Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. president’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is struggling in a critical condition at George Washington University hospital after admission on Friday morning.

“This morning, doctors completed surgery to repair a tear in his aorta. He is in critical condition and has been joined by his family,” said PJ Crowley, the State Department spokesman said in a statement on Saturday.

Earlier on Friday, at the regular briefing, Crowley refused to elaborate on Holbrooke;s condition, saying, “All I can tell you is that the ambassador is at the hospital at the present time, and beyond that I will — we will let you know, as we find out more.”

Crowley also refused to confirm media reports that Ambassador Holbrooke collapsed at Secretary Hillary Clinton’s office, saying on Friday, “It happened on the seventh floor,”

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American and British diplomats fear Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme could lead to fissile material falling into the hands of terrorists or a devastating nuclear exchange with India.

The latest cache of US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks contains warnings that Pakistan is rapidly building its nuclear stockpile despite the country’s growing instability and “pending economic catastrophe”.

Mariot Leslie, a senior British Foreign Office official, told US diplomats in September 2009: “The UK has deep concerns about the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons ,” according to one cable classified “secret/noforn [no foreign nationals]“.

Seven months earlier, the US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson, cabled to Washington: “Our major concern is not having an Islamic militant steal an entire weapon but rather the chance someone working in government of Pakistan facilities could gradually smuggle enough material out to eventually make a weapon”.

The leak of classified US diplomatic correspondence exposes in fine detail the deep tensions between Washington and Islamabad over a broad range of issues, including counter-terrorism, Afghanistan and finance, as well as the nuclear question. US concern over Pakistan’s bomb programme was spelled out in an intelligence briefing in 2008. “Despite pending economic catastrophe, Pakistan is producing nuclear weapons at a faster rate than any other country in the world,” the secret cable said.

Leslie, director general of defence and intelligence at the Foreign Office, made clear the UK shared these anxieties when she spoke to US diplomats at a London arms control meeting in September 2009. The Pakistanis were worried the US “will drop in and take their nukes”, she said, according to a US cable to Washington. Pakistan was now prepared to accept “nuclear safety help” from British technicians, but only under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The cable said Leslie thought nuclear proliferation was the greater danger to the world, but it “ranks lower than terrorism on the public’s list of perceived threats”.

Another senior British official at the meeting, Jon Day, the Ministry of Defence’s director general for security policy, said recent intelligence indicated Pakistan was “not going in a good direction”.

The Russians shared concerns that Pakistan was “highly unstable”. Yuri Korolev, from the Russian foreign ministry, told US officials: “Islamists are not only seeking power in Pakistan but are also trying to get their hands on nuclear materials.”

Speaking in February in Washington, he called for the problem of Pakistani- nuclear sites to be addressed in ongoing missile control talks, claiming: “Over the last few years extremists have attacked vehicles that carry staff to and from these facilities. Some were killed and a number were abducted and there has been no trace seen of them.”

He said: “There are 120,000-130,000 people directly involved in Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programmes … There is no way to guarantee that all are 100% loyal and reliable.”

He claimed extremists were now recruiting more easily: “Pakistan has had to hire people to protect nuclear facilities that have especially strict religious beliefs, and recently the general educational and cultural levels in Pakistan has been falling.”

These fears are expressed in the secret state department files against a backdrop of Pakistani determination to build more nuclear warheads.

A Chinese foreign minister, He Yafei, sought to explain to the Americans why Pakistan was blocking fissile material control talks. At a London meeting in 2009, he said: “The underlying problem … is that India and Pakistan view each other as enemies. Nuclear weapons are crucial to Pakistan. Indeed, a Pakistani military leader said his army was no match for the Indian army.”

US diplomats in Islamabad were told Pakistan was working on producing smaller, tactical nuclear weapons that could be used on the battlefield against Indian troops.

“The result of this trend is the need for greater stocks of fissile material … Strategic considerations point Pakistan in the direction of a larger nuclear force that requires a greater amount of fissile material, Pakistani officials argue.”

