CIA agent Raymond Davis may have been involved in investigating LeT, which, as the report below details, has had the backing of the Pakistani government at the highest levels. That possibility sheds light on prior reports that the two men Davis says he shot in self defense may have been from the ISI. Even the Pakistani police report cited below notes the two men were armed.
Expanded aspirations on the part of LeT dramatically raise the stakes for Pakistan's double game, as Islamabad would rightly be held responsible for its proxy jihadists' actions. "A Shooting in Pakistan Reveals Fraying Alliance," by Mark Mazetti for the New York Times, March 12:
WASHINGTON — Inside a dark jail cell on the outskirts of Lahore, Pakistan, a brawny 36-year-old American from the mountains of southwest Virginia has sat for weeks as Pakistan began proceedings against him on murder charges and his own government made frantic attempts to secure his release.
Fellow prisoners and guards have also accused him of blasphemy, also punishable by execution, as if to ensure he'll be marked for death for one reason or another.
Late in January, Raymond A. Davis — a covert security officer for the Central Intelligence Agency and onetime Green Beret — unloaded a Glock pistol into two armed Pakistanis on a crowded street in Lahore, according to a Pakistani police report. His case was to move forward in court as early as this week.The shooting complicated American attempts to portray Mr. Davis as a paper-shuffling diplomat who stamped visas as a day job; generated an extraordinary swirl of recriminations and for many Pakistanis confirmed suspicions that America has deployed a secret army of spies and contractors inside the country.
It has also called unwelcome attention to a bigger, more dangerous game in which Mr. Davis appears to have played just a supporting role.
The C.I.A. team Mr. Davis worked with, according to American officials, had among its assignments the task of secretly gathering intelligence about Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant “Army of the Pure.” Pakistan’s security establishment has nurtured Lashkar for years as a proxy force to attack targets and enemies in India and in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir. These and other American officials, all of whom spoke only on condition of anonymity, are now convinced that Lashkar is no longer satisfied being the shadowy foot soldiers in Pakistan’s simmering border conflict with India. It goals have broadened, these officials say, and Lashkar is committed to a campaign of jihad against the United States and Europe, and against American troops in Afghanistan.
This is only a logical progression: the goal of all jihad is to impose Islamic law, and that goal is ultimately global. That is why jihadist groups far removed from one another find common cause, collaborate, and look beyond their initially "regional" conflict. We have also seen this occur with al-Shabaab in Somalia, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat in Algeria, just to name two.
During a visit to Islamabad last July, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared Lashkar a “global threat,” a statement that no doubt rankled his Pakistani hosts.
And so a group that Pakistan has seen for years as an essential component of its own national security, and that American counterterrorism officials could once dismiss as a regional problem, has emerged as a threat that Washington feels it can no longer ignore.
Given such a fundamental collision of interests, it was perhaps inevitable that Lashkar would one day provoke tensions between Pakistani and American security officials, and the collision itself would come into full public view. Rather than being a cause of the problem, Mr. Davis was merely an all-too-visible symptom.
As Mr. Davis discovered, the regularly accepted rules of the spy game don’t apply here. There was little chance of quickly brokering a quiet deal, allowing Mr. Davis to be spirited out of Pakistan without anyone making a fuss. Because Lashkar has long been nurtured by Pakistan’s spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, American espionage operations against the group are freighted with grave risks, and are not viewed kindly by Pakistani spies. [...]
Lashkar’s sprawling headquarters in Muridke, a Lahore suburb situated along the famed Grand Trunk Road, contains not only a radical madrassa and housing for the school’s faculty members, but also a market, a hospital and a fish farm.
Terrorism experts said that the compound was built with donations from benefactors in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Arab world. Lashkar also runs successful fund-raising campaigns inside Pakistan through its allied political organization, Jamat-ud-Dawah, a group that also operates schools, medical clinics and blood banks throughout the country. [...]
Lashkar has long employed the language of global jihad in its propaganda, denouncing the United States and Israel, and vowing that the group would “plant a flag” in Washington and Tel Aviv.
Despite such global goals, Lashkar for most of its history has limited its attacks to India and Kashmir — the targets that would serve the interests of its ISI benefactors.
Professor Fair, the Georgetown expert on Lashkar, said the group has set up sophisticated networks throughout Asia to train dozens of sleeper operatives for attacks in India.
