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Posts Tagged ‘US Terrorism’

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امریکا نے پاکستان کے شہر ایبٹ آباد میں القاعدہ کے لیڈر اسامہ بن لادن کی ہلاکت کے لیے گذشتہ سال کی گئی کارروائی کے دوران برآمد شدہ دستاویزات میں سے سترہ کو جمعرات کو جاری کیا ہے۔ان میں القاعدہ کے مقتول لیڈر نے مسلمانوں کی جہاد سے چشم پوشی پر افسوس کا اظہار کیا ہے اور ان سے یہ بھی انکشاف ہوا ہے کہ وہ مسلم دنیا میں حملوں کے مخالف تھے۔

وائٹ ہاؤس نے ویسٹ پوائنٹ ملٹری اکادمی میں قائم انسداد دہشت گردی مرکز کو اسامہ بن لادن کے خفیہ خطوط اور دوسری دستاویزات شائع کرنے کی اجازت دی ہے۔عربی زبان میں ان کاغذات میں ایک سو پچھہتر صفحات کو محیط خطوط یا ان کے مسودے شامل ہیں جو انھوں نے ستمبر دوہزار چھے سے اپریل دوہزار گیارہ تک لکھوائے تھے یا خود لکھے تھے۔

ان دستاویزات سے القاعدہ کے نیٹ ورک کے درمیان اندرونی خط وکتابت کا بھی انکشاف ہوا ہے۔یہ خطوط خود اسامہ بن لادن یا یمن ،پاکستان اور صومالیہ میں القاعدہ سے وابستہ جنگجو گروپوں نے لکھے تھے۔ان کے علاوہ اسامہ کی اپنے ہاتھ سے لکھی ایک ڈائری بھی امریکی کمانڈوز کے ہاتھ لگی تھی جو وہ بھاگتے ہوئے اپنے ساتھ لے گئے تھے اور اب اس میں سے القاعدہ کے لیڈر کی نجی وتنظیمی زندگی اور دوسری تنظیموں کے ساتھ ان کے روابط کے حوالے سے انکشافات کیے جارہے ہیں۔

ان تحریروں میں اسامہ بن لادن نے اس بات پر بھی افسوس کا اظہار کیا تھا کہ مسلمان جہاد کے نظریے سے دور ہوتے جارہے ہیں۔بی بی سی کی رپورٹ کے مطابق اسامہ بن لادن نے اپنے پیروکاروں کو مشورہ دیا تھا کہ وہ اسلامی دنیا میں حملوں سے گریز کریں اور اس کے بجائے صرف امریکا پر اپنی توجہ مرکوز کریں۔

بن لادن کی خط وکتابت کے ساتھ امریکی تجزیہ کاروں کی ایک رپورٹ بھی جاری کی گئی ہے جس کے مطابق وہ دہشت گرد گروپوں کی جانب سے اپنے نصب العین کے لیے عوامی حمایت کے حصو ل میں ناکامی ،ناکام میڈیا مہموں اور حملوں کی ناقص منصوبہ بندی پر اپ سیٹ تھےکیونکہ ان کے حملوں میں اسامہ کے نقطہ نظر سے بہت زیادہ بے گناہ مسلمان مارے گئے تھے۔

اسامہ بن لادن کے مشیر آدم جدھن نے ان پر زوردیا تھا کہ وہ عراق میں القاعدہ سے وابستہ تنظیم کی کارروائیوں سے اظہار لاتعلقی کریں۔اس پر انھوں نے دوسری تنظیموں اور امریکیوں کے بہ قول دہشت گرد گروپوں پر زوردیا تھا کہ وہ عراقی القاعدہ کی غلطیوں کو نہ دہرائیں۔

اس خط وکتابت میں القاعدہ کے اس وقت کے نائب کماندار ابو یحییٰ اللبی کے خطوط بھی شامل ہیں جن میں انھوں نے کالعدم تحریک طالبان پاکستان سے کہا تھا کہ وہ مسلمانوں پر بلا امتیاز حملوں سے گریز کرے۔