The US conducted its own secret analysis of India’s military contingency plans, which are codenamed Cold Start. India has said that if sufficiently provoked, it would mount a rapid invasion of Pakistan.

The US said in a cable that it doubted the Indian army was capable of doing so: “It is the collective judgment of the mission that India would likely encounter very mixed results. Indian forces could have significant problems consolidating initial gains due to logistical difficulties and slow reinforcement.”

But the US ambassador to India, Tim Roemer, warned in February that for India to launch Cold Start, would be to “roll the nuclear dice”. It could trigger the world’s first use of nuclear weapons since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“Indian leaders no doubt realise that, although Cold Start is designed to punish Pakistan in a limited manner without triggering a nuclear response, they cannot be sure whether Pakistani leaders will in fact refrain from such a response.” Pakistan ‘in tatters’

A senior US intelligence official was “unrelentingly gloomy” about Pakistan, the current safe haven for al-Qaida in the Afghanistan war, during a private briefing of Nato representatives.

Peter Lavoy, national intelligence officer for south Asia, concluded in November 2008 that nuclear-armed Pakistan’s economy was “in tatters” and the country could “completely lose control of its Pashtun territories over the next few years”, according to a leaked US cable.

More than a third of people were unemployed or underemployed, he said.

“Pakistan’s population is becoming less and less educated, the country lacks sufficient energy and clean water resources to serve its population, and there is minimal foreign investment.”

A few months later, in April 2009, Patterson was slightly less gloomy, saying Pakistan was not a “failed state”.

“We nonetheless recognise that the challenges it confronts are dire. The government is losing more and more territory every day to foreign and domestic militant groups; deteriorating law and order in turn is undermining economic recovery. The bureaucracy is settling into third-world mediocrity, as demonstrated by some corruption and a limited capacity to implement or articulate policy.”

She said: “Extremism … is no longer restricted to the border area. We are seeing young Punjabi men turn up in [the tribal areas] and Afghanistan as fighters recruited from areas of southern Punjab where poverty, illiteracy and despair create a breeding ground for extremism.”

The good news was that President Asif Ali Zardari “while far from perfect”, was “pro-American and anti-extremist; we believe he is our best ally in the government”, she said.

This January, however, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, told Indian government officials in Delhi that: “the army was the key decision-maker while President Zardari was increasingly sidelined”. He said the civilian government had a limited capacity to move against groups behind the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008. Pakistan Nuclear weapons Global terrorism Taliban Afghanistan India The US embassy cables US foreign policy US national security Defence policy United States David Leigh guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The United States has added Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation, an Islamic charity group, which was the key aid provider to hundreds and thousands of flood-displaced people this year, to its terrorist black list over its al-Qaeda links.

There were speculations that the notorious Jihadi group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which is blamed for 2008 deadly Mumbai attacks, was using the charity, which also runs ambulances’ fleet across Pakistan, as its front.

Announcing it on the blacklist, State Department’s coordinator for counter-terrorism, Daniel Benjamin said, “LeT has attempted to use Falah-e-Insaniyat as a way to evade scrutiny. This designation will help put to an end to that attempted evasion.”

Benjamin added that the group’s leader Hafiz Abdur Rauf along with two other LeT-linked men Mian Abdullah and Mohammad Naushad Alam Khan were also named on the list of “specially designated global terrorists”.

Meanwhile, the Treasury Department imposed financial sanctions on the foundation’s head to stop the charity from fuelling money to the LeT terror group. Notably, Islamic charities were the first ones to come to rescue and aid hundreds of people with food, shelter and medical care in this year’s devastating floods.

However, the charity group’s leaders rejected the U.S. claims of acting as a front for any terror organization.

“We are just a welfare organization,” said Mian Adil, the Vice President of Falah-e-Insaniat, earlier this year.

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Dead Sea, Jordan (TML) – Nuclear experts from around the world were climbing into craters and clamouring up landslides as they gathered in a desolate corner of Jordan beside the Dead Sea to test their ability to uncover evidence of an unauthorized test explosion.

