WAS MARRIOT HOTEL ISLAMABAD AN ATTACK ON U.S. MARINES?? AND WHAT WAS STORED ON FLOORS 4 & 5???

Sunday, 21 September 2008 11:32 www.daily.pk

Was there a top secret and mysterious operation of the US Marines going on inside the Marriott when it was attacked on Saturday evening? No one will confirm it but circumstantial evidence is in abundance.

Witnessed by many, including a PPP MNA and his friends, a US embassy truckload of steel boxes was unloaded and shifted inside the Marriott Hotel on the same night when Admiral Mike Mullen met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and others in Islamabad.

Both the main gates (the entrance and the exit) of the hotel were closed while no one except the US Marines were either allowed to go near the truck or get the steel boxes unloaded or shift them inside the hotel. These steel boxes were not passed through the scanners installed at the entrance of the hotel lobby and were reportedly shifted to the fourth and fifth floors of the Marriott.

Besides several others, PPP MNA Mumtaz Alam Gilani and his two friends, Sajjad Chaudhry, a PPP leader, and one Bashir Nadeem, witnessed this mysterious activity to which no one other than the PPP MNA objected and protested.

A source present there told that after entertaining them with refreshments at the Nadia restaurant at midnight when Mumtaz Alam, along with his friends, was to leave the hotel, he found a white US embassy truck standing right in front of the hotel's main entrance.

Both the In-gate and the Out-gate of the hotel were closed while almost a dozen well-built US Marines in their usual fatigues were unloading the steel boxes from the truck. No one, including the hotel security men, was either allowed to go near the truck or touch the steel boxes, which were being shifted inside the hotel but without passing through the scanners.

Upon inquiry, one of the three PPP friends who was waiting for the main gates of the hotel to open to get his car in, was informed that the suspicious boxes were shifted to the fourth and fifth floors of the hotel. Mumtaz Alam was furious both at the US Marines and the hotel security not only for the delay caused to them but also for the security lapse he was witnessing.

On his protest, there was absolutely no response from the Marines and the security men he approached were found helpless. Mumtaz Alam told the hotel security official that they were going to endanger the hotel and its security. He was also heard telling his friends that he would never visit the hotel again. He also threatened to raise the issue in parliament.

One does not know whether the PPP MNA revisited the hotel after that mysterious midnight but his brother Imtiaz Alam, who is a senior journalist, was in the same hotel when the truck exploded at the main gate of the hotel. Imtiaz Alam had a lucky escape and found his way out of the hotel with great difficulty in pitch darkness.

One of the lifts he was using fell to the ground floor just after he forced the door open on the 4th floor and got out of it.

PAKISTAN BLACK OPS INVADES AMERICA-"WITHOUT PERMISSION"

NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN

By M. Junaid Levesque-Alam

17/09/08 "MRZine" -- -- The U.S. State Department lodged a sharp protest over ongoing Pakistani missile strikes and ground raids today, saying the Islamic Republic was violating American sovereignty.

"We will try to convince Pakistan . . . to respect [the] sovereignty of the United States -- and God willing, we will convince," State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.¹

The controversy stems from the Pakistan Army's recent decision, leaked in a prominent Pakistani newspaper, to mount intensifying air attacks and new ground assaults against extremists hiding in American safe havens across the ocean.

American papers reported that under the new policy, the Pakistani military will no longer seek America's permission in killing Americans, but will inform American diplomats about these killings as a friendly gesture between close allies.²

Pakistan Army General Ashfaq Kayani told reporters outside Islamabad late last night that the new strategy was justified. "We are working to prevent more attacks on the Pakistani people," he said.³

The general's stance signified strong Pakistani dissatisfaction with America's reluctance to crack down on religious fundamentalists and neoconservatives, who, experts note, have deep ties to American intelligence services and military leaders. The largely unchecked extremists, experts observe, have used America to bolster the agenda of their ideological counterparts across the ocean in Israel, and to strike directly against Pakistan and other parts of the Muslim world.

"We have to strike them over there so that they cannot order strikes against us here at home," General Kayani said, referring to American firepower that has terrorized hundreds of thousands of civilians on either side of the Pak-Afghan border and in the Middle East.

As Kayani spoke, new precision attacks and commando raids were being conducted against ranches in Texas, small towns in Alaska, the offices of AIPAC and energy-related lobbying firms in Washington, D.C. Commandos were also dispatched to America's unruly federally-administered Bible Belt, where resentment of government authority runs high.

Several high-value targets were killed in the attacks. Local media outlets claimed 50 civilians were also killed, but these assertions could not be independently verified. Pakistani officials said they would send in their own team to investigate the claims, time permitting.

