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(ATimes.com) – Asia Times, a daily newspaper based in Hong Kong, has pointed out in its news report of 21 November 2008, headlined “The U.S. Strikes Deeper in Pakistan”, written by Asia Times Online’s Pakistan Bureau Chief Syed Saleem Shahzad, that Pakistan Army
Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Army’s JCSC Chairman, General
Tariq Majid, could be assassinated like Army’s SSG Commander, Major
General (R) Amir Faisal Alavi, and Army’s Surgeon General, Lt. General
Mushtaq Ahmed Baig. The militants accuse them of harming innocent
Pakistanis, Afghans and Muslims in Pakistan.
The Asia Times news report states: “Clearly, under Pakistan’s Army
Chief, General Ashfaq Kayani – currently in Brussels for talks with North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] officials – highly sensitive information is now being relayed to the U.S. This has dangerous implications.
“As a possible portend of things to come in this new phase of urban
warfare, on Nov 26, a trusted member of Musharraf’s former team, retired Major General Amir Faisal Alavi, former commander of the elite commando unit Special Service Group (SSG), was assassinated by a group of armed men in Islamabad.
“As Chief of the Army and president, Musharraf, who had also been a member of the SSG, maintained a close relationship with Alavi. Alavi retired two years ago but was credited with masterminding the Angor Ada operation in 2004, when many Arabs and Chechans based in the tribal areas were killed or arrested and turned over to the Americans.
“Other key figures who have participated in these operations could be next on the hit list. These include Army boss Kayani, who previously
served as the Director General of military operations, Corps Commander
Rawalpindi and as Director General of the Intelligence Services. The present Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Tariq Majid, was the architect of the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) operation in 2007 in which the [red] mosque was stormed by troops. He was then Corps Commander Rawalpindi.”
(Independent.co.uk) – The following news report published in The
Independent daily newspaper of London, UK, on 24 November 2008,
headlined “How U.S. Plotted to Get UK’s Most Wanted Terrorist – Heads
of American and Pakistani Security Colluded in Plot to Kill Rashid Rauf”, written by The Independent’s Asia correspondents Kim Sengupta and Andrew Buncombe, points out that the state functionaries may be involved.
A secret meeting on board an American aircraft carrier between the U.S. General David Petraeus and the head of the Pakistani military laid the foundation for the killing of Britain’s most wanted suspect.
The Independent learnt that talks held on board the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Persian Gulf three months ago led to General Kayani pledging to provide information on “high-value” targets such as Rashid Rauf, who died in a missile strike inside Pakistan on Saturday. Senior UK security sources insisted that the lethal attack in North Waziristan on the 27-year-old Birmingham-born Rauf – accused of being involved in the plot to plant liquid bombs aboard transatlantic airliners – was “a unilateral American
action” without any British involvement.
The disclaimer came after two senior MPs called on the British government to say whether or not it had been made aware in advance of the attack plan. Andrew Dismore, Labour chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, said: “We can investigate whether British security services had involvement in providing intelligence concerning British nationals in Pakistan.” The former shadow security minister Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP for Newark, said: “This raises the question of how much co-operation the British intelligence agencies provided in … the execution of a British subject.”
However, American officials stated that the intelligence on the whereabouts of Rauf and a Saudi [Muslim], Abu Zubair al-Masri, was provided by Pakistani authorities. The agreement on sharing intelligence came during the meeting on the aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea in the last week of August, U.S. sources said. General Kayani, who had taken over from Musharraf as the head of the Pakistani military, was brought to the ship by American helicopters. He was told about grave American disquiet over the help being given to the militants by the Pakistani military and intelligence service, the ISI. According to US officials an agreement was reached at the conclusion of the “heated” meeting with General Kayani, in which the Pakistanis General
Kayani and ISI DG Lt. General Ahmed Shuja Pasha promised to supply
high-quality intelligence.
Rauf was initially wanted for questioning by police in England over the murder of his uncle in Birmingham. He fled to Pakistan but was arrested in August 2006 by the Pakistani police for his alleged involvement in the airliner plot. But in December 2007 he escaped.
Rauf’s parents, who live in the Ward End area of Birmingham, have not
received confirmation of his death, a friend of the family confirmed. The man, a shopkeeper who asked not to be named, said: “They don’t know anything about this … They have got no information and it’s obviously not nice for them.” A man who later emerged from the Rauf home, in a blue tracksuit and full beard, told reporters: “I am angry. For your own safety, all I can say to you is goodbye.”
The UK Foreign Office could not confirm Rauf’s killing. But Sherry Rehman, the Pakistani information minister, stated: “Sources have confirmed that Rashid Rauf and Masri were targets and have been killed.”
Other Pakistani officials said that the bodies of the two men, along
with five others killed, would be collected for DNA tests. However,
Rauf’s Pakistani lawyer, Hashmat Ali Habib, said that fighters appeared to have removed the bodies. “We are still not sure, it’s all suspicious.”
http://www.jamaat.org/news/2008/Nov/21/1001.html
