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"...Then we are left with only the option that the United States exercised to deal with terrorism." Defense Minister of India
MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 1/4/2001: The Americans and the Israelis are clearly running the show now -- aided by the many "client regimes" set up in key countries including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, UAE, Qatar, and Egypt; and with much strengthened alliances with other key countries including India and Turkey. As for the Europeans, when it comes to the Middle East, these days they are primarily used as money bags for Arafat and promoters of the apartheid-style "Peace Process" (no matter what the apologists try to call it); as well as for diplomatic support to further craft the new "New World Order" -- itself primarily of CIA, Pentagon and Treasury Department design.
Pakistan is clearly being terribly squeezed and threatened harder than ever before. General Musharraf has been given few choices -- he must assist the U.S. to assert control over the region, he must end support for the liberation struggle in Kashmir, and he must cooperate in recasting Pakistani society with special emphasis on the Muslim-oriented educational system which ironically heretofore has been primarily Saudi supported. If he does not comply, support for his regime will be withdrawn and his own country will be directly targeted and forced to submit.
When it comes to the Middle East -- in addition to the Hashemites, the al-Sauds, and the other lesser Arab "client-regimes" -- the best the Americans have for controlling the Palestinians is the Arafat regime, and they know it. So Arafat and his more-than-ever despised VIP entourage are now being forced to take a "strategic decision" to more totally control, co-opt and crush the liberation struggle in Palestine. If Arafat and cronies do not comply support for their regime with be withdrawn, the money will stop flowing, and the Palestinian people will be subjected to more direct and more naked forms of repression and subjugation.
Both India and Israel are now seizing the moment to enforce their own regional dictate, a la the Americans. Everything is reduced to "they are terrorists". The "you are either with us or against us" mantra has been gleefully seized upon by those who rule in Delhi and Jerusalem. The courageous fighters in Kashmir, along with those in Palestine, are ever so simplistically and erroneous reduced to mini-caricatures of Osama bin Laden. Decades of U.N. resolutions demanding Israeli and Indian recognition of basic Palestinian and Kashmiri rights are cast to the wind. Any semblance of historical awareness -- not to mention real justice, freedom, and democracy -- is not only forgotten but even those who raise the issues and remind the world of the complex historical context, not to mention those who try to help with tangible and financial assistance, now run the risk of being branded "supporters of terrorism".
An Israel-India joint committee on terrorism will meet in Israel for the first time this month to discuss common terror threats. The meeting was coordinated following India's request for assistance in establishing an anti-terror network. Last month Moslem separatists launched an assault on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi, killing eight persons. Earlier this month, Indian security services in the Kashmir apprehended five terrorists, some of whom are affiliated with the al-Qaeda network. The Indian government expressed interest in purchasing the "Arrow" anti-missile missile from Israel, which to date has not been supplied to foreign countries. Two weeks ago, political dialogue took place in New Delhi between an Israel delegation, including senior Foreign Ministry officials, and the head of the Indian Foreign Ministry. The Indian representatives said that they strongly desire to strengthen their ties with Israel. (Arutz 7 Israeli news service - affiliated with Israeli settlers movement).
[The Washington Times, Washington, 1/4/02]: Indian intelligence sources yesterday accused Pakistani security forces of encouraging armed Islamic extremists fleeing the U.S.-led offensive in Afghanistan to relocate to new camps in and around the disputed province of Kashmir.
Pakistan immediately denied the charges, but Indian sources insisted that the cadres are being relocated to fuel Pakistani-backed separatist movements in Kashmir and to divert "the anger and bitterness" of the fighters away from the government in Islamabad.
"You can take this information as coming from very reliable sources," said one Indian government official, who refused to speak on the record about the charges.
The Pakistan government yesterday angrily rejected the accusations, the latest in a series of escalating charges and countercharges as the South Asian nuclear powers face off in the wake of a Dec. 13 attack on the Indian Parliament building in New Delhi that killed 14 persons, including the five attackers. India has blamed Pakistani-supported extremist groups for the attack.
"Totally baseless, totally false," said Asad Hayauddin, press spokesman for the Pakistan Embassy here.
The charges "fit the profile of India's actions since September 11," Mr. Hayauddin said, "which is to malign and denigrate Pakistan's strong efforts in the war on terrorism."
According to the Indian intelligence sources, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, which had extensive ties to Afghanistan's ousted fundamentalist Taliban regime, has been actively aiding Islamic fighters fleeing into Pakistan, particularly soldiers linked to Pakistan- and Kashmir-based Islamic fundamentalist groups.
Camps have been set up in Muzaffarabad, the capital of the section of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan, and in Abbotabad, a Pakistani summer-resort town near the Kashmiri border, to house fighters from the Jamaat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam and Jamaat-e-Islami, two Kashmiri resistance groups, the sources said.
In addition, according to the Indians, some 300 fighters from other guerrilla groups have been relocated from Kabul and Jalalabad in Afghanistan to established forward bases in Muzaffarabad and Kotli, another town in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. The guerrillas are disarmed as they cross the Afghan border into Pakistan, only to be rearmed when they arrive at the camps, the Indians say.
U.S. military officials said they have no confirmation of the latest Indian accusations.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has won praise from the Bush administration in recent days for cracking down on two leading Islamic extremist groups, although New Delhi contends that Pakistan has not done enough.
Pakistan contends that the groups fighting in Kashmir are indigenous independence movements and blames India for ignoring the popular will in the Muslim-majority province.
Islamabad has lodged its own complaints about Indian intelligence forces fomenting terrorism inside Pakistan.
Police in Quetta yesterday said they had seized a large cache of arms, ammunition and explosives that they said were being used by terrorists backed by the Indian intelligence agency known as the Research and Analysis Wing.
U.S. counterterrorist officials have long been concerned about links between Kashmir and Afghanistan militants.
Several of the victims of 1998 U.S. cruise-missile strike against an al Qaeda training post in Khowst, Afghanistan, were members of Kashmiri militant groups supported by Pakistani intelligence agents.
Private analysts have noted extensive links in the past between the Islamic armed groups in Kashmir and the ousted Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Jane's, the authoritative British military intelligence reference, reported recently that a cluster of Kashmiri independence movements have routinely rotated their fighters through "operational tours" in Afghanistan, Central Asia and Pakistan itself.
Al Badr, one of the nearly two dozen Kashmiri armed groups, was founded in 1999 expressly to accommodate foreign volunteers fighting in Kashmir.
"We know the U.S. military is very concerned about a lot of these links," one Central Asian diplomat confirmed.
The New York Times this week reported that Gen. Musharraf has ordered the ISI to cut off its support for Islamic militant groups fighting in Kashmir and to close down its office that deals exclusively with such groups.
Leaders of a dozen Muslim groups called yesterday in an Islamabad press conference for Gen. Musharraf to transfer Pakistani troops from the western border with Afghanistan to the 1,800-mile border with India.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan told reporters Pakistan had no intention of easing its surveillance along the Afghan border.
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| Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2002/1/546.htm |