HAIL STORM in LAHORE

Posted on February 26, 2011 by | 3 Comments

By  Umair Ghani

Hail storm struck Lahore for 30 minutes this evening. it was something about which some kids had no idea! I had just arrived to shoot a few pics. LOVED THE EXPRESSION of SURPRISE and a little AORRY on these two faces.

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3 Responses to HAIL STORM in LAHORE

  1. AGHA PASHA | February 28, 2011 at 7:32 am | Reply

    No Hailstrom photos ?

  2. Malik Tehseen Awan | February 28, 2011 at 6:52 pm | Reply

    raw and mossad vs ISI
    In September 1968, when India’s Research and Analysis Wing was founded with Rameshwar Nath Kao at its helm, then prime minister Indira Gandhi asked him to cultivate Israel’s Mossad. She believed relations between the two intelligence agencies was necessary to monitor developments that could threaten India and Israel.

    The efficient spymaster he was, Kao established a clandestine relationship with Mossad. In the 1950s, New Delhi had permitted Tel Aviv to establish a consulate in Mumbai. But full-fledged diplomatic relations with Israel were discouraged because India supported the Palestinian cause; having an Israeli embassy in New Delhi, various governments believed, would rupture its relations with the Arab world.

    This was where the RAW-Mossad liaison came in. Among the threats the two external intelligence agencies identified were the military relationship between Pakistan and China and North Korea, especially after then Pakistan foreign minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto visited Pyongyang in 1971 to establish a military relationship with North Korea.

    Again, Israel was worried by reports that Pakistani army officers were training Libyans and Iranians to handle Chinese and North Korean military equipment.

    RAW-Mossad relations were a secret till Morarji Desai became Prime Minister in 1977. RAW officials had alerted him about the Zia-ul Haq regime’s plans to acquire nuclear capability. While French assistance to Pakistan for a plutonium reprocessing plant was well known, the uranium enrichment plant at Kahuta was a secret. After the French stopped helping Islamabad under pressure from the Carter administration, Pakistan was determined to keep the Kahuta plant a secret. Islamabad did not want Washington to prevent its commissioning.

    RAW agents were shocked when Desai called Zia and told the Pakistani military dictator: ‘General, I know what you are up to in Kahuta. RAW has got me all the details.’ The prime minister’s indiscretion threatened to expose RAW sources.

    The unfortunate revelation came about the same time that General Moshe Dayan, hero of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, was secretly visiting Kathmandu for a meeting with Indian representatives. Islamabad believed Dayan’s visit was connected with a joint operation by Indian and Israeli intelligence agencies to end Pakistan’s nuclear programme.

    Apprehensive about an Indo-Israeli air strike on Kahuta, surface-to-air missiles were mounted around the uranium enrichment plant. These fears grew after the Israeli bombardment of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981.

    Zia decided Islamabad needed to reassure Israel that it had nothing to fear from Pakistan’s nuclear plans. Intermediaries — Americans close to Israel — established the initial contacts between Islamabad and Tel Aviv. Israel was confidant the U.S would not allow Pakistan’s nuclear capability to threaten Israel. That is why Israeli experts do not mention the threat from Pakistan when they refer to the need for pre-emptive strikes against Iraq, Iran and Libya’s nuclear schemes.

    By the early 1980s, the [U.S] had discovered Pakistan’s Kahuta project. By then northwest Pakistan was the staging ground for mujahideen attacks against Soviet troops in Afghanistan and Zia no longer feared U.S objections to his nuclear agenda. But Pakistani concerns over Israel persisted, hence Zia decided to establish a clandestine relationship between Inter-Services Intelligence and Mossad via officers of the two services posted at their embassies in Washington, DC.

    The ISI knew Mossad would be interested in information about the Libyan, Syrian, Jordanian and Saudi Arabian military. Pakistani army officers were often posted on deputation in the Arab world — in these very countries — and had access to valuable information, which the ISI offered Mossad.

    When young Israeli tourists began visiting the Kashmir valley in the early nineties Pakistan suspected they were Israeli army officers in disguise to help Indian security forces with counter-terrorism operations. The ISI propaganda inspired a series of terrorist attacks on the unsuspecting Israeli tourists. One was slain, another kidnapped.

    The Kashmiri Muslim Diaspora in the U.S feared the attacks would alienate the influential Jewish community who, they felt, could lobby the U.S government and turn it against Kashmiri organisations clamouring for independence. Soon after, presumably caving into pressure, the terrorists released the kidnapped Israeli. During negotiations for his release, Israeli government officials, including senior intelligence operatives, arrived in Delhi.

    The ensuing interaction with Indian officials led to India establishing embassy-level relations with Israel in 1992. The decision was taken by a Congress prime minister — P.V.Narasimha Rao — whose government also began pressing the American Jewish lobby for support in getting the US to declare Pakistan a sponsor of terrorism. The lobbying bore some results.

