Showing posts with label Islamabad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islamabad. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

DTN News: U.S. DoD Awarded Contract To Rockwell Collins For Upgarding And Maintenance of Pakistani Air Force (PAF) C-130 fleet

DTN News: U.S. DoD Awarded Contract To Rockwell Collins For Upgarding And Maintenance of Pakistani Air Force (PAF) C-130 fleet 
Source: K. V. Seth - DTN News + U.S. DoD issued No. CR-010-16 January 15, 2016
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - January 19, 2016: Rockwell Collins Inc., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has been awarded a $30,727,886 undefinitized contract action for the Pakistani Air Force (PAF) C-130 fleet. 


Contractor will design, manufacture, integrate, train, provide technical support during installation, and deliver 11 C-130E model kits and five C-130B integrated avionics suites and kits. 

Additionally, Rockwell Collins shall develop, validate, and deliver consolidated B/E flight manual and associated checklists, and maintenance supplements required to operate, maintain, and sustain the PAF C-130 fleet. 

Work will be performed at Nur Khan Base, Islamabad, Pakistan, and is expected to be complete by Dec. 31, 2020. 


This award is the result of a sole-source acquisition. This contract is 100 percent foreign military sales to the country of Pakistan. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, is the contracting activity (FA8553-16-C-0005).

*Link for This article compiled by K. V. Seth - DTN News + U.S. DoD issued No. CR-010-16 January 15, 2016
*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
*Photograph: IPF (International Pool of Friends) + DTN News / otherwise source stated
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
©COPYRIGHT (C) DTN NEWS DEFENSE-TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Thursday, March 20, 2014

DTN News: Pakistan Sectarian Violence Top Stories / Headlines News Dated March 20, 2014

DTN News: Pakistan Sectarian Violence Top Stories / Headlines News Dated March 20, 2014
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - March 20, 2014: Comprehensive daily news related to Pakistan Sectarian Violence Top Stories / Headlines News for the world of TODAY.*Comprehensive daily news related to Pakistan Sectarian Violence Top Stories / Headlines News for the world of TODAY
  • Global Conflict Tracker - Council on Foreign Relations

    www.cfr.org/global/global-conflict.../p3213...
    Council on Foreign Relations
    These are: increased sectarian violence between Buddhists and Muslim ... of a U.S.-Pakistan military confrontation, were not included in the 2014 survey ...
  • Sectarian Violence News, Photos and Videos - ABC News

    abcnews.go.com › Topics › News › Iraq
    ABC News
    Sat, 15 Mar 2014 … eventually and full-blown civil war that activists say has killed more ..... solution to the crisis, which has seen sectarian violence rise as ...

  • Sectarian killings soar in Pakistan, raising fears of regional spillover ...

    www.washingtonpost.com/.../sectarian-killings...pa...
    The Washington Post
    Jan 15, 2014 - ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A surge in sectarian killings is raising new fears ... last year and the country is experiencing a gruesome start to 2014.
  • Sectarianism in Pakistan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarianism_in_Pakistan
    Wikipedia
    Sectarian violence in Pakistan refers to attacks against people and places in ..... In January 2014, a policeman standing guard outside a Hindu temple at ...
    Minority religions - ‎History - ‎Sufism - ‎Ahmadiyya
  • Sectarian Violence in Pakistan - South Asia Terrorism Portal

    www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/database/sect-killing.htm
    Sectarian Violence in Pakistan: 1989-2014 ... *Data till March 2, 2014 .... In an incident of sectarian violence, a person and his minor daughter were killed while ...
  • Sectarian conflict — a threat to security - Daily Times

    www.dailytimes.com.pk/...2014/sectarian-conflict-a-threat-to...
    Daily Times
    Feb 10, 2014 - Sectarian violence was rife in Pakistan in the 1980s and early 1990s. ...of sectarian violence have been reported till January 19, 2014 in which ...
  • Sunni-Shiite violence soars in Pakistan | Religion News Service

    www.religionnews.com/2014/.../sunni-shiite-viole...
    Religion News Service
    (RNS) Tit-for-tat target killings between Sunnis and Shiites have escalated this past year, with ... Naveed Ahmad | Feb 3, 2014 | 5 Comments ... Neither Shiite nor Sunni leaders speak candidly about the renewed spree of sectarian violence.
  • Sectarian violence increased in 2013, says report - DAWN.COM

    www.dawn.com/.../sectarian-violence-increased-in-2013-says-repo...
    Dawn
    Jan 6, 2014 - March 19, 2014 | Jamadi-ul-Awwal 17, 1435 ... According to the report, the rise in sectarian violence started in 2011 and continued ... This was revealed in the 'Pakistan Security Report 2013' launched by Pak Institute for ...
  • NOREF - Sectarian violencePakistan's greatest security threat?

