was scheduled to take place December 18.

Israel, which respectfully regards the nie as an insult to its intelligence, has pointed to the uranium enrichment program as the substance of a weapons-development program.

At this juncture, President Bush could choose to contest the intelligence estimate, using Iran’s pushy nuclear initiatives, particularly its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, as grounds for declaring Tehran a non-reformed nuclear monger and taking a tougher stance. The pushier the Iranians become, the more desirable this option may appear.

However, even before the nie, the “hard line” position accomplished nothing demonstrable in containing Iranian ambitions. Even that bygone “hard line” is joining the likes of the “axis of evil,” the “axis of terror” and all manner of other lines in the sand that have washed away, because Washington has become convinced it needs Tehran in Iraq.

To this point, the Bush administration appears to have more or less accepted the nie at face value. Why? To legitimize negotiating with this formerly irrational actor over Iraq. U.S. officials are going into their fourth round of talks with the Iranians, hard to do if you still officially characterize their country as orbiting an insidious axis. It’s also dangerous to do when you know in the back of your mind that they still do.

And yet, even with Washington conceding point after point to Tehran, Iran is still sitting in the driver’s seat, and it doesn’t feel like it owes anyone anything. It can still destabilize Iraq; it can still enrich uranium, and now it almost has Bushehr ready to rock; it can make noises of righteous indignation over “false accusations” about its nuclear program; and it can gruffly postpone talks with the U.S. on Iraq, which already cost the State Department a good deal of political capital to schedule in the first place.

In short, post-nie Iran has little to fear from a handcuffed Washington and even less to fear from the United Nations, and everything to gain, either in expanding its nuclear program or wresting control of Iraq—or both. •

http://www.regnum.ru/english/polit/929158.html

Misinformation regarding ties between Armenia and Kurdistan Workers Party is possible prelude to aggression: Armen Ayvazyan

Recently, the Azeri mass media disseminated information claiming that “Armenia is settling Armenians and Kurds, emigrants from Syria and Iraq, in Nagorno Karabakh and now it also plans to host terrorists from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).” REGNUM asks Armen Ayvazyan, political scientist and Director of the “Ararat” Center for Strategic Research, to comment on this.

The new Turkish deliberations regarding ties between the PKK and Armenia that were voiced in recent weeks and the immediate joining-in of the official Baku should be considered in several aspects: first, in the context of Turkey’s consistently hostile policy towards independent Armenia; second, in the light of the acceleration in the pace of Azerbaijan’s preparation for a large-scale war of aggression against Artsakh and Armenia; and third, in the context of the continued passive information policy of Armenia.

The Turkish propaganda campaign alleging that Armenia supports and even provides bases for the PKK was first launched in 1993 and continued at varying degrees of intensity up to 2000, when the PKK temporarily extinguished the insurgency. The following headlines from the Turkish press convey an idea of the scale of the initial campaign: “Syria Flies PKK Militants to Armenia;” “PKK Will Attack with ASALA in the Spring;” “Intelligence Report Details Armenia-PKK ties;” “PKK Reportedly Moving to Iran, Armenia.” (1) Moreover, the Turkish Daily News article published on April 16, 1998, asserted without any proof that purportedly the PKK has 7 bases in Armenia, 11 in Iran, 4 in Russia and 1 in Cyprus. At the time Azerbaijan joined in this Turkish propaganda campaign when its defence minister declared that supposedly "200 Kurdish terrorists are being trained in the Lachin region, occupied by the Armenian aggressors, and another 457 Kurdish fighters are receiving full military training in Armenia, to be later deployed in the territory of Turkey. (2)

A number of high-ranking Turkish officials, including the Chief of Staff of the Turkish army, have made statements regarding ties between the PKK and Armenia. On October 11, 1998, Turkey’s Secretary of State Metin Gurderen openly threatened Armenia with war: “If Armenia supports separatists, then we have made our decision, the button has been pressed. A war might break out any moment.” (3)

Many suggest that the Turkish allegations regarding Armenia-PKK ties are intended only for “domestic consumption”, that they are put forth to explain the prolonged nature of the Kurdish

armed resistance and to satisfy the hostile sentiments of the Turkish public towards Armenia. However, the reality is even more dangerous. The true purpose of this continuous and well planned false propaganda, coordinated with Azerbaijan, regarding Armenia-PKK ties is to create new and additional causes for exerting constant pressure on Armenia, to demonise Armenia and NKR in the eyes of the international community and to prepare the information front for the planned military aggression by Azerbaijan, with a possible direct intervention of Turkey. Let’s not forget that using the pretext of pursuing PKK, Turkey has periodically been invading Northern Iraq. Within the period of 1991 and the beginning of 1999 Turkey carried out 55 incursions into Northern Iraq, which the international community although did not authorize, but neither did it condemn. Four of them were large-scale operations with the participation of over 20,000 Turkish soldiers. (4)

Recently, new information was published revealing that Turkey planned an incursion into Armenia in October 1993, using the very same Kurdish bases as a pretext. (5) Leonidas Khrisantopolos, the Greek Ambassador to Armenia in 1993-1994, stated that the then Turkish Prime Minister Tancu Chiller had come to an agreement with the speaker of the Russian parliament Ruslan Khasbulatov on launching a few “surgical” strikes against Armenia. This information was indirectly confirmed by RA Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan in his interview to “Azg” daily (October 4, 2001), as well as by the former head of the National Security of Armenia Eduard Simonyan. (6)

Before that Western sources had reported that twice in 1993, in April and September, Turkey deployed its tank, mechanized and other units on the border with Armenia, the Turkish armed forces were brought to high state of combat readiness and Prime Minister Tancu Chiller warned she would ask the parliament for authorization to start military action, if Armenia touched any part of Nakhijevan. (7) Consequently, it is no accident that reports about PKK bases allegedly located in Armenia started to appear in the Turkish press as of Fall 1993. It is even less of an accident that in the above-mentioned reports the Turks indicated a number of locations in Armenia for supposed PKK bases (including the surrounding areas of the Armenian Atomic Power Plant and the Lachin region). (8)

Well affected by the Turkish propaganda some Western information agencies and think tanks presented the non-existent ties between Armenia and the PKK as a widely known fact. (9) Thus, in 1999, after the declaration of cease-fire by the PKK, one of the most famous American institutions of geopolitical research, Stratfor, apparently at the bidding of the Turks, trumpeted twice (on August 23 and November 23, 1999) to the whole world that the PKK squads were supposedly retreating to Armenia, for rearming and retraining in bases prepared for them beforehand. (10)

The halting of the Kurdish guerrilla war since 2000 (formalized only in 2002 (11)), to some extent deprived Turkey of the possibility to play the Kurdish card against Armenia. That is why the Chief of Staff of the Turkish armed forces Hussein Kivrikoghlu made a new false statement in the beginning of 2002, which alleged that Armenia possesses weapons of mass destruction, and, consequently, the same measures of punishment should be applied against Armenia as those against Iraq. (12)

On June 1, 2004, the PKK, now operating under the name CONGRA-GEL, terminated its 5-year old unilateral truce, (13) thus confirming that the Kurdish insurgents in Turkey are a long-term strategic factor in the region.

The latest insinuations coincided almost to the date with the intensification of Baku’s war rhetoric and particularly with the statement made by the Azeri Defence Minister Safar Abiyev that “as long as the Azeri territories remain occupied by Armenia, the probability of war is almost 100 percent.” Mr Abiyev’s statement was made on November 27 at the closing press conference of the Meeting of the CIS Defence Ministers Council in Astana. On November 30, with a direct reference to the Turkish intelligence, the Turkish pro-government newspaper “Zaman” disseminated misinformation about talks between Armenia and the PKK and alleged about the installation of

bases for Kurds in NKR, in the towns of Shushi, Lachin and Fizuli. (14) This bait was immediately caught and circulated by the American United Press International. (15) On December 10, Araz Azimov, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani President’s Special Representative on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, stated about “readiness of Baku to launch anti-terrorist operations against the PKK’s military detachments stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh.” (16) It is exactly the coordination of activities between Baku and Ankara with respect to the timing and target of information attack that should be cause for concern. All these could be a prelude to not so virtual attacks.

The corresponding government bodies of Armenia should treat this newly unleashed campaign of Turkish-Azerbaijani propaganda in all seriousness. The brief refutations voiced by the Armenian MFA in this case are not at all effective. A well-supported clarification and condemnation of all the underpinnings of this old/new anti-Armenian row is necessary, including an exposition of all the dimensions, of its true purpose and possible consequences for the peace and stability in the region. Otherwise, it is impossible to expect the understanding and support of the international community for Armenia’s foreign policy positions, including for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/6298/1/303/

Outcomes of the ANC ConferenceBy Joe Sims

12-26-07, 10:00 am

The African National Congress national conference drew to a close today as votes were being counted for a new national executive committee and with a public address and press conference by its new president Jacob Zuma.

Winnie Mandela topped the list of votes in the polling for the new leadership body. Communist Party leader Blade Nzimande also received a high vote and was 11th. Communist leaders, Charles Nqkula and Ronnie Kasrils, both of who hold important post in the current government, however were not re-elected, but others were.

Zuma, in a conciliatory address stressed the need to build unity in the post conference period: "The conference is now behind us and we will continue to work together to unite and build a stronger ANC," he said.

The new ANC president stressed continuity in terms of economic and political policy:

"We have taken various resolutions at this conference, which will guide us on our way forward. ANC policies, including economic policies that have been adopted at this conference do not indicate a fundamental shift from the policies that the ANC has adopted since it has come into power. Let me reiterate that decisions with regards to policies in the ANC are taken by conference and not by an individual."

Prior to the conference Zuma visited India, Great Britain and the US to insure investors that the new leadership’s economic policy would not shift. The conference however did reaffirm its earlier policy conference decision to embark on a new industrial policy, public works, and more state investment. The Stratfor Corporation, an intelligence company among whose biggest client is the CIA, sponsored Zuma’s US visit.

In an important policy plank Zuma highlighted the importance the new leadership took to the issue of land reform:

"Comrades, the conference has taken an important resolution on agrarian revolution, calling for a 30% redistribution of land by 2014 and support for subsistence farming and food security while maintaining a productive agricultural sector."

Zuma returned to the unity theme a number of times in his speech, noting the role of President Mbeki, calling him "brother," "comrade," and "my leader". On the unity of the organization he stressed that the meet was not: "ANC Conference of victors and losers. As the newly elected NEC we will endeavor to work with all the comrades who did not make it to this NEC to ensure that the unity of the ANC is strengthened. We are all ANC members who just happened to prefer a different set of leadership collectives as it is our democratic right. It is our collective task to repair whatever damage or harm may have been caused as we were building up towards the conference. Let me emphasize that the leadership collective will serve the entire membership of the ANC, regardless of whether a person voted for Thabo Mbeki or Jacob Zuma or any other member or leader. We cannot have a Zuma camp or a Mbeki.camp, there is only one ANC. None among us is above the organization or bigger than the ANC."

The South African Communist Party in a press statement, pointed to the significance of the conference and the great responsibility it placed on the new leadership to address the grave problems faced by the poor:

"ANC delegates have sent a clear message, but the electoral outcome of this conference does not mean that the underlying challenges of our society have gone away - poverty, unemployment, deepening inequality. As an alliance leadership, we will be failing the hopes and aspirations of the thousands of ANC branch delegates if we do not use the new reality as a platform to address with an even greater sense of urgency and determination these realities that impact upon millions of South Africans".

