What Do You Think?

[jerrys1960]

now we find out which side our "friends" are on.

actually this should have been expected.
remember the rules about Muslims siding with non-muslims.
plus the rules about how muslims should never side with non-muslims against any muslim.



copied from:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/06/15/pakistan.cia.informants.arrested/index.html


Pakistan arrests several who helped CIA in bin Laden case
From Reza Sayah, CNN
June 15, 2011


Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan's intelligence agency has detained several people who gave information to the United States before it killed Osama bin Laden, officials in Pakistan said Wednesday.

The agency detained several people who cooperated with the CIA, a Pakistani official said; the official did not know the precise number. One rented a safe house to the CIA in Abbottabad, the Pakistani city where U.S. special forces killed bin Laden early May 2, a Pakistani source familiar with the arrests said Wednesday.

News of the arrests, first reported by The New York Times, is likely to further strain an already rocky relationship between the two countries.

The United States has complained that Pakistan has not done enough to fight al Qaeda and other militants. Senior U.S. officials also suspect that some in Pakistan helped bin Laden live there. CIA Director Leon Panetta reportedly has told legislators that Pakistan was either involved in helping the world's most wanted fugitive avoid detection or was incompetent for not knowing he was living on Pakistani soil.

Pakistan, meanwhile, has protested unilateral action by the United States in Pakistan, such as the raid that killed bin Laden: The United States did not tell Pakistan about it until the raid was over. It also has complained about civilian casualties caused by suspected U.S. drone strikes that have targeted Islamic militants in northwestern Pakistan.

Now comes news that Pakistan has detained some of the very people who helped the United States find and kill bin Laden.
Pakistan arrests bin Laden informants
Bin Laden considered Pakistan deal
Explorer searches for bin Laden's body
RELATED TOPICS

Pakistan
Espionage and Intelligence
Osama bin Laden

Panetta discussed the arrests Friday with Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani and Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, Pakistan's head of military intelligence, the official said. A U.S. official confirmed that the discussion had taken place but would not give details about the arrests.

The first Pakistani official did not say whether the owner of the safe house was suspected of being a CIA informant. He asked not to be identified because he was discussing sensitive internal matters. The second Pakistani official asked to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak to the news media.

A Pakistani military spokesman confirmed that there were "a number of people arrested in Abbottabad after the raid on the Osama bin Laden compound" but said he could not say what relationship, if any, they may have had with the CIA.

Some were seized at "a house in Abbottabad that was used to monitor the bin Laden compound activities," said Syed Azmat Ali, the military spokesman. "They could have been Pakistanis who were informants to the CIA."

Ali said those arrests were made by Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, "immediately after the raid, so this is not a new piece of information."

He and the intelligence official who asked not to be named were responding to a report in The New York Times that Pakistan had arrested five CIA informants who gave information to the United States before the raid on bin Laden's hideout.

The newspaper attributed the report to "American officials" without naming them.

It said one of those arrested was a Pakistani army major who had kept records of license plate numbers on cars that stopped at the bin Laden compound. Ali, the Pakistani military spokesman, said that assertion was "categorically" not true.

The newspaper also cited a top CIA official's damning assessment of Pakistan's cooperation with American counterterrorism efforts.

Asked last week at a private briefing of the Senate Intelligence Committee to rate Pakistan's cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism operations, using a scale of one to 10, Deputy CIA Director Michael J. Morell gave it a three, the Times said, quoting "officials familiar with the exchange."

Asked Wednesday by CNN to rate the Pakistani spy agency's relationship with the CIA on a scale of one to 10, military spokesman Ali gave it a four.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday that maintaining the U.S. relationship with Pakistan is "complicated," but "helps our national security interest."

He called the cooperation "vital," and said Pakistan is "an important partner in fighting terrorism."

"They have been reliable in providing information that's led to successful missions against terrorists," he said.

At the State Department, spokesman Mark Toner said that, despite the challenges, "more terrorists have been identified and killed on Pakistani soil than anywhere else in the world. And that's, in part, due to this counter-terrorism cooperation that we have. So it's in our interest to work through these challenges as they arise and to move forward."

Panetta, who has been nominated to be secretary of defense, defended the relationship to Congress in confirmation hearings last week.

