US paying Pakistan to kill American troops ? .. (WikiLeaks)

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US paying Pakistan to kill American troops?
Pakistan too Exposed: WikiLeaks​

First little bit about Wikileaks-

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Wikileaks is an amorphous, international organization, based in Sweden, that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive documents from governments and other organizations, while preserving the anonymity of their sources. Its website, launched in 2006, is run by The Sunshine Press.The organization has stated it was founded by Chinese dissidents, as well as journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the U.S., Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Newspaper articles and The New Yorker magazine (June 7, 2010) describe Julian Assange, an Australian journalist and Internet activist, as its director. Within a year of its launch, the site said its database had grown to more than 1.2 million documents; the "Collateral Murder" video is one of its most notable releases. It has won a number of new media awards for its reports.
Wikileaks - WikiLeaks

Whistle-blowing website Wikileaks is once again at the centre of attention as it makes public more than 90,000 secret records of incidents and intelligence reports from the US military about the war in Afghanistan.
It is the latest in a long list of "leaks" published by the secretive site, which has established a reputation for publishing sensitive material from governments and other high-profile organisations.

What is Wikileaks? - Telegraph
BBC News - What is Wikileaks?

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Documents, made available by an organization called WikiLeaks, expose Pakistan's double-faced policy of fuelling terrorism in Afghanistan while claiming to be fighting it as an US ally.

WASHINGTON: A treasure trove of US documents implicating Pakistan in its support for terrorism exploded in the public domain on Sunday, sending officials in both countries scurrying to defend a dubious alliance and straining a phony partnership based on a misreading of the ground sentiment and situation.

WikiLeaks, a whistleblower organization that publishes sensitive government leaks from anonymous sources, put a staggering 91,000 documents, mainly ground reports from US military personnel, in public domain on Sunday. Many of the documents exposed Pakistan's double-faced policy of fuelling terrorism in Afghanistan while claiming to be fighting it as an US ally.

In effect, the chronicles suggested that Washington was blindly paying Pakistan massive amounts of money for access to Afghanistan even as Islamabad uses its spy agency, ISI, to plot the death of American and Nato troops, allied Indian personnel, and undermines US policy. The most devastating leaks showed that Pakistan allows representatives of its spy service, ISI, to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize attacks against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders, including President Hamid Karzai.


WikiLeaks worked with three media organizations--The New York Times, Germany's Der Spiegel and The Guardian--to make sense of the massive cache of documents, while not disclosing how it got hold of it. Stunned Washington experts compared it to the leaking of the Pentagon papers during the Vietnam War. What the cache highlighted most was the continuing Pakistani perfidy, and American credulity in accepting Islamabad as an ally and funnelling billions of dollars in aid even as it helped plot US downfall in the region and killed American soldiers.

"Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harboured strong suspicions that Pakistan's military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants," the New York Times said in its assessment of the report. "The records also contain firsthand accounts of American anger at Pakistan's unwillingness to confront insurgents who launched attacks near Pakistani border posts, moved openly by the truckload across the frontier and retreated to Pakistani territory for safety," it continued.

"The behind-the-scenes frustrations of soldiers on the ground and glimpses of what appear to be Pakistani skullduggery contrast sharply with the frequently rosy public pronouncements of Islamabad as an ally by American officials looking to sustain a drone campaign over parts of Pakistani territory to strike at Qaida havens," it added.

That policy of ambivalence and appeasement continued even into the hours after the WikiLeaks expose, as US and Pakistani officials rushed to control the damage. US national security advisor James Jones condemned the "disclosure of classified documents by individuals and organizations", which, he said, "could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security", when, in effect, the documents suggest it is Washington's appeasement of Pakistan which is doing that.

US officials also argued that the documents posted by WikiLeaks covered a period from January 2004 to December 2009 and pre-dated President Barack Obama's new strategy announced on December 1, 2009, when they suggested there began a turnaround "with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan, and increased focus on Al Qaida and Taliban safe-havens in Pakistan, precisely because of the grave situation that had developed over several years".

