In recent days and more than likely in the weeks, months, and possibly years to come Pakistan’s intelligence service will be under the microscope for their role in not only the war in Afghanistan, but also being labeled as a terrorist group itself. The evidence has been there for the past two decades and many top level U.S. governmnet officials likely has seen the Pakistan ISI as a necessary evil in the war on terror.

The Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence agency was created in 1948 and has become the most powerful of Pakistan’s three intelligence agencies. It’s initial purpose was to unite intelligence from various agencies including the Pakistan Military. The primary focus was Pakistan’s long time enemy India.

Things changed dramitically in the eighties when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and disrupted the entire region. The ISI, which by this time has become the most powerful intelligence agency in the governmnet, provided the reached out arm for cooperation between the Afghans and the United States to defeat the communist invaders in neighboring Afghanistan. Pakistan and Afghanistan not only share a border but also a common culture known as Pashtun. The Pashtun lived by a strict code of conduct and they do not view borders as important. In their eyes they are not so much Pakistani or Afghan but rather Pashtun or when describing their way of life, Pashtunwali.

A special Afghan Section was created within the ISI and fell under the command of colonel Mohammed Yousaf who was to oversee the coordination of the war against the Soviets and the communist backed Northern Alliance who was given control of the Afghanistan goverment. A number of officers from the Pakistan ISI’s Covert Action Division received training in the US and many covert action experts of the CIA were attached to the ISI to guide it in its operations against the Soviet troops by using the Afghan Mujahideen. It was a war by proxy that in the end was very successful for all parties involved. In the end however there will be no happy ending to these partnerships.

It was the training and organization provided by the ISI to the Mujahideen and the foreign Islamic fighters that flocked to the region to assist in the defeat of the Soviets that was the original driving force of modern day global terrorism. Training camps were established by the ISI and the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and Pakistan even after the war. Their purpose was to have a ready force against any other foreign invaders into the Muslim world. It was this orgainization of a far reaching international network created in the war to attain recruits and funding that led to Osama bin Laden and a few others to create al Qaeda. In the 1990’s It was the ISI that viewed what had become an unstable Afghanistan in the years following the war that led them to create the Taliban. The Taliban was to provide in Afghanistan a stable and cooperative neighbor to Pakistan. The best way for Pakistan ISI to accomplish this was to put their creation in power and allow them to rule with an iron fist so that any opposition would be crushed ensuring future control. The Taliban swept through the country defeating warring warlords that splintered the country. The relationship with the ISI has continued since the inception of the Taliban in 1994 until today. Now however in a strange chain of event it is now the United States that is battling the Islamic fighters. America and her allies find themselves in a stagnate war that has never truly fought the right type of war. The road to winning in Afghanistan is and always was in defeating Pakistan and it’s ISI.

Recent Developments

Wikileaks website in recent days has released government secret documents that claim that representatives of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) met the Taliban in Afghanistan to help them organize attacks on American forces and Indian targets. This is a bad political development for everyone. The United States has given Pakistan billions in aid that has been used to allow the Taliban to wage war in Afghanistan. The U.S. is funding the enemy that it is at war with. How is the government going to explain this is almost impossible to imagine. The U.S. and coalition troops are taking increasing casualties and if the pattern continues many more young gifted military personnel will be lost in this conflict.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai immediately responded to the Wikileaks reports by calling for the US to do more to address the support of Pakistan for the Taliban, who are largely drawn from the Pashtun ethnic group that straddles the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier

This Is Nothing New

The revelation that the Pakistan ISI is supporting the Taliban in the war with the U.S. is nothing new to readers of Terroristplanet.com. We have run numerous articles on the topic over the past few years that have been consistent on this latest leak of top secret documents. We list the related articles below to provide a better understanding of this connection. The facts have been out even before 911. Many former CIA and other intelligence community writers have pointed out this relationship in their books. Yossef Bodansky in his “Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America” goes in depth on this relationship of the ISI and modern terrorist groups originating in the outlaw Pakistan and Afghanistan region. He states that the Pakistan ISI was already playing a crucial role in aiding radical Islam even before 911. Government officials have been aware of this fact as well since U.S. intelligence is provided regularly to them on Pakistan’s ISI relationship with the Taliban. The question from here forward is how smart is it to provide the Pakistan government with aid so that it can continue to aid the ISI in their support of the Taliban in their war against the U.S.. The American public should not allow this aid to continue to flow into the hands of the murderers of our patriotic sons and daughters no matter the political games involved in the Afghanistan War when the only way to stop the Taliban is by defeating Pakistan and the ISI.

Pashtunwali: “The Pashtun Way” (April 2008)

Pashtunwali, The way of the Pashtuns Inside the remote areas of the Hindu Kush mountain range that borders Afghanistan and Pakistan an entire group of people have carved out a way of life that is as unique as their customs. The border serves as an imaginary line designed to separate the Pashtun peoples. In their…

PAKISTAN: THE FRONT LINE OF TERRORISM (August 2008)

PAKISTAN: THE FRONT LINE ON TERRORISM Why Is Pakistan So Important To The War On Terrorism. 9/01/2008 Update: ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s top security official Monday admitted that al Qaida’s leadership moved freely in and out of the country and vowed that “no mercy” would be shown to extremists based in its tribal territory that borders…

Obama’s Quagmire: Pakistan and Afghanistan (March 2009)

Obama’s Quagmire: Pakistan and Afghanistan, A warning of Haste and History. Understanding The Past and the People in the Pakistan and Afghanistan Quagmire and How America got There President Obama did not start this war. George Bush did not start this war either. Radical Islam created this quagmire that President Obama must navigate through and somehow…

The Taliban – Opium Connection (March 2008)

The connection between the resurgence of the Taliban and the continuing escalation of poppy cultivation is much more than mere coincidence. The Taliban has always been deeply connected to, and in all reality has controlled, the amounts of opium available in the world black markets. The explosion in poppy cultivation is occurring in Taliban

Terrorist Group: Lashkar-e-Taiba

Terrorist Group: Lashkar-e-Taiba Lashkar-e-Taiba also known as Lashkar-e-Toiba, Army of the Good, translated as Army of the Righteous, or Army of the Pure. Operates out of the region of Lahore, Pakistan and run numerous training camps in the disputed region of Kashmir. The main goal of Lashkar is not only to gain control over Kashmir, which…

Deadly Attacks In Mumbai, India (November 2008)

Deadly Attacks In Mumbai, India Unthinkable? No. Is the deadly attacks in Mumbai a new form of terrorism? No, but it did show that terrorists are willing to plan large scale attacks that do not need airplanes, large trucks filled with explosives parked in a lower level parking garage or in front of an embassy

Where is Osama bin Laden?

Where is Osama bin Laden? So, Where is Osama bin Laden.  Based on the majority of articles, reports, and investigations it appears that Osama bin Laden is in either Afghanistan or Pakistan near the border tribal areas where there is no Pakistan or Afghanistan forces.  Where U.S. troops cannot infiltrate because of the resistance from

Pakistan: Facts and History

The roots of Pakistan’s reputation as a haven for jihadists run deep. It was, after all, in the city of Peshawar that Al-Qaeda was born after ISI, Pakistan’s military intelligence, started to recruit Arabs to fight in the Afghan jihad Climate: mostly hot, dry desert; temperate in northwest; arctic in north. Terrain: flat Indus plain in…

Terrorist Profiles: Mullah Mohammed Omar

Mullah Mohammed Omar: Taliban of Afghanistan Leader  “I am considering two promises. One is the promise of God, the other is that of Bush. The promise of God is that my land is vast. If you start a journey on God’s path, you can reside anywhere on this earth and will be protected… The promise…

Lashkar-e-Taiba also known as Lashkar-e-Toiba, Army of the Good, translated as Army of the Righteous, or Army of the Pure.
Operates out of the region of Lahore, Pakistan and run numerous training camps in the disputed region of Kashmir. The main goal of Lashkar is not only to gain control over Kashmir, which is a major area of dispute between Pakistan and India, but to establish a Muslim state that unites Muslim populations throughout South Asia.” LeT” was founded more than 20 years ago with the help of Pakistani intelligence officers as a proxy force to challenge Indian control of Jammu and Kashmir. The Lashkar-e-Taiba group has repeatedly claimed through its journals and websites that its main aim is to destroy the Indian republic and to annihilate Hinduism and Judaism. LeT has declared Hindus and Jews to be the “enemies of Islam”, as well as India and Israel to be the “enemies of Pakistan”.

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) And The ISI
It appears that Lashkar-e-Taiba has a close relationship with the Pakistan Intelligence Agency known as the ISI. The Lashkar-e-Taiba has gained strength in recent years to become a more effective militant outfit with the help of Pakistans main spy agency, the ISI. Lashkar-e-Taiba, also simply known as LeT, according to a 2008 New York Times piece has been helped by the ISI while other terrorist groups have been clampeded down on as a result of 911 and other world wide attacks by terrorist groups operating out of the troubled Pakistan. The ISI has enabled LeT to raise money as well as continue to train militants in the Kashmir territory. The Pakistan Intelligence agency (ISI) has always been considered a conduit in the world of terrorism. Corruption in the organization has linked insiders to the Taliban, al Qaeda, Lashkar and a host of other Islamic terrorist groups. Lashkar-e-Taiba may be special to many in the intelligence agency because of their resistance in the Kashmir Region they provide against Pakistan’s key enemy India. In March 2010, “The LeT is a deadly serious group of fanatics. They are well financed, ambitious, and most disturbingly, both tolerated by, and connected to, the Pakistani military,” said Gary L Ackerman, chairman of the House subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia of the House committee on international relations.

And it is the same Pakistani military, to which the Obama administration is selling advanced arms, he pointed out. Testifying before the Congressional committee, Marvin G Weinbaum, from the Middle East Institute — a Washington-based think tank, said despite the government official ban of LeT, ISI continued to consider the organisation as an asset. The Mumbai attacks and subsequent Headley investigations reveal that the LeT has the international capabilities and ideological inclination to attack western targets whether they are located in South Asia or elsewhere.

On September 12, 2006 the propaganda arm of the Lashkar-e-Taiba issued a fatwa against Pope Benedict XVI demanding that Muslims assassinate him for his controversial statements about the prophet Muhammad. During this period the clash in cultures throughout Europe and the Middle East are at a boiling point.

Origins of a Movement
Lashkar-e-Taiba, meaning “army of the pure” has been active since 1993. It is the military wing of the well-funded Pakistani Islamist organization Markaz-ad-Dawa-wal-Irshad, which was founded in 1989 and recruited volunteers to fight alongside the Taliban. During the 1990s, experts say LeT received instruction and funding from Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in exchange for a pledge to target Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir and to train Muslim extremists on Indian soil. Pakistan’s government has repeatedly denied allegations of supporting terrorism.

Leadership of Lashkar-e-Taiba
The group has its headquarters in Muridke near Lahore in Pakistan, say experts, and is headed by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, a former Islamic-studies professor. In December 2008, New Delhi demanded that Islamabad hand over Saeed as a suspect wanted for terrorism in India, including the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. In February 2009, Pakistani officials admitted that the attacks had been planned in Pakistan, and in November, a Pakistani court charged seven men for planning the attacks, including LeT’s chief of operations Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi. Pakistan says it does not have evidence to charge Saeed.

Al Qaeda Connection
In this part of the world things are seen differently than in the West. The West attempts to put everything into specific boxes with labels attached to them. In reality that concept does not work when attempting to connect the dots in Pakistan and Afghanistan. These groups will work together or assist one another in a type of blend where it is difficult to tie down who was involved and who was not. While Al Qaeda has provided financing and other support to Lashkar in the past, their links today remain murky. Senior al  Qaeda figures have used Lashkar safe houses as hide-outs, but Lashkar has not merged its operations with Al Qaeda or adopted the Qaeda brand, American officials said.

In April 2008 an Indian newsource stated that there was an interesting development that was picked up on the radar screen in India that predicted a new troublesome blend of radical Islam when The merger of Dawood Ibrahim’s gang with the Lashkar-e-Toiba at the behest of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). This led to Indian security agencies becoming more concerned since the extremists ties will expand the ISI’s reach into India. In Novemeber of 2008 Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out the deadly attacks in Mumbai, India that led to the deaths of over 170 individuals in one of the most brazen and deadliest terrorist attacks since the September 11 attacks in New York.

Lashkar-e-Taiba Major Terrorist Attacks
Though there are many other LeT associated attacks, particular in Kashmir and other India provinces, below are the most deadly and significant attacks by the organization

The Chittisinghpura massacre: March 20, 2000. Wearing Indian Army fatigues to avoid detection, members of LeT came into the village in two groups at separate ends of the village of Chittisinghura in the region of Kashmir. They first lined up the rounded up Sikhs, who had been celebrating the Holi and Hola Mahalla Festival, in front of their Gurdwaras and opened fire. 36 people were killed.

2002 Kaluchak Massacre 14 May 2002 The terrorist attack which took place near the town of Kaluchak in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir began when three terrorists attacked a tourist bus from the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and killed 31 people. The terrorists who were dressed in Indian army fatigues, while returning fire, attempted to escape in the direction of the Army’s family quarters, located on the main road. They also threw grenades on some vehicles parked in the vicinity. Upon entering the family quarters they again fired on Army family members present in the premises.The terrorists were eventually cordoned off and killed.

2003 Nadimarg Massacre 23 March 2003. Once again LeT utilized Indian army fatiques while entering the village of Nadimarg in the Kahmir province in a late night attack. They gathered together Hindus including elderly, women and children and lined them up against a wall before emptying their Ak-47’s into them. Afterwards the terrorists went onto dismember the bodies of the dead and loot the village. Victims included 11 men, 11 women, and two small boys who were lined up and shot and killed by the gunmen.

