Friday, August 01, 2008

Pakistan involved in Kabul blasts

Via BR, this summary of a NYT article:

NYTimes wrote:
Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul, U.S. Officials Say

* American intelligence agencies have concluded that members of Pakistan’s powerful spy service helped plan the deadly July 7 bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to United States government officials.

* The conclusion was based on intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack, the officials said, providing the clearest evidence to date that Pakistani intelligence officers are actively undermining American efforts to combat militants in the region.

* American officials said that the communications were intercepted before the July 7 bombing, and that the C.I.A. emissary, Stephen R. Kappes, the agency’s deputy director, had been ordered to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, even before the attack. :shock:

* They said that the ISI officers had not been renegades, indicating that their actions might have been authorized by superiors.

* American and Pakistani officials have now acknowledged that President Bush on Monday confronted Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, about the divided loyalties of the ISI.

* Pakistan’s defense minister, Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, told a Pakistani television network on Wednesday that Mr. Bush asked senior Pakistani officials this week, “ ‘Who is in control of ISI?’ ”


Pakistan is Terrorism Central, just like Saudi Arabia is Fundamentalism Central; and this has been apparent to any objective observer for the last two decades or more. One wonders at the power of US interests that have endeavored to sweep this under the rug so far.

The real shock is not that Pakistan is involved, but that the newspaper of record reported it.