In Thailand, for instance, Muslim recruits arriving from India are handed fake Pakistani passports for travel to Pakistan, where they go for several weeks of training, according to Professor Fair. After the training, the operatives go back to Thailand, reclaim their Indian passports and return to India. [...]
Lashkar has also bolstered fund-raising networks throughout Europe, especially in Germany and Britain, and European counterterrorism officials believe Lashkar is considering attacks in Western capitals similar to the devastating raids by the group in Mumbai, India, in November 2008.
Seth G. Jones, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation who until last month worked on Afghanistan and Pakistan issues for United States Special Operations Command, compared the expansion of Lashkar’s operations with the broadening ambitions of the Pakistani Taliban, a group that had focused exclusively on attacks inside Pakistan until it dispatched Faisal Shazad in a failed mission last May to set off a van full of explosives in Times Square.
Mr. Jones said a Lashkar attack on the West could have more far-reaching consequences than one by the Taliban because Washington would no doubt lay blame for the attack on the ISI’s doorstep.
“There is a recognition that because of Lashkar’s associations, an attack on the United States could wind up causing the Pakistani government extreme pain,” said Mr. Jones, implying the possibility of using military force deep within Pakistan....
"Lashkar’s sprawling headquarters in Muridke, a Lahore suburb situated along the famed Grand Trunk Road..."
Presumably the coordinates are already preprogrammed into the guidance system of a Predator or Reaper, just waiting for the right "Go ahead, make my day" moment.
For over 2 decades US looked the other way and even cuddled with Pakistan while India was shouting itself hoarse in all international forums over Pakistan created Laskhar that was regularly creating havoc and butchering men women and children inside India. As long as the attacks were limited to India this was acceptable for the US. Now that vipers in that pit which were often referred to as "freedom fighters of our ally Pakistan" has turned against the US, its a priority? The shortsightedness of the US would be funny if it were not so self-centered, stupid and tragic.
From the article:" Lashkar has also bolstered fund-raising networks throughout Europe, especially in Germany and Britain..".
In other words: an unknown and perhaps unknowable (but probably a hell of a lot larger than anyone guesses) number of Muslims resident in Germany , the UK, and other unespecified European countries, and most likely also in Australia, Canada, the USA, etc, are sheltering, feeding, and FINANCING the Pakistani Jihad Outfit known as Lashkar-e-Toiba.
The Ummah, everywhere it is present, provides the sheltering sea in which the jihadists swim, and from which, continually, they emerge; and it *also* - willingly, or unwillingly - contributes financially to their support.
Logical conclusion: if there were no Mohammedans resident in Germany, the UK, and other European countries - and, too, if there were no Mohammedans resident in Thailand (where Muslims from India get the fake Pakistani passports they use for their training junkets in Pakistan) or, for that matter, in INDIA, then the task of defending ourselves against jihad attacks would be a whole lot simpler.
NO Mohammedans in any given country = no sea for the jihadis to swim in, no safe houses, no flow of zakat cash for jihad activities.
Report: Lashkar-e-Taiba expanding ops to Europe, U.S.
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This is why the continuing idea—common especially in the United States—of focusing exclusively on Al-Qaida to the exclusion of all other practitioners of violent Jihad is so idiotic.
More:
Inside a dark jail cell on the outskirts of Lahore, Pakistan, a brawny 36-year-old American from the mountains of southwest Virginia has sat for weeks as Pakistan began proceedings against him on murder charges...
..............................
That Raymond Davis has been allowed to so languish—under additional threat of "blasphemy" charges—is appalling. We should tell Pakistan to kiss their abundant Jizya payments from us goodbye unless he is released immediately.
DDA, I thought you were grown up.
I hope you realize that Indians are not infected with the "islamophobia" disease. They just hate pakistan and bangladesh.
stop using that rude and vulgar "m-dan" to refer to muslims.
muslims in Thailand have nothing to do with the operation. I see no evidence of anyone, other than pakistanis involved in the passport swap in Thailand. The Thai don't take kindly to foreigners telling them what to do. They certainly won't listen to foreigners who suggest deporting their citizens (mind telling me where all the thai muslims and hui in thailand would go?)