The SACP also addressed the issue of unity, declaring:

"This is not a moment for triumphalism or factional revenge. Those inclinations will simply plunge us into another cycle of inward-focused maneuvering. Let us devote our energies to uniting around the tasks of transformation."

The statement went on to indicate the need for reflection on why delegates decided to elect a new leadership pointing to frustration building from below.

Indeed it seems that great economic and health challenges that ordinary South Africans face – massive unemployment, HIV/AIDS, lack of adequate housing, became a material force at this conference, crying out for solution.

With pressure mounting and given the maneuvers of forces hostile to South African revolution the ANC faces a daunting challenges. New efforts to prosecute President Zuma on corruption charges floated Thursday only underscore the problem. The world watches with hope and anxiety.

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1198704869&archive=&start_from=&ucat=3&cat=3

Northeast India in ISI's netNava Thakuria reporting from Guwahati

The land of armed movements sustained by the anti-New Delhi separatists' militias has woken up to a furthermost threat from religious fundamentalists fueled by Pakistan's Inter Services

Intelligence (ISI) to make Northeast India a volatile region in the continent. The Northeast is however not a stranger to the banned armed groups and their destructive activities, but the recent development where it is emerged that the Pakistani agency had engaged scores of its operatives in the region and also sponsored a number of indigenous armed groups has come out as a shocking revelation.

The people of the alienated region of India, which is surrounded by Bhutan, Tibet (now under the Chinese territory), Burma (Myanmar) and Bangladesh, traditionally pursue hatred against the Union Government alleging that New Delhi only shows interest to exploit the natural resources of the region but never owns up the relentless troubles facing by its nearly 50 million population. Even then, they could hardly support the presence of a Pakistani agency in their region, which continued fueling Islamic fundamentalism insistently beyond their borders.

But unfortunate to the people of Northeast, a most influential armed group of Assam has reportedly maintained close links with the ISI. The local media quoting different (government and non-government) sources claimed that the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) is in touch with Islamic militants too. Launched in 1979 with an aim to make Assam an independent country (out of India), the banned armed group is blamed for numerous killings, explosions and kidnappings with huge number of extortion cases.

But what is awful for the people of the region that not less than 20 native militia groups have come closer to the ISI. It was disclosed during the interrogation of an ISI operative, who was arrested by the Assam police in Guwahati on December 14. More shocking revelation for the entire nation is that the alliance skip has slowly slipped the insurgents groups into the clutches of Islamic militants.

The Assam police termed it a big success in the counter-terrorism operation in the Northeast. The arrested ISI operative is identified as SM Alam alias Mujibullah Alam alias Asfi Alam. Hailing from Ajampur village under Uttara police station in Dhaka of Bangladesh, Mr Alam, 35, has been recognized as an important functionary of ISI in charge of Assam and the Northeast.

The police informed that Mr Alam was a member of Jamat-e-Islami and Chatra Shibir (of Bangladesh) and joined the Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-Mujahideen in 1993. The hardcore Bangladeshi national underwent training in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) also. Later he joined Jamat-ul-Mujahideen in 2005 and afterward he was recruited by the ISI. Soon he shifted his base to the restive Northeast in 2006. What was dreadful in confession of Mr Alam that 24 militant outfits of the region had maintained communication with the ISI networks.

The ISI of Pakistan is viewed as a notorious agency in Indian perspective as it continues spreading terror in many parts of India. However, it is recognized as the largest and most powerful intelligence service in Pakistan. Created as an independent unit in 1948, the ISI officially handles external intelligence gathering for the Pakistan government. Headquartered at Islamabad, the ISI is known as a disciplined army unit with around 10,000 staffs. It however faces allegations of meddling in the internal affairs of its neighboring countries.

The Indian police have time to time claimed that ISI was involved in many explosions inside the country. The Mumbai police asserted that it had enough proofs of involvement of ISI in a July 2006 blast in a local commuter train. The ISI is also blamed for masterminding explosions in many other cities of the country including Hyderabad, Lucknow, Sri Nagar, Malegaon, Varanasi, Guwahati, Imphal etc.

This writer tried to contact the responsible officers of the Inter Services Public Relations, Pakistan Armed Forces, of which ISI is an unit, for their reactions regarding the arrest of Mr Alam in Assam. While responding to the phone calls, an additional director (in charge of foreign media) of Inter Services Public Relations had only said that the arrest of the ISI operative was not in his knowledge. He assured of his inputs later, though it has not reached till date. Moreover, a query

submitted in the website of ISPR also could not resulted in any response. What signifies that, the officials of ISPR, while responding to phone calls from thus writer, did not summarily rejected the news item that one of their operatives was arrested in India.

Dr. M Amarjeet Singh, a research scholar at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi wrote in one his articles, "Apart from aiding and abetting terrorism in Kashmir, ISI has also been fully engaged in building terror infrastructures in the rest of India, including in the Northeast, which has long been infested with multiple insurgencies. This attempt to fish in the troubled waters of the Northeast poses a formidable challenge to India's integrity and security."

The Indian security agencies have already gathered evidences to establish that the ISI had been sponsoring violence in many parts of the country. The ISI takes responsibility to supply sophisticated arms and also guerrilla training to several militant groups based in the Northeast.

Brig (Retired) Dr S P Sinha, who served the Northeast for many decades, claimed that the ISI had now formed a new base in Bangladesh to carry on anti-India operations. In his recent book titled 'Lost Opportunities: 50 years of Insurgency in the Northeast and India's Response', Dr Sinha, who had the credit of leading Gorkha Rifles, also narrated that Pakistan had shifted nearly 200 terrorist training camps from the Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) to Bangladesh.

His comment is supplemented by a senior Bangladeshi journalist. Speaking to this writer from Dhaka, the journalist disclosed, "The Pakistani intelligence agency (ISI) has been actively operating in Bangladesh under a number of cover-ups. In the recent months, large number of ex-Army officials from Pakistan has come to Bangladesh to work for different business groups. Most of the top figures in these companies are either former military personnel or well connected to the Pakistan Army."

The journalist, who wanted anonymity also added, "Personally I believe, those Pakistani Army officials should not be retired personnel. They might be important officials of the ISI. What my information says, a huge amount of profit of those companies goes to the hidden activities of the agency. I suspect, the ISI has a significant amount of shares in those companies (including one mobile phone service provider) working in Bangladesh."

He had more to add, "Few companies those were owned by foreign nationals have emerged as a major base for the ISI in Bangladesh." Naming one Mr Chowdhury, a pro-Pakistani politician in Bangladesh, the journalist alleged that the controversial person had business tie ups with those companies. "He (Mr Chowdhury) has also links with many Northeastern militants including ULFA and is suspected to be involved in an armed gang at the hill track areas of Chittagong," the journalist declared.

The links of Northeastern militants with the ISI found space for discussion in the Parliament too. "Available inputs indicate that some Indian insurgent groups active in the north-eastern region have been using the territory of Bangladesh, and have links with Pakistan's ISI," Shriprakash Jaiswal, the minister of state for Home informed Rajya Sabha (the upper house) on December 5. The minister, while admitting reports of alliances among the outfits for tactical purposes of shelter, hideouts, procurement of arms, also added that New Delhi had taken up the issue with Islamabad.

Weeks back, a reputed US intelligence thinktank reported about the ULFA's increasing financial enterprises with the Islamic militant groups. Stratfor, in one of its analytical reports stated that ULFA leaders preferred to maintain their financial network with Pakistan's intelligence agency and 'its financial enterprise and strong links with Islamist militant groups have made it a threat that New Delhi will not be able to ignore much longer'.

The report also added that 'though India has largely turned a blind eye to militant groups operating in its far-flung Northeast', the growing Islamisation of the region provides 'more than

enough reason for New Delhi to start paying closer attention to its Northeastern border'. Stratfor has been closely monitoring the growing nexus between India's North Eastern insurgent outfits and militant Islamist groups that regularly traverse India's extremely porous border with Bangladesh.

The Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi maintained his views that ULFA was under the grip of ISI and that is why they cannot come for talks. Attending a meeting on internal security affairs, which was chaired by the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on December 20 in New Delhi, Mr Gogoi expressed his serious concern that the ISI had been trying its best to make the Northeast a hub of terrorism. Mr Gogoi argued that, a grave threat presently the Northeast facing, is with the abundant aid and sustenance poured for various anti-national armed groups from outside the country.

He urged New Delhi to take up the issue of terrorist camps in the neighbouring countries (read Bangladesh and Burma) and expedite the fencing of the international borders, which is now porous. Earlier talking to a New Delhi based Television news-channel, Mr Gogoi revealed that the ULFA leaders cannot defy the diktat of ISI as most of their senior leaders are taking shelter in Bangladesh with the mercy of ISI. He strongly believes that ULFA is the prime communicator from Northeast to the international terrorist outfits.

Critical concern on ISI's active involvement in Northeast has already been expressed in the mainstream media. The Assam Tribune, the oldest English daily of the region editorialized, "It is a fact that presence of foreign nationals gave a chance to the ISI agents and other fundamentalist forces having roots in Bangladesh to establish their bases not only in Assam but also in other states of the Northeast, which has posed a grave security threat to the nation." Quoting the revelation of the ISI operative, the editorial also argued that it 'highlights the gravity of the situation as the Pakistani agency can always engage the militant outfits having links with it to create disturbance in this part of the country without sending its own men to do such dirty work'.

"All the security agencies involved in the counter-insurgency operations must launch a coordinated effort to prevent the ISI and other fundamentalist forces inimical to India from establishing roots in the East, while at the same time coordination and intelligence sharing between the police forces of the Northeast states must be improved to deal with the security threat. On its part, the Government of India must take all possible steps to complete the border roads and fencing along the Indo-Bangla border and the strength of the Border Security Force should be increased along the international border," it added.

JP Rajkhowa, a bureaucrat turned media columnist, while quoting intelligence reports, stated that over 20 jehadi groups including Muslim Tiger Force of Assam, Muslim United Liberation Force of Assam, Muslim United Liberation Army, United Muslim Front of Assam, United Islamic Reformation Movement of India, Muslim Security Force, United Liberation Militia of Assam, Muslim Security Council of Assam, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami, People's United Liberation Front, Revolutionary Muslim Commandoes, Jamat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, Students' Islamic Movement of India, Laskar-e-Taiba etc are active in the region. "All these groups want to carve out an Islamic state of Assam," he commented.

"We have had occasion in the past to hammer the fact that both the ISI and the fundamentalist and terrorist organizations based in Bangladesh have taken a solemn vow to create a greater Islamic state in the subcontinent by including in it Assam and other suitable areas of the Northeast," said in an editorial of The Sentinel, another important English daily of Northeast. "So why does not the State government (of Assam) wake up to the reality, admit to having provided an opportunity to the ISI-jehadis combine to freely operate in the State" raised a question in the editorial. It concluded with critical views against Mr Tarun Gogoi and his Congress party led cabinet as the government intelligence agencies were outsmarted by the ISI, and asserting, "An arrest or two will just not do. The government must be able to break the whole ISI network in the State."

