Pakistan has in the past funneled to the terrorists themselves the money it received from the U.S. to fight terror. This is better than directly giving the money to al Qaeda and the Taliban, but it shows how seriously the Pakistani authorities take their role in the “war on terror”: not seriously at all.
“Pakistan anti-terror fund spent on gifts,” from Sky News, January 23 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
Pakistani officials have reportedly used a secret counter-terrorism fund to buy wedding gifts, luxury carpets and gold jewellery for relatives of ministers and visiting dignitaries.
Documents seen by the AFP news agency cast a spotlight on high-level corruption in Pakistan as the impoverished but nuclear-armed country battles a surge in Taliban violence.
They concern the National Crisis Management Cell (NCMC) of Pakistan’s interior ministry, formed in 2000 to co-ordinate between the country’s intelligence agencies and federal and provincial governments on national security matters.
The US and other Western countries have poured billions of dollars into Pakistan since the 9/11 attacks of 2001 to help in its fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda linked militants.
The NCMC received some 425 million rupees ($A4.87 million) from Pakistani government coffers from 2009-2013, according to files obtained by Umar Cheema, an investigative journalist for Pakistani daily The News, and seen by AFP.
During that time, the interior ministry was headed by Rehman Malik, a flamboyant loyalist of former president Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
Many of the documents deal with payments to intelligence sources, routine maintenance of vehicles and overtime for employees.
But the files also include receipts for gifts for US and British embassy officials, as well as flowers and sweets for journalists.
One receipt for 70,000 rupees ($A793) is itemised as a ‘Pair of wrist watches for marriage of nephew of minister for interior’.
The documents show that on a trip to Rome for an Interpol conference in November 2012, Malik took a necklace, wooden tables and a TouchMate tablet computer as gifts.
The counter-terror fund was also used to buy three rugs as wedding gifts for the son of former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf early last year.
A set of 21-carat gold jewellery worth $A3,400 was bought for one unnamed individual, while another was the recipient of a $A1,700 set.
A handicrafts store in Islamabad was paid some $A26,055 in December 2012 for carpets and crafts given to local officials and delegations from the EU, Iran and India.
Among the more bizarre items paid for from the fund was the $A906 cost of four sacrificial goats, plus butchery costs – listed as ‘stabbing charges‘ – for the festival of Eid-ul-Adha.
Alms to the poor and donations of sweets, flowers, and cash to a local Sufi saint were also made from the fund in 2012, the documents show….