"They maintain relationships with certain terrorist groups," he said, adding: "They continue to not take aggressive action with regard to these safe havens, and ... they're concerned about the sovereignty results and criticisms of the United States when, in fact, my view is that the terrorists in their country are probably the greatest threat to their sovereignty."

During a visit last week to Pakistan, Panetta raised the issue of two raids that appear to have failed because of intelligence leaks in recent weeks, a U.S. official said.

The United States had shown the Pakistanis evidence of two bomb-making sites near the Afghan border, the official said, asking not to be named discussing intelligence and diplomatic issues.

The Americans believed the sites were being used to stage attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

When the Pakistanis raided the sites, both were empty.

"The targets appear to have been tipped off," the U.S. official said.

The relationship between the two countries has been in a downward spiral over disputes about how to pursue counterterrorism efforts.

One reason Pakistanis have supported militants in the tribal region is that the fighters are seen as a bulwark for Pakistani interests. That includes a focus against the influence of longtime rival India in Afghanistan. Despite fears that elements sympathetic to militants are working for the ISI, American officials have argued that maintaining an alliance with Pakistan is crucial to the success of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts.

The United States is suspected of carrying out routine strikes by unmanned aircraft targeting suspected terrorists in Pakistan: two suspected strikes Wednesday killed 15 suspected militants, two Pakistani officials said.

Pakistani officials have said there were more than 100 such strikes in their country last year, a record, according to CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen. They think most of the casualties were foot soldiers or civilians, not high-value terrorism targets, he said.

The New America Foundation in Washington, which maintains an independent count of reported drone strikes, says there were 118 of them in 2010, killing 600 to 1,000 people.

Polls show that nine of 10 Pakistanis view the strikes unfavorably.

Many Pakistanis were angered by the case of Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who was charged with killing two Pakistani men but then released after compensation was paid to their families.

Davis described the two men as attackers and said he shot them in self-defense. Lahore Police Chief Aslam Tareen, however, said the case was "clear-cut murder."

According to Davis, the shooting occurred January 27 after two men attacked him as he drove through a busy Lahore neighborhood, the U.S. Embassy has said.

U.S. officials originally said Davis was a diplomat and tried to claim diplomatic immunity but then revealed that he was a CIA contractor.

CIA chief Panetta's unannounced visit last week was the latest in a series by U.S. officials -- including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and Sen. John Kerry -- efforts to smooth things over after bin Laden was killed in the Navy SEAL raid.

The Pakistani military said in April that drone strikes "not only undermine our national effort against terrorism but turn public support against our efforts, which remains the key to success."

The United States has regarded Pakistan as a top ally in its fight against the Taliban, al Qaeda, the Haqqani Network and other Pakistan-based militants who have launched attacks against international and Afghan troops in Afghanistan.

Washington has argued that Pakistan has not done enough to go after al Qaeda and other extremists. U.S. officials have expressed impatience with the Pakistanis and suspicions that elements of the ISI directorate are sympathetic to militants.

[jerrys1960]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43404265/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times/


Pakistan arrests C.I.A. informants in bin Laden raid


By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI
The New York Times
updated 7 minutes ago 2011-06-15T03:19:15
Share Print Font: +-WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s top military spy agency has arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, according to American officials.

Pakistan’s detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani Army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the weeks before the raid, is the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan. It comes at a time when the Obama administration is seeking Pakistan’s support in brokering an endgame in the war in neighboring Afghanistan.

At a closed briefing last week, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee asked Michael J. Morell, the deputy C.I.A. director, to rate Pakistan’s cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism operations, on a scale of 1 to 10.

Slate: The hunt for Osama bin Laden
“Three,” Mr. Morell replied, according to officials familiar with the exchange.

The fate of the C.I.A. informants arrested in Pakistan is unclear, but American officials said that the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, raised the issue when he traveled to Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers.

Blow to military
Some in Washington see the arrests as illustrative of the disconnect between Pakistani and American priorities at a time when they are supposed to be allies in the fight against Al Qaeda — instead of hunting down the support network that allowed Bin Laden to live comfortably for years, the Pakistani authorities are arresting those who assisted in the raid that killed the world’s most wanted man.

