Authorities: Times Sq. bomb suspect trained at terror camp in Pakistan

Source: CBS News

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Authorities: Times Sq. bomb suspect trained at terror camp in Pakistan

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We should demand that they all be shut down like India has been demanding for decades.

and they all operate under the auspices of the Pakistani military and ISI.

http://www.kashmir-information.com/Terrorism/machine.html

...it would be unseemly of me to say "horseshit."

Asif Ali Zardari as President.

Zardari has instituted several major reforms including passing a constitutional ammendment bringing significant improvements in their democracy, in what is being referred to the Fourth Democratic Era.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Pakistan#Fourth_democratic_era_.282008-_present.29

Pakistan, under Zardari's administration, is heading toward a major transition from the existing semi-presidential system to parliamentary rule: The Parliament of Pakistan has passed the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan - a bill which, inter alia, is to remove the power of the President of Pakistan to dissolve the parliament unilaterally. This constitutional amendment is considered a major step toward the parliamentay democracy in the country since 1973. It reverses many amendments to the constitution carried out over several decades and turns the President into a ceremonial head of state and transfers the authoritarian and executive powers to the Prime Minister <105>.

Other significant steps taken by Zardari

1) Increased cooperation with Obama

2) Openly embrassing India and cooperating on prosecuting Mumbai attackers

3) Conducted massive offensive against the Taliban in Swat valley that required the temporary rellocation of hundreds of thousands residents


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_army#1999.E2.80.93present

The militants then expanded their base of operations and moved into the neighboring Swat Valley and imposed a very harsh Sharia law on the scenic valley. The Army launched an offensive to re-take the Swat Valley in 2007 but was unable to clear it of the militants who had fled into the mountains and waited for the Army to leave to take over the valley again. The militants then launched another wave of terrorist attacks inside Pakistan. The Pakistani government and military tried another peace deal with the militants in Swat Valley in 2008. This was roundly criticized in the West as abdicating to the militants. Initially pledging to lay down their arms if Sharia Law was implemented, the Pakistani Taliban used Swat Valley as a springboard to launch further attacks into neighboring regions and reached to within 60 km of Islamabad.


4) In fact because of the cooperation of Pakistan in fighting the Taliban the Taliban leader announced that he was going to retaliate against the US with an attack in the US

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Pakistan_Taliban_leader_threatens_US_cities_in_new_video_999.html


Islamabad (AFP) May 3, 2010
Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud has vowed to attack major US cities in two purported new videos released months after his reported killing in a US missile strike.

The videos emerged after an attempted car bombing in New York City, for which his faction claimed responsibility in a third video, and provided the most substantial evidence so far that he survived a US attempt on his life.

Mehsud threatened to retaliate against the United States for the killing of Islamist militant leaders, appearing in a nine-minute video allegedly made on April 4, after his supposed death in January.

The videos spotlight the Islamist militant threat in nuclear-armed Pakistan, which the United States has put on the front line of the war on Al-Qaeda and where Pakistani troops have waged multiple offensives against the Taliban.

The public opinion turned decisively against the Pakistani Taliban when a video showing a flogging of a girl by the Pakistani Taliban in Swat Valley finally forced the army to launch a deceive attack against the Taliban occupying Swat Valley in April 2009 after having received orders from the political leadership.<8> After heavy fighting the Swat Valley was largely pacified by July 2009 although there are isolated pockets of Taliban activity continues.

The next phase of Pakistani Army's offensive was the formidable Waziristan region. A US drone attack killed the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud in August. A power struggle engulfed the Pakistani Taliban for the whole of September but by October a new leader had emerged, Hakimullah Mehsud. Under his leadership, the Pakistani Taliban launched another wave of terrorist attacks throughout Pakistan killing hundreds of people. After a few weeks of softening up the targets with air strikes and artillery and mortar attacks, the Army backed by 30,000 troops moved in a three pronged attack on South Waziristan. The Army re-took South Waziristan and is currently thinking of expanding the campaign to North Waziristan.


5) Pakistan green lighted a drone attack against Mehsud and was thought to have killed him January

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1271225/Pakistan-Taliban-leader-alive.html

Two new videos from the Pakistani Taliban appear to show their leader alive and refuting earlier American and Pakistani claims that he was killed in a U.S. missile strike.

The videos featuring Hakimullah Mehsud surfaced over the weekend after an attempted car bombing in New York City, and were the strongest evidence yet that he had survived the January missile attack.