2005 Delhi bombings 29 October 2005 Lashkar-e-Taiba also was connected to a series of bombings in Delhi that resulted in the deaths of 62 people. The attacks were on two different market places and one bus. The attack coincided with the beginning of a major Hindu, Sikh and Jain holiday known as the festival of Diwali that would begin two days later. At this point Lashkar is becoming a growing and very active threat in the region.

2006 Varanasi bombings 7 March 2006 Two separate blasts resulted in the death of 28 people and injuring over a hundred others. The two bombings were planned and carried out almost simultaneusly at a temple and rail station at approximately 6:20 p.m. local time. The first attack was carried out at the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple near the Banaras Hindu University. Hundreds of pilgrims were worshipping at the temple as it was a Tuesday, believed to be particularly holy by the devotees of Hanuman, a deity at the temple. The bomb was placed in a container near a gate at the temple where women usually sit. The second blast occurred at the waiting area of the travel office at the Varanasi Cantonment Railway Station. Both attacks were set up for maximum damage and loss of life. Six other explosive devices were loacted and destroyed throughtout the city before they could be detonated.

2006 Doda massacre 30 April 2006. Lashkar once again utilized fake or stolen Indian military fatigues in two separate attacks that result in the slaughter of 35 Hindus in the Jammu and Kashmir region. In the first attack twenty two unarmed Hindu villagers, mostly shepherds or their families, were lined up and gunned down by Lashkar Islamic terrorists in Thawa village in Kulhand area of Doda district in the late hours of April 30th. The second attack, a few hours later in the neighbouring Lalon Galla village where 13 Hindu shepherds kidnapped by suspected terrorists were shot dead on the same day. Victims included a small child the age of 3.

2006 Mumbai train bombings: 11 July, 2006 A deadly attack carried out by Lashkar-e- Taiba in Mumbai. A series of seven bomb blasts took place over a period of 11 minutes on a Suburban Railway in Mumbai. In a deadly display of coordinated terrorism 211 lives are lost and the carnage maimed about 407 people and seriously injured another 768. This attack shows the growing deadly progress that Lashkar had been making in coordinating attacks for maximum damage and loss of life.

2006 Malegaon bombings 8 September 2006 A series of bomb blasts took place on 8 September 2006 in Malegaon. The explosions, which caused the deaths of at least 37 people and injured over 125 more, took place in a Muslim cemetery, adjacent to a mosque, at around 3:15 p.m. local time after Friday prayers on the Shab e Bara’at holy day. Most of the blast victims were Muslim pilgrims. Security forces spoke of “two bombs attached to bicycles”, but other reports indicated that three devices had exploded.

2008 Mumbai attacks November 26 lasting until November 29, 2008
Of all the terror attacks since the September 11, 2001 attacks this one was the one that sent shivers up my spine. The brazen act symbolizes the deadliness of simplicity in the world of terrorism. Lightly armed men with very little military training were able to hold one of the world’s largest cities in a terroristic siege. The plan was simple. Send 10 young radicalized young men to kill as many people as possible before they themselves are killed and martyered. Lashkar-e-Taiba was set on getting the world’s attention by orchestrating how deadly and cruel they can be. They were wanting to steal the spotlight from al Qaeda as the world’s most feared terrorist group. In the end 9 of the ten terrorists were killed and one that was injured was taken captive.

The reason that this is so chilling is because this “blueprint” could easily be carried out anywhere in the modern world, even occurring in the streets of the United States.

The crew of ten arrived in the piers in the South section around 10p.m. local time after sailing from Karachi across the Arabian Sea. They sailed in an Indian fishing boat that they hijacked and killed the crew immediately except for the captain who piloted the boat to Mumbai. At this point they slit his throat. They arrived on shore in inflatable boats and were seen by bewildered fishermen that watched them arrive and suspiciously removed their cargo of backpacks carrying their weapons, ammo, explosives and a small amount of dried fruits. The young men had cell phones that were connected at the other end to older handlers in Pakistan that provided orders and constant contact on what their next move was in order to follow a plan set forth many miles away to be carried out that day in Mumbai.

The group took a taxi from the fishing slums to the inner city and left a bomb in the taxi that was scheduled to explode an hour later. They threw a grenade into a bar and began firing their automatic weapons into the patrons. A second group went to the rail station where once again a bomb was left in the taxi that they rode in set to explode an hour later. The terrorists arrived and settled in before they opened up their back packs and brandished their assault rifles and began opening fire throughout the station. Minutes prior it was reported that the men were actually talking with other travellers before they began the attack. People that were shot relied on playing dead just to survive the ordeal as anything that grabbed their attention also drew their fire.

The police were outgunned and many even ran away from the scene. For fifteen minutes the terrorists were able to select who lived and died that day. The group killed 52 people at this train station and wounded scores more. Many of the victims were from the same family as they were planning to travel together. Chaos was created without a decisive plan on how to stop them. They had no idea what the next target could be. The bombs placed in the taxis exploded and killed the drivers and the passengers that were unfortunate enough to hail those taxis..

An interesting aspect of this crime was that Indian intelligence were able to pick up the phone conversations that were carried out between the controllers in Pakistan and the terrorists in Mumbai. The controllers were able to keep a tight noose on the young men and made sure that they carried out their plan to the tee. They were constantly encouraged to finish their job.

As the attack at the train station was being carried out by two terrorist, two more youths armed blasted their way into the Trident Oberoi Hotel, one of Mumbai’s biggest. Staff was killed as well as patrons waiting in the lobby. The two gunmen then turned their attention to a restaurant in the hotel and began killing diners. Visitors inside the hotel locked themselves in their room to avoid the gunfire. Ten were killed on a narrow landing in one of the most gruesome events of the attack. The two gunmen were eventually killed by Indian Special Forces. The last one was killed in the bathroom where he was hiding after his partner was killed.

Two more militants about that same time walked into the Taj Hotel and began opening fire as they were later joined by two more that had previously attacked a cafe a few blocks away killing 11 patrons. At this point there were four gunmen in the Taj Hotel. The controllers ordered the gunmen to start fires in the hotel to create an atmosphere of fear. After accomplishing this they began going from room to room looking for more people to kill. The fire blazed aout the windows of one of the wings of the hotel that created a picture for headlines acrosee the world. Indian special forces eventually arrived killing the gunmen.

The two gunmen from the train station went into a neighborhood and killed a man in his home while eating dinner. The Gunmen then went to a hospital and looked for hostages they shot and killed a police commander. The two men eventually left the hospital and were confronted by police killing the driver and overtaking the vehicle and eventually driving away.

Keep in mind that at this point there are still gunmen killing people at the Trident Oberoi hotel and holding hostages. The next target that the terrorists hit was the Nariman House a Jewish owned establishment that served as an a religious outreach house. This is where they killed a Rabi and his guests. The gunmen ramained after killing a total of nine Jewish people. On Friday after approximately 36 hours special forces rushed the historic landmark and killed them. The gunmen that carried out the attacks at the train station crashed into a police roadblock and were shot by police ending their reign of terror hours prior to this event.

In the end the 9 of the ten terrorist were killed and one was in custody. The little over 36 hours of terrorism came to an end and resulted in the killing of 173 civilians and wounding of at least 308 more. This type of attack is not that complicated and yet it’s efficiency in the violence that it is able to produce is mindnumbing. The India police were quoted as saying that they were prepared for a terrorist attack but not for 5 simultaneously occuring throughout the city. In the future local and government authorities has to keep this type of attack in the back of their minds. Coordinated lightly armed men attacking major cities anywhere would be a tough test for authorities.    See Also:  Deadly Attacks In Mumbai, India (November 2008)

Where Does Lashkar-e-Toiba go from here?
After the Mumbai attacks Lashkar continued to operate and it took some time before Pakistan would even admit that the attack was planned inside their country. They arrested some members of the group but left the top echelon in place. Lashkar-e-Toiba is a dangerous group that has benefitted greatly from the war on terror. They received funding for their cause but did not get all the negative attention that al Qaeda harbored. Their amnitions are high and their support in the world of radical Islam has grown over the years well into the Middle East. They are a group that probably doesn’t fall under the al Qaeda umbrella of control. however it is likely that they would be capable of carrying out an attack abroad especially since their rhetoric has become more international in nature when making their threat. The blueprint for Mumbai is one that America has to take notice of when preparing for the next terrorist attack that more than likely will happen one day. This was a lesson for the whole world community of how simple and deadly terrorists can be. It appears that ar least since the Mumbai attacks that Lashkar has not reached past their regional targets in Kashmir and Jammu.

So, Where is Osama bin Laden.  Based on the majority of articles, reports, and investigations it appears that Osama bin Laden is in either Afghanistan or Pakistan near the border tribal areas where there is no Pakistan or Afghanistan forces.  Where U.S. troops cannot infiltrate because of the resistance from Taliban strongholds throughout the region. To answer where Osama bin Laden is it depends on your schools of thoughts. One school believes that he is constantly on the run.  He is being rushed from one secret location to another.  If he is being moved, it must not be often.  Why would you make dangerous moves unless it is absolutely needed.  With U.S. drones and spy satellites looking for anything that looks like the movement of a high level Taliban or al Qaeda leader.  The second school of thought is that he is being protected in the compound of a powerful war lord that is sympathetic to the Taliban and or al Qaeda and does not have to move around at all.  Some of these compounds are like mazes with many ways to move from within its walls. 

One interesting rumor had him in Iran.  It is interesting because members of his family have been confirmed inside Iran.  This would make an incredible story amidst the current Iranian nuclear crisis that is heating up to a boil  Iran is connected to Pakistan and Afghanistan and slipping over the border into Iran from Afghanistan and then into Pakistan would be a benefit to Osama bin Laden.  One thing I noticed when Iran stated that members of the bin Laden family were being held in Iran there was nothing released by Osama bin Laden or messages regarding the matter.  There is a lot of talk and misinformation about how Shia and Sunni sects do no get along.  This may be true in some instances but overall does not trump the hatred they share for America and the West.  Iran benefits greatly by a war in Afghanistan.  They are able to play a part in the killing of Americans by proxy.  They can make and supply weapons and explosives.  Iran enjoys a spread thin American military because it makes it more unlikely that America would engage with force in the Iran nuclear crisis that is unfolding. Your enemy is my enemy is something that we can not overlook in discovering where Osama bin Laden is.

December 2009  A Taliban detainee in Pakistan claims to have information about Osama Bin Laden’s whereabouts in January or February of 2009.  He claims that in January or February he met a trusted contact who had seen Bin Laden about 15 to 20 days earlier in Afghanistan. “In 2009, in January or February I met this friend of mine. He said he had come from meeting Sheikh Osama, and he could arrange for me to meet him,” he said.”He helps al-Qaeda people coming from other countries to get to the sheikh, so he can advise them on whatever they are planning for Europe or other places.  “The sheikh doesn’t stay in any one place. That guy came from Ghazni, so I think that’s where the sheikh was.”  The province of Ghazni is located in eastern Afghanistan has experienced an increasingly strong Taliban presence. 

2/17/2009 Osama bin Laden is most likely hiding out in a walled compound in a Pakistani border town, according to a satellite-aided geographic analysis.  According to the study conducted by a research team led by geographer Thomas Gillespie of the University of California-Los Angeles using geographic analytical tools that have been successful in locating urban criminals and endangered species.  Basing their conclusion on nighttime satellite images and other techniques, the scientists suggest bin Laden may well be in one of three compounds in Parachinar, a town 12 miles from the Pakistan border. The research incorporates public reports of bin Laden’s habits and whereabouts since his flight from the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in 2001. 

“The combination of physical terrain, socio-cultural gravitational factors and the physical characteristic of structures are all important factors in developing an area limitation for terror suspects,” say John Goolgasian of the federal National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in Bethesda, Md. His spy satellite agency “looks forward to reviewing the article once it is published.

In essence the pinpointing of the world’s most famous fugitive is based on older information as new information has been limited.  Terroristplanet.com actually did a pretty good job of narrowing down the regions of where Osama bin laden may be on the map below. 

Since September 11, 2001 Osama bin Laden has been on the minds of many Americans.  He and the organization he leads, al Qaeda, on “911″ carried out the deadliest and most shocking terrorist attack ever to occur.  2,985 deaths resulted from the attacks including the nineteen terrorists.  He has been the focus of the biggest manhunt that has ever been carried out by the U.S. government that has reached across the globe and concentrated in the last few years on the Afghanistan – Pakistan border.

We know that initially prior to the 911 attacks he was in Afghanistan enjoying the hospitality and admiration of the Taliban Militant group that took control over the majority of the country in 1996.  In that same year Osama bin Laden arrived in Afghanistan after residing previously in Sudan.  He was asked to leave Sudan after U.S. pressure was applied by the Clinton Administration.  911 was not al Qaeda’s first terrorist attack by no means, just the deadliest.  On August 7, 1998, at 10:30 a.m. local time, two Embassies of the United States of America, located in the East African cities of Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were attacked in coordinated truck bombings, later determined to have occurred approximately four minutes apart. In Nairobi, 213 people were killed in the blast, while 11 individuals died in the bombing at Dar es Salaam.

The Taliban supplied refuge and a base of operations for these activities to be planned and carried out.  The Taliban fell for bin Laden’s view of how to deal with the rest of the world that did not accept the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.  “Our prestige is spreading across the region because we have truly implemented Islam, and this makes the Americans and some neighbors very nervous,” said Taliban Afghan Information Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. That is putting it lightly. As militants from around the world flock to it for sanctuary  only increases its support for the wave of Talibanization it hopes to unleash on the region and beyond even today. 