Posted on 26 Dec 2007 by Root

12.27.2007, Thursday

http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEH20071226123634&Headline='Pak+could+be+flash+point+of+Al-Qaeda+terror+in+2008'&Title=Top+Stories&Topic=0

'Pak could be flash point of Al-Qaeda terror in 2008'Thursday December 27 2007 00:00 IST

S Rajagopalan

WASHINGTON: Pakistan could prove to be a significant flash point on Al-Qaeda's terror landscape during 2008 in what is otherwise reckoned to be a "year of struggle" for the dreaded outfit to remain "ideologically relevant".

Making this projection in a new report, Strategic Forecasting Inc (Stratfor), the US think tank that deals with global intelligence, says Pakistan could become the new centre of gravity for the jihadist movement because of the mounting pressure it now faces in Iraq.

"As the global headquarters for the Al-Qaeda leadership, Pakistan has long been a significant stronghold on the ideological battlefield. If the trend toward radicalisation continues there, the country also could become the new centre of gravity for the jihadist movement on the physical battlefield."

The report says, stressing: "Pakistan should be carefully watched because it could prove to be a significant flash point in the coming year." The country, with its north-western tracts witnessing a "rapid spread of Talibanisation", will become "especially important if the trend in Iraq continues to go against the jihadists and they are driven from Iraq".

Startfor believes that the spread of the jihadist ideology and insurgency beyond the border areas was perhaps best demonstrated by the episode in which the Pakistani Army took on militants holed up in Islambad's Red Mosque last July. Since that face-off, Pakistan has been wracked by a wave of suicide bombings.

"As we look ahead to 2008, the core Al-Qaeda leadership clearly is struggling to remain relevant in the ideological realm, a daunting task for an organization that has been rendered geopolitically and http://mail.google.com/mail/Story.neo?storyId=292874 strategically impotent on the physical battlefield," Stratfor notes at the outset of its annual projection on the terror front.

It reckons that events in Iraq will have a significant impact on the global jihadist movement in the coming year. "Since the death of al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda in Iraq's operational ability steadily has declined.

Furthermore, the organisation appears to be losing its support among the Iraqi Sunnis and apparently has had problems getting foreign fighters into the country as of late."

This development, Stratfor notes, could mark an exodus of jihadists from Iraq, a country, which has been a magnet for adherents since 2003. "These jihadists, who have been winnowed and hardened by their combat against the US military, might find the pastures greener in the countries they enter after leaving Iraq.

Like the Mujahideen who left Afghanistan following the Soviet withdrawal, they could go on to pose a real threat elsewhere." Although no jihadist attack occurred on American soil in 2007, despite the "relative ease of getting an operative" into the country, the report notes that the US and Europe alike remain vulnerable to tactical-level strikes.

It is another matter that the jihadists "may not have the capability to launch a strategically significant attack, even if they were to employ chemical, biological or radiological weapons".

Reviewing the taped messages of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second-in-command of Al-Qaeda, including the video message put out on December 16, Straftor claims these bear signs that the ideological war is not going so well for the jihadists. "But they also point to potential hazards around the bend in places such as Pakistan and Lebanon," it adds.

http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=4609.2876.0.0

Russia Launches Three More Satellites for Its Own GPSDecember 27, 2007 | From theTrumpet.com Russia successfully put into orbit the last three satellites needed for navigation coverage of its entire territory on Wednesday. Russia’s military-run glonass is a satellite navigation system to rival the U.S.’s global positioning system.

The latest round of satellite launchings follows the launching of three in October and brings to 18 the number of satellites now in orbit. glonass—the Global Navigation Satellite System—is expected to have global coverage by the end of 2009, with 24 satellites operational.

Though glonass has been around since the mid-1970s, the project fell into disrepair after the 1991 Soviet collapse. Recently, however, as part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s drive to return Russia to world power status, money has been thrown at the project to make it fully operational. In 2005, Putin instructed the Russian Federal Space Agency and the Defense Ministry to accelerate work on the project so it would become fully operational across Russia by the end of this year, and operational globally by 2010, a year earlier than anticipated. With the latest launching, it appears the project is on target.

Today’s militaries are highly reliant on navigational system technologies. To this point, the U.S.’s gps has largely had a monopoly on the technology. Obviously, this means, as Stratfor has pointed out, “Anyone who picks a military fight with the United States risks losing access to satellite positioning. This makes it impossible for other countries’ militaries to develop and use gps-based satellite guidance technology without playing nice with Washington” (March 16).

That is changing, however. Europe, China and Russia are all working overtime to develop their own systems. As they do, the United States will lose the technological advantage it has had, and other nations will become better positioned for future warfare. •

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-eteraz/behind-bhuttos-assassina_b_78434.html

Behind Bhutto's AssassinationPosted December 27, 2007 | 12:07 PM (EST)

Benazir Bhutto, a two time former Prime Minister of Pakistan, and one of the leading voices of democratization, was assassinated in a suicide bombing in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital, Islamabad. She was departing a political rally with her closest political advisors, in

preparation of the January elections. Approximately thirty other people were killed. Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the killing.

Details about the attack are slowly coming via Pakistani media. The bomber is described as a lone-individual who, before exploding himself, opened fire on Benazir's van. Pakistani officials have confirmed (to the BBC) that she was killed by a gun-shot to the neck. In fact, Pakistan's GEO-TV is currently panning to a picture of a handgun sitting (found quite miraculously) amidst the debris, presumably the one that killed Ms. Bhutto. However, some journalists are uncertain whether it was a gun shot, or pellets from the bomb, that killed her.

The jeep that Bhutto was traveling in, was armored and bullet-proof. However, tragically, at the moment of the attack, she had been standing with her head out of the sunroof, waving to supporters.

This was the second suicide bombing directly targeting Benazir since her return to Pakistan in October. The first, that targeted her at a rally in Karachi, killed more than 150 people. Prior to the first bombing, Pakistan's Daily Times wrote an editorial discussing Bhutto's fingering of people who had threatened her. This included Pakistan's highest Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud. The Daily Times editorial suggested there may be a connection between Mehsud and individuals in Pakistani military. In the aftermath of Bhutto's killing it would behoove international observers to see what kind of arrests and investigation, if any, President Musharraf engages in.

Bhutto was the leading democratic figure in Pakistan and head of Pakistan's People's Party. Her death, according to private intelligence agency, Stratfor, deals a crushing blow to the PPP's chances in the forthcoming elections. Her primary democratic opponent, Nawaz Sharif, himself a former Prime Minister (removed by Musharraf in 1999), had recently become on good terms with Bhutto. Together the two of them had signed a charter for democracy. The Washington Post has reported that a rally for Nawaz Sharif was targeted by a sniper, killing four. A quite frazzled looking Sharif called today the "saddest day in Pakistan's history." If the PPP suffers from disarray, the next two largest parties are the two different branches of Pakistan's Muslim League (Q & N). Q is affiliated with Musharraf, and N is affiliated with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Unrest has already begun across the country. I am told that a train has been put to fire and explosions have been heard around Karachi -- hundreds of cars are already on fire. Riots are spreading to the populous Punjab province. The Army Rangers have been deployed in various areas.

Irrespective of one's views on Bhutto -- mine were mostly negative -- she was the primary secular-minded democratic leader of Pakistan. She had made statements about hunting Bin Laden, eradicating the pernicious madrassa system, as well as apologizing for allowing the Taliban to acquire power during her watch in the mid 90's. Her killing is a huge blow to the anti-extremist movement in Pakistan. Frankly, as it stands now, there are no other anti-extremist democratic leaders in Pakistan.

If this assassination is indeed the doing of elements connected to Taliban or Al-Qaeda, it would be the most prominent political assassination by the group. Bhutto was the first woman to be elected leader of a Muslim country.

President Musharraf is now on TV and says that this attack is caused by "those terrorists with whom we're at war." He is asking for Pakistan to "uproot terrorism and toss it aside." He calls terrorism the biggest obstacle to our progress." Further, he is appealing to Pakistanis to remain calm.

http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=4610.2877.0.0

Pakistan: Primary Opposition Leader MurderedDecember 27, 2007 | From theTrumpet.comPakistan stands on the brink of civil war. Police stations burn; several cities report arson.

Benazir Bhutto was killed in a suicide bombing this morning. The bomber shot at the Pakistani opposition leader and former prime minister several times before blowing himself up as she was leaving a rally of her Pakistan People’s Party. Bhutto was a key figure in Pakistani politics. This murder is probably the start of a new era of violence in Pakistan.

Only hours after Bhutto’s death, signs of this violence are evident. In Rawalpindi, where the attacks took place, rioters have taken to the streets, stoning, smashing and burning buildings. Police stations and vehicles have been set ablaze. Reports of arson have come in from across the country. Karachi, one of the world’s most populous cities, has completely shut down. Even journalists are staying off the streets, which are now filled with rioters. At least three banks, a government office and a post office are blazing there. Shops are closing down across the country in fear of violence. Reports say that in response, the army has been deployed on the streets of Rawalpindi, Karachi and Islamabad, though a cnn reporter notes that despite the sound of distant gunfire, no law enforcement is to be found. The situation on the ground is changing fast; the whole country has been put on red alert.

“The impact will be that Pakistan is in more turmoil—it will be the start of civil war in Pakistan,” said Riaz Malik, of the Pakistan Movement for Justice party. The Russian foreign minister echoed his concerns.

Pakistan—nuclear-armed Pakistan—may plunge into chaos. This could precipitate be one of the biggest disasters so far this century.

Rawalpindi, a garrison city, is viewed as one of the most secure cities in Pakistan. Likely linked with the Taliban and/or al Qaeda, the attacks, according to Stratfor, would not have been possible unless the jihadists had help from government and intelligence services. There exists, says Stratfor “murky links between Islamist militants and elements within the Pakistani security/intelligence establishment.”

Bhutto’s supporters blame the establishment, many argue Pakistan’s president Pervez Musharraf is responsible through negligence, though the more extreme believe he may have been behind the attacks himself. Upon hearing of her death, chants broke out of “Dog, Musharraf, dog.” A more chilling and more plausible possibility is that radical Islam has already infiltrated Pakistan’s security service.

With only 12 days until the election, the main opposition leader is dead. Her supporters blame the government, and some are baying for blood. Meanwhile radical Islam continues grow and spread. Even before this attack the government had lost control of great swathes of the country. Now they could lose control completely.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote, “Pakistan also has the nuclear bomb and could be taken over by radical Islam, with plenty of help from Iran. That means it could become a proxy of the Iranian mullahs. This would be the worst possible disaster!”

Today, Pakistan took a leap toward this worst possible disaster. •

AP article:

Associated PressBhutto Death Raises Business Uncertainty

By ADAM SCHRECK 12.27.07, 2:14 PM ET

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The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is likely to further complicate business relations between the U.S. and Pakistan, which is already a major manufacturer of clothing and has been pushing for deeper private-sector ties.

U.S. corporations have poured billions of dollars into the country in recent years, both as direct investment and to pay for a rising tide of imported products. Experts say some of that investment could be at risk.

"The real question right now is whether the supply chain will remain intact. Right now, we don't know," said George Friedman, chief executive of global intelligence firm Stratfor. "The key variable is the cohesiveness of the Pakistani Army."

U.S. trade with Pakistan has risen sharply in recent years as manufacturers shifted more and more jobs to low-cost countries. Last year, the U.S. imported $3.67 billion worth of Pakistani goods, up from $2.25 billion five years earlier, according to the Census Bureau. Cotton goods such as clothes, thread and fabric made up the biggest share of imports.