"I don't think anyone who follows this issue will find it surprising that there are concerns about the ISI and safe havens in Pakistan. In fact, we've said as much repeatedly and on the record," one official explained. "The period of time covered in these documents (January 2004-December 2009) is before the President announced his new strategy. Some of the disconcerting things reported are exactly why the President ordered a three-month policy review and a change in strategy."

But the official also cast aspersions on WikiLeaks and its motive, saying, "It's worth noting that WikiLeaks is not an objective news outlet but rather an organization that opposes the US policy in Afghanistan."

Pakistan, as usual, reacted with fury to the disclosures, calling the leaks "malicious and unsubstantiated". An unnamed official in Islamabad was quoted as saying, "They were from raw intelligence reports that had not been verified and were meant to impugn the reputation of the spy agency."

A more restrained reaction came from Pakistan's ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani (whose book chronicles the Pakistani military's jihadi connections and outlook). "The documents circulated by WikiLeaks do not reflect the current on-ground realities," Haqqani said, plying the current Washington-Islamabad line that whatever happened was in the past.

 

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Re: US paying Pakistan to kill American troops ? .. (WikiLea

Leaks show up undeclared war by Pak on India

WASHINGTON: Pakistan's war by terrorism against India in Afghanistan is highlighted in the WikiLeaks cache, including a July 1, 2008, threat report issued by Polish intelligence in Kabul that warns of an attack on the Indian embassy, which was carried out a week later.

The report relating to the attack on the Indian Embassy reads: INS [insurgents] are planning to divide into two groups: first will attack Indian embassy building, whilst the second group will engage security posts in front of MOI [the Afghan ministry of interior], IOT [in order to] give possibility to escape attackers from the first group.

The main goal of this operation is to show TB's [Taliban's] ability to carry out attack on every object in Kabul."
The attack claimed more than 50 lives, including that of a young Indian diplomat from the foreign service and a senior Indian military attache.

In fact, so strong was the ISI fingerprint in the attack that the then-US President George Bush and CIA deputy director Stephen Kappes are said to have confronted Islamabad with evidence that ISI elements aided militants in the attack.

While the WikiLeaks cache of documents is replete with instances of Pakistani support and sponsorship of terrorism in Afghanistan, the most charitable explanation being trotted out by Pakistani apologists in Washington is that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing in Pakistan. Another way of looking at it is Pakistan deliberately insulates a section of the ISI (called the S division) that controls and practices terrorism, to maintain what is called plausible deniability.

The expose also suggests that Pakistan uses its retired and former generals in pursuit of its policy of state-run terrorism. Among its proxies is Lt-Gen Hamid Gul, a favourite of television anchors even in India whose pro-Taliban stance and conspiracy theories are said to provide an alternative narrative in the war on terror. But according to the documents accessed by WikiLeaks, Gul, a former ISI chief and one of Pakistan's top generals, is an active terrorist. In the documents, Gul is depicted as an adviser and an important source of aid to the Taliban. One report even calls him "a leader" of the insurgents.

One threat report from January 14, 2008 claims that Gul coordinated the planned kidnapping of United Nations employees on Highway 1 between Kabul and Jalalabad. The memos also state that Gul ordered suicide attacks, describing the former intelligence chief as one of the most important suppliers of weaponry to the Taliban.

A threat report issued in Kabul on December 23, 2006, reveals monthly visits by Gen Gul to a madrassa in Khyber Pakhutnwa Province, in Pakistan, cited as a major provider of young buys for suicide missions in Afghanistan. The report includes a comment from the CIA Counterterrorism Center: "95% of the suicide attackers are trained in the 'Madrassa of Hashimiye' which is located in Peshawar district of Pakistan. Monthly, the former chief of ISI General Hamid Gul is visiting this madrassa."