The U.S. demanded the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden after 911.  The Taliban leadership played cat and mouse with the United States until America attacked Afghanistan in October 2001.  Before we go into the latest sightings, speculations and reports of Where Osama bin Laden is, It is interesting to consider the following statement by Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Afghanistan Taliban who is being hunted in the same regions along the Afghanistan and Pakistan border areas as the hunt that is occurring for Osama bin Laden.  The two are unlikely together.  It is also unlikely that al Qaeda’s number two Ayman Al Zawarhi is with bin Laden for obvious security and overall protection of the top leaders.

 “I am considering two promises. One is the promise of God, the other is that of Bush. The promise of God is that my land is vast. If you start a journey on God’s path, you can reside anywhere on this earth and will be protected… The promise of Bush is that there is no place on earth where you can hide that I cannot find you. We will see which one of these two promises is fulfilled”.
 Mullah Mohammed Omar  In rare interview with Voice of America in Pashtu September  2001

The trio of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawarhi, and Afghanistan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar are all three being hunted as the main targets of U.S. and coalition forces.  The confidence displayed in the above quote is interesting as George Bush has less than 80 days left in his administration.  When Bush leaves office it surely is not the end of the man hunt for the Osama bin Laden and crew but it is a moral victory that surely will embolden al Qaeda and the Taliban.

 Where is Osama bin Laden?  We don’t have a clue where he is or even may be,” the Western analyst said. “We have had NO credible intelligence on OBL since 2001. All the rest is rumor and rubbish either whipped up by the media or churned out in the power corridors of western capitals.”
 In fact, say U.S. officials, the last time U.S. operatives saw Osama Bin Laden–other than in his own videos–was in the famous Predator video shot in August 2000 where he is seen walking with a security contingent near his compound at Tarnak Farms in eastern Afghanistan. The Predators had not been armed yet.
 The last time the U.S. heard Osama Bin Laden was at the battle for Tora Bora, when an NSA operative overheard him giving orders on a frequency not normally monitored and not recorded. There were some initial concerns about the identification but the agency later learned from other sources and materials that indeed that had been him.
 From here out we will continue to update this page whenever there is a report of  sightings of Osama bin Laden.  We will also update the map above to show the location. The important thing to remember is that credible evidence has been tough to come by in the past few years and the trail has grown cold in the past few years.  The most recent report will be below.  This map of sightings is current as of 11/01/2008

 Friday, June 13, 2008:  A “Western military analyst” was asked earlier this month about reports that Osama Bin Laden was seen on the slopes of K2, the world’s second highest mountain on the Pakistan-China border, or in the Khost Province of Afghanistan. 

 November 16, 2007 Ahmad Farooq, a Pakistani Taliban leader has told the Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, that he knows where bin Laden is. According to Farooq, bin Laden is moving between Chitral and the “corridor of Waqan”, a region of Pakistan bordering China and Tajikstan. Swat Valley, 15 Nov. (AKI) – Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was hiding in the remote mountains on the Afghani-Pakistani border and moving constantly to avoid detection by intelligence agencies, according to a Taliban sympathiser.
 Farooq gave many details about where bin Laden had been since September 11 2001 – hiding in the Afghan province of Khost until it became too dangerous for him. Then, he said, the al-Qaeda leader moved to the Chitral region, in northern Pakistan.
 Farooq gave many details about where bin Laden had been since September 11 2001 – hiding in the Afghan province of Khost until it became too dangerous for him.  Then, he said, the al-Qaeda leader moved to the Chitral region, in northern Pakistan.
 ”I saw him for the last time on 17 September 2003 not far from Dir, my village, ” he said. “His caravan was moving slowly. They told me he was not well. They didn’t seem worried about being detected by the Americans.
 ”Instead, they were looking for medicines and a warm place for the night. In that area winter arrives early. With the first snow fall the passes are closed at more than 4,000 metres and you have to wait for spring.
 ”I think they only went to China in summer, when the paths are clear.”

 Sept. 7, 2007 :  Sources Tell CBS News U.S. Intelligence Believes Al Qeada Leader Is In Chitral District Of Northern Pakistan.  sources tell CBS News U.S. intelligence believes Osama bin Laden is hiding out in the Chitral district of northern Pakistan. A number of reports from human sources, including some alleged sightings, have put him there, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. Chitral is a remote, rugged area governed by tribes that will not allow even the Pakistani army to operate there. “They have a code of hospitality for guests, and they’ve probably also gotten a fair amount of money from bin Laden,” says Daniel Benjamin of the Brookings Institute, who tracked bin Laden during the Clinton administration. He believes bin Laden is surrounded by body guards armed with surface-to-air missiles and good intelligence. “I think it’s quite likely he has a very good early warning system (and) that there are perimeters set up so people know who’s coming and going in the area that he’s living,” Benjamin said.

 Aug. 25, 2006  U.S. intelligence suspects al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is hiding in Chitral, a region in northern Pakistan, the Pakistani Daily Times reported Aug. 25, citing anonymous intelligence officials. The sources based their conclusions on an examination of trees seen in bin Laden’s video footage dating back to 2003 and the length of time it takes for audiotapes from bin Laden regarding recent events to reach the media. Bin Laden is believed to be living in house, possibly with a family, and to have only two bodyguards, the sources said.

 5/24/06  Pakistani government sources tell ABC News they have “credible reports” that Osama bin Laden and his entourage have moved down from high mountainous peaks along the Afghan border to a valley area 40 miles inside the Pakistan border  The officials say the reports put bin Laden around Kohistan’s Kumrat Valley.

 Nov. 4, 2004 Reports, calculated leaks and intelligence are flowing thick and fast that bin Laden is not where he was originally thought to be – somewhere along the harsh Afghanistan-Pakistan border, running from cave to cave to escape intense shelling. This view has been further strengthened by the fact that the recent bin Laden tape, in which he addressed the American people, was delivered to the upscale Islamabad office of Arabic network television channel al-Jazeera. This has given credence to India’s long-standing fear that most of al-Qaeda’s operatives are holed up and living comfortably in urban hideouts in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, with the complicity of the Pakistan establishment  Asia Times.

 March 26, 2002 Afghan military officials working with US forces in Khost say that the top two leaders of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri, have both been seen in the area over the past eight days.This is the second sighting of Mr. bin Laden’s No. 2 in this area in the past month. Local forces may have their own motives for reporting a bin Laden sighting. But, if true, it would be the first evidence of bin Laden’s continued presence in Afghanistan since he was seen at Tora Bora in November.  Christian Monitor.

 Nov 26, 2001  OSAMA bin Laden has been seen at a fortified encampment south west of the Afghan city of Jalalabad, it was reported over the weekend.  The fugitive terror chief was spotted by informants reporting to an official of one of the members of the Northern Alliance near a village deep in the Afghan mountains. And the informers revealed bin Laden now travelled only on horseback and at night, sleeping in caves and surrounded by up to 2,000 fiercely loyal guards who would protect him to the death, The New York Times reported.

More Facts Revealed By Interrogations, notebooks and computer hard drives captured or found regarding the where abouts and movements of Osama bin Laden.

Does He Live In Caves?  No he does not live in caves.  He is believed to be living in one of the interconnected large mud walled compounds that are prevalent in the area and the largest ones being owned by a local clan leader. 

Is He Always On The Run?  No, it is commonly accepted that he does not like to move often.  He is believed to stay for extended periods of time in a location.  The foreign al Qaeda members have taken wives and have married into the tribal areas and this has created a larger pool area for him to seek refuge in.  If he would continually be on the move he would be easier to find with drones and other methods.  It is believed that he only changes locations in the evening or at night after Evening Prayers.  The network of extended families that al Qaeda members have married into over the years has created an early warning system to keep him safe from troop movements and drones.

How is his health? As for his health, he is 50 years old, turning 51 (according to the best estimates) in July.  He does NOT have kidney failure and does NOT need dialysis.  He has had kidney stones.  He is also seen as somewhat of a hypochondriac. He is missing a toe, lost in a battle against the Soviets. He reportedly has an enlarged heart and chronically low blood pressure, which he treats with drugs.  There is even some dispute over his height.  Is he tall?  Yes.  Is he 6’5”?  Maybe not.  As one intelligence official told me, “If you see a guy who is 6’4” tall and looks like him, kill him.”

Is Osama bin Laden Surrounded By An Army?  His protection detail is believed to be controlled by his brother-in-law and believed to include Chechen and Uzbeks as well as Arabs.  The most important part of his protection is the monitoring of American, Afghanistan and Pakistani as well as other Coalition movements into areas where he is taking refuge.  When an area heats up as has happened in the past he will move locations well ahead of the manhunt.  If is whereabouts are discovered it is believed that there is sufficient firepower to enable time for an escape.

The US Government alleges that Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani mother of three with a biology degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a doctorate in behavioral neuroscience from Brandeis University, near Boston is the highest ranking known female al Qaeda operative. She is currently married to the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man who claims to have organized the September 11 terror attacks in 2001. She is not your typical Muslim mother, Her status has her rubbing elbows with the upper echelon of al Qaeda leadership. Despite previous beliefs that female al Qaeda members were not viewed as valuable, she has been described as a person of importance by the FBI as a result of her suspected involvement in many aspects within the American al Qaeda connection. However her attorney says that the government has no case against the “Female al Qaeda”.

June 2001, Siddiqui was allegedly in Liberia, Africa purchasing blood diamonds. They would be used as a convenient, hard-to-trace way of funding Al Qaeda’s global terror operations. It was mid-June 2001, three months before September 11.

The FBI, displayed her photograph in May 2004 at a press conference, she was a suspected terrorist with ties to a chief mastermind of 9/11 — and the knowledge, skills, and intention to continue Al Qaeda’s terror war in the United States and abroad. Henceforth dubbed as “The Female al Qaeda”.

The following is an excerpt of the evidence presented describing her arrest in Afghanistan and part of her charges of being a terrorist

On or about the evening of July 17, 2008, officers of the Ghazni Province Afghanistan National Police (“ANP”) discovered a Pakistani woman, later identified as SIDDIQUI, along with a teenage boy, outside the Ghazni governor’s compound. ANP officers questioned SIDDIQUI in the local dialects of Dari and Pashtu. SIDDIQUI did not respond and appeared to speak only Urdu, indicating that she was a foreigner.

c. Regarding SIDDIQUI as suspicious, ANP officers searched her handbag and found numerous documents describing the creation of explosives, chemical weapons, and other weapons involving biological material and radiological agents. SIDDIQUI’s papers included descriptions of various landmarks in the United States, including in New York City. In addition, among SIDDIQUI’s personal effects were documents detailing United States military assets, excerpts from the Anarchist’s Arsenal, and a one gigabyte (1 gb) digital media storage device (thumb drive).

d. SIDDIQUI was also in possession of numerous chemical substances in gel and liquid form that were sealed in bottles and glass jars.

The alleged female terrorist is charged with attempted murder and assault for allegedly trying to kill an American interrogator in a gun battle after she was arrested outside an Afghan government compound with a handbag full of chemicals and information on chemical, biological and radiological weapons, as well as descriptions of “various landmarks” in the United States. Two FBI agents escorted by US soldiers interrogated her the following day of her arrests. The soldiers were unaware that she was being held behind a curtain and a warrant officer put his M4 rifle on the ground. Ms Siddiqui allegedly grabbed the rifle and fired two shots at a US army captain but an interpreter pushed the gun away as she fired. As the soldiers returned fire, she was hit at least once.

American prosecutors said that Ms Siddiqui opened a post office box in Maryland for Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident now being held at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay for terrorist ties.
Her trial should shed light on the mystery surrounding her disappearance with her children from the Pakistani city of Karachi in 2003. Her family claimed that she was abducted and imprisoned in a secret US detention centre. Six human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have listed her as a possible “secret detainee”.

Siddiqui and the al Qaeda Charities Connection
Siddiqui was an account holder at Fleet National Bank in Boston. According to documents obtained by Newsweek, in 2001, Siddiqui was making regular debit-card payments to an Islamic charity front, Benevolence International, which is now banned by the UN. In addition, Siddiqui was found to be active with the Al Kifah Refugee Center, another Islamic charity that was ostensibly raising funds for Bosnian orphans but which also was under federal investigation. Fleet Bank security officers began tracking a money trail from the Saudi Embassy that led to Siddiqui, resulting in more “links” that “shocked” the bank security officers
Aafia Siddiqui’s husband was found to be purchasing high-tech military equipment. According to Newsweek, FBI documents stated that Khan, Siddiqui’s then husband, had purchased body armor, night-vision goggles and a variety of military manuals that were supposed to be sent to Pakistan. Fleet National Bank accounts associated with the couple also showed “major purchases” from U.S. airlines and hotels in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and North Carolina as well as an $8,000 international wire transfer on December 21, 2001, to Habib Bank, the largest bank in Pakistan. The Fleet National Bank reports detailing all the transactions were filed with the U.S. Treasury Department, and suggest that Siddiqui and her estranged husband, Dr. Mohammed Amjad Khan, may have been active terror plotters inside the country until as late as the summer of 2002.

The Al-Kifah Refugee Center was bin Laden’s largest fundraising group in the US and has offices in many cities. Counterterrorism expert Steven Emerson will later call it “al-Qaeda’s operational headquarters in the United States.” As far back as late March 1993, Newsweek will report that “virtually every principal figure implicated in the World Trade Center bombing” that took place the month before has a connection to the Al-Kifah branch in Brooklyn, New York. The Brooklyn branch quietly shuts itself down. But other branches stay open and the Boston branch appears to take over for the Brooklyn branch. In April 1993, it reincorporates under the new name Care International (which is not connected with a large US charity based in Atlanta with the same name). Emerson will later comment, “The continuity between the two organizations was obvious to anyone who scratched the surface.” For instance, Care takes over the publication of Al-Kifah’s pro-jihad newsletter, Al Hussam. One month after the bombing, a member of Al-Kifah/Care in Boston named Aafia Siddiqui sends Muslims newsgroups an e-mail pledge form asking for support for Bosnian widows and orphans trying to raise money for CARE.