U.S. direct investment in Pakistan has also grown sharply. In the five years between 2001 and 2006, investment more than doubled. The new dollars really began to pour in starting in 2003, and by 2006 had reached $1.23 billion per year, according to the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.

That investment might also dry up if the political and security situation deteriorates further.

"Foreign direct investment would be hurt by a period of prolonged political violence," said John B. Chambers, managing director and chairman of Standard and Poor's sovereign rating committee. "If you've got an uncertain political environment, that's going to depress stock prices."

S&P cited Pakistan's volatile political and security situation when it lowered its rating outlook on the country to "negative" after President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency last month. Chambers said Thursday's attack raises further concerns about the nation's financial stability.

"If this assassination ushers in a period of heightened political uncertainty and violence, the rating will be lowered," he said. "Obviously, since we put the negative outlook on Pakistan, the political situation has deteriorated."

The attack seemed to rattle U.S. markets Thursday. Crude oil futures rose to their highest point in more than a month. Traders also drove up the price of gold, a commodity seen as a haven in times of political uncertainty.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell by more than 100 points in midday trading. And while no Pakistani shares trade on major U.S. exchanges, those of large Indian companies that do fell sharply.

Dan Markey, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the Pakistani stock exchange in Karachi will likely feel the first effects of any financial fallout from the attack.

"I think you're going to see the market tumble," he said. But, he added, most foreign investors understand that putting money into Pakistani stocks entails political risk.

"The money may come back," he added.

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

AP reprints:http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/12/27/ap4477498.htmlhttp://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5406863.htmlhttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22410283/http://www.forextv.com/Forex/News/ShowStory.jsp?seq=252461http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/27/business/NA-FIN-US-Pakistan-Business.phphttp://www.hemscott.com/news/latest-news/item.do?newsId=57266946593356http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/AFX-0013-21918689.htmhttp://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004094677_webpakistanbiz27.htmlhttp://www.abcmoney.co.uk/news/272007189439.htmhttp://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20071227-1114-pakistan-business.htmlhttp://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8TPVKG00.htmhttp://newsok.com/article/3185983/1198811406http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/dec/28/uncertainty_over_pakistan26064/http://www.savannahnow.com/node/421953http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=102793http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071228/BUSINESS/426134665/1006http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_7825723http://www.elpasotimes.com/business/ci_7824016http://www.insidebayarea.com/business/ci_7828011http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2007/12/28/pakistan_biz.ART_ART_12-28-07_C10_918T6M3.html?sid=101http://www.star-telegram.com/business/story/380571.htmlhttp://www.contracostatimes.com/business/ci_7828237?nclick_check=1http://thepost.com.pk/IntNews.aspx?dtlid=136155&catid=1

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27.12.2007Eurasian Security Services Daily ReviewAIAREVIEW TOPICS:Bulgarian National Security Agency has got its chairmanOrder of Security Service of Ukraine activity till now mismatches country’s ConstitutionRussian Supreme Court reduced prison sentence to officer accused of divulging state secrets

New books devoted to anniversary of Russian secret service published in MoscowPutin can order murder of his Moldovan counterpart - newspaperArmenia’ security agencies deny harassing former President’s supportersMurat Sutalynov is appointed head of Kyrgyz State Committee of National Security

Bulgarian National Security Agency has got its chairmanThe Council of Ministers of Bulgaria decided by voting in today’s session that Petko Sertov would be the Chairman of State Agency for National Security, Focus News Agency reports. Sertov is to propose Ivan Drashkov, director of National Service Security, and Nikolai Nikolov, Petko sertov Sofia New Agency Petko Sertov chief of Military Police and Military counter-intelligence for his deputies’ positions, the agency notes. Sertov had worked in the international department of the Supreme Party Council of Bulgarian Socialist Party in the period 1997 – 2001 together with Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev and President Georgi Parvanov.Petko Sertov until recently was secretary of Security Council of Bulgarian government. The Agency is not a political agency, it has no political function, it’s state agency and that’s why it should count on professionalism, online paper News.bg cites Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev. According to the Premier, after the National Security Services removing from Internal Ministry’s structure it should start to search for strengthen analytic functions of National Services ‘Fight with Organized Criminality’ on account off the police one. The decree of President of Republic Georgi Parvanov on the appointment of Petko Sertov will be published tomorrow in the official state newspaper.Election of Petko Sertov as President of State Agency for National Security was not a surprise, according to Democrats for Strong Bulgaria member and member of the parliamentary commission for internal security and public order Atanas Atanasov. The choice of the current secretary of the Security Council of the Council of Ministers for a head of the new national agency seemed predetermined, as Sofia mayor Boyko Borissov has already greeted Sertov for his new position, Sofia News Agency adds. "The appointment of Sertov was coordinated with our foreign partners," Bulgaria's Prime Minister Stanishev is quoted by the agency as saying; he added that establishing the new agency was a necessary step in the fight with high-level corruption. According to the Prime Minister the structure “shouldn’t and couldn’t be with political functions” because it is a state agency. In my opinion the candidature of Sertov for chairperson of the agency deserves support of the Council of Ministry, as well as candidatures of his deputies, because they all fulfill the professional criterion, Prime Minister is cited by Focus News Agency.The governors had claimed that they would try to create an independent institution which was obviously not the case taking into account the past of the newly elected president of the agency, Atanasov commented to Focus News Agency. He added that in the next six months State Agency for National Security would not be functioning effectively because the creation of the autonomous branches for operative – technical control was still to be executed. According to him this agency was but a political instrument to mislead public opinion on the one hand and to imitate fighting against corruption on the other. Parliament gave its final approval for the agency on December 11 and said it will combine duties currently held by the interior ministry's National Security Service, the Financial Intelligence Agency, and the military counterintelligence office. A special parliamentary committee will supervise the new structure, which will become effective January 1st 2008. Concerns remain that the government is trying to set up an agency similar to the former security services, for which Sertov worked before the collapse of communism.Interior Minister Rumen Petkov announced that he is to meet Sertov on January 2 to discuss coordination between the security agency and the police, Sofia News Agency says.

Order of Security Service of Ukraine activity till now mismatches country’s ConstitutionThe parliamentary committee of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine on security and defence supports Valentin Nalyvaychenko's nomination for the position of the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), news agency Regnum reports from Kiev, referring to the head of the committee,

ex-minister of defense of Ukraine, Anatoly Gritsenko. The corresponding decision was accepted today, on December 27, at the session of the committee.At the same time Gritsenko marked that members of the parliamentary committee had expressed concern that till today the legislation which defines activity of the SBU, was not brought into accord with the Constitution of Ukraine, news agency UNIAN reports. Ex-minister of defense added that preparation of the new law on the SBU would be one of priority tasks of the committee at following plenary session.On December 19, President Viktor Yushchenko proposed to the Supreme Rada to nominate Valentin Nalyvaychenko as the next head of the SBU. Currently he is the acting SBU chief.

Russian Supreme Court reduced prison sentence to officer accused of divulging state secretsPrison sentence to Russian reserve Lieutenant Colonel of Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Igor Arsentyev, 52, accused of divulging state secrets, was reduced from nine to seven today at the session of the Military board of the Supreme Court of Russia due to his mental illness, schizotypical frustration of identity, radio Ekho Moskvy reports.AIA reported in September that Arsentyev was found guilty and sentenced by the Moscow district military court for transferring in 2002-2004 information to a foreign state, concerning Russia’s latest developments in electronic warfare. Arsentyev had worked in a “closed” research institute, he was a former deputy chief of a department of the Central Research Test Institute of the Ministry of Defence.According to the version of the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office, investigated has revealed that since 2002 for two years Arsentyev during his foreign business trip contacted foreign intelligence with the offer of his services. He was arrested in the summer of 2006. Arsentyev denied all charges during the investigation, and also in the court. It is curious, that neither during the court proceedings, nor at the announcement of the verdict, the country to which the reserve officer allegedly transferred the confidential material was not referred to.

Putin can order murder of his Moldovan counterpart - newspaperThe President of Russia Vladimir Putin can order murder of the Moldavan counterpart Vladimir Voronin in case he would refuse to carry out orders from Moscow, Chisinau-based newspaper Jurnal de Chisinau writes. According to the Moldovan paper, "having given orders on murder of Chechen leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiev or the former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, Putin, as a matter of fact, has opened a box of Pandora".The paper underlines that "murders, committed by the Russian secret services abroad have been showing that at present the Kremlin doesn’t have neither any legal restrictions, nor moral interdictions. Everybody might be threatened. Not only journalist Anna Politkovskaya who was killed many months ago, but also, for example, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus is not safe." To confirm these words, the paper refers to opinion of the American-Israeli strategic forecasts institute Stratfor that "the head of the Belarus state is the same vulnerable now, as any other opponent of the Kremlin"."In case if he will not have enough words to convince his Minsk counterpart to attach his country to Russia, Vladimir Putin, according to the Stratfor research, would try to persuade Alexander Lukashenko by a bullet in his temple", Jurnal de Chisinau marks."If even Lukashenko is in danger, why one should build illusions regarding safety of President Voronin? ", the newspaper rhetorically asks. "The latter is not less subject to blackmail than the first. The Kishinev leader till 1992 was a Soviet, then Russian general of militia, then he received pension in Moscow that deprives legitimacy of his election to the post of the President of Republic Moldova. Further, since 2001 to this day, Voronin has broken human rights, pursued and flung into prisons so much people that he would not avoid in any way the trial after expiration of the mandate", writes Jurnal de Chisinau.The paper is convinced that "the communist leader will not find refuge in any lawful state but only in Russia. (..) He either sings under Moscow’s pipe, or falls under action of the recently adopted law, allowing Russian agents to punish enemies of the Kremlin abroad by "specific means and methods"".

New books devoted to anniversary of Russian secret service published in MoscowRussian Civil Congress online site reports that the Publishing House Algoritm has published a new series of books under common title The Shield and The Sword, devoted to the 90th anniversary of the Russian secret service.The series include books of experts in the field of intelligence and history of secret services. First two books of the project have already gone for sale, they are Military Secrets of Lubyanka by Alexander Vitkovsky and The Secret Agentura by Edward Makarevich.The books about intelligence and spies are becoming more and more popular in Russia, Russian Civil Congress online site notes.

Armenia’ security agencies deny harassing former Ter-Petrosians suporters RL Ter-Petrosian's supporters President’s supportersArmenia’s two main security agencies have denied rounding up opposition activists across the country and warning them against campaigning for former President Levon Ter-Petrosian’s victory in next February’s presidential election, Radio Liberty reports.In a weekend speech and a written statement issued the day before yesterday, Ter-Petrosian claimed that the Armenian police and the National Security Service have been busy in the past three months subjecting his supporters to “psychological pressure, intimidation and threats.” He said thousands of his them have been summoned to regional offices of the two law-enforcement bodies for that purpose, according to Radio Liberty.The National Security Service reacted swiftly, saying that it remains an “apolitical structure” and is not involved in any repression against government opponents. “The National Security Service once again states that it is operating within the bounds of its authority defined by Armenian law and that all attempts to draw security bodies into the internal political struggle are fruitless,” the statement says.The National Security Service director, Gorik Hakobian, accused unnamed opposition forces of planning to provoke “civil clashes” during the February 19 elections and said his agency will thwart such attempts. Hakobian issued the warning as he marked his and his employees’ official professional holiday dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the creation of the VChK, Bolshevik Russia’s infamous secret police later renamed into KGB.

