Pakistani Police proves Delhi's role in terror on Lahore. Impact

Posted on 10 April 2009. Tags: Indian RAW terror on South Asia, Indian terror on Pakistani school

There is a marked difference between the terror attacks on Mumbaiand the terror attacks on Lahore. The reaction to the attacks displayed the attitude of the two nations. One was hysterical, the other stoic. One country threatened war, the other was introspectic.

Delhi began blaming Pakistan even before the attacks were over. The Bharati media flooded the Indian airwaves with animated films, bellicose bluster, and banal blathering. Delhi politicians began their usual Anti-Pakistan rhetoric even before the incident came to a halt. Even the state machinery began threatening Islamabad. The 9 terrorists were buried in a hurry without an international investigation. Delhi hid the truth about the local connection. Tall tales were written about why the militants attacked foreigners in Mumbai. No mention was made how the fresh off the boat insurgents knew their way about the Oberoi and the Taj.

Indians blamed Pakistan without proof. Toothpaste and Shaving cream does not constitute proof. The venom of Bharat against Pakistan had no bounds and is veciferous in its unsubstantiated claims.

“With the help of other intelligence agencies there has been considerable progress in this case. One thing is for sure that there is an Indian hand behind the attack,”Lahore Police Chief Pervez Rathore.

Even after many attacks on Pakistan, sanity ruled the streets of Lahore and the Pakistani officials kept quiet. There was no Anti-Bharat hysteria after the terror attacks on Lahore. The media did not go into an Anti-Hindu frenzy. The Pakistan population was not pre-disposed to blaming India. The Pakistani politicians patiently waited for the verdict from the police. Now it has arrived.

“Pro-India Afghans have carried out both attacks.”Lahore Police Chief Pervez Rathore.

The Pakistani Police after a thorough investigation have come to the obvious conclusion that India is heavily involved in terrorist attacks on Pakistan. This comes as a surprise to the Indian agents in Pakistan like Mr. Sehgal, Mr. Imtiaz Alam, Mr. Hoodboy and Ms. Asma Gilani, but this comes as no surprise to the patriotic Pakistanis.

“Baitullah is paid for terrorism and he can do anything for money.”Lahore Police Chief Pervez Rathore

Officer Rathoreof the Lahore Police Department has come out withthe proof against India. He has braved the storm and spoken the truth against all odds and despite the published policies of the compliant government of Mr. Asif Zardari.

LAHORE: Pakistan on Friday said it has “credible evidence” of Indian involvement in the March 3 terror attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team here…. saying “Pro-India Afghans” were behind the incident and the attack on a police training centre.

”Pro-India Afghans havecarried out both the attacks,” Lahore police chief Pervaiz Rathore said. Law enforcement agencies have “sufficient” evidence in this regard which would soon be made public, he said.

Earlier, speaking to reporters, Rathorehad said with the help of other intelligence agencies there has been considerable progress in this case.

“One thing is for sure that there is an Indian hand behind the attack. I must tell you that there is credible evidence of Indian involvement in the attack,” he had said.

Rathore said the “Pro-India Afghans” have carried out the attack on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team and the brazen assault on the Manawan Police Academy near here.

When his attention was drawn to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud claiming responsibility for the Manawan attack on March 30, he said: “It is a known fact that Baitullah is paid for terrorism and he can do anything for money.”

This is the first time that a senior Pakistani official has publicly blamed India for the two attacks and named “pro-India Afghans” as the perpetrators to substantiate the claim.

The latest comments by the police chief contradict interior ministry chief Rehman Malik who had on March 5 ruled out India’s involvement in the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team which killed eight people and injured 20 others, including six Sri Lankan cricketers.

However, Lahore senior police official Mushtaq Ahmed supported Rathore’s contention only in respect to the attack on the Sri Lankan team on March 3. Eight police recruits were killed in the attack on the training centre.