Aafia Siddiqui comes from a Pakistani family in which she was one of three children of Mohammad Siddiqui, a doctor trained in England. Her and her siblings are all well educated professionals residing in both the United States as well as in Pakistan.

Understanding The Past and the People in the Pakistan and Afghanistan Quagmire and How America got There

President Obama did not start this war. George Bush did not start this war either. Radical Islam created this quagmire that President Obama must navigate through and somehow against the odds of history come out victorious. What are the consequences of hasty and unrealistic decisions that forsake history. We need only look at the fate and aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as well as the re-emergence of the Taliban after the initial U.S. and Taliban conflict that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks. U.S. forces removed the Taliban from power but they waited patiently and regrouped and are now in control of half the country again despite the presence of U.S. and NATO troops attempting to secure the not so new Afghanistan Government that has been in jeopardy for the past few years.

In the past presidential election President Obama said that he would increase troop strength in Afghanistan because that is where the terrorists are and have been since 2001. President Bush made a big mistake in removing the emphasis in Afghanistan and taking on a war in Iraq. At that point, following the attacks on New York and Washington, America was given a mandate by the world to go into Afghanistan and hunt down the individuals responsible for the terrorist attacks and those that chose to protect them. The world offered it’s support and troops as the world was with us in our anger and outrage. America bombed away and utilized special forces and dispersed the Taliban from power. They disappeared into the the tribal border areas and the remote villages in the countryside. The higher level Taliban and al Qaeda militants were protected and given refuge in the Pashtun lands on both sides of the Afghanistan and Pakistan shared border. As America became more consumed with the Iraq War, Osama bin Laden and his henchmen became just a whisper and their trail has since been lost. The big three Osama bin Laden , Ayman al Zawahiri,  and Mullah Mohammed Omar are still alive and are orchestrating operations against their enemies.  Under Mullah Omar the Taliban began regrouping after months of watching and learning about the new invaders. They grew their Opium crops and raised money. They recruited and rearmed from the sale of drugs and contributions from friendly sympathizers in the region and abroad as well as utilizing al Qaeda’s network. Their were even reports of IEDs being discovered in Afghanistan that were made in Iran according to U.S. officials. This entire scenario is beginning to look eerily familiar.

Important Facts For A Better Understanding Of The Afghanistan Pakistan Quagmire
understanding the people of the region itself

The people that live in the areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan are a group known as Pashtuns. Their are other minority groups in the region but the vast majority consider themselves Pashtun. They share a common Pashto language and the practice of living devoted to Pashtunwali. This is an ancient feudal tribal “code of honor” that belongs to South-Central Asia and dominates the countryside of Afghanistan and western Pakistan. All Pashtuns share an ancient tradition of spiritual and community identity that is woven from a set of moral codes and rules of conduct. They also share a history of over five thousand years of existence. Pashtunwali is based on set of teachings known as core tenants that include the following: self-respect, independence, justice, hospitality, love, forgiveness, revenge and tolerance toward all. It is the balance of these tenants that maintain a social and moral association within this culture. Though Pushtanwali is a personally defined and discovered attribute of the individual it is the unifying factor of the community that has no borders. In essence the people on the shared border of Pakistan and Afghanistan do not view the paths they walk as Afghanistan or Pakistan but rather Pashtun lands. Pashtuns are also historically referred to as ethnic Afghans, as the terms Pashtun and Afghan were synonymous until the advent of modern Afghanistan and the division of the Pashtuns by the Durand Line which is a border drawn by the British in the late 19th century that means nothing to the locals. Pashtuns are predominantly Sunni Muslims, most of them followers of the Hanafite branch of Sunni Islam. There is a small minority of Ithna Asharia Shia Pashtuns largely concentrated in Afghanistan. The Taliban are predominately Pashtun, but not all Pashtun share the same extremist Sunni Islam beliefs. The Taliban was and is supported because many Pashtuns grew tired of corruption and war. The Taliban quelled the violence that has plagued the region as result of war and tribal conflicts. The area has always attracted transients that peddle in the drug trade and arms trading. It can be a dangerous place and the Taliban with their swift and agonizing justice was a better alternative to chaos and tribal warfare of other times. I once read a quote from a Pashtun that lived in the conflicted area along the border that stated that there were only two reasons that outsiders come to their region. One is to trade in drugs and weapons and the other is to wage war. It is easier to understand how the people of the region were wiling to give power to the Taliban. They at least provided some peace and stability to a country that has struggled for a long time as a result of outside influence and war.

Understanding the Soviet Afghanistan War

A major event in the Pashtun region occurred when in the summer of 1979 the Soviet Union brought in additional troops to prop up a pro-communist Marxist regime that had begun losing the support of the tribes throughout the country. America, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and others were very bothered by the Soviet presence in Afghanistan and began funneling resources through Pakistan into Afghanistan without so much of an American fingerprint on anything. The Soviets ambitious plans to land one step closer to the Oil Rich Middle East and to gain better control of their own Muslim residents where the Soviet Union butted against Afghanistan. In essence it was important for Moscow that Afghanistan be stable and under their influence due to their proximity. In the end 9 years later history shows that the Soviet Union walked into a golden opportunity for her enemies and the trap was set. America took full advantage of the opportunity to provide the money and resources to the Mujihadeen that were willing to fight to their death to remove the invaders. Muslims from around the globe answered.

the call to Jihad in Afghanistan. The war cost Moscow almost everything as the Soviet Union was dispersed in the years that followed as the once super power crumbled into pieces due to economic and loss of influence within the union. A decade of bitterness, shame and loss of identity followed for Moscow. It was only the oil bubble that has reignited the fire within the new Russia that has once again emboldened the sleeping nuclear nation.

Understanding the creation of a new breed of radical

Many other events were equally important for the future of the world that we live in as a result of the events in Soviet – Afghan War. The Muslims that answered the call to Jihad came from all corners of the world. Throughout the Middle East and Africa were where Muslims came to fight in the holy war in the largest numbers. They created a comradely and new resolve and the foreign Islamic fighters that shared the experience achieved a life changing ideology enlightenment. They defended and fought for Islam and were victorious against all odds Only Allah could have guided them to victory against the great Soviet Union. The God of Islam had been vindicated Throughout the war networks were set up by the foreign fighters that linked them to resources abroad. Wealthy Arabs contributed cash to finance the war as well as foreign governments. The channels were many and provided different supplies and resources. The foreign fighters were forever welcomed by the Afghans that they fought alongside of. Training camps set up would continue to be ran by the Mujihadeen as a way of preparing the next generation that would have to some day defend Muslim lands again. Many foreign fighters remained and took wives as marriage tightened the connection among militants and native Afghan Pashtuns. It was in this moment that the networks of radical Islam believed that they could be the army of Islam to defend all Muslims and create a world wide Islamic Caliphate ruled by Sharia law. It is a grand plan. Even more difficult and unrealistic in nature than creating a worldwide democracy. The networked developed further as the fighters returned to their homelands and shared with others their experiences. Individual cells popped up throughout Africa, Asia, and even more so the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and other nations where the foreign fighters came from were not as eager to welcome home their heroes. The governments were happy to see many radical extremist join the call in the Jihad far away from the ruling governments. The radicals were antagonistic to ruling royal families and other dictatorial style governments in the Muslim world and questioned the rulers legitimacy to rule over Muslim populations. The end to the war meant the returning of radicals with a louder voice than ever before. In the best self interest of the governments they continue to poor money to the training camps that attracted want to be extremists from around the globe. In 1996 The Taliban took control and a safe haven for Radical Islam was established. The Taliban accepted the foreign fighters and also gained a kindred relationship as the transients were a huge help in ridding the Afghan lands of the invaders. Osama bin Laden returned to Afghanistan after briefly living in Sudan. He was forced from his new homeland as American pressure won out and President Bashir asked him to leave. The land of Afghans was the obvious choice for his new home as by this time he had well established training camps in Pakistan , Afghanistan and Sudan. His network was developed intensively during these years that not only included financial networks, but also a constant flow of born again radicals to wage the next war that was sure to come.

Understanding the Events prior to September 11, 2001

Radical Islam had realized it’s new found power in the Soviet Afghanistan war and as Osama bin Laden became the leader of this collaboration of international networks another event occurred that would enrage the organizations associated with bin Laden, Iraq invaded Kuwait.  Osama bin Laden went to the King of Saudi Arabia and asked for his Muslim Army of Mujihadeen fighters to be allowed to regroup and remove Iraq from Kuwait and the threat to the Kingdom.  In the End King selected a quicker way to put Saddam Hussein back inside his own borders.  The American and Coalition forces.  After this embarrassment Osama and his followers became angry over foreign armies being used in Muslim lands to solve a Muslim problem.  America is the ally of Israel and this only added fuel to the displeasure of the soon to be head of al Qaeda.  After the war American troops remained in the region and this was seen as a severe insult to many Muslims that disliked the influence that America has had in the region as well as their support of Israel.  Osama bin Laden wanted U.S. influence and troops to leave the region and allow Muslims to handle Muslim problems.

1993 World Trade Center Attack  On February 26, 1993  A car bomb exploded in a basement parking garage in Tower 1 of the World Trade Center.  The truck loaded with about 1,500 pounds of urea nitrate (a fertilizer-based explosive) and hydrogen-gas cylinders.  The bomb killed six people and injured more than 1,000. Investigators determined that the cell built the bomb in New Jersey by consulting manuals brought from Pakistan. Two years later, the ringleader of the plot, Ramzi Yousef, tried but failed to use homemade liquid explosives to down 11 airliners crossing the Pacific Ocean.  According to journalist Steve Coll, Yousef mailed letters to various New York newspapers just before the attack, in which he claimed he belonged to ‘Israel’s Army, Fifth Battalion’, an al Qaeda linked organization. These letters made three demands: an end to all US aid to Israel, an end to US diplomatic relations with Israel, and a demand for a pledge by the United States to end interference “with any of the Middle East countries’ interior affairs.” He stated that the attack on the World Trade Center would be merely the first of such attacks if his demands were not met. In his letters Yousef admitted that the World Trade Center bombing was an act of terrorism, but that this was justified because “the terrorism that Israel practices, which America supports, must be faced with a similar one

1996 Osama bin Laden Declares War on America  A fatwa, or declaration of war, by Osama bin Laden first published in Al Quds Al Arabi, a London-based newspaper, in August, 1996. The fatwa is entitled “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places”

1998 United States Embassy Bombings  On Aug. 7, 1998, the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were bombed by terrorists, leaving 258 people dead and more than 5,000 injured. Al Qeada linked militants were responsible.

1998 President Clinton Orders Strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan  U.S. launched cruise missiles on Aug. 20, 1998, striking a terrorism training complex in Afghanistan and destroying a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Khartoum, Sudan, that reportedly produced nerve gas. Both targets were believed to have been financed by wealthy Islamic radical Osama bin Laden, who was allegedly behind the American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania as well as an international terrorism network targeting the United States.

2000 U.S. Cole Bombing  On 12 October 2000 in a Yemen seaport while refueling a small craft approached the port side of the destroyer, and an explosion occurred, putting a 40-by-60-feet gash in the ship’s port side resulting in the deaths of seventeen sailors.  Al Qaeda took responsibility and it is believed that the Sudanese government was  helpful in aiding the terrorist organization.

2001 World Trade Center Attack September 11, 2001  On an early Tuesday Morning as America began arriving to their workplace the world changed forever.  America would be at war ever since.  The attacks in New York, Washington, and a small wooded patch in Pennsylvania where United 93 crashed.  Over 3,000 people lost their lives that morning.  The war on terror has spanned the globe and the back and forth battle between Radical Islam and the West has not rested.  The events of that day was where all this started.  The man and the head of the organization that was responsible for this deadly attack disappears into the mountainside  as America demanded that he be turned over by the Taliban.  They refused and the war began.

In August, 1996  Osama bin Laden issued a religious order or statement known as a fatwa. The fatwa is entitled “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.  Osama bin Laden was not very well known internationally outside the Muslim world.  He did receive great admiration for his role in the Afghanistan-Soviet War in the 1980’s from many Muslim leaders and the Pashtuns from Afghanistan and Pakistan with whom he fought alongside in the war that played a major role in bringing down a world super power.  The first attack to bring not only Osama bin Laden to the forefront of terrorism but also a relatively unknown organization known as al Qaeda was the U.S. embassy bombings in two different orchestrated attacks that happened almost simultaneously in Africa.  On Aug. 7, 1998, the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were bombed by terrorists, leaving approximately 224 people dead and more than 5,000 injured. Al Qaeda linked militants were responsible.  Prior to the attacks a second Fatwa was distributed and ignored by much of the media as the the first fatwa was.  The second statement was interesting as it had other signatures attached to it from members of other known terrorist entities.  Some of the notable terrorists to sign the document were Egyptians  Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Yasser, A pair of Pakistanis known as Mir Hamzah, and Fazul Rahman.  You can read the entire Fatwa here:   Osama Bin Laden Fatwa of 1998.  Their associations stemmed from their activities during the 1980’s war with the Soviets.  All four additional signers were associated with different groups.  This collaboration was the beginnings of the al Qaeda network even though the network itself was a remnant of the war, but took on a new goal of ending Israel and removing U.S. influence from Muslim lands.  The February 1998 Fatwa called for the killing of Jews and American anywhere possible.  In August the Embassy bombings took place in the same year.