اسامہ بن لادن نے جزیرہ نما عرب میں القاعدہ کے لیڈر ناصر الوحشی کو یمن میں اقتدار سنبھالنے پر خبردار کیا تھا اور ان سے کہا تھا کہ وہ اس کے بجائے امریکا پر حملوں پر اپنی توجہ مرکوز کریں۔

ان خطوط ودستاویزات کے مطابق القاعدہ کے لیڈر نے صومالیہ سے تعلق رکھنے والے الشباب جنگجوؤں کی جانب سے وفاداری کے اعلان پر کوئی زیادہ دلچسپی ظاہر نہیں کی تھی اور ان کے خیال میں الشباب کے جنگجو اپنے کنٹرول والے علاقوں میں کوئی اچھا نظم ونسق قائم نہیں کرسکے تھے اور انھوں نے اسلامی سزاؤں اور لوگوں کے ہاتھ کاٹنے میں سختی کا مظاہرہ کیا تھا۔

امریکیوں کےبہ قول ان خطوط سے القاعدہ اور ایران کے درمیان تعلقات کا بھی انکشاف ہوا ہے لیکن امریکا کو اس کی حقیقی مراد حاصل نہیں ہوسکی کیونکہ ملنے والے خطوط سے صرف اتنا پتا چلتا ہے کہ ایرانی حکام اور القاعدہ کے درمیان ایران میں قید بعض جنگجوؤں اور ان کے خاندانوں کی رہائی کے ضمن میں بات چیت ہوئی تھی لیکن القاعدہ اور ایران کے درمیان کوئی خوشگوار اور توانا تعلق قائم نہیں تھا۔

ان کاغذات سے براہ راست یہ بات ثابت نہیں ہوتی کہ پاکستانی حکومت میں القاعدہ کا کوئی خیرخواہ بھی موجود تھا۔اسامہ بن لادن نے اپنی بعض تحریروں میں ”قابل اعتماد پاکستانی بھائیوں” کے الفاظ استعمال کیے ہیں لیکن انھوں نے پاکستان کے کسی سرکاری یا فوجی عہدے دار کی شناخت ظاہر نہیں کی جس سے یہ پتاچل سکے کہ کسی پاکستانی عہدے دار کو ایبٹ آباد میں ان کے ٹھکانے کا علم تھا۔

رپورٹ کے مطابق بن لادن نے سکیورٹی اقدامات پراطمینان کا اظہار کیا تھا جن کہ وجہ سے ان کا خاندان کئی سال تک محفوظ رہا تھا۔انھوں نے ایبٹ آباد میں واقع اپنی رہائش گاہ پر سکیورٹی کو یقینی بنانے کے لیے سخت انتطامات کررکھے تھے اور بچوں کو کمپاؤنڈ سے باہر کسی بڑے آدمی کی نگرانی کے بغیر کھیل کود کے لیے جانے کی اجازت نہیں تھی۔

اسامہ بن لادن نے یکم مئی کوامریکی سیلز ٹیم کی کارروائی میں اپنی ہلاکت تک امریکا کو اپنے حملوں کا نشانہ بنانے لیے اپنی توجہ مرکوز کیے رکھی تھی اور اس مقصد کے لیے وہ منصوبے تیار کرتے رہتے تھے لیکن وہ کسی امریکی لیڈر کو ہلاک کرنے یا امریکا پر کوئی بڑا حملہ کرنے میں ناکام رہے تھے۔رپورٹ میں بتایا گیا ہے کہ اسامہ بن لادن القاعدہ سے وابستہ تنظیموں کی دنیا بھر میں کارروائیوں سے متعلق روزانہ کی بنیاد پر باخبر نہیں تھے۔

القاعدہ کے مقتول لیڈراسامہ بن لادن کے پاکستان کے شہر ایبٹ آباد میں واقع مکان سے امریکیوں کے ہاتھ لگنے والی دستاویزات کو ان کی ہلاکت کا ایک سال پورا ہونے پر منظرعام پر لایا جارہا ہے اور ان کے مطابق اسامہ بن لادن ،افغانستان کے طالبان مزاحمت کاروں اور دوسرے جنگجوؤں کے درمیان نیٹو فوجیوں پر حملوں کے لیے منصوبہ بندی سمیت قریبی تعلقات کار قائم تھے۔امریکا میں اس موقع پر باقاعدہ طور پر ایک ہفتے کا جشن منایا جارہا ہے جس کے دوران امریکی صدر براک اوباما اور دوسرے عہدے دار دہشت گردی کے خلاف جنگ میں اس ”فتح عظیم” پر ڈونگرے برسا رہے ہیں اور اسامہ کی ہلاکت کے واقعہ سے متعلق نئے نئے گوشے منظرعام پر لارہے ہیں۔۔