6) In October 2007 Zardari replaced ISI chief with an American approved candidate who has not only worked with the UN but also has impeccable anti Taliban credentials.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Shuja_Pasha

Pasha was appointed director of the ISI at Washington's behest;<9> Pasha is closely allied to General Kayani, the CIA, and holds anti-Taliban views.<7><9>


7) Pasha has been credited giving complete cooperation with India on the Mumbai attacks

http://www.hindustantimes.com/special-news-report/Special/ISI-chief-may-visit-India-to-help-probe/Article3-354769.aspx



Given the facts that

no Army outside of Afghanistan has sustained more direct casualties fighting the Taliban,

hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis have been dislocated by offensives against the Taliban,

Pakistan suffered a successful assassination mission against its President whose widower now is President of Pakistan,


I think that it is safe to say that your cheap shot reply ranks as one of the most factually incorrect statements in the history of DU. Mubarak is no longer President of Pakistan and the new democratically elected President has gone after the Taliban, after having tried to sincerely negotiate with them.

You did however get the initials of the Pakistani intelligence agency correct.

Is there anything you don't know???

Except my real father's name, of course.

Excellent as usual.

Kayani was hand-picked by the terrorist-in-chief, Parvez Musharraf who followed Zia-ul-Haq's terrorist policies.

Remember that the 26-11 attacks in Mumbai that the whole world saw on CNN occurred during Zardari's and Pasha's watch by an ISI funded, sponsored, armed and trained organization viz. Lashkar-e-Taiba. Pakistan has yet to extradite a single person wanted by India in hundreds of terrorist attacks that were perpetrated by Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad -- both started by ISI.

Read about IC 814 -- the Indian Airlines flight that was hijacked to Kandahar --- a dress rehearsal for the 9/11 attacks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Airlines_Flight_814

Also read about Dawood Ibrahim http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawood_Ibrahim whom Pakistan has been sheltering since 1993.

Pakistan is ONLY cooperating with the US and JUST BARELY ENOUGH to continue the cash flowing for it to survive. Pakistan has mastered the art of hunting with the hounds while concurrently running with the foxes.

Even today, Pakistanis are lobbying the US Government to prevent Indian Intelligence agency's access to David Coleman Hadley, a Pakistan born terrorist who was involved in the Mumbai plots and who was arrested in Chicago. His plea bargain included no-extradition to India as a condition.

How would Pakistan sympathizers like you feel if Osama was captured in India after 9/11 and India refused to grant the FBI access while negotiating a no-extradition plea bargain with him?

It is not only ludicrous to defend Pakistan on a terror report card but also it is sheer lunacy.

I know many DUers despise India and Indians because of the H1B situation and outsourcing but your post takes the cake!

have really outdone yourself:

1) Pakistan is a country of tens of millions of people. No one person runs Pakistan.

2) Kayani is viewed as a non partisan military man, a soldier's soldier and not part of the Musharraf faction. It is true that Musharraf appointed him head of the ISI but this was after Kayani successfully investigated two assisination attempts and Musharraf needed to appoint someone outside of his faction to gain credibility, however he did not support Musharraf in his confrontation with the Chief Justice. Kayani is one of the leaders in the Pakistani army that has helped restore non interference with the political process:


In October 2004, Ashfaq Kayani was made the director general of Inter-Services Intelligence, in place of General Ehsan ul Haq, who was promoted as the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Kayani led the ISI during a bleak period, with insurgencies in North-West Pakistan and Balochistan, Abdul Qadeer Khan's nuclear proliferation scandal, and waves of suicide attacks throughout Pakistan emanating from the northwestern tribal belt. In his final days at the ISI, he also led the talks with Benazir Bhutto for a possible power sharing deal with Musharraf.<9> In October 2007, after three years, he was replaced at the ISI by Lt Gen Nadeem Taj.<10>

Kayani was also present at the infamous March 2007 meeting that took place between Musharraf and Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, when the former military ruler informed the strong-willed top judge that he was suspended. Accounts of that meeting narrated that Kayani was the only one among Musharraf’s aides that did not speak a word.<7[br />
. . .