In response to the African Embassy bombings, U.S. President Bill Clinton ordered Operation Infinite Reach, a series of cruise missile strikes on terrorist training camps and other targets in Sudan and Afghanistan on August 20, 1998.  A chemical factory in Sudan,  the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory, which was suspected of being a chemical weapons factory with ties to Iraq and Osama bin Laden was targeted and destroyed.  The other main targets were located in the Taliban controlled Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan at four militant training camps around Khost and Jalalabad.  One of the sites bombed in Afghanistan was a suspected high level Islamic militant meeting of associates of the newly formed al Qaeda and associates of Osama bin Laden.

Al Qaeda leadership including Osama bin Laden was angered by the attacks but it was  Khalid Sheikh Mohammed  that planned and orchestrated the most deadliest terrorist attack that the world has seen.  Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington using four hijacked commercial airliners. Nearly 3,000 people were killed. In late 1998 or early 1999, bin Laden gave approval for Mohammed to go forward with organizing the plot that was a twist on the earlier foiled Bojinka plot. Orignally targets were to be on both the West and East coasts in the United States but bin Laden apparently thought it was too much to pull off so they settled on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Though Osama bin Laden assisted in selecting operatives, including Atta as the leader, Sheikh Mohammed provided operational support, such as selecting targets and helping arrange travel for the hijackers. In all reality it was Khalid Sheikh’s baby. It was known to al Qaeda as “Holy Tuesday”.

War In Afghanistan

Following the events of September 11, 20001 it became evident that Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders were inside the Taliban controlled country of Afghanistan. The United States urged the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden and other key operatives or risk being attacked under the Bush doctrine that stated that countries that harbor terrorists will not be distinguished as being separate entities. In other words, you either give up the terrorists or you are a terrorist nation yourself. The Taliban refused and the United States and her allies prepared for war.

The Taliban gained controlled of Afghanistan in the mid 1990’s. Their biggest opposition that they faced came from the Northern Alliance. This opposition group had loyalty to the prior government and was supported by Iran in their conflict with the Taliban. The Taliban after gaining control of the country continued to pressure the Northern Alliance, often with the aid of Osama bin Laden and his Arab forces. On September 9, 2001, the Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud was mortally wounded in an assassination attempt carried out by two Arab men posing as journalists. This attack was the work of bin Laden’s organization. The purpose behind this attack more than likely was an attempt to weaken the Northern Alliance as Osama bin Laden and the Taliban felt that the Northern Alliance would use an invasion of Afghanistan by the West to grab power in the country. The assassination would have hopefully weakened the alliance. Two days later New York and Washington D.C. was attacked.

The War in Afghanistan, which began on October 7, 2001 as the U.S. military operation Enduring Freedom, was launched by the United States and allied forces. The stated purpose of the invasion was to capture Osama bin Laden, destroy al-Qaeda, and remove the Taliban regime which had provided support and safe harbor to al-Qaeda.

As American allied forces bombed Taliban and al Qaeda targets, a ground operation was also underway coordinated with the Northern Alliance Afghanistan opposition troops to remove the Taliban from power. American and British special forces worked with the Northern Alliance and pushed the Taliban and al Qaeda linked militants southward and eventually into the tribal areas along the Afghanistan and Pakistan border areas where they had a greater following and sympathy. It is important to understand that in this region of the world the al Qaeda fighters were the same mujahedeen that came to this region’s aid and helped remove the Soviet threat 20 years prior. Osama bin Laden and other foreign fighters were very welcome in the tribal lands for their role in the Afghan-Soviet War.

At some point in 2002 the Taliban had realized that the war was going to be of one for survival. Taliban fighters blended back into society and waited for its leaders to regroup and to learn about the new invaders from the West. Over the next few years the Taliban began to slowly regroup and rearm from the drug and smuggling trade that is rampant throughout the tribal areas. The U.S. shifted gears at this point and made the mistake of thinking that it had accomplished more than it actually had and that the Taliban and al Qaeda was in shambles.  Maybe they were stunned from the first punch, but the terrorist organization and it’s host was far from knocked out.  When dealing with ideologies fostered and practices by the Taliban and al Qaeda it was no time to pull punches and shift the focus on another war when the job in Afghanistan was far from over.  Job number one was not to build a democracy in Afghanistan that in all reality has no chance of survival without completing the main goal of the Afghanistan war which was to eradicate the region of the Islamic extremists that carried out the attacks on 911 and capture  Osama bin Laden ,  Ayman al-Zawahiri  and  Mullah Mohammed Omar  . Mullah Omar the leader of the Afghanistan Taliban was never captured nor was Osama bin Laden or al Zawarhiri. However something odd happened. America began to focus it’s military might on another country. Iraq. This is a move that historians will question as a fatal misstep in the war on terror. This provided the Taliban time to regroup and to learn from the events and strategies of the Iraqi Insurgency. By 2006 the Taliban led Afghanistan Insurgency was strong and growing.  The Taliban and al Qaeda began not only to gain ground in Afghanistan but also destabilize neighboring Pakistan that has long been a hot bed of terrorists and also serves as the birthplace of the Taliban.  The border of Pakistan has been a constant area of trouble as Islamic fighters cross back and forth to conduct attacks on U.S. and other NATO forces. 

Inside the remote areas of the Hindu Kush mountain range that borders Afghanistan and Pakistan an entire group of people have carved out a way of life that is as unique as their customs. The border serves as an imaginary line designed to separate the Pashtun peoples. In their minds they do not see the line that separates the two sovereign nations. The border is as invisible to them as they are to the rest of the world. The Pashtuns are not really under the jurisdiction of either Afghanistan or Pakistan. It’s a lawless area that in all reality is like a sovereign nation onto itself.

Pashtunwali is literally translated as “the way of the Pashtun”. It has no meaning in the West or in most other parts of the globe, but in the villages and clans along the border it means everything. It defines them from birth. It also has meaning to the foreign soldiers that have entered to tame and control this region for generations before they were pushed out of the Pashtuns homelands.  Pushtunwali, a legal and moral code that determines social order and responsibilities. It contains sets of values pertaining to honor (namuz), solidarity (nang), hospitality, mutual support, shame and revenge which determines social order and individual responsibility. The defense of namuz, even unto death, is obligatory for every Pashtun. Elements in this code of behavior are often in opposition to the Shariah law, but it is their code that sets precedent over any other law. The Pashtun are an ethnic group with an estimated 15 million people located in Southeastern Afghanistan and Northwestern Pakistan.They have a complex organization of over 60 tribes broken down into clans and even into sub-clans.

Each one occupies its own territory. The Pashtun, also known as Pushtuns, Afghans, or Pakhtuns, represent the largest majority of the population inside of Afghanistan( approx. 45%) and are the largest ethnic minority in Pakistan.

A Pashtun boy grasps a AK-47 assault rifle. Boys are raised to be rough and never show weakness or loss of control. Warriors are groomed from birth and expected from each male child as he is tomorrows jihadist. They are today’s Spartans in a society that breaths war.

Pashtun have lived for centuries between Khurasan and the Indian subcontinent, at the crossroads of great civilizations. There is no true written history of the Pashtun in their own land. Pashtun are traditionally pastoral nomads. They are known for their ferocity in battles between clans and outside forces that have attempted to invade their terrirories. They have and always will be willing to fight for their honor and the honor of their tribe. Today, Pashtuns are involved in most levels and occupations as well as government. Generally however, the Pashtun of Afghanistan do not have very high living standards. Many groups of Pashtun along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan continue to live as nomads.

Islam was introduced to the Pashtuns in the eighth century. The majority of the Pashtuns embrace the Sunni branch of Islam while some of the clans have fostered the ideology of the Shia sect of Islam. Pashtuns have always resisted governmental control over their lives and their territories and most have lived their lives isolated from the reach of the Afghanistan government. Disputes and social issues are usually resolved by sub clans or clan chiefs and occasionally a tribal council. Differences among Pashtun clans and families have led to much violence and killing, both in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.

The Pashton, Taliban, and al-Qaeda

During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which lasted from 1978 into late 1988, a series of dramatic inner relationships that would shape the Afghanistan and Pakistan region for years to come was brought together under a common cause. To defeat the Soviet troops at all costs and to remove the current pro-soviet government. It’s a region that has repeatedly repulsed foreigners bent on domination, from the British more than a hundred years ago to the then Soviets in the 1980s. Osama bin Laden was one of the scores of Arabs who went there to fight the Soviet occupation, and stayed. The Pashtuns and other ethnic groups provided the manpower early on battling the Soviet presence. The superpower made neighbors Pakistan and Iran nervous enough to provide training and material support to end the threat.

It was not long after the initial aid began to flow into the conflict that Saudi Arabia, the U.S., China, Egypt, France and other nations began to funnel aid to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. The aid flowed through Pakistan from all corners of the world. The Pashtun who inhabited the rural area fought fearlessly against the world super power. Soon foreign Islamic Mujahideen fighters from around the globe answered the call for jihad against the invaders. Some of the biggest players in terrorism earned their stripes in this war and became heroes to the local Pashtun population. They were forever grateful of these foreign fighters that came in their time of need and became Muslim brothers to the tribes and clans. A debt that they would never forget and pay dearly for in the future. Along the way an interesting thing happened with this collection of tribal warriors and their guests. An appreciation of the honorable moral code that the Pashtun lived by must have effected the foreign fighters in their view of the future of Islam. The set of values pertaining to honor (namuz), solidarity (nang), hospitality, mutual support, shame and revenge soaked into the foreign fighters as a missing piece to make their spiritual and religious experience with the Pashtuns a moment of enlightenment in their lives. In particular the defense of namuz, even unto death, as obligatory for every Pashtun and was carried forward with the foreign fighters wherever they would go afterwards.  Together they were able to defeat a world super power and restore honor to a people and a religion. They acted in solidarity as they fearlessly pressed on. It was through their mutual support and hospitality they gave their guests that gained them their revenge for being invaded by the Soviets on their own soil. It was that they had won that made these ideas so important to the Mujihadeen. After the war many foreign fighters returned to their native countries with the ideologies they had formed as a result of their experience and they spread their new beliefs through small loosely affiliated cells and kept in contact with foreign fighters in other countries. A network created during the war remained in tact for future calls to Jihad. Though many left Afghanistan, a significant number remained to further their studies and experience in the country they had liberated. Training camps were created to train future Mujihadeen for the next Jihad in Arab lands that would surely some day come.

In the late eighties Pakistan assisted Pashtun tribes in attempting to overthrow the Soviet influenced Afghanistan Government. A group of religious Pashtun scholars and Pashtun mujahideen fighters were organized and formed the Taliban. After the war ended various factions fought each other for power and none were able to gain control over the entire country. Afghanistan was reduced to a collection of territories held by competing warlords. Under Pakistan intelligence force training and guidance the Taliban was able to unite their loosely aligned regional groups together and formed a large and dominating militia. The Taliban were able to defeat the warlords and other militant factions and in 1996 captured Kabul. The Afghanistan people were tired of continuous war and for the first time in over two decades a chance for peace and safety could be offered to the population. Pakistan felt they had secured their interests when the Taliban officially controlled the majority of Afghanistan territory.

The Taliban was able to restore order by imposing a very strict interpretation of Sharia law. Mullah Muhammad Omar directed the Taliban and led them backward in history in order to rid the Pashtun and other peoples of Afghanistan of Western demonic influence. Men were forced to wear beards, women were not allowed to attend schools, television, music and internet were banned. Woman could no longer work outside the home or even leave it without a male escort. Soccer stadiums would be filled to witness executions and punishment for violating the new laws. The Taliban let the world know their complete intolerance for other religions when Mullah Omar destroyed the Buddhist stone statues etched into a mountain where it has stood for centuries. The oddest conflict within the Taliban and Islam is the procreation of opium into the world markets. They allowed the smuggling and cultivation of this drug which violates Sharia law. After international pressure they did reduce the amount of cultivation but never wiped it out. In the end the Taliban has been criticized by many Islamists for their lack of understanding and being poorly educated in Islamic Law and History. It appears as mentioned earlier in this article that the Pashtun have always done things their own way and the Taliban sect blended Wahabbi teachings with their own Pashtun tribal customs to produce the desired effect of control.

In 1996 after Sudan requested that Osama Bin Laden and his associates relocate their operations from within Sudan to another country the Taliban allowed him to seek refuge in Afghanistan. He was welcomed as a hero from the Soviet conflict and given protection and allowed to continue his training of mujahideen warriors for the next great conflict of our time. The kindred spirits of Bin Laden and Mullah Omar respected one another and their beliefs that Western influence should be removed from the Muslim world as it degrades their culture, Muslim women, and corrupts their children. They feared that the continuation of the West imposing it way of life on their homelands would destroy the Muslim Culture.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks the U.S. demanded that the Taliban handover Bin Laden. The Taliban were not interested in the U.S. demands to hand him over and as previously stated that they would not betray a “friend” to the Afghanistan people because it would betray the sacrifices during the Afghan-Soviet War. In all reality the Taliban didn’t give Osama Bin Laden up because they are Pashtuns and because of their codes of honor and sanctuary.

Mullah Muhammad Omar refused to cower to the demands of a superpower and go down in Pashtun folklore as the man that betrayed a protector of Islam. He chose to let the Taliban temporarily collapse under U.S. bombing rather than to commit this betrayal. Among the system’s tenets are the jirga (council of elders), a punishment system based on revenge, hospitality, and sanctuary, which says Pashtun should provide protection to someone who has taken refuge with them After all it is the “Pashtunwali Way”. The early announcement of a win against the Taliban was premature as in the months and years ahead will show as it has in history that the Pashtun people do not bend easily. They are warriors and remember every bomb that has fallen on their villages and it gives their call of vengeance an answer for more than likely an entire generation to come.

In the Pashtun culture, if someone kills your family member, you have inherited a duty to take revenge. Also, a wrong that has been done to one person is considered to have been committed against the entire tribe.