Intelligence agencies have handed over the prime suspect in the attack on the police training centre to Lahore police for interrogation. The suspect, an Afghan national named Gul Khan alias Hijratullah, was arrested while trying to blow up a helicopter near the training centre.

Khan has told investigators that all three attackers who blew themselves up within the training centre were Afghans.

Ahmed also said that in the attack on the Sri Lankanteam, the “ammunition and communication network is the basis of our claim that it was carried out with the help of a state agency. Times of India

The international media is silent. The silence is deafening.

The headlines about Pakistan in the media: Understanding the Rupert Murdock-Neocon-Hinduvata doomsayer machine which is running scared of defeat and retreat

There is no outrage on CNN, and Fox. The Rupert Murdock Islamphobe machinery is quiet. Some other issue will be “found” or manufactured to hidethe truth about Bharati involvement in terror on Pakistan.

The “Surkhas” who were so outraged at the fake video out of Swat will begin apologizing for the Bharatis. Discredited Pakistani politicians have vansihed and not speaking up.

It goes without saying that the Non-religious left will come out with a vengeance to discredit the brave statements of Mr. Rathorewho spoke the truth in defiance of the compliant PPPP government run by Mr. 10%.

There has been a spate of attacks on Pakistan. The army has repeatedly caught Indians in Swat and Balaushistan, but for reasons known only to the presidency, these incidents of sabotage have all been hushed up.

The alleged Indian spy admitted that he and others were planning terror attacks on Police College Sihala. – AP

RAWALPINDI: Police arrested five more suspects in Sihala on Friday, after an Indian national arrested earlier in the day confessed to planning an attack on Police College Sihala, DawnNews reported.
Interrogation of the five arrested was underway. They were seized on a tip off by the arrested Indian.

The earlier arrest was made in the jurisdiction of Police College Sihala, near Rawalpindi, DawnNews reported.

He was arrested on suspicion after being seen in the area, officials said.

An investigation team has been set up to question him, Deputy Inspector General of Police and commandant of the college Fateh Sher Joyia told DawnNews.

However, sources said the alleged Indian spy admitted that he and others were planning terror attacks on Police College Sihala, DawnNews reported.

The alleged spy has been handed over to secret agencies for further investigation, sources told DawnNews.

Officials declined to give the name and other information on the Indian saying details could be shared only after the investigation process has been completed.

However the DIG confirmed that maps of important Pakistani cities along with some phone numbers were recovered from his possession.

The Indian was wearing five thick shirts and a belt, a police official said. Dawn

Pakistan should immediately take this issue to the United Nations, and stop all contacts with Bharat. Afghanistan should be put on notice. If the Indian “consulates” are not shut down, Pakistan should attack the terrorist cells in Afghanistan and hold Mr. Karzai personally responsible for the attacks. if the US does not put a stop to terror against Pakistan. All NATO supplies should be halted.

There are two issues which Rupee News would like to bring up at this juncture.

1) Bharat has been involved in terror against Pakistan. The PPPP government has not accused Delhi for its ill deeds. Why?

2) The compliant PPPPgovernment has been hiding the truth. Why?

Before the ink is dry on the Rathore accusations, the Anti-Pakistan “Dawn” and the Neo-Liberals in Pakistan will come out with contradictory statements to obfuscate the Indian involvement and the usual suspects will come out to support the Bharati positions. Geo will begin parading the Asma Gilani’s and the Hoodboys, and the Sehgals. On cue the Neoconmachineryin the US and European capitals will begin bombarding the media with “reports” trying to hide Delhi’s involvement. Through Sex, lies and videotapes, certain clips will appear on You Tube from the so called ‘militants” who will refute the evidence. Soon the US envoys will begin visiting Islamabad to dampen the damage so that the truth is hidden.

The world was aghast at the statements coming out of the Interior Ministry. The Police had an Afghan national in their hands, and one servile minister was blaming those who had denied involvement in the terrorists attacks. What is the problem with Mr. Rehman. Why was he hiding the truth?