    www.peacebuilding.no › Home › Regions › Asia › Pakistan
    Aug 9, 2012 - Pakistan is experiencing a sharp resurgence in sectarian violence...2014; The 2014 ISAF pullout from Afghanistan: impacts on Pakistan ...
  • *Link for This article compiled by K. V. Seth  
    *Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
    *Photograph: IPF (International Pool of Friends) + DTN News / otherwise source stated
    *This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
    ©COPYRIGHT (C) DTN NEWS DEFENSE-TECHNOLOGY NEWS

    Thursday, October 10, 2013

    DTN News - PAKISTAN DEFENSE NEWS: Pakistan Deal For Chinese J-10 Fighters Uncertain

    DTN News - PAKISTAN DEFENSE NEWS: Pakistan Deal For Chinese J-10 Fighters Uncertain
    Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources DefenseNews
    (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - October 9, 2013: Tough International Monetary Fund conditions on Pakistan and concerns about untested technology likely will delay Islamabad’s plan to buy 36 J-10B Vigorous Dragon multirole fighters from China under a $1.4 billion deal signed in 2009, analysts said.


    Current economic conditions “preclude any possibility of acquiring new weapon systems in the next two to three years, at least,” said retired Pakistani Air Commodore Kaiser Tufail, a veteran fighter and test pilot who is now an independent military analyst in Lahore.

    Under IMF loan terms, the government faces harsh conditions on raising revenue and controlling spending, including on military equipment.

    A Chinese defense delegation visited Pakistan the last week of September to discuss the status of stalled defense deals. Whether this included the J-10 order is unclear.

    The J-10B Super-10 is an advanced variant of the J-10A, first fielded in late 2003 with China’s Air Force. The new Super-10 will reportedly be powered by the Chinese-designed WS-10A turbofan engine, which will replace the J-10A’s Russian Saturn AL-31FN. Built by Chengdu Aircraft Industries, the jet is based on Israel’s Lavi indigenous fighter program by Israel Aerospace Industries that was canceled in 1987.

    Even if a friendly Arab Gulf state provided financing, Tufail said more used Lockheed Martin F-16Cs from US stocks are preferable, “rather than trying out a new weapon system that is an unknown commodity in the realm of modern-day combat.”

    Tufail questioned the wisdom of buying one squadron of J-10s.

    To be cost effective “at least three to four squadrons would justify the additional wherewithal and maintenance facilities that would be needed,” he said.

    Over-reliance on US high-technology equipment like fighters worries Pakistani officials, and while Tufail said diversification “be explored fully, with China and Russia as suitable sources,” in the case of the fighter, the government may not have another option.

    Should a deal occur, however, Tufail foresees no problems with directly or indirectly acquiring Russian equipment such as the J-10’s AL-31FN engine.

    The J-10B was first revealed to the public in early 2009. Images appearing on Chinese-language military websites indicate the J-10B had a new nose configuration with an infrared search and tracking system and a “new Diverterless Supersonic Intake configured engine air intake,” also seen on the Chengdu FC-1 Xiaolong (Fierce Dragon), which is co-produced in Pakistan as the JF-17 Thunder, said Richard Fisher, a senior fellow of Asian military affairs at the International Assessment and Strategy Center.

    At least one prototype J-10B has featured the indigenous Shenyang-Liming WS-10A turbofan engine, but it remains to be seen whether all production J-10Bs will feature the WS-10A or the Russian Saturn AL-31F turbofan,” Fisher said.

    “I think the JF-17 arrangement has been a workable one so far, and future weapon systems with core Russian and Chinese components can be acquired by the Pakistan Air Force on a similar basis, without difficulty,” Tufail said.

    Russia allowed China to supply Pakistan the JF-17s Klimov RD-93 engine despite Indian opposition, and prospects have since improved.

    “The thawing of Pak-Russo relations over the past few years is certainly a welcome development, and should help override Indian objections to any military cooperation between Pakistan and Russia,” Tufail said.

    Technological advances may also scrap the J-10 deal.

    Tufail believes the air force may be turning to the stealthy Chengdu J-20 though this is not presently “anything beyond a mere statement of intent.”