    The US State Department put Pakistan on a ‘watch-list’ for six months in 1993. The Clinton administration ‘persuaded’ then Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif to dismiss Lieutenant General Javed Nasir, then director general of the ISI. The Americans were livid that the ISI refused to play ball with the CIA who wanted to buy unused Stinger missiles from the Afghan mujahideen, then in power in Kabul.

    After she returned to power towards the end of 1993, Benazir Bhutto intensified the ISI’s liaison with Mossad. She too began to cultivate the American Jewish lobby. Benazir is said to have a secret meeting in New York with a senior Israeli emissary, who flew to the US during her visit to Washington, DC in 1995 for talks with Clinton.

    From his days as Bhutto’s director general of military operations, Pervez Musharraf has been a keen advocate of Pakistan establishing diplomatic relations with the state of Israel.

    The new defence relationship between India and Israel — where the Jewish State has become the second-biggest seller of weapons to India, after Russia — bothered Musharraf no end. Like another military dictator before him, the Pakistan president is also wary that the fear of terrorists gaining control over Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal could lead to an Israel-led pre-emptive strike against his country.

    Musharraf is the first Pakistani leader to speak publicly about diplomatic relations with Israel. His pragmatic corps commanders share his view that India’s defence relationship with Israel need to be countered and are unlikely to oppose such a move. But the generals are wary of the backlash from the streets. Recognising Israel and establishing an Israeli embassy in Islamabad would be unacceptable to the increasingly powerful mullahs who see the United States, Israel and India as enemies of Pakistan and Islam.

  3. Malik Tehseen Awan | February 28, 2011 at 6:57 pm | Reply

    ISI’s Role in Politics

    Document Number: FBIS-NES-97-230
    Document Date: 18 Aug 1997
    Sourceline: BK1908021197 Islamabad The Nation in English 17 Aug 97 p 4
    Subslug: Article by Altaf Gauhar: “How Intelligence Agencies Run Our
    Politics”