Pakistanis are furious at the the false statements of Mr. Rehman Malik. Mr. Rehman shoud now reisgn for harming the image of Pakistan and for defending the enemy. He should be tried as one who supported the enemy’s point of view.

Indian Consultates Supporting BLA terror. RAW sending terrorists into Pakistan

Mr. Rehman Malik was wrong several weeks ago and should be fired from his job as Interior Minister for misstating the facts on the ground in Lahore. Mr. Rehman was blatantly trying to obfuscate the situation. Mr. Rehman’s antics during BenazirBhutto’s speech in Rawalpindi leave a strail of suspicion about him. Who Assassinated Benzair Bhutto? The local connections–one promoted one killed. An Afghan national who could not speak Urdu was caught red handed in Lahore witha hand grenade, and Mr. Rehman was blaming Pakistani nationals for the attack on the Police Academy.

INDIAN TERRORISM AGAINST PAKISTAN

Mumbai: Intoxicated India, deaf and blind to internal terror, unable to introspect, resolve its huge race, caste, religious problems

12 Gunmen in Lahore vs. Gunmen in Mumbai-India failure vs. Pakistani success

LTTE, Lanka, Lahore: Terror trail leads to Delhi Impact of Indian RAW strike against Sri Lankans–This time in Pakistan: Delhi payback for defeat of LTTE in Lanka

Lankan Foreign Minister blames LTTE & Indian RAW for Lahire attack on cricketers

India behind LTTE terrorists in Lanka: Implications of RAW attack on Lankans in Lahore

Mumbai militancy: Some inexplicable questions for Indian leaders

Lahore – Capital City Police Officer Lahore Pervez Rathore has said that India was involved in the terrorist attacks on Sri Lan-kan cricket team and Manawan police training academy.

Talking to the media at the opening ceremony of new hospital for the policemen at Police Lines on Friday, he said there are credible evidences of foreign involvement in both attacks carried out in Lahore, which took lives of several innocent policemen and injuries to scores of others.

“I must tell you that there is credible evidence of Indian involvement in the attacks,” he said, adding that India’s intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officers lure the innocent and the poor with money and train them to carry out attacks in Pakistan.

It is pertinent to mention here that the CCPO Lahore is the first senior government official who publicly blamed India for terror attacks in Lahore.

Meanwhile, stringent security measures were taken in the provincial capital in the wake of current wave of terrorism.

Police patrolling was intensified on all major and small roads of the city with additional force to keep a keen eye on sensitive buildings and installations.

Special security measures were taken in and around all the public and private education institutes including schools, colleges, universities and also hospitals due to security threats. The Nation. ‘India involved in attack on Lankan team’ April 11, 2009

Rupee News has defiantly reported the Indian involvement in Pakistan and has presented proof of Delhi’s sabotage. Barrister Munshi from Bangladesh has written a seminal book called “The India Doctrine” in which he has brilliantly outlined the Indian involvement in Sri Lanka, in Nepal, in Bangladesh and in Pakistan. We have documented the trail of tears and listed the bombings carried out by the Indian RAW in Pakistan.

Rehman Malik

IMPLICATED BY RAMSEY YOUSAF:-ARRESTED: Mr. Rehman Malik was in charge of the security of Ms.Benazir Bhutto. Why did Rehman Malik predict minutes before the murder that something was going to happen before the attack? Mr. Rehman Malik described the bomb attack of such a low intensity that his fellow passengers asked him if the tire had blown up. In Rehman’s words “no this was a bomb.” He however said that the bomb was of such intensity that it blew out his left ear drum. After the bomb attack, Rehman Malikdid communicate with his brother in the car behind Benazir’s car, but he didn’t try to call anyone in Benazir’s car: Naheed Khan, Amin Faheem, SP Major Imtiaz, Safdar Abbasi & 2 other persons were in Ms. Bhutto’s care. Yet Rehmanand company kept driving towards hospital without any communication with Ms. Bhutto’s car and without knowing if they were also going towards the hospital.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ePnXzAosjuo