امریکیوں کے ہاتھ لگنے والی دستاویزات میں وہ خط وکتابت اور یادداشتیں بھی شامل ہیں جو اسامہ بن لادن نے لکھوائی تھیں اور ان میں انھوں نے اپنے پیروکاروں پر زوردیا تھا کہ وہ بلاامتیاز حملوں سے گریز کریں کیونکہ اس طرح مسلمانوں کی ہلاکتیں ہوتی ہیں۔

برطانوی اخبار گارڈین نے لکھا کہ ”امریکی اور افغان حکام نے حال ہی میں اس توقع کا اظہار کیا ہے کہ طالبان کو دہشت گردی کی مذمت پر آمادہ کیا جاسکتا ہے لیکن ان دستاویزات سے ان خدشات کو تقویت ملی ہے کہ طالبان نے ایک مرتبہ پھر القاعدہ یا اس کے ہم خیال جنگجوؤں کو محفوظ ٹھکانوں کی پیش کش کی ہے۔اس لیے اس کے تناظر میں طالبان اور القاعدہ کی اعلیٰ قیادت کے درمیان قریبی تعاون اور اتحاد کو ایک بڑا مسئلہ قرار دیا جارہا ہے۔

اخبارکی رپورٹ کے مطابق اسامہ بن لادن کی کمپیوٹر پر تحریریں ان کی ہلاکت سے صرف ایک ہفتہ قبل سے لے کر کئی سال پرانی تھیں اور ان سے یہ بات بھی ثابت ہوتی ہے کہ وہ نائیجیریا سے تعلق رکھنے والے جنگجو گروپ بوکو حرام کے علاوہ متعدد دوسرے گروپوں سے براہ راست یا بالواسطہ ابلاغی رابطے میں تھے۔دستاویزات سے یہ بات بھی ثابت ہوتی ہے کہ بوکوحرام کے سربراہ گذشتہ اٹھارہ ماہ سے القاعدہ سے اعلیٰ سطح پر رابطوں میں تھے۔

واضح رہے کہ اسامہ بن لادن ایبٹ آباد میں 2مئی 2011ء کو امریکی خصوصی فورسز کی ایک چھاپہ مار کارروائی میں ہلاک ہوگئے تھے۔اس واقعہ کے بعد سے امریکی اور مغربی میڈیا اور خفیہ ادارے القاعدہ کے مقتول لیڈر کا پاکستان کے سکیورٹی اداروں سے ناتا جوڑنے کے لیے ایڑی چوٹی کا زور لگا رہے ہیں۔

واشنگٹن۔العربیہ ڈاٹ نیٹ

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An American citizen that was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan, Jude Mohammed, was arrested by Pakistani authorities in 2011 but escaped after being granted bail, the Associated Press reported.

The Barack Obama administration on Wednesday acknowledged for the first time that US drone strikes have killed four Americans in Pakistan and Yemen since 2009, the New York Times reported.

According to Pakistani security officials, Jude was killed in a drone attack in South Waziristan in late 2011.

Jude, a part of an eight-member suspected terrorist group based in the US, was indicted by American authorities in 2009 for an alleged plot to attack a US Marine Corps base.

Pakistani officials arrested Jude when he tried to illegally cross into Mohmand.

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WASHINGTON: US drone strikes in Pakistan would continue to be conducted by the CIA for the time-being to keep the program covert and maintain deniability for both the United States and Pakistan, several US government sources said on Monday.

The sources added that US President Barack Obama’s administration has decided to give the Pentagon control of some drone operations against terrorism suspects overseas that are currently run by the CIA.

