US-Pakistan move to rebuilding intelligence cooperation, by forming new anti-terror squad
Pakistani soldiers arrive for an operation against militants at a major Pakistani naval air base following an attack by militants in Karachi. (File photo)
Bruised from their latest diplomatic clash, the United States and Pakistan are trying to bandage their relationship by forging a new joint intelligence team to go after top terrorism suspects, officials say.
The move comes after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton presented the Pakistanis with the US list of most-wanted terrorism targets, US and Pakistani officials said. The list includes some groups that the Pakistanis have been reluctant to attack, US officials said.
It’s one of a host of confidence-building measures meant to restore trust blown on both sides after US forces tracked down and killed Al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden during a secret raid in Pakistan last month.
The move comes after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton presented the Pakistanis with the US list of most-wanted terrorism targets, US and Pakistani officials said. The list includes some groups that the Pakistanis have been reluctant to attack, US officials said.
It’s one of a host of confidence-building measures meant to restore trust blown on both sides after US forces tracked down and killed Al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden during a secret raid in Pakistan last month.
But it also amounts to a new test of loyalty for both sides. The Pakistanis say the US has failed to share its best intelligence, instead running numerous unilateral spying operations on its soil.
US officials say they need to see the Pakistanis target militants they’ve long sheltered, including the Haqqani network, which operates with impunity in the Pakistani tribal areas while attacking US troops in Afghanistan.
All those interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.
The US and Pakistan have engaged in a diplomatic stare-down since the May 2 raid, with the Pakistanis outraged over the unilateral action as an affront to its sovereignty and the Americans angry to find that Bin Laden had been hiding for more than five years in a military town just 35 miles from the capital, Islamabad.
The US deliberately hid the operation from Pakistan, recipient of billions in counterterrorism aid, for fear that the operation would leak to militants.
A series of high-level US visits has aimed to take the edge off. Marc Grossman, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell met with intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha last month. Last week, the secretary of state and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, held a day of intensive meetings with top Pakistani military and civilian officials.
After that outreach, Pakistan allowed the CIA to re-examine the Bin Laden compound last Friday. Pakistan also returned the tail section of a US stealth Black Hawk helicopter that broke off when the SEALs blew up the aircraft to destroy its secret noise-and radar-deadening technology.
The CIA has also shared some information gleaned from the raid, and Pakistan has reciprocated, US and Pakistani officials said.
The investigative team will be made up mainly of intelligence officers from both nations, according to two US officials and one Pakistani official. It would draw in part on any intelligence emerging from the CIA’s analysis of computer and written files gathered by the Navy SEALs who raided Bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad, as well as Pakistani intelligence gleaned from interrogations of those who frequented or lived near the Bin Laden compound, the officials said.
The formation of the team marks a return to the counterterrorism cooperation that has led to major takedowns of Al Qaeda militants, like the joint arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 2003.
The joint intelligence team will go after five top targets, including Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman Al Zawahiri, a possible Bin Laden successor, and Al Qaeda operations chief Atiya Abdel Rahman, as well as Taliban leaders like Mullah Omar, all of whom US intelligence officials believe are hiding in Pakistan, one US official said.
Another target is Siraj Haqqani, leader of the Haqqani tribe in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas. Allied with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the Haqqanis are behind some of the deadliest attacks against US troops and Afghan civilians in Afghanistan. US intelligence officials say their top commanders live openly in the Pakistani city of Miram Shah, close to a Pakistani army outpost.
Pakistani officials say the US has never provided them accurate intelligence as to the Haqqani leadership’s location. Pakistani officials also argue that as the Haqqani network has been careful never to attack the Pakistani government, there is no reason to attack them.
One official said a final target on this preliminary list is Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri, leader of a group called Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, which the State Department blames for several attacks in India and Pakistan, including a 2006 suicide bombing against the US consulate in Karachi that killed four people.
A second US official confirmed that the Pakistanis and Americans have agreed to go after a handful of militants as a confidence-building measure, but the official would not confirm the specific names on the list.
Pakistani officials say those five have always been top targets, but they also did not confirm that the new agreement specifically names them as joint targets.
Intelligence-sharing operations between the US and Pakistan were already strained before the Bin Laden raid, particularly by the arrest and detention in January of CIA security contractor Raymond Davis in the shooting deaths of two Pakistani men. Mr. Davis said the two were trying to rob him.
Mr. Davis was eventually released in March after the dead men’s relatives agreed to accept blood money under Islamic tradition, an agreement Pakistani intelligence officials say they brokered.
But only a day after his release, a covert CIA drone strike killed at least two dozen people in the Pakistani tribal areas — people the CIA said were militants and the Pakistanis said were civilians.
Both sides disputed media reports that Pakistan had completely shut down joint intelligence centers it operates with the Americans following the Bin Laden raid.
Two of the five “intelligence fusion centers” where the US shares satellite, drone and other intelligence with the Pakistanis were mothballed last fall, long before either the Davis or Bin Laden controversies, the Pakistani official and another US official say. It was part of the fallout of the public embarrassment of the WikiLeaks cables disclosures, which revealed a closer US-Pakistani military relationship than publicly acknowledged by Pakistan.
Two other fusion centers, plus smaller cooperative intelligence-sharing facilities, remain operational, both sides say, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.
The high-value target team is expected to use any intelligence found at the Bin Laden compound in the hunt, although a month after the raid analysts have found nothing “actionable,” a term describing intelligence that leads to a strike or operation against a new Al Qaeda target, two US officials say. The CIA-led teams have gotten through more than 60 percent of the computer files and written material taken from the compound so far.source;al ariabya
US officials say they need to see the Pakistanis target militants they’ve long sheltered, including the Haqqani network, which operates with impunity in the Pakistani tribal areas while attacking US troops in Afghanistan.