U.S. and Coalition Soldiers in Pashtun Country

In the land that devoured the Soviets and other invaders the U.S. led forces are occupying the same Pashtun tribal lands. The biggest problem that faces the coalition troops is to be successful at winning over the locals in the territory they are operating in. The locals are always weary of outsiders and realize that no one comes to their part of the world unless they are there for drug smuggling, arms dealing, or to wage war against them. This ideology does not bode well for a country that will not compromise their way of life from any threat, including one from another superpower that has invaded their territory. The Pashtun tribes are very weary of the U.S. presence and have suffered greatly in the conflict and as the Taliban continues to press the new government’s authority they have emerged more organized and deadlier as we approach May 2008. The invading forces from another world are in unfriendly country along the border. The Taliban has been gaining ground in the country and as this happens it will become more and more difficult to know who the enemy are as the villages that were once safe for the coalition can become a deadly trap.

The word “Patience” comes to mind when I think about where the war in Afghanistan is today. The Taliban has perfectly displayed this virtue in their art of war. Taliban forces were quickly defeated and bombed into submission, they knew they could not answer that with the level of weaponry in their arsenal. The Pashtun warriors returned to their villages and temporarily gave up their war. They returned to their life patiently waiting for word that the leadership of the Taliban is ready to wage jihad once again. As they waited they watched their enemy and learned what they could about the foreign invaders. At times they cunningly negotiated with them and got items that they needed in their villages as they are villagers themselves so it was not difficult to blend in. They bided their time and it appears that word has come from Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders in hiding that it is time. Time to leave their tribe, their wives, children livestock and crops and to pick up their AK-47 and push the foreign soldiers out of their mountains or sacrifice their life for their peoples honor.
After all it is the “Pashtunwali Way”.

9/01/2008 Update: ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s top security official Monday admitted that al Qaida’s leadership moved freely in and out of the country and vowed that “no mercy” would be shown to extremists based in its tribal territory that borders Afghanistan . The heat appears to be building in Pakistan. The ISI has long been associated with supporting terrorist and Islamic militant groups in the region. In the past, Pakistan has been heavily criticized for rejecting evidence that al Qaida was largely based in the country and for denying that the tribal territory was used as a safe haven for Afghan insurgents. Rehman Malik , the interior ministry chief, revealed that al Qaida deputy leader Ayman al Zawahiri and his wife had been in Mohmand, part of the tribal area. Most of time, Malik said Zawahiri was mainly in Afghanistan’s Kunar and Paktia provinces.
“We certainly had traced him (Zawahiri) at one place, but we missed the chance. So he’s moving in Mohmand and, of course, sometimes in Kunar, mostly in Kunar and Paktia,” Malik told reporters in Islamabad.

No place on Earth is there more high level ties to terrorism than in the Pakistan. The Mecca of terrorism for Jihadist since the Soviet led invasion that began in the late seventies. If America is ever going to win the war on terrorism it will have to be done not only in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan. America can not continue to play only one side of the fence in a war in Afghanistan that it should understand better than anyone as being waged from Pakistan. In recent weeks we have seen Pakistan a world nuclear power become a failing government after the forced resignation of President Pervez Musharaff. It was Last year, in 2007, amid growing Islamist violence and massive shortages, Musharraf took the unpopular step of bringing the country briefly under emergency rule and sacked a number of judges for fear they might question the constitutionality of his winning a second term. Those actions triggered massive public protests against his government and lead to the election in March of an opposition coalition, which pledged to restore the judiciary.

Even prior to the resignation, Pakistan has been embattled in a costly war against Islamic fundamentalists and Taliban insurgents that see this as an opportunity to gain control through endless terrorists attacks and assassination attempts that began the latest round of violence when Benazir Bhutto was murdered on December 27, 2007. An earlier attempt on her life had failed two months prior, but the late December attack was full proof with a combination of first shooting her from close range followed instantaneously by a bomb explosion. As of the last days of August in 2008, Pakistan’s government looks to be in shambles and is giving the Taliban fighters the opportunity that they have been waiting for to make there moves. The Pakistani Taliban have “the upper hand” and should be put on the list of banned organizations in Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto’s widower has said. Asif Ali Zardari said, in a BBC interview, that the world and Pakistan were losing the war on terror. “It is an insurgency”, he said, “and an ideological war. It is our country and we will defend it. “The world is losing the war. I think at the moment they (the Taliban) definitely have the upper hand. “The issue, which is not just a bad case scenario as far as Pakistan is concerned or as Afghanistan is concerned but it is going to be spreading further. The whole world is going to be affected by it.”

It truly only takes reading a few books to get a grasps on what has occurred in the past and what is occurring now in this volatile region that says all fingers point to Pakistan and it’s inability to control it’s Islamic fundamentalist groups and it’s own Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) that is so intertwined with terrorism it is hard to argue that they are not part of the global terror network.

Mr Zardari’s strong remarks came shortly after the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) put his name forward as its presidential nominee. Here is the ridiculous fact that most will not believe, Pakistan’s very own Intelligence agency, the ISI created and supported the Taliban that is now overtaking Pakistan. Regardless if America wins in Iraq, It has failed in dealing with the main culprits of global terrorism by not pressuring Pakistan to allow our troops inside their borders to stop this boiling pot of Islamic fundamentalism. It would be hard at this point for America ever to retrace it’s steps since the Iraq war and to fight the war that should have been fought. Afghanistan is only the battlefield, not where the foreign Mujihadeen fighters are coming from or using as a safe place as long as America can not chase them back to their holes inside Pakistan they will continue indefinitely. Most believe that Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, and Mullah Mohammed Omar are located inside of Pakistan. The war in Iraq, as horrible of a person that Saddam Hussein was and the world should have disposed of him, was the reason that America did not fight the right fight at the right time. This mistake will continue to cost not only America but the rest of the world.

How Did The Pakistan ISI and Terrorist Connection Develop?

The Pakistan intelligence service, ISI, was used heavily during the Soviet-Afghan War that began in in the late seventies and lasted well into the late eighties when the the former Soviet Union cut their huge losses and pulled out prior to the collapse of the once world super power. In the West it is believed that it was the constant cost of the cold war arms race that brought the Soviet Union to collapse. In the world of Islamic fundamentalists it is believed that it was their actions in response to the Soviet invasion of Muslim world that led to their defeat in Afghanistan and demise as a world power. While the charges that the CIA was responsible for the rise of the Afghan Arabs might make good headlines, they don’t make accurate history. The truth is more complicated, tinged with varying shades of gray. The United States wanted to be able to deny that the CIA was funding the Afghan war, so its support was funneled through Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI). ISI in turn made the decisions about which Afghan factions to arm and train, tending to favor the most Islamist and pro-Pakistan. The Afghan Arabs generally fought alongside those factions, which is how the charge arose that they were creatures of the CIA.

Through the strong connection that the ISI formed through the war, the fundamental Islamic sympathizing ISI can take credit for their self defeating creation ” The Taliban ” which is currently clashing with Pakistan troops and government and is winning the war of the minds inside of the country. The ISI mingle among some of the biggest terrorists threats to the world daily, but rarely unless under extreme pressure make an arrest.

The ISI created the Taliban by recruiting religious students and scholars, which is why the brand of justice the Taliban used while in rule was so ancient and barbaric in nature in Afghanistan. They have their own brash interpretation of the Sharia. Sharia is the Muslim book of law and punishment. The ISI created the Taliban in an effort to have control over it’s neighbor Afghanistan’s internal affairs but there was a lack of government in Kabul as the country was being controlled by warring warlords across the country. They armed, trained and provided intelligence for the Taliban to unite their neighbor under one stable government. By 1996, 95% of the country was under Taliban rule and remained so until the U.S. invasion that destroyed the Taliban government. Top leaders slipped back across the border to Pakistan to run their war after reorganizing. The U.S. invasion has put pressure on Pakistan but it appears on the surface has created a riff between the Taliban and the Pakistani government. Caught in the middle is the ISI, where many of it’s agents are aligned with the Taliban. The following are ISI involvement in connection with support of terrorism.

In 2001 the ISI expels Hamid Karzai from his residence in exile in Pakistan for opposing the Taliban

The ISI trained about 83,000 Afghan mujahideen between 1983 and 1997, and dispatched them to Afghanistan

2008, the New York Times quoted anonymous intelligence officials in the United States alleging that the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan was behind the Indian embassy bombing in Kabul, which killed 58 people and wounded 141.

In 2001 According to allegations within the New York Times, ISI “has had an indirect but longstanding relationship with Al Qaeda, turning a blind eye for years to the growing ties between Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, according to American officials…ISI created Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan to train covert operatives for use in a war of terror against India…and also maintained direct links to guerrillas fighting in the disputed territory of Kashmir on Pakistan’s border with India, the officials said.

In July of 2008, there were media reports that CIA officials approached Pakistani officials with hints of ties between Inter-Services Intelligence and Jalaluddin Haqqani.  Haqqani is a Pashtun military leader known for his involvement in fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980’s as well as for being invited by President Hamid Karzai to become Prime Minister of Afghanistan. Operating against the Soviets and the Afghan government from a safe haven in North Waziristan[2], Haqqani is reputed to have once had strong ties with the CIA and the Pakistani ISI.  More recently, he has led pro-Taliban militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He has also been credited with introducing suicide bombing to the region
The ISI firmly refuted these claims, however it admitted to the presence of elements within the ISI that were sympathetic to the insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The ISI supported the 1999 release of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh who was subsequently convicted of the 2002 beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl as well as the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City and Washington D.C.

1998: Al-Qaeda and Pakistan government-funded Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA) have been sharing terrorist training camps in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan for years, and HUA has increasingly been moving ideologically closer to al-Qaeda. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad is growing increasingly concerned as Fazlur Rahman Khalil, a leader in Pakistan’s Harakat ul-Ansar has signed Osama bin Laden’s most recent fatwa promoting terrorist activities against U.S. interests.

September 2000: A cable cited in The 9/11 Commission Report notes that Pakistan’s aid to the Taliban had reached “unprecedented” levels, including reports that Islamabad had possibly allowed the Taliban to use territory in Pakistan for military operations.

In autumn 2006, a leaked report by a British Defense Ministry think tank charged, “Indirectly Pakistan (through the ISI) has been supporting terrorism and extremism—whether in London on 7/7, or in Afghanistan, or Iraq.”

In June 2008, Afghan officials accused Pakistan’s intelligence service of plotting a failed assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai; shortly thereafter, they implied the ISI’s involvement in a July 2008 attack on the Indian embassy. In an October 2006 interview, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said some retired ISI operatives could be abetting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan

In May 2006, the British chief of staff for southern Afghanistan told the Guardian, “The thinking piece of the Taliban is out of Quetta in Pakistan.

In Conclusion

The new government that had pushed for Musharaff’s resignation is faltering fast. Unable to deal with a huge population of Islamic fundamentalist that are tied to such groups as al Qaeda, the Taliban and various other high level terrorist groups that threaten not only neighbors like India, Afghanistan, and China, but the rest of the world. It is essential that the U.S. government as well as other concerned neighbors in the region convince the new Pakistan government that it is in their best interest to allow foreign troops inside of their borders to weaken the grasp that insurgent Islamic fundamentalist have within a country where they operate freely in lawless tribal regions. They choose when to strike within Pakistan, Afghanistan, and many attacks in the West. It is a mistake for the countries affected by the wrath of Radical Islam to continue to operate so easily and openly while the rest of the world waits for the next terrorist act hoping that it is not on their soil. George W. Bush had it right when he said that the War on Terror would be fought on many fronts, however Pakistan from here on out is the throat that delivers air to the rest of the terrorism body. It is time to choke them out of their hiding place.

It is crucial that not only America, but China, Great Britain, Australia, and any other country that is dealing with threats from extremism cooperate and create a joint coalition of the determined to end the menace that will not only destroy Pakistan and Afghanistan but is capable of continuing it’s silent and deadly crawl to other locations across the globe wherever and whenever it can gain a footing.

INTRODUCTION

The break up, in 1947, of British India into the Muslim state of Pakistan and largely Hindu India was never satisfactorily resolved, and India and Pakistan has fought two wars, in 1947-48 and 1965, over the disputed Kashmir territory. A third war between these countries in 1971 , in which India capitalized on Islamabad’s marginalization of Bengalis in Pakistani politics, resulted in East Pakistan becoming the separate nation of Bangladesh. In response to Indian nuclear weapons testing, Pakistan conducted its own tests in 1998. The dispute over the state of Kashmir is ongoing, but discussions and confidence-building measures have led to decreased tensions since 2002. Pakistan is the sixth most populous nation in the world and the second largest Muslim population with over 159 Million. Only Indonesia has a larger Muslim population. Official name is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan is the site of some of the earliest human settlements, home to an ancient civilization rivaling those of early Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the crucible of two of the world’s major religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, both of which have their roots in the subcontinent. Since 2001 Pakistan’s fundamentalist Muslims have been placed more and more into the spot light .For decades, the mountainous and sparsely populated Afghan-Pakistani border has been an autonomous area, with little control by Islamabad or Kabul. The Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan have been a safe haven for Al Qaeda fighters since the fall of the Taliban in December 2001. The FATA also includes Islamist groups and local tribesmen who continue to resist the government’s efforts to improve governance and administrative control at the expense of longstanding local autonomy. Bringing government services to this region, and turning an Al Qaeda safe haven into a regularly administered province of Pakistan, remains an important objective in the global war on terror.