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your comprehension of Indian foreign affairs is very poor. They have expanded their ties with Arab countries extensively
Indians sold missle, chemical and biological weapons material to Iran and Syria-
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/US-suspected-Indian-cos-role-in-Iran-N-plan/articleshow/7124807.cms
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/185214
India, along with China AND Russia, sold chemical weapons materials to the Islamic Republic of Iran
http://www.iranwatch.org/wmd/wmd-chemicalessay.htm
"Foreign assistance has been vital to Iran's chemical and biological weapon programs. In recent years China and India have been Iran's primary sources for chemical weapon equipment and precursor chemicals. Companies in Germany, the United States and Israel have also been involved. In addition, Israel recently voiced concern over Russian assistance."
http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/iran/iran-chemical-1998.html
India offered full military protection to the Arab gulf state of Qatar, and has friendly relations with the United arab Emirates, Oman, and Bahrain.
Indias numerous military dealings with Qatar-
http://pragmatic.nationalinterest.in/2008/11/13/indias-defence-pact-with-qatar/
http://www.india-defence.com/reports-3349
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=2857528
Indian muslims serve in top government ranks, like the former Indian President Abdul Kalam, a devout Muslim. Muslims are conscripted into the Indian national army along with hindus and sikhs.
Sudanese President Omar al Bashir and other arabs states have taken it their imperative to engage Both China AND India AND pakistan all at the same time with bilateral relations-
http://www.plaidavenger.com/leaders/profile/omar-al-bashir/
"From the first day, our policy was clear: To look eastward, toward China, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and even Korea and Japan, even if the Western influence upon some [of these] countries is strong. We believe that the Chinese expansion was natural because it filled the space left by Western governments, the United States, and international funding agencies. The success of the Sudanese experiment in dealing with China without political conditions or pressures encouraged other African countries to look toward China."
The Hindu Indian President Patil offered full support to Syria, saying that the Golan heights does NOT belong to Israel and that it is Syrian arab land-
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?ID=196967&R=R1
http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/indian-president-backs-syria-s-claim-on-the-golan-heights-1.327233
India has voiced support for Sudan, and hostility to israel
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/why-is-india-against-israel-but-for-sudan/552790/
http://www.sudantribune.com/Sudan-India-discuss-energetic,33910
India expanding ties with Saudis
http://weapons.technology.youngester.com/2010/11/india-and-saudi-arab-to-hold-joint.html
India condemned saddam hussein hanging-
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2006-12-30/india/27813547_1_restoration-execution-death-sentence
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India is a very pro Islam country. The Indian army has no preference for suppressing muslims, it suppresses all secessionsists, like the Assamese separatists in northeast india, who are not muslim, in addition to kashmir. It just so happens that the Kashmiris who want freedom are muslims, while other Indian muslims living in other parts of India don't.
Not only that, India has engaged in demographic cultural warfare as well, flooding the previously tibetan kingdom of sikkim with dark skinned nepalis, who are more racially similar to Indians, who then voted for sikkims abolishment and annexation into India.
arunachal pradesh, manipur, and other regions of india were inhabited by asiatics, tibetan and burmese looking people. No longer, since India has directed hordes of dark skinned dravidian type bengalis and other racially Indian groups into their lands, swamping them and leading to their extinction.
LOL, these Mohammedans would be amusing if not so dangerous. As usual their comments are full of utter trash, half truths, and arranging facts to suit their own worldview. Pathetic.
Caveat: Not all muslims are like this.
The Chinese Mohammedan 'Horse', talking nonsense as usual, tells us that 'India is a very pro Islam country.'
It's currently afflicted with a lot of foolish dhimmis in high places, that's all.
He also pretends that 'Indians are not infected with the "islamophobia" disease. They just hate pakistan and bangladesh'.
NONSENSE. (And the fact that 'Horse' even *uses* the nonsense word 'Islamophobia' tells us all we need to know about him).
There are plenty of Indian non-Muslims who know *exactly* what kind of thing Islam is. Quite a few of them have taken part in this forum, from time to time, all the way from when it was first begun, through to now. I particularly remember one Gorkhali, and one Vikrant Camberleykar, and Arjun Sevak, whose postings were always excellent and informative. *They* had no illusions about Islam.
Here is a posting from a jihadwatch poster in 2009, who had met an unfooled and unfoolable Indian Hindu.
It appeared in this thread from January 6 2009, at a time when the Israelis were giving the Mohammedan thugs in Jihad Fortress Gaza the sound thrashing that said jihadis fully deserved:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/01/hitler-didnt-do-a-good-job.html
A poster called ethoman shared the following (after providing references on what the four schools of Islamic sharia had to say about Jihad):
"...Skeptic please explain to all of us Kuffar here just where the wiggle room is in that body of knowledge [the Islamic texts previously cited] to justify our existence as free people in the long term anywhere on the globe.