    “It is a futuristic aircraft, not yet fully operational, and its capabilities are hardly known, so reading too much into this may be rather premature,” Tufail said.

    The J-10B would offer Pakistan some advanced fourth generation capabilities.

    “The canted nose cone immediately led to speculation that the J-10B also featured a new fixed antennae phased array radar and this was confirmed in 2011,” Fisher said. “There remains some speculation that this radar may be a ‘passive’ versus an ‘active’ electronically scanned array [AESA], but the key point is that the J-10B is clearly a 4+ generation fighter that also included upgraded cockpit systems and electronic warfare systems.”

    But if Pakistan chooses not to become the first customer for an export configured J-10B, at $50-60 million per aircraft it will become attractive to countries like Venezuela, Argentina, Peru, Malaysia and Indonesia, who are looking for an affordable multi-role fighter, Fisher said.

    *Link for This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources DefenseNews
    *Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
    *Photograph: IPF (International Pool of Friends) + DTN News / otherwise source stated
    *This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
    ©COPYRIGHT (C) DTN NEWS DEFENSE-TECHNOLOGY NEWS

    Saturday, September 07, 2013

    DTN News - PAKISTAN NEWS: Hafiz Saeed Leads Mass Rally in Islamabad Against India on Pakistan's Defence Day

    DTN News - PAKISTAN NEWS: Hafiz Saeed Leads Mass Rally in Islamabad Against India on Pakistan's Defence Day
    Source: DTN News from reliable sources DAWN Pakistan
    (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - September 7, 2013: FROM ISLAMABAD - Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Saeed appeared openly at a rally in Islamabad on Friday, denouncing India as a terrorist state as thousands of his supporters chanted for “holy war” against the rival nuclear nation.

    India has accused Hafiz Saeed of masterminding the 2008 attack on its financial capital Mumbai where gunmen killed 166 people over three days. The United States has offered $10 million for information leading to his arrest and conviction.

    As dusk fell, more than 10,000 people gathered in Islamabad in a show of defiance certain to enrage India further following weeks of tensions over the disputed Kashmir border.

    “The United States and India are very angry with us. This means God is happy with us,” Saeed told the crowd as supporters chanted “Jihad!” (“Holy war”) and “War will continue until the liberation of Kashmir”. He did not use the word “jihad” himself.

    “We are ready for every sacrifice for the liberation of Kashmir,” the stocky and bearded former professor added at the rally marking Pakistan's Defence Day.

    Speaking about Sarabjit Singh, an Indian prisoner who died in a Pakistani jail this year and was given a state funeral back home, Saeed told the crowd: “He was a terrorist. How can the Indian government give state honours to a terrorist? This means the Indian government and army are terrorists.”

    India has called on Pakistan to bring Saeed to justice, an issue that has stood in the way of rebuilding relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours since the Mumbai carnage.

    Saeed is the founder of the LeT, a militant group banned in Pakistan but tolerated unofficially and believed to be close to the army. Saeed has long abandoned its leadership and is now the head of its charity wing.

    India is furious that Pakistan has not detained him since it handed over evidence against him to Islamabad, and allows Saeed to live freely in the city of Lahore in a villa with police stationed outside.

    Relations plunged to further lows last month after the killing of five Indian soldiers along the so-called Line of Control that separates the two sides in the Himalayan region of Kashmir.

    BELLIGERENT MOOD
    Seeking to defuse tensions, Pakistan's civilian leaders have kept a conciliatory tone, but on Friday, as thousands gathered in Islamabad, emotions spilled into the open.

    The mood was strikingly anti-Western and belligerent, with speakers openly declaring their sympathy for the Taliban fighting Western forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.

    “India should stop describing Kashmir as its indispensable part,” Saeed said from a makeshift stage mounted on a truck. “Otherwise every part of India would be dispensable for us.”

    As the crowd cheered, two men performed a patriotic song threatening to “turn the whole of India into Mumbai”.

    Others chanted “Whoever is a friend of India is a traitor” and waved black and white striped flags.

    “They should know there are a lot of people here who are waiting for the conquest of India,” Hamid Gul, a former chief of the ISI intelligence service, told the crowd.

    “It will be our privilege to take part in this war.”

    Saeed founded the LeT, which India blames for the rampage in Mumbai, in the 1990s. He has denied involvement in any attacks.

    He abandoned the leadership after India accused the LeT of being behind an attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001.