On 7 March 2008 General Kayani confirmed that Pakistan's armed forces will stay out of politics and support the new government. He told a gathering of military commanders in the garrison city of Rawalpindi that "the army fully stands behind the democratic process and is committed to playing its constitutional role." The comments made were after the results of the Pakistani general election, 2008 where the Pakistan Peoples Party won the election and began forming a coalition government who were opposed to President Pervez Musharraf.<13>

. . .

Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Kayani has been described as a "soldier’s soldier" by US military officials. When he was appointed army chief, his first move was to visit the front lines in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, something that most US Generals very rarely do with the war in Afghanistan. Spending the Muslim holiday of Eid not with his family, but rather with his soldiers prompted American military officials to praise him as a "soldier’s soldier." A senior US military official predicted that the Pakistani army would perform much better under General Kayani than his predecessor Pervez Musharraf, who was often distracted by politics while serving as both President and Army Chief. The report quoted retired Pakistani military officials as saying that in an army deeply enmeshed in Pakistani politics, General Kayani had declined to ally himself with any political groups. As a junior officer, he briefly served as a military aide to Benazir Bhutto during her first term as prime minister in the late 1980s, but has stayed away from politicians since then.<15>

The US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen is a close friend of General


4) Having lived in the region for 20 years I do not accept the dichotomy that one has to be a friend of either India or Pakistan, I am a friend of both and I resent uninformed diatribes against India in the same way that I have in responding to your bigotted uninformed slur against Pakistan.

5) If anything I have a stronger connection to India than I do Pakistan as a Buddhist I have spent much more time reading and admiring the history of India than that of Pakistan. I do not have a particularly high opinion of Jinnah and while India has produced many statesman and stateswoman Pakistan has not. King Ashoka is one of my hero's (for obvious reasons) of the ancient era.

6) You may be a Pakistan hater but you are completely uninformed of how India views changes in Pakistan today. Since bilateral talks were re established in February there has been a






India would not be making such noises if they felt that the ISI had not been purged of allies of the Taliban. Today Pakistan is run by a democratically elected President who has taken steps to make their constitution more democratic. Its army has moved to stay out of politics and the ISI has been reformed with an appointment of a chief that was nominated by the USG.

Your opinion of Pakistan has been overtaken by events over the last year. It is not shared by the Indian government. It is inaccurate, out of date and quite frankly racist. Paki-bashing is common here but Pakistan's population is substantially secular, engaging, diverse and much of it is urbane and well educated.

People who have a deep affection for the people of the sub continent have been widely encouraged by the reapproachment that has occurred between the two countries and those old 'hanger oners' who continued to clinge to the animosities of the past and try and poison the healing that now go one should be identified and denounced for the hatred that they spread.



edited to add link

which completely ignores the fact that Pakistan as a nation has fomented and used terrorism as a state policy.

I do not hate Pakistan nor do I hate Pakistani people in general. I have visited Pakistan about 5 times and I have always been treated with great hospitality in Pakistan. I still have friends there most of whom share my viewpoint.

Pakistan has been and is still being run by its military. The civilian governments have been just window-dressing. The military is primarily controlled by one ethnic group in Pakistan - the punjabis, who are the primary India haters and have dreams of conquering India à la the Moguls and Afghans and Persians in the 11th through the 14th centuries. Look at the names of Pakistani missiles -- Ghauri, Gaznavi etc. -- all brutal attackers of India.

You also forget that Pakistan has attacked India 4 times and was defeated all four times. India has never attacked another country in thousands of years of its history.

You conveniently forget that Pakistani military killed over 3 million Bangladeshis and raped over 700,000 women before India liberated Bangladesh and began the balkanization of Pakistan.

That process will continue and one day Baluchistan and Sindhudesh will be liberated. You forget the fact that Baluchis and Sindhis, by and large, don't have the same animosity towards India like the Punjabis do. Their lives under the military rule have been horrible because all the goodies obtained by begging to the West end up in the military's hands. As independent nations, those poor people will have a far brighter future that fighting an India-grudge of the punjabis.

Anyone can present academic excellence by surfing websites that present one's point of view. I could easily post 10 websites that say GW Bush was the greatest president of the US -- that doesn't make it true.

You cited a news item "thaw in the relationship between India and Pakistan" -- there has always been a thaw from India's side. No one in India wants to take over Pakistan and make it a Hindu kingdom. India has always wanted peaceful coexistence which Pakistan and its military have made impossible with their propagation of terrorism. You completely overlook the latter.