The Bin Laden raid and more recent attacks by militants in Pakistan have been blows to the country’s military, a revered institution in the country. Some officials and outside experts said the military is mired in its worst crisis of confidence in decades.

Story: Pakistan parliament condemns bin Laden raid
American officials cautioned that Mr. Morell’s comments about Pakistani support was a snapshot of the current relationship, and did not represent the administration’s overall assessment.

“We have a strong relationship with our Pakistani counterparts and work through issues when they arise,” said Marie E. Harf, a C.I.A. spokeswoman. “Director Panetta had productive meetings last week in Islamabad. It’s a crucial partnership, and we will continue to work together in the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups who threaten our country and theirs.”

Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said in a brief telephone interview that the C.I.A. and the Pakistani spy agency “are working out mutually agreeable terms for their cooperation in fighting the menace of terrorism. It is not appropriate for us to get into the details at this stage.”

Over the past several weeks the Pakistani military has been distancing itself from American intelligence and counterterrorism operations against militant groups in Pakistan. This has angered many in Washington who believe that Bin Laden’s death has shaken Al Qaeda and that there is now an opportunity to further weaken the terrorist organization with more raids and armed drone strikes.

Drone program in question
But in recent months, dating approximately to when a C.I.A. contractor killed two Pakistanis on a street in the eastern city of Lahore in January, American officials said that Pakistani spies from the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, known as the ISI, have been generally unwilling to carry out surveillance operations for the C.I.A.. The Pakistanis have also resisted granting visas allowing American intelligence officers to operate in Pakistan, and have threatened to put greater restrictions on the drone flights.

It is the future of the drone program that is a particular worry for the C.I.A. American officials said that during his meetings in Pakistan last week, Mr. Panetta was particularly forceful about trying to get Pakistani officials to allow armed drones to fly over even wider areas in the northwest tribal regions. But the C.I.A. is already preparing for the worst: relocating some of the drones from Pakistan to a base in Afghanistan, where they can take off and fly east across the mountains and into the tribal areas, where terrorist groups find safe haven.

Another casualty of the recent tension is an ambitious Pentagon program to train Pakistani paramilitary troops to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban in those same tribal areas. That program has ended, both American and Pakistani officials acknowledge, and the last of about 120 American military advisers have left the country.

American officials are now scrambling to find temporary jobs for about 50 Special Forces support personnel who had been helping the trainers with logistics and communications. Their visas were difficult to obtain and officials fear if these troops are sent home, Pakistan will not allow them to return.

In a sign of the growing anger on Capitol Hill, Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who leads the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that he believed elements of the ISI and the military had helped protect Bin Laden.

Mr. Rogers, who met with senior security officials in Pakistan last week, said he had no evidence that senior Pakistani military or civilian leaders were complicit in sheltering Bin Laden. And he did not offer any proof to support his assertion, saying only his accusation was based on “information that I’ve seen.”

Story: Pakistan detains ex-navy personnel after raid
He warned that both lawmakers and the Obama administration could end up putting more restrictions on the $2 billion in American military aid received annually by Pakistan. He also called for “benchmarks” in the relationship, including more sharing of information about militant activities in Karachi, Lahore and elsewhere and more American access to militants detained in Pakistan.

Taliban fight
American military commanders in Afghanistan appear cautiously optimistic that they are making progress in pushing the Taliban from its strongholds in that country’s south, but many say a significant American military withdrawal can occur only if the warring sides in Afghanistan broker some kind of peace deal.

But the United States is reliant on Pakistan to apply pressure on Taliban leaders, over whom they have historically had great influence.

For now, at least, America’s relationship with Pakistan keeps getting tripped up. When he visited Pakistan, Mr. Panetta offered evidence of collusion between Pakistani security officials and the militants staging attacks in Afghanistan.

American officials said Mr. Panetta presented satellite photographs of two bomb-making factories that American spies several weeks ago had asked the ISI to raid. When Pakistani troops showed up days later, the militants were gone, causing American officials to question whether the militants had been warned by someone on the Pakistani side.

Shortly after the failed raids, the Defense Department put a hold on a $300 million payment reimbursing Pakistan for the cost of deploying more than 100,000 troops along the border with Afghanistan, two officials said. The Pentagon declined to comment on the payment, except to say it was “continuing to process several claims.”