    His charity, linked to the LeT, enjoys popular support for its humanitarian work.


    DTN Pakistan @DTNPakistan (Available on Twitter)
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    DAWN Related News;

    Terror bid foiled as police detains two, seizes arms during Islamabad raid







    Pakistan releases seven Afghan Taliban prisoners







    *Link for This article compiled by DTN News & DAWN Pakistan
    *Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
    *Photograph: IPF (International Pool of Friends) + DTN News / otherwise source stated
    *This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
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    Friday, August 30, 2013

    DTN News - OSAMA BIN LADEN: Family Tells of Last Moments of The World's Most Wanted Man

    DTN News - OSAMA BIN LADEN: Family Tells of Last Moments of The World's Most Wanted Man
    Source: Daily Telegraph & DNA
    (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - August 30, 2013: For the first time the voices of Osama's wives and children can be heard amid pages and pages of eyewitness accounts.

    The sound of footsteps and gunfire was coming closer, up the stairs towards the third floor where Osama bin Laden, his youngest wife Amal and one of his daughters must have known their life on the run was reaching its end.

    On the landing outside their refuge, Amal saw the dark form of an American Navy Seal steady his weapon, a red laser ray trained on her husband's chest. She flung herself at the commando, in a desperate attempt to snatch the rifle away.

    A bullet pierced her knee and more shots followed. As she lay injured on the bed, Amal heard the American accents of soldiers asking two of bin Laden's daughters the name of the man they just killed.

    This is not another gung-ho account of the raid on bin Laden's hideaway told by the Navy Seals who mounted the assault, nor is it the gripping climax of Zero Dark Thirty, Hollywood's version of the story.

    For the first time the voices of Osama's wives and children can be heard amid pages and pages of eyewitness accounts. This is the story of the raid from inside the high-walled compound and told to Pakistani investigators.

    The report of the Abbottabad Commission, obtained by Al Jazeera, heaps scorn on Pakistan's political and military establishment for failing to realise that the world's most wanted man was living in a town barely 30 miles from the capital, and almost within sight of the country's officer training academy. It accuses the authorities of a catalogue of failures, missing a string of discrepancies that should have led the hunt to the secretive villa in Abbottabad.

    "Over a period of time, an effective intelligence agency should have been able to contact, infiltrate or co-opt [OBL's support network], and to develop a whole case load of information. Apparently, this was not the case," it concluded.

    It also details the way the world's most wanted man was able to move through the country's north-west almost at will, building himself a house, fathering children and hiding in plain sight.

    Bin Laden had settled in Abbottabad, living for more than six years in the custom-built house with his three wives. They described how they were woken on the night of the raid by what they thought was a storm but turned out to be American Black Hawk helicopters.

    Footsteps on the roof followed quickly and within minutes bin Laden had been shot. Summaya, one of bin Laden's daughters, said she knew immediately he was dead. She described a bullet wound to his forehead and the way "blood flowed backwards over his head". After 36 minutes it was all over.

    The wives were allowed to collect bin Laden's will and a few trinkets before disappearing into the custody of the Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency. The comprehensive report, with evidence from more than 200 witnesses, also gives insight into the lengths bin Laden went to in order to avoid detection - and the opportunities missed to catch him.

    After arriving in Pakistan, he lived in the Swat Valley for several months at the end of 2002. During this period he came closest to detection when his car was stopped for speeding. Next, they moved to the quiet town of Haripur, not much more than an hour and half's drive from Islamabad.

    There Amal gave birth to two children at a local clinic. To keep her from awkward questions, Abrar al-Kuwaiti, one of bin Laden's two couriers, and his wife told the doctors she was deaf and dumb.

    They moved to Abbottabad in 2005 to a new high-walled home. According to the report, discrepancies in the purchase of land, an unapproved third storey and several odd features - such as four electricity connections to keep bills down - should all have triggered alarm bells among government agencies.

    To locals, used to not asking questions for fear of upsetting gangsters or warlords, the villa was known as Waziristan House". Inside the families were segregated. While the wives and children of the two couriers were able to leave the compound, bin Laden's relatives stayed inside. He even took to wearing a cowboy hat as he exercised in the yard, for fear of being spotted from above.

    He also took pains to hide his true identity from the families of the two couriers but overlooked the presence of a television set inside the compound.

    One day a few months before the raid, Rahma, a daughter of one of the couriers, spotted a picture of bin Laden on Al Jazeera and recognized him as the man she called "Miskeen Baba" - or poor uncle - from the main house. The television was quickly banned and all interaction between the two families ended.