Some 35 experts from 20 countries poured over the 1,000 square-kilometer (390-square-mile) area during the first two weeks of November, dressed in protective suits and hauling monitors and three-dimensional maps across the desert landscape in the simulation. Later they assembled in campsites to collect and analyze their data.

Jordan itself has no nuclear weapons, nor is it known to aspire to develop them. But, the kingdom does want to become a respected member of the global nuclear community as it embarks on plans to produce energy from atomic power. Fortunately for Jordan, the terrain near the Dead Sea looks like it just experienced a nuclear explosion.

“The sinkholes, landslides, depressions and craters near the Dead Sea provided a perfect venue to conduct the tests,” Matjaz Prah, of the Croatian State Office for Nuclear Safety and director of the 10-day exercise, told The Media Line.

Near Ghour Al-Haditha, a poor farming town, nearly 800 sinkholes big enough to swallow factories and homes punctuate the landscape, the result of Dead Sea’s declining sea level. The sporadic nature of the giant holes is very similar to aftermath of nuclear explosions, explained Prah. Indeed, the massive cavities make the landscape nestling the southern shores of the Dead Sea largely inaccessible to all but the small community of poor farmers who live there.

The exercise was sponsored by the Vienna-based Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), whose task is to develop mechanisms for monitoring the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). The Vienna-based organization includes 153 countries that ratified nuclear ban treaty, in addition to a further 35 states that have agreed to endorse the agreement.

Tibor Toth, the CTBTO’s executive secretary, said the goal of the experiments was to establish worldwide detection system that relies on reports from 337 facilities.

Nearly half of detection facilities are located in the Middle East, said Toth.

While the CTBT has yet to go into force, the five countries allowed to have nuclear weapons have all adopted unilateral moratoriums on nuclear testing. India and Pakistan followed suit after they conducted tests in 1998.

But the risks of unauthorized tests remain. North Korea tested devices in 2006 and 2009 while other countries, including three in the Middle East — Israel, Egypt and Iran — have signed but not ratified the treaty. Israel has never acknowledged having nuclear weapons, but it is believed by foreign experts to have an arsenal of 100 or more. Iran has been accused by the West of secretly developing nuclear technology for military purposes, a claim Tehran denies.

Meanwhile, to Jordan’s north, Syria is suspected of having undertaken a nuclear-development program that was cut short by a September 2007 air raid Damascus accuses Israel of staging. Yukiya Amano, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said November 9th that the nuclear watchdog has been pressing Syria to admit inspectors to at least two suspect sites.

In theory, Jordan could find itself in the middle of a nuclear confrontation between Israel and Iran. But, the exercise on the Dead Sea last week was purely scientific and technical, said Darweesh Jasem, assistant general manager of Jordan’s natural resources department. The exercise also boosted the ability of Jordanians to handle nuclear inspections, which officials see as a facet of the kingdom’s ambition to build its own nuclear reactors.

“We had been proposing holding such an exercise in Jordan since 2004. We are very excited about what we can learn from sharing this type of experience with established experts from the world,” he told The Media Line, noting that at least 13 Jordanian experts were among inspectors.

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The kingdom plans to build a nuclear facility near the port city of Aqaba to provide energy and potable water for the energy-poor, drought-stricken nation. The two 1,000-megawatt reactors it envisions developing over the next 15 years will cost billions of dollars, and even more, if it embarks on the second stage of expanding capacity to four reactors with the potential to produce over half of the kingdom’s electricity needs.

With limited financial resources, Jordan will have to raise capital abroad and convince the world nuclear community that it has the technical ability to undertake such an expensive and sophisticated project, officials in Amman say. Jordan has inked deals on nuclear cooperation with France, South Korea, China, Canada, Russia, Britain and Argentina and is preparing for similar deals with other countries.

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Washiington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The United States has briefed Pakistan on President Barack Obama’s decision to endorse Indian aspirations to join U.N. Security Council with a permanent seat and is leaving it to Islamabad to deal with the facts, according to the State Department.