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=ePnXzAosjuo]

THE CASE OF THE BOBBING HEAD, THE HAND ACROSS THE NECK AND THE EYES POINTING TOWARDS MS. BHUTTO: The murder of Khalid Shahanshah has been blamed rather quickly on the ‘terrorists’ by the Sind Home minister. It is to be noted that Mr. Khalid Shahanshah had a very controversial background which included a record of criminal cases. He was a Pakistan Students Federation (PSF) activist, gang member, and one of the body guards of Benazir Bhutto. Watch the bobbing head of Mr. Shahanshah. His strange actions on the stage where BB addresses her last public meeting were surely controversial. In the video he was the person second from right in patterned sleeveless sweater. Mr. Shahanshah looks to his left, then he sits down. He then runs his neck across his throat or holds his neck in a strange manner and finally he rolls his eyes towards Ms. Benazir Bhutto. Is he siganlling the killer to murder Ms. Bhutto?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNYFVTgqEbY

Zardari buddy Mr. Khalid Shahanshahwho was making strange gestures withhishand on the neck and pointing towards Ms. Bhutto with his eyes

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNYFVTgqEbY]

Indian Strategic plans about Pakistan

Secretary of State Clinton during the campaign called Pakistanis paranoid about Indian intentions. Ms. Clinton please explain this article (not the only one) published in India’s most prestigious Defense journal.

India’s real intentions about Pakistan. See Indian Defense Review article

The India Doctrine by Munshi Indian intelligence: “‘the aim of RAW is to keep internal disturbances flaring up and the ISI preoccupied so that Pakistan can lend no worthwhile resistance to Indian designs in the region.”

Listing of Indian RAWs bomb blasts in Pakistan

PAKISTAN IS FULLY AWARE OF THE INDIAN INTERFERENCE IN PAKISTAN WITH THE CIA:

The Indian Military base in Tajikistan

The four Indian consulates in Afghanistan are disproportionate to the number needed for a a very small population. Compare to number of Indian consulates in the USA.

in the Pakistani consulate, diplomats have a very different take on what the Indians are up to here, deep in Afghanistan’s Pushtun belt, which Pakistan considers its own backyard. They think the Indians are spying, stirring up ethnic trouble in Pakistan and generally undermining the security of its lightly defended western border.

At the end of 2002 India reopened four consulates in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s reaction to the Indians’ arrival in Jalalabad and Kandahar recalls that of America when Soviet “advisers” turned up in Cuba in 1961.

Professor Michel Chossudovsky says the following:

Pakistan’s Oil and Gas reserves

Pakistan’s extensive oil and gas reserves, largely located in Balochistan province, as well as its pipeline corridors are considered strategic by the Anglo-American alliance, requiring the concurrent militarization of Pakistani territory.

Balochistancomprises more than 40 percent of Pakistan’s land mass, possesses important reserves of oil and natural gas as well as extensive mineral resources.

The Iran-India pipeline corridor is slated to transit through Balochistan. Balochistan also possesses a deap sea port largely financed by China located at Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea, not far from the Straits of Hormuz where 30 % of the world’s daily oil supply moves by ship or pipeline. (Asia News.it, 29 December 2007)

Pakistan has an estimated 25.1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proven gas reserves of which 19 trillion are located in Balochistan. Among foreign oil and gas contractors in Balochistan are BP, Italy’s ENI, Austria’s OMV, and Australia’s BHP. It is worth noting that Pakistan’s State oil and gas companies, including PPL which has the largest stake in the Sui oil fields of Balochistan are up for privatization under IMF-World Bank supervision.

According to the Oil and Gas Journal (OGJ), Pakistan had proven oil reserves of 300 million barrels, most of which are located in Balochistan. Other estimates place Balochistanoilreserves at an estimated six trillion barrels of oil reserves both on-shore and off-shore (Environment News Service, 27 October 2006) .