    Disclaimer statement
    Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information supplied herein, DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Unless otherwise indicated, opinions expressed herein are those of the author of the page and do not necessarily represent the corporate views of DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News.

    *Link for This article compiled from reliable sources Daily Telegraph & DNA
    *Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
    *Photograph: IPF (International Pool of Friends) + DTN News / otherwise source stated
    *This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 

    Saturday, July 20, 2013

    DTN News - PAKISTAN ~ OSAMA BIN LADEN NEWS: Could The Pakistani Government Have Hidden Bin Laden?

    DTN News - PAKISTAN ~ OSAMA BIN LADEN NEWS: Could The Pakistani Government Have Hidden Bin Laden?
    *The chaotic state of governance suggests conspiracy on a national scale to protect Bin Laden is fanciful at best.
    Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Al Jazeera
    (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - July 20, 2013:  The revelation that a Pakistani government dossier regarding Osama bin Laden had leaked to the media immediately brought to mind salacious and popularly held suspicions about the country’s complicity in harbouring the infamous terrorist financier. Bin Laden, who after 9/11 was believed to be on the run in the remote tribal wilderness, eventually was found to be residing, shockingly, in a comfortable home within a quiet Pakistani city with significant military links.


    That this city was also home to the Pakistani military’s equivalent of West Point only added to the sense that this was a blatant cover-up and that the Pakistani government was consciously hiding and protecting America’s most wanted terrorist.  Any leaked internal Pakistani documents relating to this affair could then be little else but a documentation of how such a world-beating scheme was pulled off.

    However, the dossier which did leak suggests the opposite as true. While the report’s authors do not explicitly rule out state collusion, the picture they paint is one which more strongly reflects bureaucratic chaos and mismanagement than of a finely-tuned, sinister plot. The revelations contained therein may dispel suspicions of any broad, coordinated Pakistani government conspiracy to aid Bin Laden, but they do indict the state in an arguably worse way.

    A state without control
    There are two competing theses as to how Osama bin Laden may have been able to live for years under the noses of the Pakistani establishment. One posits the necessary collusion of the Pakistani government, while the other assumes structural incompetence led to organisational obliviousness to Bin Laden’s presence on Pakistani soil. Collusion would require an efficiently organised and well-functioning Pakistani state able to keep such an incredible secret, while obliviousness would entail a high-degree of bureaucratic ineptitude and confusion within the state machinery. Even a cursory reading of contemporary Pakistani shows that the latter scenario is the situation which exists at most levels of the country today.

    The government is simply too chaotic, disjointed and deeply compromised by the U.S. to have the wherewithal or capacity to engineer such a conspiracy
    One may argue in response that the Pakistani government is merely feigning incompetence in order to provide cover for its nefarious activities. In this view the leak of the dossier is simply an alibi to conceal their true role in the Bin Laden saga. But the circumstantial evidence against this hypothesis is too great for it to be plausible. The country is a textbook case of bureaucratic mismanagement and inertia, and the broad organisational integrity required to engineer such a scheme is nowhere in evidence.

    Indeed, so greatly has the Pakistani political elite today lost the plot that they themselves cannot protect their own closest kin - as evidenced by the recent kidnapping of former Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s son, and the assassination of former President Asif Zardari’s own security chief. Given this reality, it is difficult to fathom how this same class of individuals could have put such an intricate conspiracy over on the entire world. The state is simply not in complete control of events in the way it would need to be for such a thing to be possible - especially not for the countless years in which Osama bin Laden was believed to be hiding out in the country.

    As detailed in the report, corruption has trickled down to the point where it is endemic almost everywhere within the Pakistani state. Bin Laden himself is detailed in the dossier to have essentially escaped detection by having his driver bribe a police officer who had pulled his car over for speeding. Even popular media personalities were reported to have been ‘heavily bribed with money, women and alcohol’ in order to print unfavourable news stories about certain factions within the government.

    It is worth remembering that the so-called “War on Terror” of the past decade has seen tens of thousands of Pakistanis killed, the country’s name utterly tarnished, the (apparent) fiction of its sovereignty dispelled and its infrastructure reduced to a shambolic state. Even ignoring its protestations of ignorance and incompetence, an objective reading of the circumstances of the Pakistani state does away with the myth that accomplishing a feat such as hiding Bin Laden would even be possible.