Through substantial efforts since 2004, the Government of Pakistan has deployed more than 80,000 security forces into the FATA and made some improvements in health care, education, and social services. These operations have disrupted the terrorists but also affected tribal institutions in the area, requiring efforts to build new political and economic institutions. Meanwhile, the Afghan Government, in concert with U.S. forces and the international community, continues efforts to build security on the Afghan side of the border. The border areas remain a contested region, however, with ongoing insurgent and terrorist attacks and Al Qaeda-linked propaganda activity. The tribal regions along the Afghan border has proven to be a hot bed for the new brew of fundamental militants that have used the region as a safe haven. One group that has major influence in this border region is the Taliban. The Taliban government was originally sponsored by Benazir Bhutto’s regime in Pakistan, who at the time chose to join forces with fundamentalist opposition. However, as the power of Islamist radicals in the Pakistani government waned and a new government took over, Afghani fundamentalists broke free and were no longer controlled by Islamabad authorities. Currently their is an ongoing struggle for the rule of Pakistan in many regions and in all reality the country as a whole amongst the current U.S. allied government and the popular Islamist conservative fundamentalists.

Pakistan and Terrorism

Sponsoring international terrorism and separatist subversion and insurgency is not new to Pakistan. Since the 1970s, Islamabad has been training Sikh and other Indian separatist movements as part of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s strategy of “forward strategic depth,” and also as a part of his effort to gain revenge for India’s support of an independent Bangladesh. Pakistan’s Military Intelligence agency (ISI) has played a major role in supporting and working with what the rest of the world considers terrorist groups. From the separatists of Kashmir to the Taliban regime to al Qaeda linked operatives, the ISI has had an influence in their training and methods.

The current militant leader of Pakistan ,Musharraf, the president of Pakistan is caught between the demands of fundamentalists at home and his promise to the United States to fight terrorism. “Musharraf is under enormous pressure,” confirms journalist Ahmed Rashid. “He’s seen as toeing the American line, making peace with India, blaming the scientists for this nuclear proliferation.” Rashid thinks it is impossible for Musharraf to continue to appease both radical Islamists at home and his Western supporters.

In December 2003, President Musharraf narrowly escaped two assassination attempts. In the first attack, explosives ripped apart a bridge just seconds after his presidential convoy passed over it. Then only two weeks later, on Christmas Day, someone tried to kill him again, when two cars filled with explosives rammed into the presidential motorcade. Seventeen people died in the blast and more than 40 were injured. Visibly shaken by the assault, Musharraf appeared on television and vowed to crack down on domestic terrorists. In the rubble of the December 25th blast, investigators found one suicide bomber’s cell phone with the memory chip still intact. The phone numbers on it linked the attempted assassin to a militant Pakistani group with links to al Qaeda. The group is fighting in Kashmir, the disputed, mostly Muslim territory between Pakistan and India. The disputed Kashmir region has not only been a focal point of war for both India and Pakistan but is also a front in the war on terror. Many Islamic militants with ties to al Qaeda that fought in the Afghanistan war against the Soviets moved into the the outlaw land ruled more by local tribes and warlords more than the Pakistan government. They use the area as a launching base for attacks in the Kashmir region as well as the other front in the new war in Afghanistan against U.S. allied forces. Until this melting pot where militants groups join forces and are able to form alliances is under some type of control their is no chance for an end to terrorism in the world.

The roots of Pakistan’s reputation as a haven for jihadists run deep. It was, after all, in the city of Peshawar that Al-Qaeda was born after ISI, Pakistan’s military intelligence, started to recruit Arabs to fight in the Afghan jihad. It was ISI that turned the Taliban from a bunch of religious students into a movement that took over Afghanistan. According to Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, ISI continues to provide a safe haven, training them to fight British soldiers in Helmand. The camps were set up in the late 1980s with US backing to train fighters for jihad in Afghanistan. Their mission was expanded in the 1990s to send jihadist to the contested province of Kashmir to fight a proxy war with India. “Pakistan is still in denial,” said Husain Haqqani of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington whose book, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military, looks at state sponsorship of jihadist. He points out that many senior figures in Pakistan’s military establishment had probably run camps: “The attitude of condoning extremist behaviour is so pervasive that it may be difficult for people to adjust to a new attitude of cracking down on them.” Whose side is Pakistan on? After September 11, when Pakistan’s leadership was given the blunt choice by President Bush — “you’re either with us or against us” — it had little option. The decision to support Bush’s war on terror turned President Pervez Musharraf from a pariah military dictator to a blossoming world leader. Critics point out that the six top Al-Qaeda officials so far captured, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the mastermind of 9/11, were all arrested in Pakistan. They were not hiding in caves but living in cities like Karachi and Faisalabad. Shaikh Muhammad was actually picked up in the military cantonment of Rawalpindi. Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter was murdered in 2002 was killed by extremists in Pakistan. Pakistan has refused to extradite Omar Saeed Sheikh, the British-born Muslim convicted of the killing, prompting speculation that it fears what he might say. Sheikh was in ISI custody for a week before the FBI was informed and is reported to have given himself up to his former ISI handler. We also know from official reports that two of the July 7 bombers, Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammad Sidique Khan, travelled to Pakistan. Khan had made at least on other visit to Pakistan. It has long been reported by former CIA agents and others that the ISI is involved in the terror camps where these militants receive their training. It may be a hunch but, I believe it is worth stating here that the same way that Shaikh Mohammad was living in a Pakistan City, it is just as likely that Ayman Al-Zawahiri and his video production team is there as well and someone in the ISI know exactly where. Shaikh Muhammad in all reality may have been used as a pawn by the ISI to protect the bigger fish in the country. This idea works very well with reports of the constant effort by Musharraf’s regime to have a balance of keeping American pressure at bay and the demands of fundamentalists under control. The question is how long can this go on before the whole mess literally blows up.

Pakistan and Terrorism: It has been brewing for a long time.

HON. PETER DEUTSCH OF FLORIDA  IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
  Friday, October 7, 1994

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I am shocked to see reports detailing the
extensive involvement of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in supporting
Islamic fundamentalist terror groups in Afghanistan and India. I have seen
Peter Arnett’s excellent documentary “Terror Nation? U.S. Creation?” 
shown on CNN last month. The film provides a graphic account of the links 
between the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the fundamentalist regime of 
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. I was disturbed to note that some Afghan groups that 
have had close affiliation with Pakistani Intelligence are believed to have 
been involved in the New York World Trade Center bombings. 

Following an investigation, Peter Arnett reports about the New York
bombing, “It happened at this apartment complex. Police at the well-patroled
community say the Skeikh’s Driver, Mahmud Aboubalima was Shalabi’s most
frequent visitor. Police consider Aboubalima their prime suspect. He is the
second person from the Afghan Refuge Center implicated in a U.S. crime. But
he has not been charged. Shalabi’s family blames Sheikh Rahman for the
killing, a charge a cleric denies. With Shalabi gone, Aboubalima takes
control of the Afghan Refugee Center. Aboubalima, Sheikh Rahman and Hampton
El were bound together not only by the Brooklyn-based Afghan Center, but also
by the holy war headquarters in Peshawar, Pakistan, the bustling base of
operations for the Afghan resistance. It is in Peshawar that the New York
terror campaign takes shape. Peshawar was the headquarters of Sheikh Rahman’s
international network. Peshawar was also the headquarters of Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar’s party, which trained four of the key New York suspects.
Hekmatyar’s links to the New York suspects came as no surprise to pro-Western
afghan officials. They officially warned the U.S. government about Hekmatyar
no fewer than four times. The last warning delivered just days before the
Trade Center attack.” 

Speaking to former CIA Director Robert Gates, about Gulbuddin Hekmatyar,
Peter Arnett reports, “The Pakistanis showered Gulbuddin Hekmatyar with U.S.
provided weapons and sang his praises to the CIA. They had close ties with
Hakmatyar going back to the mid-1970’s. Hekmatyar’s Islamic fervor played
well with the fundamentalist powers of Pakistan.”

Mr. Speaker, I have now come across a report in the Washington Post of
September 12th from Karachi, Pakistan, which states that: “Pakistan’s army
chief and head of its intelligence agency proposed a detailed `blueprint’ for
selling heroin to pay for the country’s covert military operations in early
1991, according to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.” The report provides
considerable detail on the degree to which Pakistan’s military leaders have
been involved in their pursuit of an Islamic nuclear bomb and export of
fundamentalism into India. It says, “It has been rumored for years that
Pakistan’s military has been involved in the drug trade. Pakistan’s army, and
particularly its intelligence agency (the equivalent of the CIA) is immensely
powerful and is known for pursuing its own agenda. Over the years, civilian
political leaders have accused the military (which has run Pakistan for more
than half of its 47 years of independence) of developing the country’s
nuclear technology and arming insurgents in India and other countries without
civilian knowledge or approval and sometimes in direct violation of civilian
orders. Historically, the army’s chief of staff has been the most powerful
person in the country.” 

The significance of these reports at a time when India’s investigative
agencies are discovering growing evidence of Pakistani involvement in the
heinous bombings in Bombay last March can not be under estimated. A prime
suspect in the bombings has recently been arrested with documents 
including a passport, driving license and birth certificate provided to him by
the same intelligence organization. The use of drug money by the intelligence 
services of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan for bringing the destabalizing 
effects of fundamentalism into Afghanistan and India can not be condoned. The
Administration should investigate these reports with full vigor and share its
findings with the Members of the House. 

                  PAKISTAN’S INVOLVEMENT IN NARCO-TERRORISM

  (Mr. FINGERHUT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

   Mr. FINGERHUT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to bring to the attention of my
colleagues a report carried by the Washington Post of September 12, 1994,
reminding us once again of the real and present danger posed by the nexus
between narcotics and terrorism. The Karachi datelined report
headlined “Heroin Plan by Top Pakistanis Alleged” quoting Pakistan’s former
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif saying that “drug deals were to pay for covert
operations” brings to mind other reports not so long ago of Pakistani
involvement in using the Bank of Credit and Commerce International [BCCI] to
launder drug money that was eventually believed to have been used in
financing terrorist groups involved in the New York World Trade Center
bombing.

  It is shocking that the report cites Pakistan’s army chief and head of
intelligence agency proposing to then Prime Minister Sharif “a detailed
blueprint for selling heroin to pay for the country’s covert military
operations in early 1991″. The role played by Pakistan’s Inter Services
Intelligence Agency in exporting terror to Kashmir and Punjab in neighboring
India was sufficiently well-documented for the previous administration to
place the country on the watch list of states sponsoring terrorism. Its
removal from that list is justified neither by its past track record nor by
its present performance. The State Department’s most recent report on Global
Patterns of Terrorism talks of credible reports in 1993 of official Pakistani
support to Kashmiri militants who undertook attacks of terrorism in
Indian-controlled Kashmir.

  The administration cannot afford to ignore the Washington Post report. Mr.
Speaker, a country that produces 70 tons of heroin annually and accounts for
a significant part of the heroin consumed in the U.S. market is a matter of
concern under any circumstances. That a part of the same country’s
intelligence establishment can conceive blueprints to use profits from
smuggling these drugs for supporting insurgency in Kashmir and export of
terror elsewhere is a fact that we ignore at our own peril.

Unthinkable? No. Is the deadly attacks in Mumbai a new form of terrorism? No, but it did show that terrorists are willing to plan large scale attacks that do not need airplanes, large trucks filled with explosives parked in a lower level parking garage or in front of an embassy. The deadly attacks in Mumbai, India shows that even with the simplest weapons that included AK-47s, hand grenades and a few improvised explosives that terror can be displayed in shocking awe. This should be a huge wake up call for the rest of the world that is being subjected to the constant threats of terrorism from radical Islam. It could have been Chechnya, London, or even New York. This is a lesson into the minds of terrorist. We can monitor our planes. We can monitor our rail ways. In the end however the Islamic terrorists that want to create a new world order will take whatever we leave unsecured and expose it. If given the time. Many may say these thoughts are an overreaction to the events in India. I beg to differ and say that the events of India are of major importance.

It was a test to see the amount of carnage a simple rudimentary attack can cause. It is an attempt to draw two nations, India and Pakistan, with a bitter history to the brink of war  After the chaos, radical Islam expects to be in control of the aftermath regardless of the winner. The current count of 175 dead will in the end trace back to Pakistan and will have it’s roots with al Qaeda linked extremists. This time it was in India. In the past India has warned the world that the conflict in the disputed area of Kashmir was ratcheting up and attracting militants from outside of Kashmir. The area is once again a possible flash point for the next war between India and Pakistan. The connection to these radical groups now in Kashmir with al Qaeda is evident in that they all trained together in the same terrorist training camps that were sponsored and more than likely still being sponsored by the Pakistan Intelligence agency since the Soviet-Afghanistan conflict decades ago. Pakistan is a broken country. It makes no sense that they are not willing to allow outside forces into their territory to assist them in defeating this common enemy. They say they can stop the Islamists themselves. Yet, Pakistan itself is in jeopardy to losing control to groups such as the Taliban. You see, in the new world of terrorism you can call them al Qaeda, Taliban, or any other creative “scary” name that we or they want. In the end however, they are all one in the same. a few organizational difference but still the same. How long does Pakistan expect to be able to continue their charade of posing as a governing entity in control of it’s lands? They do not at this point even control their intelligence agencies who sway back and forth between government and terrorist demands.

What happened in Mumbai, India

2008 Mumbai attacks November 26 lasting until November 29, 2008
Of all the terror attacks since the September 11, 2001 attacks this one was the one that sent shivers up my spine. The brazen act symbolizes the deadliness of simplicity in the world of terrorism. Lightly armed men with very little military training were able to hold one of the world’s largest cities in a terroristic siege. The plan was simple. Send 10 young radicalized young men to kill as many people as possible before they themselves are killed and martyered. Lashkar-e-Taiba was set on getting the world’s attention by orchestrating how deadly and cruel they can be. They were wanting to steal the spotlight from al Qaeda as the world’s most feared terrorist group. In the end 9 of the ten terrorists were killed and one that was injured was taken captive.