Covert Support to Balochistan Separatists

Balochistan’s strategic energy reserves have a bearing on the separatist agenda. Following a familiar pattern, there are indications that the Baloch insurgency is being supported and abetted by Britain and the US.

The Baloch national resistance movement dates back to the late 1940s, when Balochistan was invaded by Pakistan. In the current geopolitical context, the separatist movement is in the process of being hijacked by foreign powers.

British intelligence is allegedly providing covert support to Balochistan separatists (which from the outset have been repressed by Pakistan’s military). In June 2006, Pakistan’s Senate Committee on Defence accused British intelligence of “abetting the insurgency in the province bordering Iran” [Balochistan]..(Press Trust of India, 9 August 2006). Ten British MPs were involved in a closed door session of the Senate Committee on Defence regarding the alleged support of Britain’s Secret Service to Baloch separatists (Ibid). Also of relevance are reports of CIA and Mossad support to Baloch rebels in Iran and Southern Afghanistan.

It would appear that Britain and the US are supporting both sides. The US is providing American F-16 jets to the Pakistani military, which are being used to bomb Baloch villages in Balochistan. Meanwhile, British alleged covert support to the separatist movement (according to the Pakistani Senate Committee) contributes to weakening the central government.

The stated purpose of US counter-terrorism is to providecovertsupport as well as as training to “Liberation Armies” ultimately with a view to destabilizing sovereign governments. In Kosovo, the training of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the 1990s had been entrusted to a private mercenary company, Military Professional Resources Inc (MPRI), on contract to the Pentagon.

The BLA bears a canny resemblance to Kosovo’s KLA, which was financed by the drug trade and supported by the CIA and Germany’s Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND).

The BLA emerged shortly after the 1999 military coup. It has no tangible links to the Baloch resistance movement, which developed since the late 1940s. An aura of mystery surrounds the leadership of the BLA.

Baloch population in Pink: In Iran, Pakistan and Southern Afghanistan

Washington favors the creation of a “Greater Balochistan” which would integrate the Balochareas of Pakistan withthoseof Iran and possibly the Southern tip of Afghanistan (See Map above), thereby leading to a process of political fracturing in both Iran and Pakistan.

“The US is using Balochinationalism for staging an insurgency inside Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan province. The ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan gives a useful political backdrop for the ascendancy of Balochi militancy” (See Global Research, 6 March 2007).

Military scholar Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters writing in the June 2006 issue of The Armed Forces Journal, suggests, in no uncertain terms that Pakistan should be broken up, leading to the formation of a separate country: “Greater Balochistan” or “Free Balochistan” (see Map below). The latter would incorporate the Pakistani and Iranian Baloch provinces into a single political entity.

In turn, according to Peters, Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) should be incorporated into Afghanistan “because of its linguistic and ethnic affinity”. This proposed fragmentation, which broadly reflects US foreign policy, would reduce Pakistani territory to approximately 50 percent of its present land area. (See map). Pakistan would also loose a large part of its coastline on the Arabian Sea.

Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO’s Defense College for senior military officers. This map, as well as other similar maps, havemostprobably been used at the National War Academy as well as in military planning circles. (See Mahdi D. Nazemroaya, Global Research, 18 November 2006)

“Lieutenant-Colonel Peters was last posted, before he retired to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, within the U.S. Defence Department, and has been one of the Pentagon’s foremost authors with numerous essays on strategy for military journals and U.S. foreign policy.” (Ibid)

It is worth noting that secessionist tendencies are not limited to Balochistan. There are separatist groups in Sindh province, which are largely based on opposition to the Punjabi-dominated military regime of General Pervez Musharraf (For Further details see Selig Harrisson, Le Monde diplomatique, October 2006)

THE RALPH PETERS PLAN vs. THE PAKISTANI PLAN: Two visions…..