Murat Sutalynov is appointed head of Kyrgyz State Committee of National SecurityThe President of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiev has appointed new ministers of the security forces, the so-called power block, and the head of the foreign policy department of the country, news agency AKIpress reports from Bishkek. The President of Kyrgyzstan has signed a decree on appointment of Murat Abdybekovich Sutalynov the Chairman of the State Committee of National Security (GKNB), according to respective articles of Constitutions of the Kyrgyz Republic. Therefore Sutalynov has been released from execution of the earlier assigned duties.President Bakiev has also signed decrees on appointment of Ismail Isakov the Minister of Defence of Kyrgyzstan, Bolotbek Nogoybayev the Minister of Interior, and Ednan Karabayev the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan, news agency Interfax reports, referring to the press service of the Kyrgyz President.

http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/8900

Pakistan’s Instability poses serious questions about $10 billion ‘Democracy Investment’ by U.S.Fri, 2007-12-28 06:29

Daya Gamage – US National Correspondent Asian Tribune

Washington, D.C. 28 December (Asiantribune.com): With the assassination of Pakistan’s opposition leader and Harvard educated Benazir Bhutto on Thursday in Rawalpindi after an election rally the once hotly debated issue among American lawmakers and analysts has now re-emerged: What happened to the US$10 billion investment by the United States, since 9/11,to root out terrorism to bring a viable democracy in Pakistan to prevent the vast nuclear arsenal that nation has falling into the wrong hands?"Benazir Bhutto "Benazir Bhutto was one of the most prominent Muslim women in the world. Her murder is a wake-up call to Muslims and all people of conscience," - George Bush"Benazir Bhutto "Benazir Bhutto was one of the most prominent Muslim women in the world. Her murder is a wake-up call to Muslims and all people of conscience," - George Bush

Since the breaking news of her demise almost all American media networks have been posing this question: Did the Bush administration’s ‘export of democracy’ project failed in Pakistan? Has the Musharaff government fully used the US$10 billion provided by the U.S. for Pakistan’s stability? If so why are the cells of al Qaeda and Taliban more effective in Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas creating more instability in the region?

The New York Times last week seriously posed that question.

In a recent analysis it was raised that the problem would be how to ensure safety of the vast nuclear arsenal that is in possession of Pakistan. There was also a talk that Pakistan was warned that if required with the help of India the nuclear facilities and the stock could be destroyed by America. The journal Stratfor the most respected in intelligence circles reported recently that the "United States delivered a very clear ultimatum to Musharraf in the wake of 9/11: Unless Pakistan allowed US forces to take control of Pakistani nuclear facilities, the United States would be left with no choice but to destroy those facilities, possibly with India's help .”

"As the government of Pakistan totters, we must face a fact: the United States simply could not stand by as a nuclear-armed Pakistan descended into the abyss," proposed Frederick Kagan and Michael O'Hanlon, analysts at two Washington DC think-tanks. "One possible plan would be a Special Forces operation with the limited goal of preventing Pakistan's nuclear materials and warheads from getting into the wrong hands."

Now, with the assassination of the possible parliamentary leader, totally backed by the United States who could have brought Pakistan on to the road of democracy and effective routing out of terrorism, the question of the safety of the nuclear arsenal, effectiveness of Bush administration’s $10 billion assistance to Pakistan and whether the entire US component of the aid was used to marginalize or rout out Islamist extremist terrorism from the South Asian region have emerged in the United States for serious oversight.

One analysis put it this way:

“Let’s put a few things in perspective before we mourn the passing of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated by a gunman prior to a suicide bombing today that took upwards of 20 lives at a campaign rally in Rawalpindi. An earlier attempt on her life killed 140 people in October shortly after she returned from exile.

It speaks volumes that:

* Bhutto, who herself was duplicitous and corrupt as the leader of this troubled nation, nevertheless was seen as a vast improvement over President Pervez Musharaff.

* The Bush administration not only has thrown in its lot with Musharaff as its key regional ally, but has repeatedly helped prop up his repressive regime, pouring billions of dollars into a rat hole that has become a safe haven for the very terrorists both nations profess to want to eradicate, while claiming that great strides are being made in heartland of the Global War on Terror.

* Other than obligatory tut-tutting, the assassination will have no impact on the U.S. presidential race. Foreign policy generally and the U.S.’s deeply troubled relationship with Pakistan specifically are pretty much non starters in this topsy-turvy campaign season.

The immediate upshot of Bhutto’s assassination will be that it gives Musharaff a convenient excuse to postpone parliamentary elections scheduled for next month.

Her death comes just days after Musharraf lifted a state of emergency that he had used to suspend the Constitution and arrest thousands of political opponents on the largely spurious claim that they were terrorist threats.A supporter of Pakistan's former prime minister Benazir Bhutto cries out aloud as he mourns the killing of Bhutto, as a car burns after being set afire by protesters, Thursday, Dec. 27, 2007, in Lahore, Pakistan. Bhutto was shot and killed in a suicide attack on her vehicle in Rawalpindi.A supporter of Pakistan's former prime minister Benazir Bhutto cries out aloud as he mourns the killing of Bhutto, as a car burns after being set afire by protesters, Thursday, Dec. 27, 2007, in Lahore, Pakistan. Bhutto was shot and killed in a suicide attack on her vehicle in Rawalpindi.

Bhutto, warts and all, was widely seen as an appealing alternative to Musharraf and eight years of military rule in a supposed democracy, but her tragic passing will have little effect.

It will continue to be business as usual in Islamabad and Washington. You can bet on it.”

For a South Asian reader, especially those from Sri Lanka, a nation struggling to defeat the most ruthless terrorist group in recent times Tamil Tigers or LTTE, the statement made by (former New York Mayor) Rudy Giuliani the front runner for Republican Party nomination for next November presidential election is most interesting and goes closer to what Sri Lanka president Mahinda Rajapaksa said at last September UN Session in New York.

Giuliani statement read: "The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is a tragic event for Pakistan and for democracy in Pakistan. Her murderers must be brought to justice and Pakistan must continue the path back to democracy and the rule of law. Her death is a reminder that terrorism anywhere — whether in New York, London, Tel Aviv or Rawalpindi — is an enemy of freedom. We must redouble our efforts to win the Terrorists' War on Us."

President Bush in his statement said: “The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy. Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice. Mrs. Bhutto served her nation twice as Prime Minister and she knew that her return to Pakistan earlier this year put her life at risk. Yet she refused to allow assassins to dictate the course of her country.

“We stand with the people of Pakistan in their struggle against the forces of terror and extremism. We urge them to honor Benazir Bhutto's memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life.”

The American Islamic Congress today condemned the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Executive Director Zainab Al-Suwaij issued the following statement:

"Benazir Bhutto was one of the most prominent Muslim women in the world. Her murder is a wake-up call to Muslims and all people of conscience.

"Ms. Bhutto was a model of independence and courage for Muslim women around the world. After she was nearly killed upon her recent return to Pakistan, she could have taken a safe exit. Instead she chose to stand up and speak out despite the risks.

"Young Muslim women around the world should not let this murder dissuade them from speaking out and claiming their rightful place as equals in society.

"Coming just after Muslims around the world celebrated Eid Al-Adha, Bhutto's murder is a reminder of the struggle to assert the sanctity of human life. A light has been snuffed out.

"We extend our condolences to Bhutto's family and to the families of all the people murdered and maimed in the wave of recent suicide bombings around the world."

Prof Dr Colonel (retired) K. Prabhakar Rao of India made the following note of caution twenty days before Bhutto was assassinated:

“But Pakistan is more dangerous which is already having stock of nuclear weapons in its arsenal. These can easily pass to the thugs. It has earlier leaked nuclear know how to some of the countries. Dr Khan was the culprit in this case. Thus Pakistan has lost the credibility as a responsible nation that can be trusted with nuclear weapons. It may be an unpleasant task to defang Pakistan a sovereign state. But this would be greatly essential in view of Pakistan emerging as a failed State with no hope in future that it would establish a responsible stable civilian progressive government that can be trusted with the WMD. Probably Pakistan would prove more dangerous to the world peace than Iran in very near future.”

This issue is most likely to dominate the portals of the United States Congress in days to come questioning the Bush administration’s policy on Global War on Terrorism.

- Asian Tribune –

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/international/middle_east/view.bg?articleid=1063232

Experts say instability puts country on ‘dangerous’ pathJessica Fargen By Jessica FargenFriday, December 28, 2007 - Updated 4h ago

The danger posed by Benazir Bhutto’s assassination can’t be overestimated, threatening not only the stability of that nuclear-armed nation, but the safety of the entire region, observers said.

“Arguably it could lead to the end of the country,” said Peter W. Galbraith, an author on Mideast politics and a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia, who was Bhutto’s classmate at Harvard and Oxford. “I think we are in for a very dangerous period.”

Adil Najam, a Pakistani international politics professor at Boston University and a former Pakistani journalist, said, “This might be the most important blow the terrorists have struck since 9/11, because it could tip over this critical country.”

As world leaders condemned the killing, in Moscow, Anatoly Safonov, Russian President Vladmir Putin’s special envoy on terrorism, warned, “The already unstable situation in Pakistan will be further exacerbated by this powerful factor.”

Jeff Smith, a research fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, said it could weaken Pakistan’s ability to quash radical Islamists and stop the flow of guns and terrorists into Afghanistan.

“Pakistan is already intentionally hiding some of these elements and the army is refusing to fight against them,” Smith said.

Najam said he believes a military crackdown on opposition protests could split the army, strengthen the hand of Islamists and lead to a coup.

But Larry Goodson, a Pakistan and Afghanistan scholar at the U.S. Army War College, and George Friedman of Stratfor.com, a commercial intelligence firm, said they believe that in the short term, a strengthening of military rule in Pakistan may help maintain the country’s stability.

“If the army remains a cohesive organization, Pakistan will muddle through,” Friedman said.

Jules Crittenden, Casey Ross and Herald wire services contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/12/27/DI2007122700970.html

Assassination of Benazir Bhutto

Kamran BokhariDirector of Middle East Analysis, Strategic Forecasting, Inc.Thursday, December 27, 2007; 3:30 PM

Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Director of Middle East Analysis Kamran Bokhari was online Wednesday, Oct. 31 at 3:30 p.m. ET to discuss the assassination of former Primer Minister Benazir Bhutto to Pakistan and its impacts on the upcoming election and U.S.-Pakistan relations.This Story

The transcript follows.

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Fairfax, Va.: Is the security adequate in Pakistan for all political leaders expecially those who are in the opposition? How can someone come so close to Ms. Bhutto and cause this tragedy...

Kamran Bokhari: From the Bhutto assassination, we can all see that the state of security in Pakistan is very bad. Mush of this has to do with the situation where the country's intelligence and security apparatus have been infiltrated by jihadists. Taliban, al-Qaeda, and other Islamist militant actors have sympathizers within the lower and mid ranks of the security/intelligence agencies, which act as enablers for militant activity.

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Santa Barbara, Calif.: Who stands to gain the most by the assassination?

Kamran Bokhari: Islamist militants and elements within the Musharraf regime who saw the political comeback of Bhutto as a threat to their interests. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban knew that the return of the PPP to power would lead to a serious campaign against the jihadists. There are also elements within the Musharraf regime that saw Bhutto and her PPP as a threat to their interests.

