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2011年6月26日星期日

Phone gives clues to bin Laden's Pakistan links - NYT (Reuters)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A cell phone found in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan contained contacts to a militant group with ties to Pakistan's intelligence agency, The New York Times reported on Thursday, citing senior U.S. officials briefed on the findings.

The discovery indicated that bin Laden used the group, Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, as part of his support network inside Pakistan, the newspaper said, citing the officials and others sources it did not identify.

The cell phone belonged to bin Laden's courier, who was killed along with the al Qaeda leader in the May 2 raid by U.S. special forces on bin Laden's compound in the garrison town of Abbottabad, the Times said.

"We cannot confirm this account," a U.S. official in Washington said when asked about the report.

The United States kept Islamabad in the dark about the raid by Navy SEALs until after it was completed, humiliating Pakistan's armed forces and putting U.S. military and intelligence ties under serious strain.

In tracing calls on the cell phone, U.S. analysts determined that Harakat commanders had called Pakistani intelligence officials, the Times reported, citing the senior American officials.

The officials added the contacts were not necessarily about bin Laden and his protection and that there was no "smoking gun" showing that Pakistan's spy agency had protected bin Laden, the newspaper said.

The newspaper quoted one of the officials as saying the cell phone analysis was a "serious lead" in the hunt for answers about how bin Laden managed to evade notice by Pakistan's spy agency or military for years in the town, only 30 miles (50 km) from the capital.

The newspaper quoted analysts familiar with Harakat as saying it had deep roots in the area around Abbottabad. Its leaders have strong ties with both al Qaeda and Pakistani intelligence, the Times said.

(Writing by JoAnne Allen; Editing by Peter Cooney)


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Pakistan, India seek to lower nuclear fears (Reuters)

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ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan and India agreed on Friday to try to ease fears about their nuclear arsenals, in unexpectedly positive talks between the two countries' top diplomats.

Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir agreed to expand confidence-building measures in both their nuclear and conventional weapons.

A meeting of experts would be asked to "consider additional measures ... to build trust and confidence and promote peace and security," they said in a joint statement after a two-day meeting in Islamabad.

The outcome of the talks was better than expected, with both foreign secretaries holding an unscheduled joint news conference, and also agreeing to try to improve trade and travel across the ceasefire line dividing disputed Kashmir.

"The ideology of military conflict should have no place in the 21st century," Rao told the news conference.

India and Pakistan in February resumed a formal peace process broken off after the November 2008 attack on Mumbai by Pakistan-based militants which killed 166 people.

But as in previous peace efforts, progress has been slow, and vulnerable to any attempts by Islamist militants to try to trigger a war between Pakistan and India by launching another Mumbai-style attack.

Both countries, which announced they had tested nuclear weapons in 1998, have fought three full-scale wars since winning independence in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.

The foreign secretaries gave few details of how they expected to build confidence in their nuclear capabilities.

India and Pakistan already exchange information about missile tests and have an agreement not to attack each others' nuclear facilities.

But with India building its conventional capabilities and Pakistan reported to be developing battlefield nuclear weapons, security analysts say the risk of a conflict escalating into nuclear war is always present.

MISCALCULATIONS AND BATTLEFIELD NUCLEAR WEAPONS

"Negative thinking exists on both sides so there are chances that either one of them could misread or miscalculate the other's movement and begin assembling and loading nuclear weapons," said Pakistan defence analyst Hassan Askari Rizvi.

The outcome of the talks was very good, he said. "They should talk more and more because this is how they can minimise the threat of war and particularly nuclear war."

Uday Bhaskar, director of the National Maritime Foundation think tank in New Delhi, also welcomed the inclusion of nuclear confidence-building measures in the talks.

"For the sake of regional security, we need an uninterrupted dialogue on the WMD issue," he told Reuters.

"At some point we have to talk about nuclear postures ... We need to have some more transparency about the respective inventories, a certain amount of transparency on capability and intent."

The foreign secretaries also agreed to convene a working group next month to improve trade and travel across the Line of Control (LoC), the heavily militarised ceasefire line dividing Kashmir.