    I had an opportunity to watch quite closely the working of our
    intelligence agencies during the 1965 war with India. At that time the
    Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was headed by Brigadier Riaz Hussain, who
    later became the Governor of Balochistan, the Military Intelligence (MI)
    was under Brigadier Muhammad Irshad and A.B. Awan was the Director of the
    Intelligence Bureau (DIB). Each agency had its own sphere of duties but
    they had a common goal — preserving the national security. Since there is
    hardly any significant political activity, domestic or foreign, national or
    international, which does not, directly or indirectly, impinge on national
    security, there was much overlapping in the work of the three agencies.
    Despite the all-embracing definition of national security unnecessary
    conflict in day to day working was avoided as the lSl and the MI confined
    themselves to matters of direct military interest and the IB concentrated
    on domestic political activities. The DIB reported directly to the Prime
    Minister and the two military agencies to the Commander-in-Chief of the
    Army (C-in-C). It was left to the C-in-C to bring all matters of interest
    to the notice of the Prime Minister through the Ministry of Defence.
    This arrangement continued fairly smoothly until the imposition of
    Martial Law in 1958. I was in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat during the
    last days of parliamentary government in 1957-58 and Malik Feroz Khan Noon
    used to get reports of the contacts which military intelligence agencies
    were making with the political leaders of different parties. There was
    little that he could do about it since President Iskander Mirza was drawing
    up his own plan of action to put an end to parliamentary rule in collusion
    with the C-in-C, General Ayub Khan. Noon was resisting Mirza’s pressure to
    grant a four-year extension of term to Ayub Khan. I remember Ayub Khan
    bursting into my office one afternoon in full, uniform. I was relieved when
    he said: “Since the Principal Secretary has gone for lunch I thought I
    would ask you to request the Prime Minister to stay with me in Rawalpindi
    when he comes on a formal visit next week.” He left the room before I
    could recover my breath. When I conveyed the message to the PM he said: “I
    know he wants me to give him an extension of term. His term does not end
    till 1959. Why is he in such a hurry?” Years later when I mentioned this
    incident to Ayub Khan he said: “The fellow was under the influence of his
    wife. He wanted to promote General Sher Ali. My boys were keeping tabs on
    him.”
    Once the Martial Law was promulgated in 1958 all the intelligence
    agencies came under the direct control of the President and Chief Martial
    Law Administrator. The maintenance of national Security, which was the
    principal function of these agencies, came to mean the consolidation of the
    Ayub regime; any criticism of the regime was seen a threat to national
    security. The three intelligence agencies started competing with each other
    in demonstrating their loyalty to Ayub Khan and his system of government.
    Since Ayub Khan was reluctant to increase the military budget, neither the
    ISI nor the MI could post their officers in the districts and because of
    that limitation their domestic activities remained quite restrained. But
    they continued to be assigned specific duties to keep a watch on
    ‘undesirable’ politicians and civil servants.
    When I came to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, I found a
    psychological warfare unit under operation in the office of the Secretary.
    It was, headed by Col Mujibur Rahman, who later became the Secretary of the
    Ministry in the Ziaul Haq regime. Was it an intelligence plant meant to
    keep an eye on the working of the civil government? Whatever its purpose, I
    found it a complete waste of time and I was able to persuade the President
    to have it recalled by the GHQ.
    The President used to receive regular reports on the political
    situation in the country from the ISI and the MI. These reports in sealed
    envelopes marked ‘Eyes Only’ were usually handed over to the President by
    the C-in-C. On a few occasions the President gave me these reports and it
    seemed to me that the agencies were keeping the politicians, particularly
    the East Pakistanis, under close surveillance. I rarely found anything
    insightful in these reports. The DIB had direct access to the President and
    his weekly reports used to be fairly exhaustive. It was during the
    presidential election in l964 that the ISI and the MI became extremely
    active.. While the DIB gave the President a detailed, assessment of his
    prospects in the election the ISI and the MI kept him informed of th e
    trend of public opinion based largely on gossip. The election results
    showed that the three agencies had seriously under estimated the popularity
    of Mohtrama Miss Fatima Jinnah and given Ayub Khan too optimistic a picture
    of his prospects.
    The crisis of intelligence came during the 1965 war. Brigadier Riaz
    was good enough to show me his set-up, an impressive affair judging by the
    sophisticated equipment and the operators at work. He told me that he had
    contacts inside the Occupied Kashmir and in other major Indian cities. “I
    will flood you with news. Don’t worry”. When the war started there was a
    complete blackout of news from all the intellience agencies. When I got
    nothing out of the ISI for two days I went to Brigadier Riaz only to learn
    that all his contacts had gone underground.
    The performance of the MI was even more frustrating. The mobile
    transmitter which the MI had acquired to broadcast the Voice of Kashmir
    conked out and Brigadier Irshad came to me to find him a spare transmitter.
    When I told him that it would take at least a month to import another
    transmitter he pleaded with me to take over the broadcast part of the
    operation. “How can I do that I know nothing about the operation?” I
    protested. “But that is the beauty of it.” said Irshad, “even I know very
    little about it.” It did not take the Indians long to extract the whole
    operational plan out of the ‘infiltrators’ whom they captured the moment
    they entered the Indian occupied territory in Kashmir. Four of them were
    put on All India Radio to make a public confession. I heard the details of
    the operation on the air in utter disbelief. I rushed to Muzaffarabad to
    acquaint Irshad with what I had heard. He fell back in his chair and
    moaned: “The bastards have spilt the beans.”
    After the cease-fire I brought these incidents to Ayub Khan’s notice
    and urged him to review the working of these agencies. “They have no idea
    of intelligence work,” I submitted “all they can do is investigative work
    like sub-inspectors of police, tapping telephone conversations and chasing
    the suspects.” Much later Ayub Khan set up a committee to examine the
    working of the agencies under General the Yahya Khan. Both A.B. Awan and I
    were members of the committee. The GHQ tried to put all the blame on IB for
    their own incompetence. Yahya wanted the committee to recommend that
    officers of ISI and the Ml should be posted at district headquarters. Awan
    strongly opposed the idea and I backed him. We could not understand the
    purpose of getting the military agencies involved in domestic
    administration. As we left the meeting Awan said to me “They are planning
    to impose martial law.” He proved right though it took the Army quite some
    time to get rid of Ayub Khan after unleashing a popular campaign against
    him.
    The intelligence agencies got even more deeply involved in domestic
    politics under General Yahya Khan. The ISI jumped headlong into the
    Political crisis in East Pakistan. A National Security Council was created
    under the chairmanship of General Yahya Khan with Major General Ghulam Umar
    as second in command to control the intelligence operation which was meant
    to ensure that no political party should get an overall majority in the
    general election. An amount of Rs 29 lac was put at the disposal of General
    Umar for the purpose. Before the Army action General Akbar, who was the
    head of the ISI and with whom I had good relations when I was in service,
    requested me that I should introduce him to some Bengali academics and
    journalists. The ISI was trying to infiltrate into the inner circles of the
    Awami League. Had I given him any names they too have been put on Rao
    Farman Ali’s hit list of Bengali intellectuals. The operation proved a
    total disaster. Lawrence Ziring says: “New efforts at a political solution
    might have been attempted later, but army intelligence failed time and
    again to correctly assess the situation, and the demeanor of the generals
    was hardly conducive to rational decision-making.” (Lawrence Ziring, The
    Tragedy of East Pakistan, OUP, 1997). For General (retd) Aslam Beg to claim
    on solemn oath before the Supreme Court of Pakistan that the ISI got
    involved in the internal politics of the country only after a special cell
    was created by Prime Minister Bhutto in 1975 is a culpable attempt at
    concealing the truth and distorting the record of the operations of the
    military intelligence agencies since independence. The present government
    has only to report to the Supreme Court that the ISI deals with matters
    relating to Pakistan’s national security and that would be the end of
    Asghar Khan’s writ petition against Aslam Beg. Who will provide a
    definition of national security to rule out the involvement of the ISI and
    the MI in domestic politics which is seen as the biggest threat to the
    security and solidarity of Pakistan?

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