"I think the more you learn the more you will come to realize Israel is at war with Muslims, and just what that means beyond the surface.
"**I remember at the beginning of the current Iraqi affair, a Hindu said to me, “You are at war with Muslims now, you will not be able to simply go home like you did in Vietnam." You will come to learn that there are only two outcomes in war with Muslims. Either they die, or you die.” ** {my emphasis - dda}
"I was completely shocked by that statement, floored it was a cathartic moment.
" I was just like you before I heard that.
"We in the west can learn a lot about what is in store for the us from Hindus, you should check for yourself to see what they have to say.
"Anyways it was that statement, which sent me on my journey to study Islam many years ago.
"There is no end for Jews in Israel other than death, or victory.
"Hamas is at the extreme end of what is considered aggressive from a faith whose moderate contemporary orthodoxy is extreme in regards to the mandate for war against non-Muslim states.
"What positive outcome dialoged could get you with Hamas... eludes me."
Got that, everyone?
A *Hindu* advised an American: "You are at war with Muslims now, you will not be able to simply go home like you did in Vietnam." You will come to learn that there are only two outcomes in war with Muslims. Either they die, or you die.”
Doesn't sound like that man had a problem with 'Pakistanis' or with 'Bangladeshis'. He didn't talk about 'Pakistanis' or 'Bangladeshis'. He told ethoman about *Islam* and *Muslims*.
He understood their aggression, their 'zero sum' mentality. And he knew how they had to be fought.
India has over a billion people, those hindus you quoted are propably fringe people
By the way Hindus don't let non Indian men marry their women, but they act obnoxiously and harass other peoples women and marry non hindu women.
"India has over a billion people, those hindus you quoted are propably fringe people"
Make no mistake about this - amongst non-Muslims, there is an underlying pathological dislike for things even remotely connected with Islam. Being friendly with Muslim countries is not the same as being a pro-Muslim country. India has to practice a bit of taqqiya too - there are multitudes of Indians employed in the Middle East.
"By the way Hindus don't let non Indian men marry their women, but they act obnoxiously and harass other peoples women and marry non hindu women. "
There is definitely some pressure to stay within the gene pool, but as far as I know, we do not "own" "our" women.
I have a pathological dislike for proselytizers and cultural imperialism.
India has got to stop with its demographic and racial swamping of asiatic areas. You guys are trying to drive the manipuris, sikkimese, and assamese to extinction by sending your follow dravidians in and taking over the area like you will probably do to burma as well.
Buddhism in China is the result of Indian cultural imperialism. It does not fit with confucianism at all. Indian monks came over and induced people to convert with tricks.
Islam in China is the result of arab traders mixing in with the community and minding their own business, there was no proselytizing or tricking people into conversion with any nonsense. Only people who want to marry with a muslim tend to convert.
If there is to be christianity in China I would like it to be like christianity in the middle east, un politicized unlike western style christianity which tries to force itself on every single policy of its government and twist its arm and mess up the foreign policy.
"Buddhism in China is the result of Indian cultural imperialism. It does not fit with confucianism at all."
"Islam in China is the result of arab traders mixing in with the community and minding their own business .... "
So you are basically saying - Buddhism bad, Islam good. I wonder how compatible is Islam with confucianism ?
Horse lied when he said Hindus do not allow their women to marry men of other faiths.
The son of a family who attend my parish church is about to marry a woman from a Hindu family. She has not converted to Christianity and is not being pressured to convert. The two sets of parents have met and are quite satisfied with one another and supportive of the match.
So: Horse LIED.
And a lot of the rest of his posting was classically Mohammedan. it was full of projection - condemning others for supposedly doing what Muslims can be most assuredly historically demonstrated to have done everywhere - and also full of tu quoque.
DDA accuses me of lying-
I said- "By the way Hindus don't let non Indian men marry their women, but they act obnoxiously and harass other peoples women and marry non hindu women."
I said, non INDIAN men, not non HINDU men.
Some muslim indian men are married to indian hindu women- they're both indian so the family doesn't care. But Indian men are dominating over their women, and won't let them marry non indians, whether the family are muslim or hindu indians.