Split between India and Pakistan since independence, families on both sides of Kashmir have been cut off from each other and old trade routes suffocated.

"We must help the people of Jammu and Kashmir to connect with each other -- to travel, to trade," Rao said.

India and Pakistan came close to agreeing a roadmap for peace in Kashmir in 2007 which aimed to make the borders dividing the region between India and Pakistan irrelevant.

That agreement stalled when then Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf ran into political turmoil at home which eventually forced him out of office.

The people of Kashmir, who launched a separatist revolt against Indian rule in 1989, say they want the right to govern themselves.

"We welcome the efforts by the two countries to address the problem and also expand the trade across the border," said Mirwaiz Omar Farooq, chief of the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, the moderate grouping of Kashmiri separatists.

"But they did not speak on the resolution of Kashmir. In the future we hope they would make some headway on the dispute and include the Kashmiri leadership to find a lasting solution," he told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by C.J. Kuncheria in New Delhi, Sheikh Mushtaq in Srinagar and Kamran Haider in Islamabad; editing by Elizabeth Piper)


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2011年6月25日星期六

Pakistan army rejects report on bin Laden's cell-phone (Reuters)

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ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The Pakistan army condemned on Friday a report in the New York Times that a cell phone found in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden contained contacts to a militant group with ties to Pakistan's intelligence agency.

The newspaper, citing senior U.S. officials briefed on the findings, reported on Thursday that the discovery indicated that bin Laden used the group, Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, as part of his support network inside Pakistan.

The cell phone belonged to bin Laden's courier, who was killed along with the al Qaeda leader in the May 2 raid by U.S. special forces on bin Laden's compound in the garrison town of Abbottabad, the Times said.

Pakistan army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said in a statement sent by text message that the military "rejects the insinuations made in the NYT story".

"It is part of a well orchestrated smear campaign against our security organisations," he said.

The army has been angered by media reports that elements in the Pakistani security establishment may have helped bin Laden hide in Pakistan.

"Pakistan, its security forces have suffered the most at the hands of al Qaeda and have delivered the most against al Qaeda; our actions on the ground speak louder than the words of the Times," Abbas said.

In tracing calls on the cell phone, U.S. analysts determined that Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen commanders had called Pakistani intelligence officials, the Times reported, citing the senior American officials.

The officials added the contacts were not necessarily about bin Laden and his protection and that there was no "smoking gun" showing that Pakistan's spy agency had protected bin Laden.

(Reporting by Kamran Haider, writing by Myra MacDonald; editing by Elizabeth Piper)


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ANALYSIS - Pakistan army chief shows no signs of quitting soon (Reuters)

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ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – At the height of the storm which swept Pakistan after the May 2 killing of Osama bin Laden, army chief General Ashfaq Kayani spoke for 1-1/2 hours, then told his officers they could ask whatever they wanted, and lit a cigarette.

"This is a very delicate situation," he said, in answer to a question about relations with the United States at the National Defence University on May 19. "It's not an easy one."

"If we come out of it, keep our relevance and show them we are part of the solution, not part of the problem, we will succeed," Kayani said in one of a series of "town hall" meetings he held to revive army morale.

Those meetings have since fuelled speculation - particularly in the United States - that the most powerful man in Pakistan, by opening himself up to questions, is fighting for survival.

Participants at the meeting, however, said Kayani showed no outward sign of being under pressure as he sat in full dress uniform at a table on the same level as his audience.

Equipped only with a file, ash tray and glass of water and facing rows of some 80 officers along with a few civilians, he patiently answered questions from all ranks.

"In uniform, we tend to see everything in black and white," Kayani said when a young colonel asked why Pakistan kept a relationship United States if Washington did not trust it.

"In the real world there are a lot of grey areas and you have to deal with it."

A Reuters correspondent attended the meeting, but since it was off-the-record did not report it until after participants themselves relayed to the media versions of what Kayani had said. Kayani's comments were reported by participants and verified by Reuters.

The Pakistan army, the last line of defence in a country battling a growing Islamist militant insurgency, has come under intense pressure since U.S. forces found and killed bin Laden in the garrison town of Abbottabad on May 2.

Its inability to find the al Qaeda leader and to detect the U.S. helicopter-borne raid in which he was killed has left it facing its most severe crisis since its humiliating defeat by India in the 1971 war in which then East Pakistan won independence as Bangladesh.

In some ways it is even worse than 1971, when state-run media suppressed the worst of the news in a war happening far away from the traditional heartland of the country.

This time, U.S. forces carried out a raid undetected deep within the heart of Pakistan, not far from the prestigious Pakistan Military Academy.

That same month militants attacked a naval base in Karachi and blew up two maritime patrol aircraft.

Nobody knows what is going to happen next.

DRAWING OUT QUESTIONS

Yet no one expects Kayani to step down any time soon, or at least not until he has restored confidence within the army. And nor do they expect his most senior officers to turn against him.

"The army as an institution is under attack so if the Corps Commanders ask him to leave, that unleashes a very explosive dynamic," said Imtiaz Gul at the Center for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad.

"That's why the Corps Commanders will never ask him to step down."

In inviting questions, Kayani was following a military tradition where officers encourage their men to express their doubts before going into battle, but after the orders are given, expect them to be followed without question.

"In the military, it is regarded as a reflection of loyalty if you are frank," said General (retired) Ehsan ul-Haq, when recalling meetings of the Corps Commanders, the army's top officers with command over troops across the country.

"There is a discussion (among the Corps Commanders), but there are no fireworks," said Haq, a former head of the military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"There is a lot of poise and dignity in how you address issues."

At the evening meeting at the National Defence University, Kayani, far from appearing on the defensive, actively encouraged questions.

When a young female student put up her hand to ask a question and the officer running the event said there was no more time - it was by then nearly midnight - Kayani insisted on answering it.

The student asked about the threats Pakistan faced. Kayani in response made no mention of Pakistan's traditional rival India -- the subject did not come at all in four-hour long session.

"What worries me is the indirect threat and that is the economy," he said. "If you want to be secure ... you have to address your internal situation and the economy is the major issue."

And rather than relying on the Americans for money, Pakistan should reform its economy and raise taxes domestically. "We have to stand up on our own feet and we cannot do this unless we have a strong economy," he said.

UNPRECEDENTED CRITICISM

U.S. media reports that Kayani is fighting for survival have infuriated the military which sees them as a deliberate attempt to malign the army.

Those have been accompanied by unprecedented domestic criticism of the army, which peaked after Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad was kidnapped in Islamabad and beaten to death at the end of May.

Shahzad had previously spoken of being threatened by the ISI over his reporting, and suspicion immediately fell on the powerful intelligence agency. It denied involvement.

And while the army still enjoys high approval ratings in Pakistan, its critics accuse it of sucking up scarce resources in military expenditure focused on India.

They also blame it for cultivating Islamist militants in the past for use against India, who are now increasingly slipping out of its control and turning on Pakistan.

There are, moreover, unquestionably strains within the military, a Muslim army which for 10 years has been asked to suppress the anti-Americanism which threads through society and fight in a campaign which many see as "America's war".

Some of those strains rose to the surface this week when the army said it had arrested a brigadier over links to the banned Hizb-ul-Tahrir, an Islamist political group seeking to overthrow the civilian government and establish an Islamic theocracy.

Kayani himself has also been the subject of private grumblings in the military after he obtained last year a three-year extension to his term of office to November 2013 - effectively strangling promotions further down the line.

But barring another big unexpected event which dents the army's credibility further, there appears to be little evidence to suggest that Kayani is about to be forced out.

Over tea, biscuits and sandwiches which followed the meeting at the National Defence University, he appeared relaxed and smiling as he chatted to participants.

"As long as you are in the (army chief's) seat, there is no threat to you," said Imtiaz Gul.

(Writing by Myra MacDonald; Editing by Robert Birsel)


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