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US punishes Pakistan Army in major shift

July 11, 2011 2 comments

thenews.com

WASHINGTON: The US confirmed on Sunday that direct and indirect aid worth $800 million to the Pakistan Army had been withheld while Pakistani diplomats disclosed that a 10-point list had been given to the GHQ, compliance of which would determine how much and when the flow of money would restart.

The official confirmation came from the White House chief of staff who told a TV channel on Sunday that Washington was holding back the money after a major New York Times story revealed the military aid had been suspended.

The 10-point list was given some time back and diplomats said Pakistan had Read more…

Categories: Pakistan, United States Tags: , , , , , , , ,

N. Korea Purchased Pakistanis Nuclear Tech

July 8, 2011 Comments off

cbn

WASHINGTON — The founder of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program claims that in the late 1990s North Korean officials paid kickbacks to senior Pakistani military figures in exchange for critical weapons technology.

Abdul Qadeer Khan has given a United States-based expert documents that appear to show North Korea’s government paid more than $3.5 million to two Pakistani military officials as part of the deal, the expert told The Associated Press Wednesday.

To back up his claim, Khan released what he said was a copy of a North Korean official’s 1998 letter to him, written in English, that purports to describe the secret deal.

Khan gave the documents to Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an authority on Pakistan’s weapons program. He did so because he has been accused by his government of running a covert nuclear smuggling operation without official knowledge or consent.

“He gave it to me because he regarded it as showing that the story, the perception that he had Read more…

Categories: North Korea, nuclear technology, Pakistan Tags: , , , , ,

Pakistan tells US to leave `drone attack base`

June 30, 2011 Comments off

paktribune

RAWALPINDI: Pakistan on Wednesday told the United States to leave a remote desert air base reportedly used as a hub for covert CIA drone attacks.

“We have told them (US officials) to leave the Shamsi Airbase,” Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said while talking to journalists here. His remarks are the latest indication of Pakistan attempting to limit US activities since a clandestine American military raid killed Osama bin Laden.

The minister reiterated that the trust deficit between Pakistan and the United States has increased after the Read more…

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Flood of US weapons in Afghanistan and Pakistan fueling militant groups, experts say

June 22, 2011 Comments off
Pakistan us weapons smuggling 2011 6 21

Local residents walk past a burning NATO supply truck after an attack by gunmen on the outskirts of Quetta on June 19, 2011. (Banaras Khan/AFP/Getty Images)

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Some of the U.S. weapons bound for U.S. and Afghan troops in Afghanistan are being stolen, landing instead in the hands of those they are meant to be used against, and fueling militant groups in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, Pakistani officials say.

These weapons — which are typically snatched from Afghan troops during raids or sold by them to the Pakistani Taliban after they defect, are easily available in black markets in Pakistan’s tribal regions.

Some weapons, along with other military-issue supplies, are also being seized by Taliban militants in attacks on NATO convoys passing through Pakistan on their way to resuply soldiers in Afghanistan. Although such raids have been taking place for years, the Pakistani Taliban appear to have widened the zone where they are willing to operate, attacking NATO trucks in major cities as well, including in the capital of Islamabad as recently as June 9.

An estimated one-third of the supplies bound for U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan travel by land from Read more…

Categories: Afghanistan, Pakistan, United States, Weapons Tags: , , , , , ,

CIA informants’ detention by Pakistan’s spy agency intensifies U.S-Pak edgy ties

June 16, 2011 Comments off

allvoices

CIA Director Leon Panetta

 

The detention of Pakistani informants, who helped the CIA by providing information prior to the raid that killed the Al Qaida leader, by Pakistan’s top intelligence agency has intensified the already tense relationship between the United States and Pakistan.

According to a report that appeared in the New York Times on Wednesday, Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) has detained five CIA informers who supplied information to CIA ahead of the raid the previous month in which the Al Qaida leader was killed.

One of the arrested CIA informants was reported to be a currently serving major in the rank of Pakistan Army. According to U.S authorities, the detained major took note of license plates of vehicles stopping over at the compound of Osama Bin Laden.

Meanwhile U.S officials have stated that Read more…

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India Worried About Pakistani Nuke Arsenal Defenses

May 26, 2011 Comments off

globalsecuritynewswire

India’s defense chief on Wednesday voiced worries about the defenses of nuclear weapons in rival Pakistan following a militant siege this week of a naval base in Karachi, Reuters reported (see GSN, May 24).

“Naturally it is a concern not only for us but for everybody,” Defense Minister A.K. Antony said on the question of whether the assault by a minimum of six Pakistani Taliban fighters on the Mehran Naval Station had raised doubts about the security of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, the Press Trust of India reported.

“Our services are taking all precautions and are ready round-the-clock. But at the same time we don’t want to overreact,” Antony said.

Though estimates vary, recent analyses indicate Islamabad could hold more than 110 nuclear weapons. The country’s is viewed as having the world’s fastest growing nuclear arsenal.