    A government bought and paid for
    The leaked dossier also recounts testimony from former ISI chief Lieutenant-General Ahmed Shuja Pasha in which he says a CIA operative told him: "You are so cheap… we can buy you with a visa, with a visit to the US, even with a dinner… we can buy anyone." Indeed, the picture painted is of a state willing to acquiesce to any US directive at a whim, as well as a society deeply infiltrated by American intelligence operatives.

    Page 198 of the report revealed that in discussions with their Pakistani counterparts on a list of counterterrorism demands, American negotiators were reportedly ‘mystified’ that the Pakistani side ‘caved so promptly and completely’. A follow-up list of negotiating points, created in anticipation of inevitable objections, became immediately superfluous as the Pakistani side fell over themselves to immediately acquiesce to every American demand. The depth of Pakistani collusion with the US on politically-sensitive issues such as drone strikes was also revealed, highlighting the extent to which Pakistani leadership considered the lives and legal rights of the country’s citizens to be utterly forfeit in the face of any American request.

    Even NGOs were not spared. The report noted that the American NGO “Save the Children” - created ostensibly to vaccinate and inoculate children against various diseases - was in fact a front operation funded and operated by American intelligence.

    The report goes on to say that in fact a huge proportion of the NGOs operating in the country were believed to be compromised by foreign intelligence services (specifically those of the United States) but that they could not be completely barred because of the degree to which large parts of the citizenry were forced to rely on them. In essence, the social services of much of the country have today been outsourced to the CIA.

    Pakistan a 'failing state' says ISI chief
    A more depressing commentary of negligence and corruption would be difficult to find, but it is nonetheless worth pointing out that a Pakistani state so thoroughly compromised by the United States would by its very nature be incapable of engineering a broad conspiracy.

    The CIA had penetrated almost every level of the Pakistani state machinery (a reality acknowledged by the authors of the report), making any attempt at comprehensive secrecy nearly impossible. Indeed, the extent to which even Pakistan’s most guarded knowledge - the details of its nuclear weapons program - has today been compromised is a testimony to the inability of the government today to maintain state secrets, let alone grand conspiracies.

    The façade of a state
    If Americans feel aggrieved or baffled by the series of events which led to Osama bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan, they should reflect on the history which Pakistanis have been dealt by their own government. In a few short decades the citizens of Pakistan have witnessed more ostensibly-conspiratorial episodes than most countries do in their entire histories. 

    From the assassination of the country’s first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, to the mysterious plane-crash death of General Zia ul Haq, to the murder of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (and, in years previous, her brother) and innumerable other high-profile cases, Pakistan has been wracked by a long history of shadowy, unexplained violent events in the public sphere. For these cases Pakistanis have never received answers - let alone accountability.

    Are events in Pakistan thus being clandestinely dictated by an Illuminati-type cabal, opaquely engineering events to their own benefit; and so powerful that they are able to brazenly defy the will of the world’s only military superpower?

    Or is the government itself merely a collection of various disparate factions with little control over broader national events, each out for their own interests (primarily the accumulation of private wealth at the expense of the citizenry) and maintaining merely the chaotic façade of a contiguous “state”?

    Occam’s razor would suggest the latter. In this view, validated in great part by the contents of this leaked report, Pakistan would have neither a coherent desire nor the ability to harbour Osama bin Laden. While it is likely that some individual or small group of individuals somewhere within the incoherent state or military apparatus had knowledge of his whereabouts, the allegation of broad or high-level official collusion is an utterly spurious one.
    The government is simply too chaotic, disjointed and deeply compromised by the US to have the wherewithal or capacity to engineer such a conspiracy. The conspiracy narrative is only undermined if one operates on the assumption that this leaked dossier is simply the continuation of the same plot - but there is little evidence in the grand history of infighting and maladministration which is the Pakistani bureaucracy to suggest such Machiavellian foresight.

    Ordinary Pakistanis are the ultimate victims of this at once malicious and negligent system. With the Bin Laden episode, Americans merely received a glimpse into the bizarrely opaque and chaotic world Pakistan’s government compels its citizens to live with.

    Murtaza Hussain is a Toronto-based writer and analyst focused on issues related to Middle Eastern politics.
    Follow him on Twitter: @MazMHussain
    The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
    Sourc:
    Al Jazeera

    *Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Al Jazeera
    *Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
    *Photograph: IPF (International Pool of Friends) + DTN News / otherwise source stated
    *This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
    ©COPYRIGHT (C) DTN NEWS DEFENSE-TECHNOLOGY NEWS