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New York: I think the assasination of Bhutto is the biggest setback to Nawaz Sharif's party. This will help Benazir's party gain a lot of sympathy all over the country and bring it to absolute majority in coming elections. Thanks.ad_icon

Kamran Bokhari: Actually, Bhutto's death leaves Sharif as the biggest opposition figure in the country. He is already trying to emerge as a leader by calling for Musharraf to step down. There

are also some early indications that suggest that the PPP, the PML-N, and the Islamist Jamaat-i-Islami could team up in a street agitation against the Musharraf regime.

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Minneapolis: Thank you for making the time to take our questions. Earlier this week William Arkin reported that the U.S. and Pakistan had reached an agreement for U.S. Special Forces to begin operating in Pakistan along the Afghanistan border. Are today's events likely to impact that agreement?

washingtonpost.com: Early Warning: U.S. Troops Head to Pakistan (washingtonpost.com, Dec. 26)

Kamran Bokhari: The killing of Bhutto has triggered massive political unrest in the country. This means that the security forces will have their hands full with the protests and rioting and won't have the bandwidth to engage in counter-terrorist operations. Therefore, any joint U.S.-Pakistani anti-jihadist operations could be delayed. The U.S. forces can not operate on their own and the Bush administration will not want to exacerbate the already serious situation.

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Seattle: Is there any real chance that the killers will be found and brought to justice? Knowing that her life was in constant danger, Bhutto must have thought about a succession plan. Is there anyone else in the Pakistan Peoples Party who could become an influential head of the party?

Kamran Bokhari: The murky nature of the jihadist infrastructure complicates any moves to apprehend those responsible for the assassination. As for the PPP, it has always been led by a Bhutto since its inception in the late 1960s. Its founder was Ms. Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and after his execution at the hands of the military regime of Gen Zia-ul-Haq in 1979, Benazir had led the party. A PPP without a Bhutto at the helm will likely weaken the party because there is no one of equivalent stature to takeover.

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Boston: Al-Qaeda seems to thrive on the chaos and instability of something like today's assasination. Whether al-Qaeda was responsible for this attack or not, is there any reason to believe this won't help them both in the Afghan/Pakistan region and elsewhere?

Kamran Bokhari: Indeed the jihadists flourish in the midst of chaos be it in Pakistan or in Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere else. Both al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban are likely to have a hand in this assassination. But they also likely had help from their contacts in and close to the Pakistani state.

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California: If al-Qaeda in the Northwest Provinces is found responsible for this assassination, will the Pakistani people be more open to allowing direct action against them, including attacks by the coalition forces from the Afghan side?

Kamran Bokhari: BHutto's death has sparked a major outrage against a growing anger towards Islamist militants. Moreover, the military itself is the target of jihadist attacks. Therefore, it is quite likely that this will generate a drive towards a major campaign aagainst jihadists and with possible assistance from U.S. and NATO forces. But the tactical details of any such move could complicate matters and sensibilities in the country.

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Washington: If Musharraf thought that Bhutto was such a threat to his regime, why did he pardon her and allow her back into the country?

Kamran Bokhari: Musharraf didn't see Bhutto as merely a threat. In fact, he was trying to use her in order to strengthen his hold on power. The results of the Jan 8 polls were going to determine the nature of power-sharing mechanism. But Bhutto's death has derailed that process and Musharraf is actually in a very precarious situation himself. He has to be able to show the army that he can as a civilian president contain the unrest.

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Cairo, Egypt: Hi. For the next few years, what is your forecast for the campaign against jihadism in Pakistan and Musharraf's hold on power?

Kamran Bokhari: Pakistan will be the decisive battleground in the fight against jihadism in the next few years because it is the global headquarters of al-Qaeda and the sanctuary it provides to the Taliban. Moreover, because of the historic role the Pakistani military has played in supporting these non-state actors in the past to further the country's foreign polciy objectives in Afghanistan and India.

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Arlington, Va.: Will Bhutto's assasination and other more recent violence by extremists cause the country to spiral further out of control, or will there be a backlash against -- or at least a turning away from -- the extremism that is doing so much harm to Pakistan?

Kamran Bokhari: The situation is likely to get worse before it gets any better. There are two struggles going on simultaneously, which are complicating the counter-terrorism efforts. First, is the civil-military struggle where we have an unprecedented rising from civil society calling for rule of law and end to military regimes. Secondly, we have the struggle between liberal and conservative forces over the role of Islam in the Pakistani state. In addition, we have a growing jihadist insurgency in the country.

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Fort Lauderdale, Fla.: I'm confused by conflicting information about the strength of Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan. On one hand, I've read that the Islamists never have received as much as 20 percent of the popular vote. Yet, in addition to controlling the Afghan border areas, they are thought to include a significant portion of the military and other segments of the nation's power structure. So, what exactly is the chance of Pakistan becoming a fundamentalist religious state, or of it descending into religious strife so great that it destabilizes the secular government and society? Thank you.

Kamran Bokhari: The Islamist phenomenon in Pakistan is very complex and consists of many groups and trends. On one hand there are the political Islamist parties who for the last five years have been operating under the coalition called the MMA. Then there are different militants groups operating in the country with links to the Taliban and/or al-Qaeda. Organziationally these two categories are separate from one another but elements from both these types of groups have connections with one another. It is therefore, a very messy situation.

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Fairfax, Va.: What do you see as the impact of this assasination on the region as a whole (Afghanistan, India)?

Kamran Bokhari: Growing political instability and Islamist militancy in Pakistan has a direct impact on both its neighbors. A Pakistan in chaos allows the Taliban in Afghanistan top operate more freely and enhance their own militancy. Similarly, Pakistan undergoing a crisis of governance has security implications for India where Kashmiri militants in India can have more room to manuever.

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Seattle: What short-term and long-term effects, if any, could Bhutto's death have on the Pakistan-U.S. relationship?

Kamran Bokhari: The United States has always dealt with the Pakistani army because the military is the state in the country. But Washington is also aware that the government in Islamabad has to be some sort of civil-military hybrid because of the need to cater to the demands of civilian rule in Pakistan. This is why the Bush administration was working to broker a pwoersharing agreement, which included Musharraf as a civilian president, Bhutto as a prime minister heading a coalition government, and Gen. Kayani as the head of the military. The death of Bhutto has derailed those plans and in fact worsened the situation. Her assassination has left a vacuum and torpedoed U.S. efforst to cobble together a moderate regime to combat growing religious extremism and terrorism.

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Kamran Bokhari: Thank you all for participating in this online discussion. I am grateful to the Washington Post - in particular Christopher Hopkins, the producer of this forum - for granting me the opportunity to share my thoughts. Hopefully, we can do this again in the future. Good afternoon/evening.

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Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.

12.28.2007, Friday

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22977630-2703,00.html

US beefs up Pakistan forceBruce Loudon, South Asia correspondent | December 28, 2007

US Special Forces are to increase their presence in Pakistan amid assessments that the country is to become the central battlefield for al-Qa'ida as it is driven from Iraq.

"Pakistan should be carefully watched because it could prove to be a significant flashpoint in the coming year," US think tank Strategic Forecasting said in an evaluation of al-Qa'ida's tactics as the Islamist group comes under mounting pressure in Iraq.

With the "rapid spread of Talibanisation" in Pakistan's insurgent northwest, the country would become "especially important if the trend in Iraq continues to go against the jihadis and they are driven from Iraq", the assessment says.

"As the global headquarters for the al-Qa'ida leadership, Pakistan has long been a significant stronghold on the ideological battlefield. If the trend towards radicalisation continues, the country could become the new centre of gravity for the jihadi movement on the physical battlefield."

The Stratfor assessment coincided with reports from Washington suggesting US Special Forces would expand their presence in Pakistan in the new year.

The boost in US forces was part of an effort to train and support Pakistan's army in its fight to stem the al-Qa'ida and Taliban-linked insurgency.

The Washington reports reflected Pentagon frustration with the Pakistani counter-insurgency effort, and said the head of the US Special Operations Command, Admiral Eric T. Olson, had made a series of visits to the country for discussions with senior military leaders.

"The first US (Special Forces) personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan early in the new year", according to the reports.

US Central Command chief Admiral William Fallon said the US forces would provide training and mentoring based on the US experience with the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

No immediate independent confirmation of the deployment was available in Islamabad yesterday. But the US reports coincided with the disclosure of an ambitious 15-year "anti-terror investment plan" for Pakistan that has been high on the agenda of US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte in recent visits to Islamabad.

According to reports in Pakistan, areas in the North West Frontier Province, the federally administered tribal areas, Baluchistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir were earmarked for investment that would boost education and employment in an effort to wean local tribesmen away from their support for the jihadi movement.

The area, seen as crucial in the battle against al-Qa'ida and the Taliban, was the subject of a summit meeting in Islamabad yesterday involving President Pervez Musharraf and his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai.

The two leaders held what sources described as "unusually cordial and friendly" meetings on how to boost co-operation in the war against the jihadis. They agreed to intensify their exchanges of intelligence, something Mr Musharraf described as "the key to fighting and enhancing our capability against terrorists and extremists".

Mr Karzai said: "Afghanistan and Pakistan are twins. More than that, they are joined at thebody."

As the two leaders were meeting, security surrounding opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on the election campaign trail was strengthened after two bomb blasts ahead of a rally of her Pakistan People's Party in a stadium in Peshawar.

Australian reprint:http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22978944-2,00.html

http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=128867

Northeast in the ISI netNava Thakuria, 28 December 2007, Friday

The people of Northeast have woken up to a furthermost threat from religious fundamentalists fuelled by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to make NE India a volatile region. Traditionally they pursue hatred against New Delhi.

THE LAND of armed movements sustained by the anti-New Delhi separatists’ militias has woken up to a new threat from religious fundamentalists fuelled by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to make Northeast India a volatile region in the continent. The Northeast is no stranger to banned armed groups and their destructive activities, but the recent development where it has emerged that the Pakistani agency has engaged scores of its operatives in the region and also sponsored a number of indigenous armed groups has come as a shocking revelation. The people of the alienated region of India, which is surrounded by Bhutan, Tibet Burma (Myanmar) and Bangladesh, traditionally pursue a policy of hatred against the Union Government alleging that New Delhi is only interested in exploiting the natural resources of the region but never takes cognizance of the relentless troubles faced by its nearly 50 million population. Even then, they can hardly support the presence of a Pakistani agency in their region, which continues fuelling Islamic fundamentalism consistently beyond their borders. But unfortunately for the people of the Northeast, a most influential armed group of Assam has reportedly maintained close links with the ISI. The local media quoting different (government and non-government) sources claimed that the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) is in touch with Islamic militants too. Launched in 1979 with the aim to make Assam an independent country, the banned armed group is blamed for numerous killings, explosions and kidnappings and a huge number of extortion cases. But what is appalling for the people of the region is that not less than 20 native militia groups have come closer to the ISI. It was disclosed during the interrogation of an ISI operative, who was arrested by the Assam police in Guwahati on December 14. More shocking revelation for the entire nation is that the alliance has slowly pushed the insurgents groups into the clutches of Islamic militants. The Assam police termed it a big catch in its counter-terrorism operations in the Northeast. The arrested ISI operative was identified as SM Alam alias Mujibullah Alam alias Asfi Alam. Hailing from Ajampur village under Uttara police station in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Alam (35) has been recognized as an important functionary of the ISI in charge of Assam and the Northeast. The police said that Alam was a member of Jamat-e-Islami and Chatra Shibir (of Bangladesh) and joined the Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-Mujahideen in 1993. The hardcore Bangladeshi national underwent training in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) also. Later he joined Jamat-ul-Mujahideen in 2005 and afterward he was recruited by the ISI. Soon he shifted his base to the restive Northeast in 2006. What, however was alarming was Alam confessed that 24 militant outfits in the region had maintained communication with the ISI network. The ISI is viewed as a notorious agency in the Indian perspective as it continues spreading terror in many parts of India. However, it is recognized as the largest and most powerful intelligence service in Pakistan. Created as an independent unit in 1948, the ISI officially handles external intelligence gathering for the Pakistan government. Headquartered at Islamabad, the ISI is known as a disciplined army unit with around 10,000 staff members. It however faces allegations of meddling in the internal affairs of its neighbouring countries. The Indian police have time to time claimed that ISI was involved in many explosions in the country. The Mumbai police asserted that it had enough proof of involvement of ISI in the July 2006 blast in a local commuter train. The ISI is also blamed for masterminding explosions in many other cities of the country including Hyderabad, Lucknow, Sri Nagar, Malegaon, Varanasi, Guwahati and Imphal among others.