Answering questions on Friday, PJ Crowley, the State Department spokesman told journalists, “We have briefed the government of Pakistan on the President’s announcement. I’m not aware that there was any particular concern expressed.”

“This (Obama’s support) is a reflection of the growing importance of the region to the rest of the world, and Pakistan should not see this as something that comes at their expense. It does not,” he said at his daily press briefing.

“I think they (Islamabad) understand what we told them, and beyond that, I’ll leave it to the government of Pakistan to describe its own reaction,” Crowley replied when asked about Islamabad’s strong reaction about President Obama’s endorsement of India for the Security Council bid.

Earlier on Monday addressing the joint session of Indian Parliament during his visit, Obama said, “I can say today, in the years ahead, I look forward to a reformed United Nations Security Council that includes India as a permanent member.”

“No one should see this in zero-sum terms. And first of all, understand that there is a process. It involves the Security Council and many countries that will have a say in the possible reform of the UN Security Council,” Crowley added.

Crowley noted that the U.S. had briefed Islamabad Obama’s decision, assuring its ally that his support to the bid is not at its expense.

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New Delhi, India (AHN) – United States President Barack Obama, on the second day of his three-day visit to India, has appreciated New Delhi for its developments and vowed his nation’s support in the world’s largest democracy’s quest for a permanent United Nations Security Council seat.

In a landmark address at the Indian Parliament on Monday, Obama said that India had been an “indispensable” U.S. partner and the relationship between them would one of this century’s defining partnerships.

Obama told dignitaries, “As two global leaders, the United States and India can partner for global security – especially as India serves on the Security Council over the next two years. Indeed the just and sustainable international order that America seeks includes a U.N. that is efficient, effective, credible and legitimate.”

Despite Obama’s timeline, analysts do not expect India to get permanent seat so soon.

Pakistan quickly responded to Obama’s comments and said that Washington should not be swayed by “power politics”. Abdul Basit, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Obama’s comments added complexity in the process of council reforms. “Pakistan hopes that the US will take a moral view and not base itself on any temporary expediency or exigencies of power politics,” he added.

The United States, China, Russia, France and Britain are the permanent five members of the Security Council presently. India, Japan, Brazil and Germany are keen on joining the group.

However, Obama said big authorities mean big responsibilities too and highlighted Myanmar’s human right abuse cases on which India had failed to do enough to condemn it.

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A three-member judges’ bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry heard the suo motu notice of a report which alleged that the SBP had approved a scheme to quietly write off Rs54.6 billion loans obtained from different commercial banks during the government of Pervez Musharraf.

During today’s hearing, Syed Iqbal Haider, the counsel for the SBP, told the court that more than 50 individuals and companies had loans of Rs59.35 billion waived.

Chief Justice Iftikhar, in his remarks, said that if the State Bank of Pakistan wanted, all loans could be returned.

He further said that the people’s money would not be allowed to go to waste.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The United States has refused to comment on the recent admissions of the former Pakistani military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, who in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, said that Pakistan, a close ally of the U.S., trained underground militant groups to fight against India in Kashmir.

Asked to comment on Musharraf’s utterances, PJ Crowley, the State Department spokesman, replied with an emphatic, “No (comments).”

Crowley avoided addressing the issue of whether it can be labeled a case of state-sponsored terrorism when the former (10 year) president of Pakistan makes the statement that he trained terrorists to fight against other countries.

Crowley told journalists, “That’s a very sweeping kind of question I just can’t address here.”

In 1999, Pakistani soldiers and Kashmiri militants infiltrated positions on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) border, which serves as the de facto border between the two nations, triggering the Kargil War.

Commenting on another statement from Musharraf in which he said he had no regrets for the Kargil intrusion by Pakistan, which led to the armed conflict with Indian in 1999, Crowley noted, “This is an issue between Pakistan and India. It is important. There have been successful discussions between Pakistan and India on this subject in recent years.”

“Some of those discussions – very fruitful discussions – occurred between former governments of India and Pakistan. This is an issue that we hope that the two sides can address and resolve, but this is obviously an important bilateral issue between the two governments,” he added.