Another threat report issued in Kabul on December 30, 2006, suggests Gen Gul, in a meeting earlier that month, directed three attackers to carry out IED attacks along the roads of the Afghan capital during the Eid ul-Fitr. The report reads: "Gul instructed two of the individuals to plant IEDs along the roads frequently utilized by government of Afghanistan (GOA) and ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] vehicles. The third individual is to carry out a suicide attack utilizing a suicide vest against GOA or ISAF entities. Reportedly, Gul's final comment to the three individuals was 'make the snow warm in Kabul', basically telling them to set Kabul aflame.


ISI paid Taliban to kill Indians in Kabul: Wikileaks

India has long believed Pakistan to be the puppet master behind attacks on Indian assets in Afghanistan in recent years. Among the 91,000 secret US documents released by the non-profit website Wikileaks in its ‘Afghan War Diary’ are reports that substantiate these claims. They confirm earlier
reports that there was intelligence of attacks on the Indian embassy in Kabul on July 7, 2008 and on other Indian targets.

They also say that the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) offered the Taliban $15,000-30,000 to kill Indian contractors in Afghanistan.


The embassy attack, the war logs confirm, was conceived months in advance and executed at the behest of the ISI.

On November 18, 2007, US intelligence submitted a report: “ISI gave order... to conduct attacks against Indian consulships in Jalalabad, Kabul, Herat, Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif.”
One leaked document suggests that there was prior warning from Polish intelligence on July 1, 2008. The report — titled ‘Threat to Indian Embassy’ — said that the “Taliban are planning an attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul”, that an engineer had been “designated” for this purpose and a budget of $120,000 kept for this operation.

Six days later, a suicide bomber attacked the Indian mission in Kabul, killing 41 people — including two Indian diplomats and two Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel.

Indians throughout Afghanistan were targets. A report dated March 23, 2008 said “credible reporting dated Mar 22, 2008 indicated attacks against civil engineers and workers building roads in Nimruz province are being planned.
In one particular case, it was reported that the ISI ordered Serajuddin Haqqani to eliminate Indian nationals working in Afghanistan”. It also warned that the Taliban planned to kidnap doctors, engineers and labourers.

On April 12 that year, two Border Roads Organisation personnel were killed and seven injured in a suicide bombing in Nimruz. On February 26 this year, two Kabul guesthouses used by the Indian government were targeted.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/rssfe...to-kill-Indians-in-Kabul/Article1-578055.aspx

 

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Re: US paying Pakistan to kill American troops ? .. (WikiLea

Polish intelligence had warned of attack on Indian embassy in Kabul
NEW YORK: Polish intelligence had, a week before the 2008 Indian embassy bombing, warned of a possible Taliban attack on Indian interests in the Afghan capital with the "main goal" to show its ability to attack on every object in Kabul, according to a document leaked by whistleblower site WikiLeaks.

The document on possible attack on the Indian embassy is part of a massive leak of 92,000 intelligence reports that suggested that the war in Afghanistan is going badly for the US and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is fuelling the insurgency in the war-torn country.

Advance copies of the leak were made available to three publications - The New York Times, British daily newspaper Guardian, and German weekly Der Spiegel, which made some excerpts available.

The document dealing with the Indian embassy is titled 'Threat Report: Threat to Indian Embassy.'

The date of information is June 30, 2008, while the date of report is July 1, 2008. The organisation involved is "Taliban Center" and the Report number is 75010708.

"Taliban are planning to carry out an attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul. TB (Taliban) designated an engineer to take this action," the document reads.

"He intends to use stolen ANA/ANP (Afghan National Army/ Afghan National Police) car, and wears stolen uniform. He speaks Dari with distinct Iranian accent. Allegedly, he is the owner of a company," it added.
A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into the heavily fortified Indian embassy's gates in Kabul on July 7, 2008, killing 58 people and wounding more than 140.
Defence attache Brigadier R D Mehta and Counsellor Venkateswara Rao were killed when the suicide bomber targeted the embassy during the morning rush hour.

