Pakistan continues to play Good Cop, Bad Cop. "Pakistan Asks U.S. to Help Catch London Mid-Air Terror Mastermind," from AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan has sought U.S. help to capture an Arab Al Qaeda terrorist who allegedly masterminded the foiled plot to blow up trans-Atlantic jetliners and operates out of Afghanistan's eastern mountains where hundreds of American troops are based, an intelligence official said Friday.Pakistani authorities have passed details regarding the Al Qaeda member to the American military, including his whereabouts in the remote Nuristan and Kunar provinces on the Pakistan border, through which hundreds of militants and locals routinely cross, the official said.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the investigation, declined to reveal the Al Qaeda operative's name or nationality.
But he allegedly exchanged messages carried by a courier with detained British national Rashid Rauf, who is being interrogated by Pakistani authorities in connection with the plot that was smashed last week with at least 30 people arrested in both Britain and Pakistan, the official said.
The wanted Al Qaeda operative is a close aide to Egyptian-born Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, the official said. Detained terror suspects have told interrogators that al-Zawahiri likely approved the plan to blow up passenger planes leaving London for the United States by detonating disguised liquid explosives carried onboard in hand luggage.
Why is it that these "masterminds" almost never succeed in their evil machinations? Not much of a "mastermind", more like another muslim loser. Oh wait, it's the same thing.
Also, why are their "masterminds" and "leaders" always hiding under some rock like snakes and insects? Why are they afraid to show their faces and fight like men? Oh, that's right, they are muslim "warriors", or as we in more civilized countries refer to them, "spineless cowards".
"...remote Nuristan..."
I prefer to describe that area as "Kafiristan". Which it was, until about 105-110 years ago, when the amir of afghanistan went on jihad, with a little blindness from the british authorities in India, and ethnically cleansed, or deported, or converted or enslaved the kafirs. Muslims were then brought in to resettle the land ("1000 families of nomad Safis, 1000 families of Laghmanni nomads, and 500 families of Persian-speaking "kuchi" nomads" (Men of Influence in Nuristan by Schuyler Jones, Seminar Press 1974 pg. 15), and it was renamed, "nuristan" ("land of light", in reference to the (darkness) of islam).
a few well placed shock en awe bombs along the afgan /pakistani border will drop numbers of terrorists in the region.
I kind of figured the ring-leader would be found in either Pakistan or one of the other islamic countries.
Pakistan's possession of fission weapons and fissile materials is a scourge of humanity. The country is one degree of separation away from handing said weapons over to the vermin of the Afghan caves. Musharraf is a one-man barrier to nuclear chaos in that region, and he won't be around forever. It's high time our case officers and agents in central asia unloosed a plague of ebola on the jihadist strongholds in Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. And it would be nice if they could slit the throats of AQ Khan and his family as well. What good are our intelligence agencies if they cannot liquidate these guys and foment regional upheaval?
Since the Paki/Afghan border is too rugged to effectively patrol, why not use the Japanese "technology" we aquired after WW2? We pardoned or ignored scores of war criminals to aquire chem/bio-warfare knowlege that Japanese were developing, using Chinese (logs) civilians. A mile wide band of plague-infested fleas would work quite effectively on the Paki/Afghan border! A simple, thorough pestcide spray, afterwards, would make the border livable again. The use of terror is morally defensible to combat terrorists.
Have little sympathy for Musharraf he is hanging on by his fingernails. They have had at least 2 attempts to kill him that I have heard of.
He cannot even trust his own security people. According to the British paper "Muslim News" when our innocent fellow citizen Mossem Begg was arrested in Pakistan before his 3 year stopover at Gitmo the Pak security man told Begg he knew he (that is the security man) was going to hell for arresting him. Interestingly enough the innocent Begg did not say he disagreed with him.
NamFrank, Amen. It's this kind of creative thinking that is conspicuously absent from our intelligence and national security organs. What are we waiting for? Sensitivity training? It's not as if we don't have enough CBW weapons stockpiled to cause utter chaos and upheaval throughout the jihadist crescent. Unfortunately our bureaucrats are so enamored of remote sensing and smart bombs that they've lost sight of how to fight total war. They need to re-read Clausewitz and get back on track after 61 years of limited warfighting.