If the EU can come about through peace and economic progress so can the Muslim Union which is not a caliphate nor brought about by war, nor as a threat to anyone.

Ralph Peters printed this in the DOD journals.It is quite possible that the pages were taken from a Soviet plan: Afghanistan’s Ordeal Puts a Region At Risk,” by James B. Curren and Phillip A. Karber (BDM Corporation, McLean, VA/a subsidiary of Ford), and published in U.S. Armed Forces Journal International, (pages 78-105) March 1985 (Source: Mr. Bashir A. Syed is a retired American Aerospace Physicist of Pakistani descent and a member of several eminent professional associations including the New York Academy of Sciences. ahmadquraishi.com)

The Pakistani plan

Pakistan is envisioned as such

THE IMF MANDATED ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING IS POISON FOR PAKISTAN

“Strong Economic Medicine”: Weakening Pakistan’s Central Government

Pakistan has a federal structure based on federal provincial transfers. Under a federal fiscal structure, the central government transfers financial resources to the provinces, with a view to supporting provincial based programs. When these transfers are frozen as occurred in Yugoslavia in January 1990, on orders of the IMF, the federal fiscal structure collapses:

“State revenues that should have gone as transfer payments to the republics [of the Yugoslav federation] went instead to service Belgrade’s debt … . The republics were largely left to their own devices. … The budget cuts requiring the redirection of federal revenues towards debt servicing, were conducive to the suspension of transfer payments by Belgrade to the governments of the Republics and Autonomous Provinces.

In one fell swoop, the reformers had engineered the final collapse of Yugoslavia’s federal fiscal structure and mortally wounded its federal political institutions. By cutting the financial arteries between Belgrade and the republics, the reforms fueled secessionist tendencies that fed on economic factors as well as ethnic divisions, virtually ensuring the de facto secession of the republics. (Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Second Edition, Global Research, Montreal, 2003, Chapter 17.)

It is by no means accidental that the 2005 National Intelligence Council- CIA report had predicted a “Yugoslav-like fate” for Pakistan pointing to the impacts of “economic mismanagement” as one of the causes of political break-up and balkanization.

“Economic mismanagement” is a term used by the Washington based international financial institutions to describe the chaos which results from not fully abiding by the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Program. In actual fact, the “economic mismanagement” and chaos is the outcome of IMF-World Bank prescriptions, which invariably trigger hyperinflation and precipitate indebted countries into extreme poverty.

Pakistan has been subjected to the same deadly IMF “economic medicine” as Yugoslavia: In 1999, in the immediate wake of the coup d’Etat which brought General Pervez Musharaf to the helm of the military government, an IMF economic package, which included currency devaluation and drastic austerity measures, was imposed on Pakistan. Pakistan’s external debt is of the order of US$40 billion. The IMF’s “debt reduction” under the package was conditional upon the sell-off to foreign capital of the most profitable State owned enterprises (including the oil and gas facilities in Balochistan) at rockbottom prices .

There are obvious similarities in the nature of US covert intelligence operations applied in country after country in different parts of the so-called “developing World”. These covert operation, including the organisation of military coups, are often synchronized with the imposition of IMF-World Bank macro-economic reforms. In this regard, Yugoslavia’s federal fiscal structure collapsed in 1990 leading to mass poverty and heightened ethnic and social divisions. The US and NATO sponsored “civil war” launched in mid-1991 consisted in coveting Islamic groups as well as channeling covert support to separatist paramilitary armies in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.