"INS (insurgents) are planning to divide into two groups: first will attack Indian embassy building, whilst the second group will engage security posts in front of MOI (ministry of interior), IOT (in order to) give possibility to escape attackers from the first group," the report said.

"Budget for this action is about $1,20,000. The main goal of this operation is to show TB's (Taliban) abilities to carry out attack on every object in Kabul."

Other documents strongly indicate that Pakistan's ISI is supporting the insurgency in Afghanistan, as well as plotting with Taliban leaders to assassinate Afghan leaders.

The New York Times pointed out that it has been difficult for the US to pin Pakistan's spy agency directly to an attack orchestrated by the Taliban.

But the assault on the Indian embassy led the CIA's then deputy director Stephen R Kappes to immediately go to Islamabad to confront the ISI with evidence that it had helped organise the attack.

Another leaked document, dated August 2008, identifies a colonel in the ISI plotting with a Taliban official to assassinate Afghan President Hamid Karzai.




Canada "concerned" for soldiers after Afghan war file leak

Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon on Monday said he was "concerned" for the safety of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan following the leak of some 90,000 secret US military files.
The documents were released late Sunday by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks.

In all, some 92,000 documents dating from 2004 to 2009 were released to The New York Times, Britain's Guardian newspaper and Germany's Der Spiegel news weekly.

"Our government is concerned obviously that operational leaks could endanger the lives of our men and women in Afghanistan," Cannon told reporters.
Cannon refused to comment on the content of the leaked information. "These are documents that are about leaked US documents, nothing to do with Canada," he said.

"So ... you're not going to get an opinion from me on those documents," he said.
One hundred and fifty-one Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan since 2002. Currently there are some 2,800 soldiers in the country, set to be pulled out in 2011.

Among the Wikileaks revelation was that Taliban insurgents shot down a US helicopter in 2007 with a surface-to-air missile. Seven military personnel were killed in the crash, including one Canadian.

A New York Times report suggested that the U.S. and NATO had misled the public about the downing of some helicopters, listing the crashes as accidental or downplaying the weapons used by insurgents.

One case cited was the 2007 crash of a U.S. CH-47 Chinook that killed Canadian Master Cpl. Darrell Priede. At the time, the Canadian military suggested the aircraft was downed by a rocket-propelled grenade, but a U.S. document suggested it was a heat-seeking missile.
Other reports detail how Canadian helicopters have come under enemy ground fire. None have been shot down to date.


It's unclear whether Canadian helicopters have been attacked with missiles and an army spokesman refused to discuss what the risks might be.
“We don't detail the means by which the enemy can take down a helicopter, just as we don't discuss how much explosive goes into an (improvised explosive device),” said Lt.-Col Chris Lemay.
“It's a matter of operational security.”

It has been feared for years that Taliban has advanced weapons to use against aircraft.
The CIA sent sophisticated Stinger missiles to anti-Russian Afghan rebels in the 1980s and a number remained unaccounted for after the Soviet occupation ended.
The Americans quietly offered a $250,000 reward in 2006 to Afghan warlords who turned in Stingers.

Government concerned that massive document leak could endanger Canadian soldiers - thestar.com

 

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Re: US paying Pakistan to kill American troops ? .. (WikiLea

Pakistan Spy Service Aids Insurgents



Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistan’s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants, according to a trove of secret military field reports to be made public Sunday.

The documents, to be made available by an organization called WikiLeaks, suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.

Some of the reports describe Pakistani intelligence working alongside Al Qaeda to plan attacks. Experts cautioned that although Pakistan’s militant groups and Al Qaeda work together, directly linking the Pakistani spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, with Al Qaeda is difficult.

The records also contain firsthand accounts of American anger at Pakistan’s unwillingness to confront insurgents who launched attacks near Pakistani border posts, moved openly by the truckload across the frontier, and retreated to Pakistani territory for safety.

