On Nov 22, 2008, at 10:49 AM, Sujeet Bhatt wrote:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/22/us-missile-pakistan-rauf
>
> The Guardian
>
> US missiles striking terror into Pakistani militants
> How the British Islamist Rashid Rauf may have been caught up in the US
> campaign to tackle terrorists in Pakistan
>
> * Jason Burke in Islamabad
> * guardian.co.uk, Saturday November 22 2008 12.09 GMT
>
> United States forces are believed to have carried out about 20 missile
> attacks since August in north-west Pakistan, a sharp rise that
> reflects Washington's frustration at Islamabad's efforts to tackle
> militants on its own soil.
>
> Though the attacks have killed a number of high-profile militant
> leaders, civilian casualties and wounded national pride has led to
> outrage in Pakistan. The Pakistani government has been forced to
> repeatedly deny reports that a secret pact has been agreed with the US
> to allow the missile attacks from Afghanistan territory to go ahead.
>
> Pakistani government officials and military officers last week denied
> the existence of a "secret list" of 20 individuals against whom
> missile strikes had been sanctioned by Islamabad without prior
> consultation. They repeatedly told the Observer that the strikes were
> causing problems by angering local people. "One strike and you have a
> whole village radicalised," said Shafir Ullah Nasir, the political
> agent in the Bajaur tribal agency where fighting has raged for months.
>
> Pakistan's new civilian president, Asif Ali Zardari, has urged
> Washington to share intelligence and equip Pakistani forces so they
> can pursue militants on their own side of the border.
>
> Intelligence officials in Islamabad have told the Observer that the
> strikes have demoralised militants, forcing many to sleep in different
> locations every night or even sleep under trees for cover rather than
> risk staying in a house. The heightened rate of attrition among the
> militants has sparked a hunt for a suspected spy within their ranks,
> diverting attention and resources from offensive actions, the
> officials said.
>
> Pakistan has played a key role in the evolution of the terrorist
> threat in the UK. Many major bomb plots in Britain have involved
> British or dual-nationality citizens who have travelled to Pakistan
> for training or strategic advice from the hardcore al-Qaida leadership
> who have regrouped in the lawless tribal zones along the Afghan
> frontier in recent years.
>
> Several dozen British citizens who are known to the UK government make
> their way to the frontier region each year, with Pakistani militant
> groups often acting as intermediaries. Intelligence officials suspect
> there are others who they have been unable to identify.
>
> Some go on to fight in Afghanistan, others return to the UK. Britain's
> MI6 overseas intelligence agents work closely with their American
> counterparts to track individuals who they believe pose a "material"
> threat to the UK. Rashid Rauf would have fallen squarely into this
> category.
>
> As MI6 has neither the capability nor the legal right to undertake
> lethal operations in Pakistan, intelligence is passed to the Americans
> who run a fleet of drones fitted with Hellfire missiles powerful
> enough to destroy a mud-walled home and burn everyone inside. Rauf may
> well have fallen into the latter category too.
>
>
> --
> My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty.
> - Jorge Louis Borges
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Shane Mage Shane Mage
> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos