26/11 TERRORISTS’ CALLS TRACED TO PAK SERVING COL R. SADATULLAH

The threat posed by al-Qaeda and the Taliban would grow if sustained action is not taken against them in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, a top US intelligence official said today. "They get stronger," Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence during an open hearing in response to a question from a lawmaker. When asked "does the threat that it poses to us grow?", Blair said: "Yes". "Right now, FATA is the headquarters of al-Qaeda," the top US intelligence official, who overseas as many 17 US intelligence agencies, said in response to a question from Congressman Mac Thornberry. "They've operated from other places in the past. In Africa, there are al-Qaeda affiliates, in the Maghreb, in Northern Africa, in Yemen, in Iraq. So, the most convenient and hospitable place for them right now is the place (FATA) that you described. But we are concerned about their ability to move around. It's kind of like toothpaste in a tube," Blair said. He said the primary objective of al-Qaeda in the US is another spectacular, large, people-killing attack. "That's what they seem to be thinking about," he said in response to another question.
WHO IS PAK COL SADATULLAH?
The VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) calls made by the 26/11 terrorists to their handlers have been traced to a serving colonel of the Pakistani army, investigations have revealed. Although the 11,509-page chargesheet in the 26/11 case filed by the Mumbai police on Wednesday does not spell this out explicitly, it does name the officer as Colonel R Sadatullah from the SCO, reports The Times of India.
The SCO, army sources say, stands for Special Communications Organization, a telecommunications agency of the Pakistani government which is run by officers from the army's signals corps and operates only in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the conflict-wracked Northern Areas. During the 58-hour siege of Mumbai, a total of 284 calls, running into 995 minutes, were made by the terrorists using mobile phones from the Taj Mahal hotel, Oberoi-Trident and Nariman House to their handlers in Pakistan. They took the minutest of instructions from their handlers sitting in Pakistan. The Pak-based co-conspirators also gave their agents in Mumbai pep talks to keep them going. The chargesheet says that the calls which were made over VoIP — a cheap way of making international calls using the net — were traced back to an IP address created with Callphonex, a VoIP service provider based in New Jersey, USA. The payments for this were made by opening an account in the name of Kharak Singh from India. However, the payments to this account were made on two occasions by wire transfer through MoneyGram and Western Union Money Transfer by two Pakistani nationals, Javed Iqbal and Mohammed Ishtiaq. These two, while communicating with Callphonex, used the e-mail id kharak_telco@yahoo.com. This e-mail id was accessed from at least 10 IP addresses, says the chargesheet. One of them, 118.107.140.138, belongs to Col R Sadatullah whose official address is SCO, Qasim Rd, Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Sadatullah's official e-mail id is pmit@sco.gov.pk, which police say is the official e-mail service for all SCO officers. One of the wanted accused is `Major General sahab' whose name crops up repeatedly in the taped conversation between the terrorists and their handlers. Incidentally, the general manager of SCO happens to be Major General Muhammad Khalid Rao, who joined the Signals Corps in 1979
Asked about the involvement of the Pakistani army, joint commissioner (crime) Rakesh Maria said, ``We are looking into the involvement of two army personnel, who could be supposedly serving or retired.'' The chargesheet is against 38 persons, 35 of them yet to be apprehended. The three who are in police custody include the lone Pakistani terror operative caught alive, Ajmal Amir Kasab, and two Indians, Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin Ansari. The 35 wanted accused include high-profile Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives. Kasab was not brought to court because of security concerns. Described as an LeT operative responsible for the conspiracy and the attack on Mumbai, he was charged under nine different laws, including waging war on the government of India under the Indian Penal Code. The other charges are under the Foreigners' Act, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, the Railways Protection Act, the Explosives Act, the Explosive Substances Act, the Arms Act, the Bombay Police Act and the Customs Act.

Pak Taliban Commanders Bury Rift

TOP PAK TALIBAN COMMANDERS JOIN HANDS TO FIGHT ‘ENEMY’