American officials have described Pakistan’s spy service as a rigidly hierarchical organization that has little tolerance for “rogue” activity. But Pakistani military officials give the spy service’s “S Wing” — which runs external operations against the Afghan government and India — broad autonomy, a buffer that allows top military officials deniability.

American officials have rarely uncovered definitive evidence of direct ISI involvement in a major attack. But in July 2008, the C.I.A.’s deputy director, Stephen R. Kappes, confronted Pakistani officials with evidence that the ISI helped plan the deadly suicide bombing of India’s Embassy in Kabul.

“Despite the number of reports and information detailing the concerns,” Colonel Shapiro wrote, “we continue to see no change in the cross-border activity and continue to see little to no initiative along the PAK border” by Pakistan troops. The Pakistani Army “will only react when asked to do so by U.S. forces,” he concluded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/world/asia/26isi.html

 

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Re: US paying Pakistan to kill American troops ? .. (WikiLea

nice info

 

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Re: US paying Pakistan to kill American troops ? .. (WikiLea

'Young US intel expert may have passed documents to Wikileaks'

LONDON: A 22-year-old US Army intelligence analyst, facing a court-martial, appears to be behind the biggest leak in US military history of classified documents on the war in Afghanistan that also exposed Pakistan's double- game in the war-torn country, including its Taliban links.

Bradley Manning, who allegedly boasted online that he was going to reveal "the truth" about the war in Afghanistan, is believed to be the main suspect who leaked the information to Wikileaks, the Telegraph reported.

Manning was arrested in Baghdad in May and charged earlier this month with multiple counts of mishandling and leaking classified data, after a computer hacker turned him in, the paper said.

Wikileaks, the website known for publishing secret government documents, has exposed Pakistani ISI's links with Afghan insurgents and Taliban, undermining US-led efforts to stabilise the war-torn nation. With over 90,000 US military documents leaked on the website, the expose is considered to be a huge embarrassment for the US.

During online chats with the hacker, a man thought to be Manning said he had passed material relating to Afghanistan to Julian Assange, the founder of the Wikileaks website which leaked more than 92,000 secret documents to select media.

Manning, who is currently awaiting a court martial, is widely assumed to have been the man who passed the documents to Assange, though investigators believe he must have had accomplices.

Manning is alleged to be a whistle-blower who used the online name Bradass87 when he contacted a high-profile Californian computer hacker, Adrian Lamo, on May 21, the paper said.

Over the following five days, Bradass87 held a series of online conversations with Lamo, in which he identified himself as "an army intelligence analyst, deployed to eastern Baghdad" with "unprecedented access to classified networks".

He said his job gave him access to two high-security networks: the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, SIPRNET, which carries US diplomatic and military intelligence; and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, which includes "top secret" classification.


Bradass87 said the networks had enabled him to see "incredible things, awful things that belong in the public domain and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC almost criminal political backdealings the non- PR version of world events and crises".

He said he had downloaded 260,000 classified or sensitive State Department cables and transmitted them by computer to Wikileaks.

He claimed he copied some of the information on to blank CDs labelled "Lady Gaga" and hummed along to non-existent music while he downloaded secret information.

"I want people to see the truth," he added. "It's open diplomacy it's Climategate with a global scope and breathtaking depth it's beautiful and horrifying. It's public data, it belongs in the public domain."

Unknown to Bradass87, Lamo had contacted the US military two days into the online chat, fearing that the leak of information would endanger lives.

On May 25, he met Pentagon officials in a branch of Starbucks and gave them a printout of the online chat. Manning was arrested the next day at US Forward Operating Base Hammer near Baghdad, the Telegraph said.

Manning is also suspected of being behind the leak of a video, distributed by Assange in April, of a 2007 US helicopter strike in Baghdad which killed a dozen people.

Yesterday, Lamo said he had no doubt Manning was behind the vast amount of leaked material from Afghanistan, though he strongly suspected the young analyst from Maryland could not have acted alone.

"It was not my impression that he had the technical expertise to carry out some of these actions," he was quoted as saying.