Four US government sources told Reuters that the decision had been made to shift the CIA’s drone operations to the Pentagon, and some of them said it would occur in stages.

Drone strikes in Yemen, where the US military already conducts operations with Yemeni forces, would be run by the armed forces, officials said.

However, the administration’s goal would be to transfer the Pakistan drone operations to the military, one US official said on condition of anonymity.

The internal debate within the administration about whether to switch control of drone strikes to the military has been going on for months. Obama is under heightened pressure to show that his administration is transparent, after a series of scandals about civil liberties and allegations of government overreach broke last week.

Obama will make a speech on Thursday at the National Defense University in Washington that will include discussion of the government’s use of drones as a counterterrorism tool. It is unclear whether he will announce the drone program shift in that speech or separately.

A White House National Security Council spokesperson and a CIA spokesperson each declined comment.

Decision after months of debate

One of the reasons to make the shift is that it would help the CIA to return to more traditional spying operations and intelligence analysis, rather than paramilitary operations involving killing terrorism targets, officials have said.

The US military is not engaged in ground combat in Pakistan, where the population in tribal areas has been angered by drone strikes and governments do not want to acknowledge that they allow US unmanned aircraft to operate.

But in Yemen, the same sensitivities do not exist because the US military is working with Yemeni forces in counterterrorism operations and so drone strikes in Yemen will shift to the Pentagon, two sources said.

There have been 355 drone strikes in Pakistan and 66 in Yemen, according to a widely cited drone attack database run by the New America Foundation think tank.

The United States has also carried out drone strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and East Africa, some of them operated by the military.

The use of armed drones jumped in 2008 when President George W Bush authorised the use of “signature” strikes, allowing the targeting of terrorism suspects based on behaviour and other characteristics without knowing the targets’ identities.

Rosa Brooks, a New America Foundation fellow and Georgetown University law professor, said the problem with the targeted killing program was “an assertion by the executive branch that it has this essentially unconstrained and unreviewable power to kill people.”

Brooks, who previously served at the Pentagon, said she hoped that Obama would publicly release the legal justifications and analysis for the targeted killings overseas, including of US citizens.

“I would also like to see the president say that we will acknowledge all strikes, that we will publicly report on identities of who was targeted, at least after the fact,” she said.

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The Mail on Sunday today reveals shocking new evidence of the full horrific impact of US drone attacks in Pakistan.

A damning dossier assembled from exhaustive research into  the strikes’ targets sets out in heartbreaking detail the deaths of teachers, students and Pakistani policemen. It also describes how bereaved relatives are forced to gather their loved ones’ dismembered body parts in the aftermath of strikes.

The dossier has been assembled by human rights lawyer Shahzad Akbar, who works for Pakistan’s Foundation for Fundamental Rights and the British human rights charity Reprieve.

Filed in two separate court cases, it is set to trigger a formal murder investigation by police into the roles of two US officials said to have ordered the strikes. They are Jonathan Banks, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Islamabad station, and John A. Rizzo, the CIA’s former chief lawyer. Mr Akbar and his staff have already gathered further testimony which has yet to be filed.

‘We have statements from a further 82 victims’ families relating to more than 30 drone strikes,’ he said. ‘This is their only hope of justice.’

In the first case, which has already been heard by a court in Islamabad, judgment is expected imminently. If the judge grants Mr Akbar’s petition,  an international arrest warrant will be issued via Interpol against the  two Americans.

The second case is being heard in the city of Peshawar. In it, Mr Akbar and the families of drone victims who are civilians are seeking a ruling that further strikes in Pakistani airspace should be viewed as ‘acts of war’.

They argue that means the Pakistan Air Force should try to shoot down the drones and that the government should sever diplomatic relations with the US and launch murder inquiries against those responsible.

According to a report last month by academics at Stanford and New York universities, between 2,562 and 3,325 people have been killed since the strikes in Pakistan began in 2004.

The report said of those, up to  881 were civilians, including 176  children. Only 41 people who had  died had been confirmed as ‘high-value’ terrorist targets.

Getting at the truth is difficult because the tribal regions along the frontier are closed to journalists. US security officials continue to claim that almost all those killed are militants who use bases in Pakistan to launch attacks on Western forces across the border in Afghanistan.

