Musharraf: Bin Laden Alive!

[Nbadan]

THE HAGUE Sept 27 (Reuters) - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said on Monday interrogations and technological intelligence suggested Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) was still alive.

"The evidence is interrogation of people that we have apprehended and also technological evidence," Musharraf told reporters in the Netherlands when asked about speculation over bin Laden's fate.

"We have a lot of intelligence. Intelligence is human intelligence and evidence is technological intelligence and aerial surveillance. All this is combined to produce an intelligence picture," Musharraf said, when asked about bin Laden.

The al Qaeda leader's whereabouts remained unknown, he said.

"I don't know where he is. I wish I knew."

Yahoo (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/security_musharraf_binladen_dc)


Can you say October Surprise?

[Nbadan]

Of course, Foreign News services have reported that Musharraf may have known where Bin Laden has been the whole time...


TIMES NEWS NETWORK< SATURDAY, JULY 24, 2004 12:56:40 PM >

WASHINGTON: Pakistan's intelligence officials knew in advance about the 9/11 attacks, a well-known American analyst has said, based on a "stunning document" that he claims was given by a Pakistani source to the 9/11 Commission on the eve of the publication of its report.

The document, from a high-level, but anonymous Pakistani source, also claims that Osama bin Laden has been receiving periodic dialysis in a military hospital in Peshawar, says Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor-at-large of the news agency UPI.

''The imprints of every major act of international Islamist terrorism invariably passes through Pakistan, right from 9/11 - where virtually all the participants had trained, resided or met in, coordinated with, or received funding from or through Pakistan,'' Borchgrave cites the confidential
document as saying.

But one does not have to go to Borchgrave's unnamed sources to find Pakistan’s involvement in terrorist activity leading to 9/11. The 9/11 commission report itself nails Pakistan in chapter after chapter, revealing that the Pakistani intelligence was in cahoots with the Taliban and al
Qaeda, far more than Iran and Iraq ever were.

Among the inquiry commission's observations, quoted verbatim here

* Pak intel is in bed with bin Laden and would warn him that the United States was getting ready for a bombing
campaign'' – quoting Richard Clarke

* Islamabad was behaving like a rogue state in two areas – backing Taliban/bin Laden terror and provoking war with India'' - quoting NSC Bruce
Riedel

* Pakistani intelligence officers reportedly introduced bin Laden to Taliban leaders in Kandahar -Commission's own observation.

* Pakistan's military intelligence service, known as the ISID (Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate), was the Taliban's primary patron - Commission's observation

* Pakistan helped nurture the Taliban. The Pakistani army and intelligence services, especially below the top ranks, have long been ambivalent about confronting Islamist extremists. Many in the government have sympathized with or provided support to the extremists - Commission's
observation.

Elsewhere, even as the Bush administration made a big to-do about ten hijackers passing through Iran and tried to implicate Teheran on that grounds, the 9/11 report shows that several hijackers who rammed the planes into American targets used Karachi as a base and trained there for weeks on end.

In fact, the report paints Karachi as the gateway to terrorism, drawing an elaborate picture of the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed using the port city to plan the attack, gather the hijackers there, and put them through their paces.

"Much of his (KSM's) activity in mid-1999 had revolved around the collection of training and informational materials for the participants in the planes operation," the 9/11 report says. "For instance, he collected Western aviation magazines; telephone directories for American cities such as San Diego and Long Beach, California (from Karachi flea markets); brochures for schools; and airline timetables, and he conducted Internet searches on US flight schools."

"He also purchased flight simulator software and a few movies depicting hijackings. To house his students, KSM rented a safehouse in Karachi with money provided by bin Laden," the report adds.

But all this is not good enough for the American media, which has almost completely ignored Pakistan’s role in 9/11 while going on a feeding frenzy over a few speculative morsels tossed out by the Bush administration about the involvement of Iran and Iraq.

Not a single US TV channel or newspaper collated, let alone reported or highlighted, the multiple indictment of Pakistan contained in the report.

Even a cursory key word search would have shown more than 200 references to Pakistan, many of them damning. There are less than 100 references to Iran and Iraq combined.

While the commission report repeatedly implicates Pakistan and its intelligence agency ISI in terrorist activity, it too appears to have failed to record some well-chronicled events that might have pointed to the impending catastrophe.

For instance, the report does not contain any reference to Niaz Khan, a Pakistani waiter in Britain who walked into an FBI office in New Jersey nearly a year before 9/11 and alerted them about a plot to fly planes into buildings. Nor does it go into reports that terrorist mastermind Mohammed Atta received a wire transfer of funds from a source in Karachi connected to the ISI.