A similar “civil war” scenario has been envisaged for Pakistan by the National Intelligence Council and the CIA: From the point of view of US intelligence, which has a longstanding experience in abetting separatist “liberation armies”, “Greater Albania” is to Kosovo what “Greater Balochistan” is to Pakistan’s Southeastern Balochistan province. Similarly, the KLA is Washington’s chosen model, to be replicated in Balochistan province. (Michel Chossudovsky is the author of the international bestseller America’s “War on Terrorism” Global Research, 2005. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization)

A LONG HISTORY OF INDIAN AND CIA INTERFERENCE IN PAKISTANI AFFAIRS: In 1970 Indian RAW s dirty tricks department hijacked an India plane to Islamabad in the name of “Kashmiri Freedom Fighters“. Using this as in excuse, Indians stopped all commercial air traffic between East and West Pakistan. The same year the “Mukti Bahni” was formed and a wedge inserted between the two wings. Pakistanis bungled.India then “Liberated” Bangladesh and cut down Pakistan into two. Are the current earthquakes a preludeto a tsunami that is to follow? This much is certain, India with Karzai and the Americans is playing a dirty game in Paksitan.

“We haveindications of Indian involvement with anti-state elements in Pakistan,” declared the spokesman of the Pakistan Foreign Office in a regular briefing in October. The statement was terse and direct, and the spokesman, Tasnim Aslam, quickly moved on to other issues.

During the past three years, the heat has gradually been turned up against Pakistan and its military along Pakistan’s western regions: ( Ahmed Quraishi is an investigative reporter, currently hosting a weekly political talk show titled Worldview from Islamabad.)

This is how a Pakistani official explained Aslam’s statement: “What she was really saying is this: We know what the Indians are doing. They’ve sold the Americans on the idea that [the Indians] are an authority on Pakistan and can be helpful in Afghanistan. The Americans have bought the idea and are in on the plan, giving the Indians a free hand in Afghanistan. What the Americans don’t know is that we, too, know the Indians very well. Better still, we know Afghanistan very well. You can’t beat us at our own game.”

Bugti’s armed rebellion coincided with the Gwadar project entering its final stages. No coincidence here. Bugti’s real job was to scare the Chinese away and scuttle Chinese President Hu Jintao’s planned visit to Gwadar a few months later to formally launch the port city.

Gwadar is the pinnacle of Sino-Pakistani strategic cooperation. It’s a modern city that is supposed to link Pakistan, Central Asia, western China with markets in Mideast and Africa. It’s supposed to have roads stretching all the way to China. It’s no coincidence that that country has also earmarked millions of dollars to renovate the Karakoram Highway linking northern Pakistan to western China.

Some reports in the US media, however, have accused Pakistan and China of building a naval base in the guise of a commercial seaport directly overlooking international oil-shipping lanes.

The Indians and some other regional actors are also not comfortable with this project because they see it as commercial competition.

What Bugti’s regional and international supporters never expected is Pakistan moving firmly and strongly to nip his rebellion in the bud. Even Bugti himself probably never expected the Pakistani state to react in the way it did to his betrayal of the homeland. He was killed in a military operation where scores of his mercenaries surrendered to Pakistan army soldiers.

United States intelligence and their Indian advisors could not cultivate an immediate replacement for Bugti. So they moved to Plan B. They supported Abdullah Mehsud, a Pakistani Taliban fighter held for five years in Guantanamo Bay, and then handed him over back to the Afghan government, only to return to his homeland, Pakistan, to kidnap two Chinese engineers working in Balochistan, one of whom was eventually killed during a rescue operation by the Pakistani government.

Islamabad could not tolerate this shadowy figure, who was creating a following among ordinary Pakistanis masquerading as a Taliban while in reality towing a vague agenda. He was eliminated earlier this year by Pakistani security forces while secretly returning from Afghanistan after meeting his handlers there. Again, no surprises here.

This is where Pakistani political and military officials finally started smelling a rat. All of this was an indication of a bigger problem. There were growing indications that, ever since Islamabad joined Washington’s regional plans, Pakistan was gradually turning into a “besieged-nation”, heavily targeted by the US media while being subjected to strategic sabotage and espionage from Afghanistan.Afghanistan, under America’s watch, has turned into a vast staging ground for sophisticated psychological and military operations to destabilize neighbouring Pakistan.