In his only acknowledgement that the US has ever launched such attacks at all, President Barack Obama said in January: ‘This is a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists, who are trying to go in and harm Americans.’

But behind the dry legal papers seen by The Mail on Sunday lies the most detailed investigation into  individual strikes that has yet been  carried out. It suggests that the US President was mistaken.

Missile attacks in in Pakistan have had devastating affects, the dossier revealed

The plaintiff in the Islamabad case is Karim Khan, 45, a journalist and translator with two masters’ degrees, whose family comes from the village of Machi Khel in the tribal region of North Waziristan.

His eldest son, Zahinullah, 18, and his brother, Asif Iqbal, 35, were killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone that struck the  family’s guest dining room at about 9.30pm on New Year’s Eve, 2009.

Asif had changed his surname because he loved to recite Iqbal,  Pakistan’s national poet, and Mr Khan said: ‘We are an educated family.  My uncle is a hospital doctor in  Islamabad, and we all work in professions such as teaching.

‘We have never had anything to do with militants or terrorists, and for that reason I always assumed we would be safe.’

Mr Khan said: ‘Zahinullah, who had been studying in Islamabad, had returned to the village to work his way through college, taking a part-time job as a school caretaker.

‘He was a quiet boy and studious – always in the top group of his class.’ Zahinullah also liked football, cricket and hunting partridges.

Asif, he added, was an English teacher and had spent several years taking further courses to improve his qualifications while already in work.

Mr Khan said: ‘He was my kid brother. We used to have a laugh, tell jokes.’ His first child was less than a year old when Asif was killed.

Included in the legal dossier are documents that corroborate Asif and Zahinulla’s educational and employment records, as well as their death certificates. Killed alongside them was Khaliq Dad, a stonemason who was staying with the family while he worked on a local mosque.

Mr Khan, who had been working for a TV station in Islamabad, said he was given the news of their deaths in a 2am phone call from a cousin.

Drones have caused untold damage, and the dossier reveals just how devastating they have been for families

‘I called a friend who had a car and we started driving through the night to get back to the village,’ he said. ‘It was a terrible journey. I was shocked,  grieving, angry, like anyone who had lost their loved ones.’

He got home soon after dawn and describes his return ‘like entering a village of the dead – it was so quiet.  There was a crowd gathered outside the compound but nowhere for them to sit because the guest rooms had been destroyed’.

Zahinullah, Mr Khan discovered, had been killed instantly, but despite his horrific injuries, Asif had survived long enough to be taken to a nearby hospital. However, he died during the night.

‘We always bury people quickly in our culture. The funeral was at three o’clock that afternoon, and more than 1,000 people came,’ Mr Khan said. ‘Zahinullah had a wound on the side of his face and his body was crushed and charred. I am told the people who push the buttons to  fire the missiles call these strikes “bug-splats”.

‘It is beyond my imagination how they can lack all mercy and compassion, and carry on doing this for years. They are not human beings.’

Mr Khan found Mr Akbar through a friend who had attended lectures he gave at an Islamabad university. In 2010, he filed a criminal complaint – known as a first information report – to police naming  Mr Banks. However, they took no action, therefore triggering the  lawsuit – a judicial review of that failure to act.

If the judge finds in favour of  Mr Khan, his decision cannot be appealed, thus making the full criminal inquiry and Interpol warrants inevitable.

According to the legal claim, someone from the Pakistan CIA network led by Mr Banks – who left Pakistan in 2010 – targeted the Khan family and guided the Hellfire missile by throwing a GPS homing device into their compound.

A senior CIA officer said: ‘We do not discuss active operations or  allegations against specific individuals.’

Mr Rizzo is named because of  an interview he gave to a US reporter after he retired as CIA General Counsel last year. In it, he boasted that he had personally authorised every drone strike in which America’s enemies were ‘hunted down and blown to bits’.

He added: ‘It’s basically a hit-list .  .  . The Predator is the weapon of choice, but it could also be someone putting a bullet in your head.’

Last night a senior Pakistani  security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Pakistan’s own intelligence agency, the ISI, has always been excluded by the CIA from choosing drone  targets.