All those interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.
The US and Pakistan have engaged in a diplomatic stare-down since the May 2 raid, with the Pakistanis outraged over the unilateral action as an affront to its sovereignty and the Americans angry to find that Bin Laden had been hiding for more than five years in a military town just 35 miles from the capital, Islamabad.
The US deliberately hid the operation from Pakistan, recipient of billions in counterterrorism aid, for fear that the operation would leak to militants.
A series of high-level US visits has aimed to take the edge off. Marc Grossman, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell met with intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha last month. Last week, the secretary of state and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, held a day of intensive meetings with top Pakistani military and civilian officials.
After that outreach, Pakistan allowed the CIA to re-examine the Bin Laden compound last Friday. Pakistan also returned the tail section of a US stealth Black Hawk helicopter that broke off when the SEALs blew up the aircraft to destroy its secret noise-and radar-deadening technology.
The CIA has also shared some information gleaned from the raid, and Pakistan has reciprocated, US and Pakistani officials said.
The investigative team will be made up mainly of intelligence officers from both nations, according to two US officials and one Pakistani official. It would draw in part on any intelligence emerging from the CIA’s analysis of computer and written files gathered by the Navy SEALs who raided Bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad, as well as Pakistani intelligence gleaned from interrogations of those who frequented or lived near the Bin Laden compound, the officials said.
The formation of the team marks a return to the counterterrorism cooperation that has led to major takedowns of Al Qaeda militants, like the joint arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 2003.
The joint intelligence team will go after five top targets, including Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman Al Zawahiri, a possible Bin Laden successor, and Al Qaeda operations chief Atiya Abdel Rahman, as well as Taliban leaders like Mullah Omar, all of whom US intelligence officials believe are hiding in Pakistan, one US official said.
Another target is Siraj Haqqani, leader of the Haqqani tribe in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas. Allied with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the Haqqanis are behind some of the deadliest attacks against US troops and Afghan civilians in Afghanistan. US intelligence officials say their top commanders live openly in the Pakistani city of Miram Shah, close to a Pakistani army outpost.
Pakistani officials say the US has never provided them accurate intelligence as to the Haqqani leadership’s location. Pakistani officials also argue that as the Haqqani network has been careful never to attack the Pakistani government, there is no reason to attack them.
One official said a final target on this preliminary list is Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri, leader of a group called Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, which the State Department blames for several attacks in India and Pakistan, including a 2006 suicide bombing against the US consulate in Karachi that killed four people.
A second US official confirmed that the Pakistanis and Americans have agreed to go after a handful of militants as a confidence-building measure, but the official would not confirm the specific names on the list.
Pakistani officials say those five have always been top targets, but they also did not confirm that the new agreement specifically names them as joint targets.
Intelligence-sharing operations between the US and Pakistan were already strained before the Bin Laden raid, particularly by the arrest and detention in January of CIA security contractor Raymond Davis in the shooting deaths of two Pakistani men. Mr. Davis said the two were trying to rob him.
Mr. Davis was eventually released in March after the dead men’s relatives agreed to accept blood money under Islamic tradition, an agreement Pakistani intelligence officials say they brokered.
But only a day after his release, a covert CIA drone strike killed at least two dozen people in the Pakistani tribal areas — people the CIA said were militants and the Pakistanis said were civilians.
Both sides disputed media reports that Pakistan had completely shut down joint intelligence centers it operates with the Americans following the Bin Laden raid.
Two of the five “intelligence fusion centers” where the US shares satellite, drone and other intelligence with the Pakistanis were mothballed last fall, long before either the Davis or Bin Laden controversies, the Pakistani official and another US official say. It was part of the fallout of the public embarrassment of the WikiLeaks cables disclosures, which revealed a closer US-Pakistani military relationship than publicly acknowledged by Pakistan.
Two other fusion centers, plus smaller cooperative intelligence-sharing facilities, remain operational, both sides say, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.
The high-value target team is expected to use any intelligence found at the Bin Laden compound in the hunt, although a month after the raid analysts have found nothing “actionable,” a term describing intelligence that leads to a strike or operation against a new Al Qaeda target, two US officials say. The CIA-led teams have gotten through more than 60 percent of the computer files and written material taken from the compound so far.source;al ariabya
Taliban ambush kills 23 policemen and 5 civilians in Pakistan remote province
Thursday, 02 June 2011
Soldiers hold onto one another while riding in the back of a patrol truck through Dawazai, located in Mohmand Agency along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. (File Photo)
A prolonged militant attack on a remote checkpoint in northwest Pakistan killed 23 policemen and five civilians on the border with Afghanistan.
Hundreds of heavily armed militants on Wednesday besieged a Pakistani post manned by police in Shaltalu in the district of Dir, where Pakistan sought to put down a Taliban insurgency two years ago, according to Agence-France Presse.
“We have so far found 23 dead bodies of policemen, who had been killed in the attack that militants launched early Wednesday morning,” senior police official, Qazi Jamil ur-Rehman told AFP.
Hundreds of heavily armed militants on Wednesday besieged a Pakistani post manned by police in Shaltalu in the district of Dir, where Pakistan sought to put down a Taliban insurgency two years ago, according to Agence-France Presse.
“We have so far found 23 dead bodies of policemen, who had been killed in the attack that militants launched early Wednesday morning,” senior police official, Qazi Jamil ur-Rehman told AFP.
He said that five civilians, including two women, were also killed when mortars fired by militants targeting the post landed in nearby houses.
Clashes were continuing Thursday morning, police said.
Clashes were continuing Thursday morning, police said.
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