This reporter tried to contact the officers of the Inter Services Public Relations, Pakistan Armed Forces, of which ISI is an unit, for their reactions regarding the arrest of Alam in Assam. While responding to the phone calls, an additional director (in charge of foreign media) of Inter Services Public Relations only said that the arrest of the ISI operative was not in his knowledge. He assured of his inputs later, though it has not reached till date. Moreover, a query submitted in the website of ISPR also did not result in any response. What is significant is that, the officials of ISPR, while responding to the phone calls, did not summarily reject the news that one of their operatives had been arrested in India. Dr M Amarjeet Singh, a research scholar at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi wrote in one his articles, "Apart from aiding and abetting terrorism in Kashmir, ISI has also been fully engaged in building terror infrastructures in the rest of India, including in the Northeast, which has long been infested with multiple insurgencies. This attempt to fish in troubled waters of the Northeast poses a formidable risk to India’s security." The Indian security agencies have already gathered evidence to establish that the ISI had been sponsoring violence in many parts of the country. The ISI takes responsibility of supplying sophisticated arms and also guerrilla training to several militant groups based in the Northeast. Brig (Retired) Dr S P Sinha, who served the Northeast for many decades, claimed that the ISI had now formed a new base in Bangladesh to carry on anti-India operations. In his recent book titled ’Lost Opportunities: 50 years of Insurgency in the Northeast and India’s Response’, Dr Sinha, who led the Gorkha Rifles, also narrated that Pakistan had shifted nearly 200 terrorist training camps from the Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) to Bangladesh. His comment is supplemented by a senior Bangladeshi journalist. Speaking to this reporter from Dhaka, the journalist disclosed, "The Pakistani intelligence agency (ISI) has been actively operating in Bangladesh under a number of cover-ups. In recent months, a large number of former army officials from Pakistan have come to Bangladesh to work for different business groups. Most of the top figures in these companies are either former military personnel or well connected to the Pakistan Army." The journalist, who sought anonymity added, "Personally I believe, these Pakistani Army officials are not retired personnel. They might be important officials of the ISI. My information is a huge amount of profit of those companies goes to the hidden activities of the agency. I suspect, the ISI has a significant amount of shares in those companies (including one mobile phone service provider) working in Bangladesh." "A few companies owned by foreign nationals have emerged as a major base for the ISI in Bangladesh." Naming one, Chowdhury, a pro-Pakistani politician in Bangladesh, the journalist alleged that the controversial person had business tie-ups with these companies. "He (Mr Chowdhury) has also links with many Northeastern militants including ULFA and is suspected to be involved with an armed gang in the hill tracts of Chittagong," the journalist added.The links of Northeastern militants with the ISI found space for discussion in the Parliament too." Available inputs indicate that some Indian insurgent groups active in the northeastern region have been using the territory of Bangladesh, and have links with Pakistan’s ISI," Shriprakash Jaiswal, the minister of state for Home informed Rajya Sabha on December 5. The minister, while admitting reports of alliances among the outfits for tactical purposes of shelter, hideouts, procurement of arms, also added that New Delhi had taken up the issue with Islamabad. Weeks ago, a reputed US intelligence think tank reported about the ULFA’s increasing financial enterprises with Islamic militant groups. Stratfor, in one of its analytical reports stated that ULFA leaders preferred to maintain their financial network with Pakistan’s intelligence agency and ’its financial enterprise and strong links with Islamist militant groups have made it a threat that New Delhi will not be able to ignore much longer’.

The report also added that ’though India has largely turned a blind eye to militant groups operating in its far-flung Northeast’, the growing Islamisation of the region provides ’more than enough reason for New Delhi to start paying closer attention to its Northeastern border’. Stratfor has been closely monitoring the growing nexus between India’s North Eastern insurgent outfits and militant Islamist groups that regularly traverse India’s extremely porous border with Bangladesh. The Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi maintained that ULFA is in the clutches of the ISI and that is why they cannot come for talks. Attending a meeting on internal security affairs, which was chaired by the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on December 20 in New Delhi, Gogoi expressed serious concern that the ISI had been trying its best to make the Northeast a hub of terrorism. Gogoi argued that, a grave threat the Northeast is facing, is with the abundant aid and sustenance poured in for various anti-national armed groups from outside the country.He urged New Delhi to take up the issue of terrorist camps in the neighbouring countries (read Bangladesh and Burma) and expedite the fencing of the international borders, which is now porous. Earlier talking to a New Delhi based television news-channel, Gogoi revealed that the ULFA leaders cannot defy the diktat of ISI as most of their senior leaders are taking shelter in Bangladesh and are at the mercy of the ISI. He strongly believes that ULFA is the prime communicator from Northeast to the international terrorist outfits. Critical concern on ISI’s active involvement in Northeast has already been expressed in the mainstream media. The Assam Tribune, the oldest English daily of the region in an editorial said "It is a fact that presence of foreign nationals gave a chance to the ISI agents and other fundamentalist forces having roots in Bangladesh to establish their bases not only in Assam but also in other states of the Northeast, which has posed a grave security threat to the nation." Quoting the revelation of the ISI operative, the editorial also argued that it ’highlights the gravity of the situation as the Pakistani agency can always engage the militant outfits having links with it to create disturbance in this part of the country without sending its own men to do such dirty work’. "All the security agencies involved in the counter-insurgency operations must launch a coordinated effort to prevent the ISI and other fundamentalist forces inimical to India from establishing roots in the East, while at the same time coordination and intelligence sharing between the police forces of the Northeast states must be improved to deal with the security threat. On its part, the government of India must take all possible steps to complete the border roads and fencing along the Indo-Bangla border and the strength of the Border Security Force should be increased along the international border," it added. JP Rajkhowa, a bureaucrat turned media columnist, while quoting intelligence reports, stated that over 20 Jehadi groups including Muslim Tiger Force of Assam, Muslim United Liberation Force of Assam, Muslim United Liberation Army, United Muslim Front of Assam, United Islamic Reformation Movement of India, Muslim Security Force, United Liberation Militia of Assam, Muslim Security Council of Assam, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami, People’s United Liberation Front, Revolutionary Muslim Commandos, Jamat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, Students’ Islamic Movement of India, Laskar-e-Taiba etc are active in the region. "All these groups want to carve out an Islamic state of Assam," he commented. "We have had occasion in the past to hammer the fact that both the ISI and the fundamentalist and terrorist organizations based in Bangladesh have taken a solemn vow to create a greater Islamic state in the subcontinent by including in it Assam and other suitable areas of the Northeast," said in an editorial of The Sentinel, another important English daily of Northeast. "So why does not the State government (of Assam) wake up to the reality, admit to having provided an opportunity to the ISI-jehadis combine to freely operate in the State" the editorial asked. It concluded with criticism of Tarun Gogoi and his Congress party led cabinet as the government intelligence agencies were outsmarted by the ISI, and asserted that "an arrest or two will just not do. The government must be able to break the whole ISI network in the State."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071228.BHUTTOELECTIONS28/TPStory/TPInternational/Asia/

Legitimacy of election in doubtThe People's Party has no leader, Sharif's bloc is boycotting and rallies are too dangerous

SAEED SHAH

December 28, 2007

RAWALPINDI -- Benazir Bhutto's death has changed everything about Pakistan's politics and the coming election - which now seems almost irrelevant.

Pakistan's most popular political leader, she embodied the liberal resistance to extremist threat in the country. Her Pakistan People's Party was the only major secular political force. Without Ms. Bhutto, the party, which has always been led by a member of the Bhutto family, could collapse, leaving no significant, political force to carry the secular ideal in Pakistan, which is under increasing threat from Islamist militants.

Her assassination will also further destabilize a country already on the brink, a fear evident in the violent reaction in the streets yesterday. And, rightly or wrongly, the blame for the killing will fall on the U.S.-backed regime of President Pervez Musharraf.

Mr. Musharraf, in the short term, will be strengthened by the death of Ms. Bhutto, removing a rival claimant to power and the only other Pakistani leader the United States thought it could rely on. However, without democratic legitimacy for his regime, which Ms. Bhutto as prime minister could have provided, a deeply unpopular Mr. Musharraf is likely to see mounting challenges, including the possibility of removal by the new army chief.

Whether the election, due on Jan. 8, can even take place amid the growing violence is an open question. Pakistan has been under assault from increasingly emboldened militants. Last week their target was a former government minister, Aftab Sherpao, who survived a suicide attack on a mosque that killed 50. In addition to the October attempt on Ms. Bhutto that claimed about 140 lives in Karachi, there have been dozens of bloody attacks, largely against the military and police, displaying highly sophisticated capability and intelligence.

Hopes for the January poll was dealt another quick blow yesterday when the other main opposition party in Pakistan, the Pakistan Muslim League, led by Nawaz Sharif, a long-time rival of the People's Party, announced that it would boycott the election.

"Nobody has any faith, any confidence, in these elections while Musharraf is in charge," Mr. Sharif said.

Even the MQM, an ethnic political party that is closely allied to Mr. Musharraf, called for a postponement of the election. Washington has pushed hard for the election, believing that democracy will help legitimize Pakistan's role in the "war on terror."

Mr. Musharraf held an emergency meeting to discuss a response to the killing, discussions that were reported to have included whether to postpone the election.

Even if the election goes ahead, the assassination spells an end to any semblance of normalcy in the campaign. Public gatherings are too dangerous, presenting obvious targets for the militants. Without rallies and meetings, many contend the election will be robbed of its legitimacy. Some fear further unrest could take the country back to the time of martial law, the imposition of which was lifted earlier this month.

The People's Party has been left hollow. Founded by Ms. Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, it works as an institutionalized cult for the Bhutto family. Allegiance is to the memory of Mr. Bhutto, who was enormously popular among Pakistan's poor, and through him to Ms. Bhutto. No other senior People's Party officials were allowed by Ms. Bhutto to become national figures. The deputy leader of the party, Amin Fahim, is respected but lacks charisma and could in no way replace her.

