Woodward exposes CIA Army waging secret war on Pakistan– aka TTP

The CIA calls it its elite Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams. Pakistanis face it as the TTP. The CIA calls it Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams. Pakistan see them as bombs blowing u in mosques and hospitals. The CIA sees its army killing “terrorists”, Pakistanis face an unending killing of its civilians.

The CIA created, controls and pays for a clandestine 3,000-man paramilitary army of local Afghans, known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams. Woodward describes these teams as elite, well-trained units that conduct highly sensitive covert operations into Pakistan as part of a stepped-up campaign against al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban havens there. (Excerpt from Boob Woodward’s book published in the Washington Post).

• Woodward book major scoop: CIA army operating in Pakistan
• “Obama’s Wars” contains significant revelations about U.S. foreign policy, plus stories of interpersonal sniping
• Bob Woodward exposes the 3000 strong “CIA Army” waging war on Pakistan. Pakistanis see it as the TTP attacking Imam Baras and Hospitals, and the BLA blowing up pipelines.
• The undeclared, undebated secret war in Pakistan is bigger than we knew, and it’s being conducted in part by CIA-trained Afghans
• The CIA created, controls and pays for a clandestine 3,000-man paramilitary army of local Afghans, known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams.
• Woodward describes these teams as elite, well-trained units that conduct highly sensitive covert operations into Pakistan.
• Mr. Woodward reveals the code name for the C.I.A.’s drone missile campaign in Pakistan, Sylvan Magnolia
• When NPR (JJ Sutherland, National Public Radio September 22, 2010) asked a US official familiar with operations in Afghanistan he confirmed the existence of these “Counter-terrorism Pursuit Teams” and said
• Separately, an advisor to the US military also confirmed the existence of such a paramilitary force and that they were conducting some missions across the border in Pakistan.Just to be clear, that’s two different people speaking on condition of anonymity.

Bruce Riedel and White House Staffer wrote a few months ago that the “Pakistanis have to be convinced to join the war in Afghanistan”. This CIA Army and a spate of bombings in Pakistan are tools to convince the Pakistanis about the war in Afghanistan. As we have noted many times on Rupee News–this “convincing” has been part of the multiple attacks on civilians in Pakistan. Rupee News has been calling this “convincing” the TTP. Bob Woodward calls this “convincing” as “Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams”. Some may not know that the CIA Army is doing–but it is evident as the blood and gore spilt on the streets of Karachi and Peshawar. We see it every day in the form of “Targeted Killings” and attacks on Imam baras, and Mosques. This convincing will continue till 2014 when the build of the US forces leave. Beginning 2011 the “convincing” be see a downward trend. Convinced or not, the fact remains that the US needs Pakistan to get a face saving exit out of Afghanistan. General Kiyani will provide it to America after extracting a pound of flesh in Kashmir.

Bob Woodward’s new book is coming out on Monday (the one with the bad cover art), and both the New York Times and the Washington Post have preview pieces today. You can read those stories here and here.

So what will we likely be hearing about for the next month? General David Petraeus once referred to top Obama adviser David Axelrod as “a complete spin doctor,” according to the book, titled “Obama’s Wars.” Joe Biden once called Afghanistan guru Richard Holbrooke “the most egotistical bastard I’ve ever met.” And national security adviser James Jones once called Obama’s political aides “water bugs.”

But what should we be talking about from the book?

The undeclared, undebated secret war in Pakistan is bigger than we knew, and it’s being conducted in part by CIA-trained Afghans:

The CIA created, controls and pays for a clandestine 3,000-man paramilitary army of local Afghans, known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams. Woodward describes these teams as elite, well-trained units that conduct highly sensitive covert operations into Pakistan as part of a stepped-up campaign against al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban havens there.

The Obama Administration seems to be enamored with a drone-based foreign policy:

Mr. Woodward reveals the code name for the C.I.A.’s drone missile campaign in Pakistan, Sylvan Magnolia, and writes that the White House was so enamored of the program that Mr. Emanuel would regularly call the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, asking, “Who did we get today?”

• President Obama wanted out of Afghanistan last year.
• And although the president agreed to triple troop levels in the embattled country, some in Obama’s national security team doubt that his strategy in Afghanistan will even be successful, according to a new book by journalist Bob Woodward.
• The book also reveals that the U.S. has intelligence showing that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been diagnosed with manic-depression and that he was taking medication for it.

This is how President Obama defines victory in Afghanistan:

Obama told Woodward in the July interview that he didn’t think about the Afghan war in the “classic” terms of the United States winning or losing. “I think about it more in terms of: Do you successfully prosecute a strategy that results in the country being stronger rather than weaker at the end?” he said.

