Baluchistan, Gateway To Iran, To Be Fenced

Iran to wall off Baluchistan border – By  Kamal Hyder in Taftan, Baluchistan

Trade between Pakistan and Iran is flourishing, with goods worth millions of dollars passing across the border between the two countries. But the porous border has become a haven for smugglers, and a security headache for both sides.
Iran is building a controversial wall along the border, which it says will help ease the problem.

Pakistan’s paramilitary force regularly patrols the border with Iran. They’re on the lookout for guns, drugs and illegal immigrants. But all they find tonight is fuel smugglers. Some parked trucks are waiting for cheap Iranian fuel smuggled by camels and Iranian-made pickup trucks. But while it may be quiet here tonight, their comrades are trading fire along the Afghan frontier with narcotics traders. They have lost many men to an enemy that has fast vehicles and plenty of firepower.
Iran is constructing a concrete wall and many locals suspect they may seal off the entire frontier. Just over the hills, less than 100km is Pakistan’s frontier with Afghanistan.

But for now, Iran has left gaps for locals to cross at what they call the Easement Gate and carry essential commodities. Both the governments have agreed that there should be easement rights, in spite of the fact that Iran is building a huge wall along its frontier with Pakistan. Commercial trade between the two countries is growing. It is now over $250m, almost double of last year’s. Pakistan, Iran and India want to build a pipeline that will travel over Baluchistan’s challenging terrain. And security forces are already beefing up their strength in an area that is of vital importance as a corridor for the country’s future gas and oil pipelines.

The concern about “smugglers” is a great cover for Iran’s growing concern about covert infiltration by CIA recruited tribesmen.  Both US and British intelligence operatives have been supporting “anti-Iranian” groups in Pakistan’s “remote border regions. Gholamali Haddadadel, speaker of Iran’s parliament,  accused the US of trying to put pressure on the government in Tehran.  Another Bush Armeggedon tactic?

An ABC news interview revealed US and Pakistani intelligence sources use a group, called Jundullah, made up of members of the Baluchi ethnic group, who live in Pakistan and Iran, operated from the Baluchistan province, the report said.
ABC reported Pakistani government sources as saying the secret campaign against Iran was on the agenda when Dick Cheney, the US vice president, met Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, in February 2007.

U.S. Government Uses Al-Qaeda To Attack Iran

Recent revelations illustrating the fact that the U.S. government is using a Sunni Al-Qaeda terrorist group formerly headed by the alleged mastermind of 9/11 to carry out bombings in Iran undermines the entire war on terror as a monumental hoax that is being exploited purely to realize a geopolitical agenda.

“President George W Bush has given the CIA approval to launch covert “black” operations to achieve regime change in Iran, intelligence sources have revealed. Mr Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilise, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.”

“The CIA is giving arms-length support, supplying money and weapons, to an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan,” the London Telegraph reported yesterday.

Jundullah is a Sunni Al-Qaeda offshoot organization that was formerly headed by alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Even if you believe the official story of 9/11 to the letter, the fact that Bush has personally authorized U.S. support for this group completely dismantles the facade of the war on terror.

CIA / Jundullah Links:
Information Clearinghousehouse
Trinicenter
TruthOut
Jerusalem Post

WAKE UP! Musharraf In Trouble While The US Sleeps …

This is part of an OP-ED re-post from Munaeem’s Blog

 

Monday, June 11, 2007

 

TIME TO SAVE PAKISTAN FROM ITS RULER

by Eric Margolis

( The concerns expressed in this article are shared by every Pakistani and every friend of Pakistan. However, the solution is not elections that might return Benazir or Nawaz Sharif to power. They plundered the country and were even more obesquious to ‘friend’ USA and ‘enemy’ India who are strategic partners in the region. Pakistan needs an interim Government of patriots as provide for in the Constitution to change laws and reverse policies to undo the damage done since 1989.) Usman Khalid.

The US media should be focused on critical events that shape our lives, NOT Paris Hilton! While we are sleeping, world events and repercussions from our administration setting global fires are about to complicate everything! How long can America dismiss responsibility?

Hailed by Washington as a `democratic statesman,’ Musharraf has arrested and jailed thousands of people without trial. Many have been tortured. Elections are crudely rigged, legislators and judges bribed, and most of the army and intelligence service’s most capable, patriotic officers, were replaced at Washington’s demand by compliant yes-men untainted by Islam. Now, Musharraf’s security forces are intimidating Pakistan’s free press, one of its few remaining active democratic institutions.

What an irony that while Washington claims to be waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan to bring democracy, it is stoutly upholding Pakistan’s military dictatorship.

Musharraf outraged his countrymen by obsequiously kow-towing to foreign demands while neglecting Pakistan’s needs. Turning Pakistan into Washington’s sepoy(native soldier) in exchange for billions in overt and hundreds of millions more in secret CIA stipends used to rent loyalty to the military regime has shamed many Pakistanis and further enflamed anti-western groups in this important nation of 162.5 million.

Now, thanks in part to Musharraf’s wrongheaded policies over Afghanistan, the conflict there is starting to lap across Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier. Pakistan is facing one of the gravest national crises since its creation in 1947 as a beacon of honest, democratic government for the Muslim World. Sixty years later, Pakistan has become a poster child for self-serving, undemocratic government that often does not even represent the best interests of the nation.

The Bush Administration keeps patting Musharraf on the back as unrest worsens and Pakistan heads toward a potential explosion that could destabilize the entire region and leave US and NATO forces in southern Afghanistan cut off and vulnerable. The west cannot afford to let Pakistan melt-down.

Quickly restoring democratic government is the obvious answer. Pakistan’s banned opposition leaders, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, must be allowed to return and wage free elections. While burdened by a lot of negative baggage from her previous stints as prime minister, Miss Bhutto still appears as the most effective antidote to the current military regime and deserves strong western support. One hopes that recent rumors of a Benazir-Musharraf deal are no more than idle bazaar chatter. If they are true, then she will become as discredited as Musharraf.

Washington needs to press Musharraf to retire as armed forces chief. Musharraf is dragging down Pakistan with his unpopular, isolated regime. If he is as popular as he claims, let him run for office in a fair, democratic politician.

Time is fast running out. A nuclear-armed Pakistan facing regional, tribal and ethnic unrest or conflict is a hugely dangerous threat demanding urgent action. Pakistan must not be sacrificed for the sake of its leader.

This administration has put it’s finger in so many pies and stirred up so much trouble that, when all these little fires explode, the world will certainly experience the Bush Armageddon. Are we really prepared for the conflagration?

The US history of manipulation is about to come back and BITE all of us! Are we really Americans or blind sheep stampeding over a cliff?