On the question of how the U.S. views the announcement by Musharraf to run for office in 2013, Crowley said, “It’s a long time between now and 2013. We are engaged deeply with the current civilian government. We’re working hard with this government to address the immediate aftermath of the flooding and the ongoing security challenge that affects Pakistan and the United States.”

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The United States on Friday continued to downplay the closure of a major supply route at the crossing at Torkham Gate along the border of Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan after U.S. helicopters yesterday unknowingly killed several Pakistani border guards.

The Department of Defense spokesman, Col. Dave Lapan, confirmed on Friday to journalists at the Pentagon, “It is still the case, at last reports, that Torkham Gate remains closed,” adding, “We are still discussing with the Pakistan government that Pakistanis resolve this and get it re-opened, but in the meantime, there is still no immediate impact on our operations in Afghanistan.”

At the State Department briefing, spokesman PJ Crowley told journalists about the closed routes, “They’re important. They’re not the only means by which we resupply our efforts in Afghanistan.”

“We’ve got the northern distribution network that we’ve worked out with Russia and other countries in the region as well, but the land supply routes through Pakistan are vitally important,” Crowley added.

Lapan echoed Pakistani reason of “increased tensions” prompting closure of the gate, saying, “What the Pakistani military described to us was that the closure of the gate was due to their concerns over rising tensions.”

The incident is currently under investigation by ISAF and Pakistan’s government, he added.

“The focus of this assessment is defining those activities that happened in the border region,” he said. “The attack implies that the insurgents continue to use that border area to launch attacks, believing that they have refuge.

“Insurgents are attacking from this border region, and we’re countering,” Lapan added. “The exact circumstances of how this came to be and whether protocols were followed — it’s what we’re looking into.”

On the latest attack on NATO convoy in Pakistan, Crowley noted, “We’re not surprised that insurgents have in the past – and have done so again in the past few hours – attacked those routes, and – but they are important and we will work with Pakistan to make sure that we have the best security possible.”

According to reports, a group of militants attacked a NATO convoy carrying fuel and traveling about 250 miles north of Karachi, torching more than two dozen trucks.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The United States on Thursday refused to get bogged down by the unilateral decision by Pakistan to shut down supply routes to the NATO led-ISAF forces in Afghanistan, in retaliation for an air strike.

U.S. Department of Defense spokesman Col. Dave Lapan told journalists at the Pentagon that Pakistani border troops fired at U.S. helicopters and the fire was returned in self-defense.

Citing from a statement “that the Pakistanis put out,” Lapan said, “their forces used rifle fire at the helicopters as a warning and if you fire on a helicopter in a combat zone, they usually take that as hostile and return fire.”

On the question of failure in communications between two sides, Lapan noted that there is a process which is trying to determine “how this happened, why this happened, whether protocols were followed or not.”

During regular state department briefing, PJ Crowley, the spokesman echoed the Pentagon assessment, “We have multiple routes to be able to resupply our forces in Afghanistan,” adding, “ISAF is working with the Pakistani Government to investigate the incident.”

Asked to comment if this is a major disruption or not, Lapan said that it depends on the “duration” of closure of the busy border crossing known as Torkham Gate.

“Right now too soon to tell because we don’t know how long that might last,” noted Lapan, adding, “We are in discussion with the Pakistani government and hope we can resolve the issue through discussion.”

Depending on “the duration of the closure,” Lapan said the “trucks that are there might go to a holding area for a period of time till situation is either resolved or they are re-routed.”

Although the U.S. is hoping the stoppage is “temporary,” Lapan said, “We hope that we are going to resolve the issue by discussing it with the Pakistanis,” reiterating, “But again we have other means of supplying our forces.”

After the incident, ISAF issued a statement saying, “The aircraft received what the crews assessed as effective small arms fire from individuals just across the border in Pakistan. Operating in self defense, the ISAF aircraft entered into Pakistani airspace killing several armed individuals.” 


“ISAF and Pakistani forces are reviewing the operational reporting,” the statement said, adding, “And we will work together to fully investigate this incident.”


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