And this is the man who the United States is relying on over there:

The book also reports that the United States has intelligence showing that manic-depression has been diagnosed in President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and that he was on medication, but adds no details

Woodward’s book presents an opportunity to explore and debate issues that haven’t gotten much airing — the war in Pakistan, the drone strikes, Obama’s continuation of various Bush-era policies. Unfortunately, it comes wrapped up with another opportunity: to obsess over sketchily sourced stories of interpersonal sniping within the administration. Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More Justin Elliott

Spencer Ackerman of Wired reports:

the Counterterrorist Pursuit Teams follow a more traditional, decades-old CIA pattern. When it’s politically or militarily unfeasible to launch a direct U.S. operation, then it’s time to train, equip and fund some local proxy forces to do it for you. Welcome back to the anti-Soviet Afghanistan Mujahideen of the 1980s, or the Northern Alliance that helped the U.S. push the Taliban out of power in 2001.

But that same history also shows that the U.S. can’t control those proxy forces. Splits within the mujahideen after the Soviet withdrawal (and the end of CIA cash) led to Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990s, which paved the way for the rise of the Taliban. One of those CIA-sponsored fighters was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, now a key U.S. adversary in Afghanistan. And during the 2001 push to Kabul, a Northern Alliance military commander, Abdul Rashid Dostum, killed hundreds and maybe even thousands of Taliban prisoners. He was on the CIA’s payroll at the time.

Then there are the risks that the Counterterrorist Pursuit Teams pose within Afghanistan. CIA has to recruit those fighters from somewhere. While the agency wouldn’t answer questions about how where its proxy fighters come from, the CIA also pays for a Kandahar-based militia loyal to local powerbroker Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s brother. Fearing that the entrenchment of such warlords will ultimately undermine the Afghan government, the U.S. military is trying to limit the influence of such warlords by changing its contracting rules. CIA may be less concerned. Wired.

They some wonder why they hate us!

Netanyahu is an assassin, stresses Ahmadinejad

NEW YORK: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday on a U.S. news talk show Iran does not have a nuclear weapon and has “no interest” in getting it.

In an interview with Larry King on CNN, Ahmadinejad said all nations, including the United States and Israel, should disarm.

“We are not seeking the bomb,” he said. “We have no interest in it and we do not think that it is useful.”

Asked about concern within Israel and the United States that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, Ahmadinejad called Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu a killer who should “be put on trial for killing Palestinians, for putting Gaza under siege.”

“The U.S. government should stop using taxpayers money to assist him,” the Iranian leader said.

“Netanyahu is a professional assassin. All dictators in history accuse others to turn the spotlight away from themselves,” the Iranian president said when asked about the Israeli prime minister’s worries about Iran.

“It is questionable [why] American media feel responsible for this person (Netanyahu),” Ahmadinejad said, adding that “you (American media) are afraid of Netanyahu’s warmongering.”

Asked about Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, both 28 — two Americans being held in Iran since July 2009 for crossing the border from Iraq — Ahmadinejad said it was possible their cases might be expedited but that would be up to judges hearing the matter.

“I have no influence over it,” he said.

However, he did acknowledge he had “suggested” the case of Sarah Shourd — who was arrested with Fattal and Bauer — “be regarded with clemency, mercy and more kindness and compassion to allow her to return to her family.”

Shourd, 32, returned to the United States Sunday after being locked up for more than a year. Fattal and Bauer are awaiting trial in Iran on espionage charges.

The Iranian president said the US and Israel’s nuclear weapons are the main threat to the world, and they are mistaken to think they can divert attention from this issue by using propaganda campaigns and spreading lies about others.

“Iran is firmly after the nuclear disarmament of the US and Israel.”

Ahmadinejad added that Israel is an “illegitimate regime” and an “occupier” and that the US easily starts wars and massacres people, “they are not qualified to have nuclear weapons and should be disarmed as soon as possible.”