‘They insist on using their own networks, paying their own informants. Dollars can be very persuasive,’ said the official.

He claimed the intelligence behind drone strikes was often seriously flawed. As a result, ‘they are causing the loss of innocent lives’.

But even this, he added, was not  as objectionable as the so-called ‘signature strikes’ – when a drone operator, sitting at a computer screen thousands of miles away in Nevada, selects a target because he thinks the drone camera has spotted something suspicious.

He said: ‘It could be a vehicle  containing armed men heading towards the border, and the operator thinks, “Let’s get them before they get there,” without any idea of who they are.

‘It could also just be people sitting together. In the frontier region, every male is armed but it doesn’t mean they are militants.’

One such signature strike killed more than 40 people in Datta Khel in North Waziristan on March 17 last year. The victims, Mr Akbar’s dossier makes clear, had gathered for a jirga – a tribal meeting – in order to discuss a dispute between two clans over the division of royalties from a chromite mine.

Some of the most horrifying testimony comes from Khalil Khan, the son of Malik Haji Babat, a tribal leader and police officer. ‘My father was not a terrorist. He was not an enemy of the United States,’ Khalil’s legal statement says. ‘He was a hard-working and upstanding citizen, the type of person others looked up to and aspired to be like.’

Khalil, 32, last saw his father three hours before his death, when he left for a business meeting in a nearby town. Informed his father had been killed, Khalil hurried to the scene.

‘What I saw when I got off the bus at Datta Khel was horrible,’ he said. ‘I immediately saw flames and women and children were saying there had been a drone strike. The fires spread after the strike.

‘I went to the location where the jirga had been held. The situation was really very bad. There were still people lying around injured.

‘The tribal elders who had been killed could not be identified because there were body parts strewn about. The smell was awful. I just collected the pieces that I believed belonged to my father and placed them in a small coffin.’

Khalil said that as a police officer, his father had earned a good salary, on which he supported his family. Khalil has considered returning to the Gulf, where he worked for 14 years, but ‘because of the frequency of drones I am concerned to leave my family’.

He added that schools in the area were empty because ‘parents are afraid their children will be hit by  a missile’.

In another statement – one of 13 taken by Mr Akbar concerning the Datta Khel strike – driver Ahmed Jan, 52, describes the moment the missile hit: ‘We were in the middle of our discussion and I was thrown about 24ft from where I was sitting. I was knocked unconscious. When I awoke, I saw many individuals who were injured or dead.

‘I have lost the use of one of my feet and have a rod inserted because of the injuries. It is so painful for me to walk. There are scars on my face because I had to have an operation on my nose when it would not stop bleeding.’

Mr Jan says he has spent £3,600 on medical treatment but ‘I have never been offered compensation of any kind .  .  . I do not know why this jirga was targeted. I am a malik [elder] of my tribe and therefore a government servant. We were not doing anything wrong or illegal.’

Another survivor was Mohammed Noor, 27, a stonemason, who attended the jirga with his uncle and his cousin, both of whom were killed. ‘The parts of their bodies had to be collected first. These parts were all we had of them,’ he said.

Mr Akbar said that fighting back through the courts was the only way ‘to solve the larger problem’ of the ongoing terrorist conflict.

‘It is the only way to break the cycle of violence,’ he said. ‘If we want to change the people of Waziristan, we first have to show them that we respect the rule of law.’

A senior CIA officer said: ‘We do not discuss active operations or  allegations against specific individuals.’ A White House source last night declined to comment.

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Pakistanis are blamed for harboring unwanted hostility towards Americans and their country’s is accused of supporting alleged terrorists who want to destroy the United States of Pakistan.

No columnist or intellect needs to appraise the nation of destructive mindset of some Americans who even advocates use nuclear weapons against Pakistan.

Now the Hollywood has made a Drama series titled “The Last Resort” which ended up with producing the idea of bombing Pakistan with nuclear weapons to save the US.

A trailer of the drama series shows Pakistan destroys a US submarine which eventually prompts Americans to use nuclear weapons against Islamabad.

Pakistan’s TV and film industry even religious fanatics have never advocated use of nuclear weapons against Washington.

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