Seeking to assuage domestic concerns, American officials downplayed the actions of their staunch ally. "The nation should not be upset by the statement of Pakistani General Kayani," White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said in an official statement.⁴ "Pakistan respect U.S. sovereignty and looks at us as partners," she added.⁵

U.S. officials also insisted no secret deal had been reached beforehand allowing Pakistanis to strike inside American territory. "Media reports about authorization for Pakistani raids into the U.S. are incorrect," the American ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, told Fox News last night. She added that the South Asian country had "no aggressive designs or postures" toward America.⁶

Regimes allied to Pakistan, including those in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Palestine, expressed support for the new Pakistani strategy, citing the need to "remove and destroy" strongholds where key militants have masterminded attacks against their countries.⁷

Informed of this, Ambassador Patterson appeared unfazed, saying, "Pakistan respects American sovereignty." She insisted that Pakistani officials provided her with assurances that "no such order had been given" for new rules of engagement.⁸ Finally, the ambassador explained, America had already carried out its own recent military offensive that left hundreds of rural Americans dead, relieving the need for further Pakistani intervention.

But in Islamabad, Pakistani corps commanders said their new strategy would see continued implementation in the coming weeks. Speaking on condition of anonymity, one commander said that as far as Pakistan was concerned, "most things have been settled in terms of how we're going to proceed."⁹

Notes

Except for note 2, all the above-quoted statements are real quotes; only the roles have been switched.

1 Quote actually taken from Pakistani PM Yousaf Gilani. Reuters, Sept. 12, 2008. (http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=343756)

2 It was actually the Pakistan daily, Dawn, which reported on the U.S. policy shift as follows: "Under this new policy, the US military will notify Pakistan's government when it conducts raids, but will not seek its permission." Sept. 12, 2008.

3 Quote actually taken from US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen. Dawn (Pakistan Daily), Sept. 12, 2008.

4 Quote actually taken from PM Gilani. (Source: note 3)

5 Quote actually taken from Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani. (Source: note 3)

6 Quotes actually taken from Ambassador Haqqani. (Source: note 3)

7 Quote actually taken from U.S. ally and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Washington Post, Sept. 12, 2008. ()

8 Quotes actually taken from Ambassador Haqqani. (Source: note 7)

9 Quote actually taken from anonymous U.S. official. (Source: note 7)

---

M. Junaid Levesque-Alam is a Pakistani-American who blogs about America and Islam at Crossing the Crescent (www.crossingthecrescent.com). He writes about American Muslim identity for WireTap magazine and has been published in CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, The Nation (online), and The American Muslim. He works as a communications coordinator for an anti-domestic violence agency in the NYC area and obtained his undergraduate degree in journalism from Northeastern University. He can be reached at: junaidalam1 AT gmail.com

US ACCUSED OF BACKING TERRORISM IN PAKISTAN

Pakistan has accused the US of backing militancy within the country, saying this goes against the grain of the Washington-led global war against terror.

Quoting "impeccable official sources", The News reported on Tuesday that "strong evidence and circumstantial evidence of American acquiescence to terrorism inside Pakistan" was outlined by President Pervez Musharraf, army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj in separate meetings with two senior US officials in Islamabad on July 12.

The visit of the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and CIA Deputy Director Stephen R. Kappes, "carrying what were seen as India-influenced intelligence inputs had hardened the resolve of Pakistan's security establishment to keep supreme Pakistan's national security interest even if it meant straining ties with the US and NATO", the newspaper said.

It quoted a senior official with direct knowledge of the meetings as saying that Pakistan's military leadership and the president asked the American visitors "not to distinguish between a terrorist for the United States and Afghanistan and a terrorist for Pakistan".

"For reasons best known to Langley, the CIA headquarters, as well as the Pentagon, Pakistani officials say the Americans were not interested in disrupting the Kabul-based fountainhead of terrorism in Balochistan nor do they want to allocate the marvellous Predator (unmanned armed aerial combat vehicle) resource to neutralise the kingpin of suicide bombings against the Pakistani military establishment now hiding near the Pakistan-Afghan border," The News said.

During the meetings, the US officials were also asked why the CIA-run Predators and the US military did not swing into action when they were provided the exact location of tribal leader Baitullah Mehsud, "Pakistan's enemy number one and the mastermind of almost every suicide operation against the Pakistan Army and the ISI since June 2006", the newspaper added.

One such precise piece of information was made available to the CIA May 24 when Mehsud drove to a remote South Waziristan mountain post in his Toyota Land Cruiser to address the media and returned to his safe abode.

"The United States military has the capacity to direct a missile to a precise location at very short notice as it has done close to 20 times in the last few years to hit Al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan," The News noted.

Pakistani officials, according to the newspaper, "have long been intrigued by the presence of highly encrypted communications gear with Mehsud. This communication gear enables him to collect real-time information on Pakistani troop movements from an unidentified foreign source without being intercepted by Pakistani intelligence".

Mullen and the CIA official were in Pakistan on an unannounced visit July 12 to present what the US media claimed was evidence of the ISI's ties with Taliban commander Maulana Sirajuddin Haqqani and the alleged involvement of Pakistani agents in the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul.

"Pakistani military leaders rubbished the American information and evidence on the Kabul bombing but provided some rationale for keeping a window open with Haqqani, just as the British government had decided to open talks with some Taliban leaders in southern Afghanistan last year," The News said.