Some defense authorities have said the Sunday siege could have involved insiders at the base, renewing worries about Pakistani military personnel who might have extremist affinities (see GSN, Jan. 11; Reuters, May 25).

Separately, not long before he became Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari in 2008 told U.S. envoys he supported providing U.N. investigators access to nuclear scientist and proliferator Abdul Qadeer Khan, Asian News International reported on Wednesday (see GSN, May 25).

The United States has long pressed for access to Khan, Pakistan’s former top nuclear weapons scientist who in 2004 confessed to exporting nuclear technology and information to Iran, Libya and Read more…

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Beijing Agrees to Operate a Key Port, Pakistan Says

May 23, 2011 Comments off

wsj

BEIJING—Pakistan’s defense minister said China has agreed to take over operation of the strategically positioned but underused port of Gwadar, and that Islamabad would like the Chinese to build a base there for the Pakistani navy.

Ahmad Mukhtar gave no clear timetable on the possible change at Gwadar, on Pakistan’s western coast, which is currently managed by a Singaporean government company. But his statement Saturday is the latest illustration of how Pakistan is portraying China as a powerful alternative ally and aid source if the U.S. scales down military assistance for Islamabad in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s killing.

China is eager to expand its influence in Pakistan over the long term, but is wary of the country’s chronic instability, which was highlighted late Sunday when a Pakistani naval base was attacked in the western port of Karachi, about 300 miles southeast of Gwadar.

Mr. Mukhtar made the announcement after accompanying Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani on a visit to China last week. During that visit, Pakistani officials say, Beijing agreed to expedite delivery of a second batch of 50 jointly developed JF-17 fighter jets to Pakistan, possibly within six months.

The fighter agreement prompted India’s defense minister, A.K. Antony, to express serious concern in a meeting with reporters late Friday about the growing defense ties between China and Pakistan, and to assert that India’s only possible response was to build up its own military arsenal.

Attempts on Sunday to contact Mr. Antony and other Indian officials for comment about Gwadar were unsuccessful. In the past, Indian officials have expressed concern Read more…

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China to expedite delivery of 50 fighter jets to Pakistan: WSJ

May 20, 2011 1 comment

reuters

Pakistan's Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani (L) speaks to China's Premier Wen Jiabao after a singing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, May 18, 2011. REUTERS/Jason Lee

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani (L) speaks to China’s Premier Wen Jiabao after a singing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, May 18, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Jason Lee

BEIJING (Reuters) – China has agreed to expedite the delivery of 50 fighter jets to Pakistan, a newspaper reported on Friday, as Islamabad tries to deepen ties with Beijing as an alternative to increasingly fragile relations with the United States.

Pakistan’s already strained ties with its ally and major donor were battered after U.S. forces on May 2 killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a garrison town near Islamabad.

The fact that bin Laden was found in Abbottabad, and had been living there for years, has prompted many in Washington to call for a review of the billions of U.S. civilian and military aid that Read more…

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Pakistan’s Gilani visits ally Beijing amid US rift

May 17, 2011 Comments off

Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) — Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani begins a visit to Beijing on Tuesday with old ally China looking more attractive after the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden further strained Islamabad’s ties with Washington.

The sentiment is mutual, with China now in the process of shoring up its relations with Islamabad, Afghanistan and several other Central Asia states in step with an expected diminished U.S. presence as it winds down military operations in Afghanistan.

For Pakistan, Beijing represents an uncritical friend ready to provide aid, investment and military assistance. To the leaders in Beijing, ties with Pakistan and other countries in its neighborhood offer a bigger diplomatic footprint, better access to resources and a larger stable of allies to challenge U.S. supremacy.

Although Gilani’s four-day visit starting Tuesday was planned well in advance, it comes at a critical time for his country’s relations with the U.S., which have been thrown into crisis over the American raid that killed bin Laden in the northern Pakistani city of Abbottabad on May 2. Pakistan has called it a violation of its sovereignty and threatened to retaliate if there are any similar operations in future.

While American politicians served up withering criticisms over Pakistan’s failure to find bin Laden’s hide-out – or the possibility that officials were protecting him – China offered welcome Read more…

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‘Drone strike’ kills several in Pakistan

May 12, 2011 Comments off

aljazeera

The high number of civilian casualties in drone attacks have caused anger in Pakistan [File:EPA]

At least five people have been killed after a suspected US drone fired two missiles into a vehicle in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, local security officials say.

Thursday’s raid was the third such attack reported in the tribal district near the Afghan border, which Washington has dubbed the global headquarters of al-Qaeda, since US commandos killed the group’s leader, Osama bin Laden, in a Pakistani city near Islamabad.

“A US drone fired two missiles on a militants’ vehicle in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan,” one Pakistani security official told the news agency AFP. “Five militants were killed.”

Another local official confirmed the strike and the toll, saying: “The target was a pick-up van.”

Intelligence reports from the area said the dead included “foreigners” – a term normally used for Afghan Taliban, Uzbek fighters or Read more…

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