Pakistan urges world to help resolve Kashmir issue

NEW YORK: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has urged the United States and the international community to help settle the decades-old Indo-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir where people have risen up against the Indian occupation.
“The occupation cannot continue,” he told a distinguished audience at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank, on Tuesday, a day on which UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also spoke out against the ongoing violence in the disputed state where Indian security forces have killed over 100 Kashmiri demonstrators.
“The international community must recognise that the people of Kashmir, in an entirely indigenous upsurge, are demanding their right to self-determination,” Qureshi said, while rejecting allegations that Pakistan was behind the revolt against New Delhi’s rule across the valley.
Stressing that the uprising in the occupied Kashmir was indigenous, he said Pakistan has neither the means nor the capacity to mobilise the young and old to stage protest demonstrations and shut down towns and cities.
In a well-reasoned speech, Qureshi covered a number of topics, but made the most detailed statement so far on the Kashmir dispute. He urged India to take a “fresh look” at the evolving situation in the territory and sit down with Pakistan in an effort to resolve the festering dispute.
“Dialogue is the only way forward. We can do it. We are convinced that sustainable peace can only offer the best guarantee for ensuring a bright and prosperous future for the over one billion people inhabiting the region,” the foreign minister said.
“Resuming the dialogue process with India, therefore, remains a major objective for us,” while noting that his discussions with Indian Minister of External Affairs SM Krishna in July were “useful”.
“We look forward to constructive and result oriented interaction with India on all issues, especially the issue of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said. The foreign minister said that the United Nations had recognised the rights of Kashmiri people long ago.
“Now is the time for the international community to do something about it. “We call upon the United States particularly, which is pressing so responsibly for peace in the Middle East, to also invest its political capital in trying to help seek an accommodation for Kashmir,” he added.
Stressing that military means alone cannot solve the Afghan conflict; Pakistan has said a meaningful reconciliation holds out the best prospects for way forward in its insurgency-hit western neighbour. “Pakistan has long held the view that there is no military solution to the conflict in that country. The military agenda is critical, but it is far from the only mechanism for sustained peace,” Qureshi told the Council on Foreign Relations.

India’s holy cow: still a political hot potato

Life for 42-year-old Ashok Malik, a hardline Hindu activist who lives on the outskirts of New Delhi, is dedicated to one cause: stopping the slaughter of cows. Malik’s cow protection team of 30 men is trained to chase trucks transporting cows and raid slaughter houses with the police to nab those selling beef in the Indian capital.
Over the years, a majority of Indian states, including the New Delhi area, have passed controversial slaughter laws which make killing local cows illegal.
The animal is known by Hindus as “Kamdhenu”, that which fulfils human needs, and it has a central place in religious rituals as well as free rein to roam in streets — scenes familiar to anyone who has visited India. “I have saved over 7,000 cows in the last 15 years from being butchered,” Malik told AFP proudly.
He and his fellow activists are affiliated to India’s main opposition, the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the driving force behind the spread and hardening of cow rights legislation across the country.

Critics say the law deliberately targets Muslims, who tend to be the butchers, fuelling religious tensions that explode periodically in India with deadly consequences.
Early this year, violence erupted in the hilly state of Himachal Pradesh when a Muslim butcher slaughtered a cow after it had failed to give milk for more than three years.
Hindu protesters damaged two mosques in response, setting the doors of one of them on fire.  The law allows police to search houses, shops and warehouses and arrest anyone who stores, sells or consumes beef from Indian cows. Offenders face jail terms of up to seven years and fines of 50,000 rupees.
In March this year, the BJP-dominated assembly in the southern state of Karnataka, home to the modern tech-hub of Bangalore, became the latest to pass the cow protection bill despite strong opposition, particularly from Muslims.

The bill awaits the assent of the governor, the head of the state, before it becomes law.

At the end of July, the central state of Madhya Pradesh passed an amendment to a Cow Slaughter Act passed in 2004, so that offenders now face a jail term rather than just a fine.
The issue of cow care and protection has often dominated state politics owing to patronage from the BJP, which relies on the votes of Hindus for its main support. “Over the years, the BJP has pushed cow protection as an integral part of their political agenda by including it in their manifesto,” said B.K. Gandhi, a political analyst at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi. “They use the cow issue to garner their Hindu vote bank. It is their way of appeasing the Hindus,” he said.
The ruling left-leaning Congress, however, rejects the BJP pitch for votes via cow politics.
“We are not an enemy of the animal, but we do not use the cow to woo voters. Religion and politics should not be combined,” a senior Congress leader, R V Deshapande of the southern state of Karnataka, told AFP. Activist Malik’s commitment to guarding the animal is backed by scores of influential Hindu groups, spiritual leaders, gurus and political parties.
Every year, young BJP workers are chosen to be a part of the Gau Raksha Samiti (Cow Protection Committee), where they are trained to gather information about butcheries and conduct surprise raids.v The biggest losers in this mix of politics, religion and animal rights are India’s 300 million Muslims, one of the country’s most economically deprived groups.
Official reports frequently put Muslims at the bottom of India’s social and economic ladder — beneath even low-caste “untouchable” Hindus.
They tend to be the butchers, meat traders and leather workers for whom the ban has the biggest impact.
“Most butcheries are run by Muslims and they want us to run in losses and shut down forever,” says Zamir Pasha, a meat trader in Bangalore.
Members of the Muslim Butchers Association in New Delhi say that while Islam forbids Muslims from consuming pork, the community does not advocate a blanket ban over the sale of the meat.
“People have forgotten that in a democracy, everybody has a right to choose what they should eat,” says Zafar Shams Iqbal, secretary of the association.
Historians are divided over the tradition of eating beef in India.
In a book published a few years ago on India’s dietary traditions, historian DN Jha revealed historical evidence of beef-eating practices in ancient India.
Some groups of scholars cite historical records that many Hindus were free to consume beef as they needed extra calories to carry out strenuous work.
At a later stage the concept of worshipping the cow was introduced by several rulers and temples to save the animals, which were vital to provide milk for communities. Despite the ban on slaughter, beef is still available to those with the right contacts and it can be eaten legally if it is imported from abroad from a previously slaughtered animal.