Ms. Bhutto's children are too young to lead the party, with the oldest, Bilawal, only just having started university. There are other branches of the Bhutto family but many of them were estranged from Ms. Bhutto. Her brother's oldest child, Fatima, is a politically astute 25-year-old but she blames her aunt for the death of her father, Murtaza, who was gunned down in 1996 in Karachi, in circumstances that were never explained.

Without a Bhutto at its head, the People's Party could lose its formidable following, and the country could lose a champion of moderation.

It's uncertain who exactly is carrying out the wave of bombings. Security experts think that while there may be rogue officers within the army and intelligence that provide help to militants, the wholesale involvement of the state is unlikely. The army itself has been the target of many attacks.

"Bhutto's death will exponentially exacerbate the existing state of political unrest because the blame will fall on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's regime," said Kamran Bokhari, director of Middle East analysis at consultancy Strategic Forecasting.

"This situation benefits the Taliban and al-Qaeda and their supporters who would want Pakistan's security forces to be busy containing political unrest and violence rather than performing counter-jihadist operations focused on northwestern Pakistan."

http://www.nationalpost.com/rss/story.html?id=201659

Bhutto's death takes Pakistan to brink of abyssAn assault on idea of moderate democracy

Peter Goodspeed, National Post Published: Friday, December 28, 2007

Pakistani paramilitary soldiers patrol a street of Karachi, Dec. 28, 2007, a day after former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was killed in a suicide attack following a campaign rally.Rizwan Tabassum/AFP/Getty ImagesPakistani paramilitary soldiers patrol a street of Karachi, Dec. 28, 2007, a day after former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was killed in a suicide attack following a campaign rally.

It was a slow, rhythmic chant that may soon plunge Pakistan into chaos and civil war.

During a typical Benazir Bhutto election rally, a shouting, surging crowd of 30,000 to 40,000 men would scream: "One God, One Prophet … the Rising Sun is Benazir."

In three Pakistan elections I covered in the 1990s, euphoric mobs filled with mountain tribesmen, landless peasants and unemployed youths would spend hours working themselves into a frenzy, reciting a political litany that anointed Pakistan's former prime minister as their "Daughter of Destiny."

"Benazir -- leader of the poor," they shouted.

"Benazir -- leader of the dispossessed."

"Daughter of Democracy --Benazir! Benazir!"

For the last 21 years no one in Pakistan could lay claim to Ms. Bhutto's populist credentials -- a powerful secular politician who, despite a reputation for corruption, remained a symbol of modernity and democracy.

Now, her assassination threatens to plunge a nuclear-armed Pakistan into civil war.

Pakistani politics, already mired in ethnic strife, will become more polarized and deadlocked.

The shock of sudden death and the horror of the suicide bomb attack that killed Ms. Bhutto at a political rally in the garrison town of Rawalpindi yesterday have plunged Pakistan into mayhem and uncertainty.

Her murder came less than two weeks after President Pervez Musharraf lifted a state of emergency ahead of general elections scheduled for Jan. 8.

It raises the possibility that those elections, which opposition politicians including Ms. Bhutto claimed would be rigged, will be postponed. The spasm of violence that greeted her death, with riots all over Pakistan, could lead to an immediate reimposition of martial law.

More than an act of political violence, Ms. Bhutto's murder is an assault on the very idea of a moderate, pro-Western, secular democracy in Pakistan.

As Pakistan wallows in its political rivalries, ethnic hatreds, poverty and religious intolerance, the U.S.-led "war on terror," which saw Ms. Bhutto as a moderate, democratic ally, has been staggered.

Militancy and extremism will thrive in the vacuum created by her murder.

Pakistan's politics will likely revert to an explosive mixture of feudal landlords, feuding ethnic groups, greedy businessmen, Islamic radicals, cash-rich drug lords and politically assertive generals.

At worst, the terror of Ms. Bhutto's assassination could signal Pakistan's sudden descent into the abyss of a failed state.

It could mark a turning point in Pakistan's bloodstained history -- a prelude to a conflict uglier and more violent than that now convulsing Iraq.

"The crisis of governance currently seen in Pakistan's Pashtun areas could spread to other parts of the country and lead to clashes between groups," Kamran Bokhari, an analyst with Strategic Forecasting, Inc. warned yesterday.

"This situation benefits the Taliban and al-Qaeda and their supporters who would want Pakistan's security forces to be busy containing political unrest and violence rather than performing counterjihadist operations focused on northwestern Pakistan."

Just as ominously, Ms. Bhutto's murder leaves President Musharraf dangerously isolated.

Already targeted by Islamic militants for his alliance with the United States, Pakistan's President alienated most of the country's middle class with his assault on the Supreme Court and his use of martial law to ensure his own hold on Pakistan's presidency.

In the hours following Ms. Bhutto's death, President Musharraf and military intelligence agents with links to Pakistan's Islamists were accused of masterminding the assassination.

Before Ms. Bhutto's death was even announced, dist raught party workers smashed windows outside the hospital in Rawalpindi where she was taken and shouted slogans against Gen. Musharraf.

Rioting members of Ms. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) in Sindh and Punjab provinces attacked and burned government offices and cars.

After a failed assassination attempt on her when she returned to Karachi from eight years in self-imposed exile on Oct. 18, Ms. Bhutto herself blamed elements of Pakistan's military and intelligence establishments, which executed her father, former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

"I know exactly who wants to kill me," she told reporters travelling with her immediately after the suicide bomb attack that killed 134 people. "It is dignitaries of the former regime … who are today behind the extremism and fanaticism.

"It is not done by militants -- it is done by that intelligence agency," she said.

Ms. Bhutto never trusted Pakistan's military, blaming its leaders for staging a coup against her father in 1977 and for executing him in 1979.

She always thought Pakistan's military had a hand in the mysterious shooting death of her brother in 1996. During her two terms as prime minister, she clashed constantly with leaders of Pakistan's armed forces.

Her Pakistan People's Party accused the military of tampering with election results that pushed her from power in 1990 and in 1996. On both occasions, she was dismissed from office for alleged corruption by a president with close ties to the military.

Before she returned to Pakistan last fall, Ms. Bhutto was said to have sent President Musharraf a letter in which she demanded that in the event of her death, three senior figures in the security services should be investigated.

Before she returned to Pakistan, a pro-Taliban leader, Baitullah Masood, had threatened to deploy squads of suicide bombers against Ms. Bhutto. Yesterday an al-Qaeda spokesman in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, claimed responsibility for Ms. Bhutto's murder.

"We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat mujahadeen," the al-Qaeda commander declared.

A graduate of Harvard and Oxford universities, Ms. Bhutto had the backing of Western leaders who saw her as a moderate and secular stabilizing force in a country riddled with division and threatened by violence.

A professed democrat, she wasn't opposed to secret back-room deal-making with President Musharraf and the Pakistani military.

But her real power lay in the special bond she had with ordinary Pakistanis.

It's unlikely anyone in Pakistan can match that today.

When Ms. Bhutto campaigned in the countryside, peasants would thrust slips of paper containing scribbled prayers into her hands.

"May God be with you. May God protect you," the notes said.

She wrapped them on the back of her right hand with an elastic band and wore them like a magic charm.

Yesterday, Ms. Bhutto's magic and Pakistan's came to an abrupt end.

pgoodspeed@nationalpost.com

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/simon_tisdall/2007/12/all_eyes_on_musharraf.html

All eyes on Musharraf

Pakistan's president faces a series of crucial decisions in the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto's assassination

Simon TisdallDecember 28, 2007 6:00 PM | Printable version

Like a large rock dropped from a great height into a murky pond, Benazir Bhutto's murder has sent shockwaves rippling outwards from Pakistan across the region and the wider international community.

The full impact of this political tsunami may take months to assess. But decisions made in the next few days will be crucial in preventing an immediate, nationwide descent into chaos. As so often in the past, all eyes are on Pervez Musharraf.

The assassination is widely seen as having further weakened Pakistan's embattled president. Some of Bhutto's aides accuse him of complicity in her death or, at the very least, failing to ensure adequate security.

The other main opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, opaquely blamed "the rulers" and called for a general strike. The anti-Musharraf campaign is likely to gather pace once the three-day mourning period ends, partly to deny him the power he still wields, partly as a way of settling scores.

It is Musharraf - not Bhutto's Pakistan People's party (PPP) or Sharif's Muslim League or the religious parties in their north-western fastnesses - who must decide whether to postpone or cancel the January 8 election, re-impose the state of emergency, and use the army to try to suppress street demonstrators.

But Musharraf also has the power to reject divisive action and reboot a strategy of national reconciliation, dialogue and "enlightened moderation".

Putting off the election indefinitely and launching a new security crackdown could provoke exactly the national popular explosion that has so far been avoided. What he decides in the coming days may settle his and Pakistan's fate.

The US, whose attempts to manipulate Pakistan's politics have failed so miserably, now finds itself in a quandary. Washington has spent the year gently pulling the rug from under the president. Now it is scrambling to advise and influence him.

US contacts are also under way with Sharif and the PPP leadership - but the immediate, urgent priority is control and for that, Musharraf is still the best short-term bet.

Writing his blog, foreign secretary David Miliband called for wide-ranging change in the way Pakistan is run. He urged "politicians, community and faith leaders, business people and military chiefs (to) build a political system that can sustain itself (and) a social deal that tackles inequalities of opportunity".

But the American strategic analysts, Stratfor.com, suggested the primary, pragmatic concern was preventing further political fragmentation. "No one in the dynasty is ready to step in... the PPP is now likely to weaken," it said.

"The crisis of governance currently seen in Pakistan's Pashtun areas could spread to other parts of the country. Bhutto's absence gives the establishment forces an opportunity to strengthen their hold on power."

Stratfor also warns that the biggest winners, whether or not they were responsible for the assassination, may be al-Qaida and the Taliban.

"They want Pakistan's security forces to be busy containing political unrest and violence rather than performing counter-jihadist operations in north-western Pakistan," it said.

If Musharraf failed to get a grip, he, too, could be outflanked. Domestic unrest "could reach a point at which army chief General Ashfaq Kiyani steps in and imposes martial law".

That would effectively take Pakistan full circle, back to 1999 when then army chief Musharraf overthrew Sharif in the name of national salvation. It is not now inconceivable that the US, out of options, might once again swallow talk of democratisation and accept a "military solution" with a new face.

By emboldening the Islamist extremists she vowed to defeat, Bhutto's killing also has negative implications for Afghanistan and the US and Nato military campaigns there.

"Arguably the greatest reverse suffered by the US in its war on terror has been the rejuvenation of al-Qaida and the Taliban - a revival the intelligence community believes is owed to their ability to secure a sanctuary in Pakistan, " said Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment.

But having put their money on Bhutto, who promised to do what Musharraf signally failed to do and clear Pakistan's Afghan border territories of jihadis, the US and its principal associate, Britain, now find themselves even further from their objective.

On the other side of the Afghan border, Hamid Karzai, Kabul's pro-western president, says he is "deeply pained" by the death of "this brave sister of ours".

There are good reasons to worry about Karzai, too. This veteran survivor of several assassination attempts may now be the jihadis' number one target - and in western eyes, his loss would be similarly catastrophic.

But in a Pakistan, shocked, grieving, and newly scornful of western machinations, geopolitical considerations are not uppermost. One man alone is the quarry, the symbol of a nation's woes. The cry goes up on all sides: "Get Musharraf".