Shahrukh Khan, an Indian muslim actor, is married to a Hindu wife. Indian hindus let other indians, whether muslim or hindu, marry their women, but they are RACIST, so non indian men can't marry their women.
I see.
Moving the goalposts?
The example I gave still proves you are a damned liar.
The Christian man I referred to, who is marrying a Hindu Indian woman, is an Anglo-Australian, a 'white' man.
So, 1. the girl's parents are letting her marry a non-Hindu, that is, a Christian.
and 2. the girl's parents are letting her marry a non-Indian, that is, a Caucasian, a white Australian.
So there.
"Horse" wrote:
If there is to be christianity in China I would like it to be like christianity in the middle east
................................
In other words, he would like the Christians to be cowed second-class citizens who are frequently frightened for their lives, just as they are living as dhimmis under the heel of Islam.
I saw that, too.
Nasty piece of work he is, isn't he?
ask Indian parents if they would allow a black african to marry their daughter, LOL.
And there is no such thing as a dhimmi in Syria, that is a big insult to Syrian christians who take offence at foreigners who have no idea what goes on in their country.
Moving the goal-posts again, eh?
You are, as I have said before, very very Mohammedan in the way that you 'argue'. Aggression and shapeshifting.
Re Syria. Christians WERE dhimmis in Syria from the time that Muslims conquered it, until the 19th century when massive pressure from European nations - not quite so crippled by PC as they are today - forced the Ottoman Empire to make some reforms.
Dhimmitude was real, for over a millennium. It was not abandoned from within, but only reluctantly abandoned under external pressure; and all sorts of aspects of the profoundly sick abuser-abusee relationship that it was intended to produce - with Muslims the deliberate, strutting, sneering abusers and the non-Muslim minorities the cringing and flattering abusees, but in profound denial as to the extent and viciousnes sof the abuse they have suffered and still suffer - persist.
Now, just a couple of notes from a timeline of Christianity in Syria published by L"osservatore romano in 2001.
L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
9 May 2001, page 16
In the 19th century there were massacres of Christians in Damascus. ( I doubt that this was the only time when Muslims in Syria killed Christians. In fact, having read Bat Yeor's "The Dhimmi" and "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam", I'm prepared to bet that it wasn't the only such episode of murderous violence.)
The same timeline includes this laconic note about the present-day, that is, at the time of its publishing (2001) - "Rural Christians are constantly moving to the cities, because of Muslim pressure and of lack of structures."
That line about 'Muslim pressure' is probably a massive understatement.
It should be noted that Syria is to some extent atypical, as a Muslim country; though majority-Sunni it is ruled by the Alawites. They need/ use the Christians in a sort of alliance of convenience, because the other Muslims see them (the Alawites) as heretics.
If Sunnis or Shiites ever get the upper hand in Syria and crush the Alawites, I would *bet* that there would be a LOT of Christians up and leaving Syria (a lot of them have left Syria already, anyway - which suggests to me that it's not as good a place for Christians to live, as you are trying to pretend). The Jews were all driven out of Syria (after having been horrendously persecuted) quite recently; I expect the same will happen to the Christians if the Alawites ever lose their grip.
Final point.
If Syria was really a great place for Christians to live, wouldn't Christians be moving there to live, rather than leaving in droves?
From my source: - "Emigration is a serious problem for the Christian churches; at least 250,000 Christians have left Syria since 1958".
The fact that the Iraqi Christians fleeing Iraq today go to Syria (as some survivors of the genocide of the Armenians did in 1916) doesn't mean very much; it doesn't mean it's a *good* place for Christians, it just means that it's a bit less bad for Christians and a bit less horrible than post-Saddam Shiite-dominated Iraq. My information from people like the Barnabas Fund - * and they know* - is that the Iraqi Christian refugees in Syria are barely surviving, and are not treated well. So it's not much of a refuge.
Show us evidence that Iraqi muslim refugees are doing any better than Iraq christians? How do you know it isn't because they are all refugees?
syrian christians are anti semitic there was a blood libel against the jews in the 19th century over Jews murdering a christian monk and baking their blood into matza bread. It was called the "Damascus affair".
Even this Zionist website, the "jewishvirtuallibrary", mentions the notorious damascus affair and christian antisemitism in syria
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0005_0_04831.html
Do you know any Syrian christians yourself or are you just reading Bat Yeor's pro Israel books?