‘CIA covertly runs Afghan force in Pakistan’

WASHINGTON: The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) runs an Afghan paramilitary force that hunts down al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in covert operations in Pakistan, a US official said on Wednesday.

Confirming an account in a new book by famed reporter Bob Woodward, the US official told AFP that the Counter-terrorism Pursuit Teams were highly effective but did not offer details. “This is one of the best Afghan fighting forces and it’s made major contributions to stability and security,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The 3,000-strong paramilitary army of Afghan soldiers was created and bankrolled by the CIA and was designed as an “elite” unit to pursue “highly sensitive covert operations into Pakistan” in the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban sanctuaries, according to The Washington Post, which revealed details of the new book.

US President Barack Obama has sought to pile pressure on militant havens in Pakistan through a stepped up bombing campaign using unmanned aircraft as well as US special forces’ operations in Afghan territory.

The administration also has pressed the Pakistani Army to go after the Taliban and associated groups in the northwest tribal belt. Revelations about a US-run unit operating in Pakistan are sure to complicate Washington’s ties with Islamabad as well as Kabul’s difficult relations with Pakistan.

The US military’s presence in Afghanistan and its secretive drone strikes across the border are the subject of sharp public criticism and suspicion in Pakistan. Based on interviews with top decision makers, including Obama himself, Woodward’s book describes the US president as struggling to find a way to extricate US troops from the Afghan war amid acrimonious debate among advisers and resistance from the military.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s electoral watchdog said Wednesday it was tackling almost 4,000 complaints over the parliamentary elections, which has been tainted by accusations of fraud and Taliban intimidation.

Election officials said 4.3 million Afghans braved insurgent threats and attacks to vote Saturday in their second parliamentary poll since the 2001 US-led invasion overthrew the Taliban regime.

Counting has been completed in most of the country’s 34 provinces and partial results — subject to change as allegations of multiple and proxy voting are investigated — are being sent to Kabul for validation.

WASHINGTON: The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) runs an Afghan paramilitary force that hunts down al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in covert operations in Pakistan, a US official said on Wednesday.

Confirming an account in a new book by famed reporter Bob Woodward, the US official told AFP that the Counter-terrorism Pursuit Teams were highly effective but did not offer details. “This is one of the best Afghan fighting forces and it’s made major contributions to stability and security,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The 3,000-strong paramilitary army of Afghan soldiers was created and bankrolled by the CIA and was designed as an “elite” unit to pursue “highly sensitive covert operations into Pakistan” in the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban sanctuaries, according to The Washington Post, which revealed details of the new book.

US President Barack Obama has sought to pile pressure on militant havens in Pakistan through a stepped up bombing campaign using unmanned aircraft as well as US special forces’ operations in Afghan territory.

The administration also has pressed the Pakistani Army to go after the Taliban and associated groups in the northwest tribal belt. Revelations about a US-run unit operating in Pakistan are sure to complicate Washington’s ties with Islamabad as well as Kabul’s difficult relations with Pakistan.

The US military’s presence in Afghanistan and its secretive drone strikes across the border are the subject of sharp public criticism and suspicion in Pakistan. Based on interviews with top decision makers, including Obama himself, Woodward’s book describes the US president as struggling to find a way to extricate US troops from the Afghan war amid acrimonious debate among advisers and resistance from the military.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s electoral watchdog said Wednesday it was tackling almost 4,000 complaints over the parliamentary elections, which has been tainted by accusations of fraud and Taliban intimidation.

Election officials said 4.3 million Afghans braved insurgent threats and attacks to vote Saturday in their second parliamentary poll since the 2001 US-led invasion overthrew the Taliban regime.

Counting has been completed in most of the country’s 34 provinces and partial results — subject to change as allegations of multiple and proxy voting are investigated — are being sent to Kabul for validation.