Despite this, Pakistan finds itself incriminated in the report far more than Iran or Iraq. The commission itself is frequently censorious of Pakistan's role, but in the end it recommends more carrots as a means of bringing back what it suggests is a failed state from the brink.

Pakistani officials have issued their pro forma denials about Islamabad's involvement, clutching instead at a few paras in the report that recommend a sustained (and conditional) US engagement with the military dictatorship.

</snip>

This article on the report of the 9/11 Commission asks why the US media has so far

"almost completely ignored Pakistan’s role in 9/11 while going on a feeding frenzy over a few speculative morsels tossed out
by the Bush administration about the involvement of Iran and Iraq.. Not a single US TV channel or newspaper collated, let alone reported or highlighted, the multiple indictment of Pakistan contained in the (9/11 Commission) report. Even a cursory key word search would have shown more than
200 references to Pakistan, many of them damning. There are less than 100 references to Iran and Iraq combined".

It's still not late. One hopes the US print, online, TV and audio media will make up for the lost time and start calling a spade
a spade.

Times Of India (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-789042,curpg-1.cms)

[Yonivore]

Only a Demoncrat could turn the capture of Osama bin Laden into a negative.

[Hook Dem]

There is no end to Dan's BS!

[Nbadan]

I'm not saying that I necessarily believe that Musharraf has been hiding Bin Laden this whole time. I mean, after all, that report was from India, so ya kinda have to take it with a grain of salt given the conflict in Kasmer. Still, Musharraf saying that Bin Laden is probably still alive is a powerful statement cause many on this board have been speculating that Bin Laden may have died in 01-02.

[Whottt]

The assumption that Musharraf has known where Bin Laden is the whole time is a highly misguided assumption...

In case you haven't noticed, Musharraf isn't exactly the most popular leader with Muslims...I'd say his hold on power is very shaky and the main reason is because of how unpopular he is with the radicals in his own country...

You have to remember that Pakistan is the country where young homeless boys are taken off the street, fed by millitant Islam and told that the Koran and dying for the radical interpretation of it, is the only education they will ever need...and they are also taught to love the Nuclear Bomb and that it is the key to their hope...I think the "fist of Allah" is the way they describe it there..

When you think about the fact that Musharraf is aiding the US against Radical Islamists, and the fact that he has control over what they most covet...I'd say he's probably #1 on the death squad list for millitant Islam and would like nothing more than to exterminate every terrorist on the planet...He's not an Islamic fundamentalist...he's a millitary man. He's probably not the nicest guy you'd ever meet but I am pretty sure he wouldn't be protecting Bin Laden since Bin Laden is a threat to him as well.

You also have to realize that Pakistan is corrupt from top to bottom, and even Musharraf can't control that...someone in his govt might know where Bin Laden is(my guess would be Pakistani Intelligence) but there is no way in hell Musharraf is protecting Bin Laden.

[Whottt]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Musharraf is a lot closer to Saddam Hussein than he is to Bin Laden. I don't think Saddam would have let Bin Laden run free around Iraq either :) .

[Yonivore]

http://www.labmath.uqam.ca/~evelyne/Star-Trek/TOS/Dr-McCoy.JPG
Damnit Jim, he's dead!

[LandSharkII]

Can you say October Surprise?
http://deephousepage.com/smilies/stupid.gif

Can you say psychotherapy?

[Nbadan]

When you think about the fact that Musharraf is aiding the US against Radical Islamists, and the fact that he has control over what they most covet...I'd say he's probably #1 on the death squad list for millitant Islam and would like nothing more than to exterminate every terrorist on the planet...He's not an Islamic fundamentalist...he's a millitary man. He's probably not the nicest guy you'd ever meet but I am pretty sure he wouldn't be protecting Bin Laden since Bin Laden is a threat to him as well.

Nice thoughts Whott. Musharraf has survived two assassination attempts linked to Islamic terrorists and maybe even rogue elements in his own army. Thanks to election year pressure from the Bushiveks the Pakistan Army has started military incursions into The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). There are seven tribal areas : Khyber, Kurram, Orakzai, Mohmand, Bajaur, North Waziristan and South Waziristan, all inhabited by Pashtun tribes. In these tribal areas Pakistani Law has no authority.

Musharraf's motives for wanting to protect Bin Laden are thin for many of the reasons you listed above, but the Pakistani's version of the CIA, called the ISI, has had very close ties to Usama since they helped supply Bin laden's Mujahadeen Army with guns, ammo, and men against the Soviets. Some say those connections still run very deep and that some elements within the ISI may still be aiding Bin Laden without the full knowledge of Musharraf.

[Yonivore]

Nbadanallah, do you know who Rube Goldberg is?