The reason that this is so chilling is because this “blueprint” could easily be carried out anywhere in the modern world, even occurring in the streets of the United States.

The crew of ten arrived in the piers in the South section around 10p.m. local time after sailing from Karachi across the Arabian Sea. They sailed in an Indian fishing boat that they hijacked and killed the crew immediately except for the captain who piloted the boat to Mumbai. At this point they slit his throat. They arrived on shore in inflatable boats and were seen by bewildered fishermen that watched them arrive and suspiciously removed their cargo of backpacks carrying their weapons, ammo, explosives and a small amount of dried fruits. The young men had cell phones that were connected at the other end to older handlers in Pakistan that provided orders and constant contact on what their next move was in order to follow a plan set forth many miles away to be carried out that day in Mumbai.

The group took a taxi from the fishing slums to the inner city and left a bomb in the taxi that was scheduled to explode an hour later. They threw a grenade into a bar and began firing their automatic weapons into the patrons. A second group went to the rail station where once again a bomb was left in the taxi that they rode in set to explode an hour later. The terrorists arrived and settled in before they opened up their back packs and brandished their assault rifles and began opening fire throughout the station. Minutes prior it was reported that the men were actually talking with other travellers before they began the attack. People that were shot relied on playing dead just to survive the ordeal as anything that grabbed their attention also drew their fire.

The police were outgunned and many even ran away from the scene. For fifteen minutes the terrorists were able to select who lived and died that day. The group killed 52 people at this train station and wounded scores more. Many of the victims were from the same family as they were planning to travel together. Chaos was created without a decisive plan on how to stop them. They had no idea what the next target could be. The bombs placed in the taxis exploded and killed the drivers and the passengers that were unfortunate enough to hail those taxis..

An interesting aspect of this crime was that Indian intelligence were able to pick up the phone conversations that were carried out between the controllers in Pakistan and the terrorists in Mumbai. The controllers were able to keep a tight noose on the young men and made sure that they carried out their plan to the tee. They were constantly encouraged to finish their job.

As the attack at the train station was being carried out by two terrorist, two more youths armed blasted their way into the Trident Oberoi Hotel, one of Mumbai’s biggest. Staff was killed as well as patrons waiting in the lobby. The two gunmen then turned their attention to a restaurant in the hotel and began killing diners. Visitors inside the hotel locked themselves in their room to avoid the gunfire. Ten were killed on a narrow landing in one of the most gruesome events of the attack. The two gunmen were eventually killed by Indian Special Forces. The last one was killed in the bathroom where he was hiding after his partner was killed.

Two more militants about that same time walked into the Taj Hotel and began opening fire as they were later joined by two more that had previously attacked a cafe a few blocks away killing 11 patrons. At this point there were four gunmen in the Taj Hotel. The controllers ordered the gunmen to start fires in the hotel to create an atmosphere of fear. After accomplishing this they began going from room to room looking for more people to kill. The fire blazed aout the windows of one of the wings of the hotel that created a picture for headlines acrosee the world. Indian special forces eventually arrived killing the gunmen.

The two gunmen from the train station went into a neighborhood and killed a man in his home while eating dinner. The Gunmen then went to a hospital and looked for hostages they shot and killed a police commander. The two men eventually left the hospital and were confronted by police killing the driver and overtaking the vehicle and eventually driving away.

Keep in mind that at this point there are still gunmen killing people at the Trident Oberoi hotel and holding hostages. The next target that the terrorists hit was the Nariman House a Jewish owned establishment that served as an a religious outreach house. This is where they killed a Rabi and his guests. The gunmen ramained after killing a total of nine Jewish people. On Friday after approximately 36 hours special forces rushed the historic landmark and killed them. The gunmen that carried out the attacks at the train station crashed into a police roadblock and were shot by police ending their reign of terror hours prior to this event.

In the end the 9 of the ten terrorist were killed and one was in custody. The little over 36 hours of terrorism came to an end and resulted in the killing of 173 civilians and wounding of at least 308 more. This type of attack is not that complicated and yet it’s efficiency in the violence that it is able to produce is mindnumbing. The India police were quoted as saying that they were prepared for a terrorist attack but not for 5 simultaneously occuring throughout the city. In the future local and government authorities has to keep this type of attack in the back of their minds. Coordinated lightly armed men attacking major cities anywhere would be a tough test for authorities.

Lashkar-i-tayyaba, the group accused by India of organizing the Mumbai attacks, was formed in 1991 in the Kunar province of Afghanistan, mainly to recruit and train volunteers to fight the jihad, or holy war, in Afghanistan and the Indian-administered Kashmir region. Members of the group, known as the LT, have a track record of carrying out attacks in India, prompting calls from New Delhi for Pakistan to crack down on its operations. The LT is also known to have had past links with the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency.

The LT’s sponsors, notably its founder, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, a Pakistani cleric, are followers of the Ahle Hadith Sunni tradition of Islam, which bears close resemblance to the Wahabi Sunni traditions practiced in Saudi Arabia. In 2002, LT was banned by Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former president, following Pakistan’s decision to join the US-led “war on terror”. The ban prompted the LT to move its volunteers from its centre near Lahore. Intelligence officials say members are believed to have migrated to Afghanistan’s border region near Pakistan.  See Also:  Terrorist Group: Lashkar-e-Taiba

The attacks, which drew widespread condemnation across the world, began on 26 November 2008 and lasted until 29 November, killing at least 173 people and wounding at least 308

 “I am considering two promises. One is the promise of God, the other is that of Bush. The promise of God is that my land is vast. If you start a journey on God’s path, you can reside anywhere on this earth and will be protected… The promise of Bush is that there is no place on earth where you can hide that I cannot find you. We will see which one of these two promises is fulfilled”.   Mullah Mohammed Omar  In rare interview with Voice of America in Pashtu September 2001

Who Is Mullah Mohammed Omar?

Those who have met Omar, say he’s stands close to 6 foot, 6 inches, is bearded, reclusive, and a lover of war stories. A fierce Afghan Fighter commander, he was wounded four times in the jihad against the Soviets, including the loss of his right eye. Mullah Omar, is the reclusive leader of the Taliban of Afghanistan and was Afghanistan’s Taliban government head of state from 1996 to 2001, under the title Amir al-Mu’minin translated as “Commander of the Faithful”. The term in the Arabic style of Caliphs and other independent sovereign Muslim rulers that claim legitimacy from a community of Muslims. It has been claimed as the title of rulers in Muslim countries and empires and is still used for some Muslim leaders. The fact that this guy seemingly would stand out in a crowd. One bad eye approximately 6′6″, he definitely would. Maybe his quote from September 2001 above has some merit. It is August 2008 and Bush is running out of time to deliver on his threat as he is winding down the last months of his administration and Mullah Mohammed Omar as well as his compatriots Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri are still in hiding and the Taliban has been strengthening for the past year. Mullah Omar’s Taliban regime in Afghanistan sheltered Osama bin-Laden and his al-Qai’da network in the years prior to the September 11 attacks. Although Operation Enduring Freedom removed the Taliban regime from power, Mullah Omar remains at large and represents a continuing threat to America and her allies.

Ascent to Mullah Mohammed Omar

Mohammed Omar, birth date is in approximately 1959 near Kandahar, Afghanistan. Born into Pashtun culture which is today creating many jihad militant fighters in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other regional conflicts. Omar fought as a guerilla with the Harakat-i Inqilab-i Islami faction of the anti-Soviet Mujahideen under the command of Nek Mohammad, and fought against the Najibullah regime between 1989 and 1992. After the experience in the Soviet conflict, Mohammed Omar shifted his attention to his religious studies. He reportedly taught at a madrasah ( Islam religious school) near the Pakistan border. Unlike most of the Afghan mujahideen, he speaks passable Arabic which enables him to converse easily with foreign fighters in his lands that have taken up arms against the Soviet Union then and now the United States. He is devoted to the lectures of the late Sheikh Abdullah Azzam who was assassinated by the “enemies of Islam” in Peshawar, Pakistan in 1989. On 24 November 1989 three bombs planted along the route that Abdullah Azzam regularly traveled to the mosque detonated as he passed. The Sheikh was killed, along with two of his sons. Rumors have consistently linked Osama Bin Laden to Azzam’s assassination, though there is no proof of a connection. Upon his death, Azzam left behind him dozens of books on religious doctrines, religious Fatawa (rulings) and a comprehensive ideology of Jihad that is the core of al Qaeda organization and now radical Islam in general.

After the fall of the Soviet backed communist government, Afghanistan fell into anarchy and warring tribes divided the country and waged endless conflict among the tribal warlords. With great assistance and backing of the Pakistani intelligence services Mohammed Omar created the Taliban, or Students, to unite the country. In this scenario, Pakistan gets what it wants by having become a major administrator to the once troublesome neighbor that has created tensions along the border between the two countries. It gave them security and influence. His supporters came from both sides of the borders and believed in delivering Afghanistan to Fundamental Islamic Rule. The populations were weary of war and the Taliban gained support as it began to root out violence and corruption. In September 1996, Mullah Omar was in charge of Afghanistan. but the regime was recognized by only three states: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan. In September 2000, the Taliban claimed to control 95% of Afghanistan and declared that it deserved international recognition as the country’s government. In October 1997 the country’s official name was changed to The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. United Nations (UN) sanctions on Afghanistan went into effect in October 1999, provoking mobs to attack UN offices in the capital, Kabul. The sanctions were intended to punish the Taliban for failing to expel the Saudi-born terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, who had been sheltering in Afghanistan since 1996. In December 1999, Pakistan’s central bank ordered all funds and property held in the country by the Taliban movement to be seized. Many believed this was to protect the assets of Pakistan created Taliban. After Osama bin Laden was named by the USA as the prime suspect for the 11 September terrorist attacks, US president George W Bush made it clear that the Taliban would face military action if they did not hand him over. On 19 September, Taliban mullahs (clerics) refused to concede. The following day, however, they offered to ask bin Laden to leave the country, but President Bush rejected all attempts at negotiation. The US led a military offensive against the Taliban in October. After a week of bombing, the Taliban offered to hand over bin Laden to a third party. The offer was again rejected by the USA, and the bombing continued.

Rule Under Mullah Mohammed Omar

Afghanistan began it’s descent back to the dark ages after the Taliban led by Mullah Omar installed a harsh and rigid interpretation of Sharia Law. Like Wahhabi and other Deobandis, the Taliban strongly opposed the Shia branch of Islam. The Taliban declared the Hazara ethnic group, which totaled almost 10% of Afghanistan’s population, “not Muslims.” The Taliban did not hold elections, as their spokesman explained: The Sharia does not allow politics or political parties. That is why we give no salaries to officials or soldiers, just food, clothes, shoes and weapons. We want to live a life like the Prophet lived 1400 years ago and jihad is our right. We want to recreate the time of the Prophet and we are only carrying out what the Afghan people have wanted.
In March 2001, after a dream where Allah spoke to him, Omar issued a decree stating the Buddha statues at Bamyan were to be destroyed further stating that “all the statues around Afghanistan must be destroyed.”
Muslims in other parts of the world began to speak out on harsh Taliban rule as what they described as un-Islamic treatment of Muslims as well as the bestowing of the title of Amir al-Mu’minin on Muhammad Omar. The appointment was criticized on the grounds that he lacked scholarly learning, tribal pedigree, or connections to the Prophet’s family.

Taleban Ministry of the Fostering of Virtue ordered that Afghanistan’s citizens destroy their televisions, VCRs, satellite dishes, and other devices of depravity. Meanwhile, Taleban troops pursued a war of extermination against heretics, specifically the Hazara Shiites in their northern territories. The slaughtered were victims of Allah’s order to eliminate un-holiness. Taliban ideology as well as other radical ideologies that influenced the movement do not believe that Shia members of Islam are true Muslims.

Sharia law was interpreted to ban a wide variety of activities hitherto lawful in Afghanistan: employment and education for women, movies, television, videos, music, dancing, hanging pictures in homes, clapping during sports events. Men were required to have a beard extending farther than a fist clamped at the base of the chin. On the other hand, they had to wear their head hair short. Men were also required to wear a head covering. Possession was forbidden of depictions of living things, including photographs of them, stuffed animals, and dolls. These rules were issued by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Suppression of Vice (PVSV) and enforced by its “religious police,” a concept thought to be borrowed from the Wahhabis of Saudia Arabia Sect. Women were restricted from leaving the house unless completely covered from the top of the head to below the ankles. If they were found outside the home in the company of anyone other then a husband or family member of the opposite sex they were stoned to death. They could not walk around alone.

The End of The Taliban Rule

In giving Osama bin Laden refuge beginning in 1996 after bin Laden left Sudan due to U.S. pressure, Mullah Mohammed Omar felt the wrath of U.S. firepower after refusing to unconditionally hand over the man that was responsible for the operations that resulted on “Holy Tuesday” September 11, 2001 as it was referred to by al Qaeda. Mohammad stated that he could not give up a hero of the Jihad that defeated the Soviet super power and removed them from Afghanistan soil.
In October 2001, Taliban rule was bombarded out of Afghanistan as Mullah Omar and top level al Qaeda leaders slid into the lawless regions along the border with Pakistan. Since the fall of the Taliban, Mullah Omar nor Osama bin Laden have been found and are still possibly in the region or possibly inside Pakistan. There is a $10 million reward for Omar’s information that leads to his apprehension. A captured Taliban spokesman, Muhammad Hanif, told Afghan authorities in January 2007, that Omar was being protected by the Inter-Services Intelligence in Quetta, Pakistan. This would follow history between the the Taliban and the Pakistan Intelligence relationship. In the past few years statements by Mullah Mohammed Omar have been distributed claiming that the Taliban will drive the foreign troops from their soil and retake control over Afghanistan.