Anyone can appear book-smart with no knowledge of ground realities. Casting aspersions on my knowledge may make you appear smarter to a sad few but if you ignore history, you would be just another misguided Pakistan military sympathizer!

he is very stupid or this "attempt" was a dry-run. Or all three.

of a "trained" operative to explode a device incapable of exploding.

The dearth of skills these "terrorists" exhibit is fascinating.

KedsBomber

PantyBomber

SUVBomber

All achieved ignition before being caught, but their devices weren't actually bombs.

You'd think one of them could assemble something as good as an Afghani/Iraqi IED. It makes me suspicious.

If you ask me, those that are the real deal are not as incompetent..this all reeks of a set up..

just like the right wing nutjobs in our country. There is a fool on gazette.com who is insisting that "dropping a bunker buster down the hole" of the leaking oil well in the Gulf is the answer. Seems like that guy and SUVbomber read the same comic books.

him, said things, made him angry enough to try to make a bomb, its more than obvious he had no clue how, its even more obvious that he thought he did, why would he think that? I mean honestly, in this day and age a twelve year old could make a decent bomb by getting the directions on the internet, I find another huge question, why did he have the wrong fertizlizer? Did someone give him a few instructions, perhaps someone that honestly did not want it all to work?

A stranger, a chance meeting, a few words exchanged..and then departed....think about it...the whole set up for this so called bomb was nothing more than a huge joke...and as so many know, like it or not, the muslim world know how to make better bombs than twelve year olds.

I'd argue, for example, 9/11 was more luck than skill. Consider the 1993 WTC bombing, for example. All pros, much smoke and some cracks.

My first thought, when I heard that he'd tried to blow up propane tanks, was that he was a "Mythbusters" watcher. "Mythbusters" blew up propane tanks on their show within the last couple of weeks.

If he's connected with a terrorist organization, he's second string, or worse.

"Mythbusters" is not as popular.

Explosives for Dummies? No Terrorist Left Behind? Guess the terrorists are letting anybody in now. No entrance exams required. :sarcasm:

I am thankful that all of these loons are not intelligent and competent. He could have done a lot of damage if he'd know what he was doing.

(officially, I mean)

Because we really can't afford it.

Even terror camps can't teach nowadays.

;-)

at the camp?

run training camps there?

<theme music from Jeopardy> ... ding-ding-ding.. Alex.. for $25....

"The CIA?" correct.. next question for $50...

by his appointee, Director Leon Panetta? You do know that the Director of national Intelligence, Dennis Blair is an Obama appointee as well? You are saying in effect that today's terrorists come from President Obama and his National Security leadership team. Pure unadulterated BS. I suppose next you'll say that Pelosi and Reid conspire to fund the terrorist training camps in the "black budget" and that the NYC bomb attempt was really just to divert attention from a slow response to the gulf oil fiasco?

and they train people. So, yes, actually, we probably did pay for this idiot to train wherever he trained.

And we've been training butchers for years at the SOA at Ft. Benning.

affinity for the Taliban.

But I reject without reservation that the CIA trained this toad which would have made President Obama and his intel leaders responsible. In fact, news reports are that the toad has said this was in retaliation for President Obama's stepped-up drone strikes. Tough shit - hang out with bad dudes and the stink rubs off.

I wish toad, as an AMCIT, was also being charged with treason.

are responsible for a lot of things, including the continuation of the torture program. It shouldn't be any surprise. He's kept a lot of bad actors from the Bush administration.

The time limit for blaming bush expired 1/220/2010.

Something like mihop.

<snip>

"The Pakistani-American accused of a failed car bombing in Times Square is believed to have worked alone in the United States on the plot almost immediately after returning from a five-month visit to his native land, authorities said Wednesday. They said they have yet to find a wider link to extremist groups."

<snip>

"Shahzad faces terrorism and weapons charges after authorities said he admitted rigging the Pathfinder with a crude bomb of firecrackers, propane and alarm clocks based on explosives training he received in Pakistan. Authorities said he was cooperating with investigators and did not appear in Manhattan federal court for a second day.

Authorities indicated that Shahzad, the 30-year-old son of a retired air force official in Pakistan, had launched the bomb plot alone almost immediately after returning to his Connecticut home in February from the visit to his native land.

A law enforcement official told the AP that authorities don't believe there any other U.S. suspects in the plot and that several arrests in Pakistan in the past two days were not related."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100505/ap_on_re_us/us_times_square_car_bomb_160