By Vaidehi Sachin
In a dramatic development, three prominent Pakistani militant commanders — Baitullah Mehsud, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazeer ñ on Friday set aside their differences and promised to jointly fight their enemy in future.A senior militant commander of Maulvi Nazeer group told The News on condition of anonymity that all the three militant commanders, in a meeting held somewhere in the South Waziristan Agency, resolved all their differences and promised to live peacefully with each other in future.
“I am extremely excited today. It’s an Eid for us. I even danced and fired shots in the air as we succeeded in removing misunderstandings created by the Pakistan government,” remarked the Taliban commander while talking to The News from Wana by telephone.
He said senior Pakistani and Afghan Taliban commanders had played a role in resolving differences among the three militant commanders. He said a 14-member Shura was formed after their final meeting that would comprise banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, Taliban commander in North Waziristan and Maulvi Nazeer, militant commander in South Waziristan.
Ten other people had been drawn from Baitullah Mehsud’s tribe, Gul Bahadur’s Utmanzai Wazir tribe and Maulvi Nazeer’s Ahmadzai Wazir tribe. The Taliban commander said in an earlier meeting it was suggested to nominate Maulvi Nazeer as the new head of the organisation. However, Maulvi Nazeer expressed his unwillingness to head the organisation and left the matter to the next meeting of the Shura.
The commander said all the three militant groups pardoned each other for the previous killings of their people and material losses.When asked whether Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazeer would become a part of the TTP, the commander said it would be decided in the next meeting. Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who is the Taliban chief in North Waziristan, had signed a peace accord with the government on Feb 17, 2008 and was considered a pro-government militant commander as he ceased attacks on security forces and government installations. However, the frequent drone attacks by the US forces in his tribal region have annoyed him.On one occasion, when Baitullah Mehsud’s TTP became a serious threat to the government, the government tried to unite other militant groups against Baitullah Mehsud, thus, bringing together Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazeer.
Maulvi Nazeer, who is the chief of Ahmadzai Wazir Taliban militants in South Waziristan, was until now considered a pro-government militant commander as he had led an armed campaign against the Uzbek nationals, evicting them from his soil after bloody clashes.He later lost some of his senior commanders in attacks by unknown people, but he blamed his rival Uzbeks for it.Nazeer also accused Baitullah Mehsud and his men of sheltering the Uzbeks on their soil but Baitullah always denied the charges.
If the three men, who now rule South and North Waziristan tribal region in true sense, got united, they could give a tough time to the government in future.The militants from Wana said now they had understood Pakistan’s divide and rule policy, and decided to get united and fight together against it in future. “Pakistan caused more losses to the Mujahideen than the US. It handed over 700 Arab Mujahideen to the US and jailed our people,” the commander alleged.Responding to a question, he said the issue of Uzbeks had been resolved but didn’t mention whether the Ahmadzai Wazirs would like to welcome them back to Wana and Azam Warsak. He, however, added: “We respect the Mujahideen.”

British Muslims Sending Electronic Devices To Taliban

BRITISH ARMY TELLS MINISTER, BRITISH MUSLIMS SENDING
ELECTRONIC DEVICES FOR ROADSIDE BOMBS
By Vaidehi Sachin

The Daily Telegraph, London, in an exclusive report says that British Muslims are providing the Taliban with electronic devices to make roadside bombs for use in attacks against British forces serving in southern Afghanistan.
Con Coughlin, Telegraph correspondent, who visited Helmand province in Afghanistan reports that the devices, which enable Taliban fighters to detonate roadside bombs by remote control, are either sent to sympathizers in the region, or carried by volunteers who fly to Pakistan and then make their way across the border.
Details of how British electronic components have been found in roadside bombs were given to David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, when he visited British troops at their military compound at Lashkagar, in Helmand province, earlier this week.
In a briefing on British operations in southern Afghanistan by Brigadier Gordon Messenger, the Royal Marine commander of the British battlegroup, Mr Miliband was shown examples of the crude, home-made devices that are being used in attacks against British patrols. They included mobile phones filled with explosives, which could kill or seriously injure British soldiers patrolling on foot, and more sophisticated devices that can be used against military vehicles.Explosives experts who have examined the devices say they have found British-made electronic components that enable Taliban insurgents to detonate their home-made, road-side bombs by remote control.The electronic devices smuggled into Afghanistan from Britain range from basic remote control units that are normally used to fly model airplanes to more advanced components that enable insurgents to conduct attacks from up to a mile away from British patrols.

"We have found electronic components in devices used to target British troops that originally come from Britain," a British explosives officer told Mr Miliband during a detailed briefing on the type of improvised explosive device (IED) used against British forces. When asked how the components had reached Afghanistan, the officer explained that they had either been sent from Britain, or physically brought to Afghanistan by British Muslims who had flown over.The disclosure is the latest in a string of suggestions from British commanders about the connections between British Muslims and violence in Afghanistan. In August, Brigadier Ed Butler, the former commander of UK forces in Afghanistan, told the Telegraph that there are "British passport holders" in the Taliban ranks. Other officers believe their soldiers have killed British Muslims fighting alongside the Taliban.And last year, it was revealed that RAF Nimrod surveillance planes monitoring Taliban radio signals in Afghanistan had heard militants speaking with Yorkshire and Midlands accents British commanders have recorded a significant rise in the use of IEDs during the past two years, partly the result of the success British forces have recorded in defeating the Taliban in conventional attacks."We've really hit the Taliban hard, and the only way they can respond is to rely more heavily on IEDs and similar weapons," said a British officer.
The number of IED attacks against British forces has risen from an average of 27 percent of attacks in 2007 to an estimated 55 percent so far this year. A significant proportion of the 145 British service personnel killed on active duty in Afghanistan have been killed by improvised roadside bombs.British military officers say the devices used in Afghanistan are not as sophisticated as those used against British forces in Iraq, and that Taliban insurgents need to be able to physically monitor British patrols when carrying out attack.
Details of the British link to IEDs were provided to Mr Miliband during his 48-hour fact-finding mission to Afghanistan earlier this week where he met military and government officials to assess the level of progress being made by British and coalition forces as the current military deployment enters its fourth year. British officials are expected to come under pressure from U.S. President Barack Obama to add to the 8,300 British service personnel currently serving in Afghanistan as Washington prepares to undertake a military surge similar to the one that was so successful in Iraq. Obama has already pledged to send an extra 17,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan this year, and he is now expected to pressure other Nato countries – including Britain – to follow suit. The original 2001 Western invasion of Afghanistan was triggered by al-Qaeda's September 11 attacks on the US. The Taliban regime in Kabul had sheltered the al-Qaeda leadership, which is now based in the lawless Afghan-Pakistan border region.
Some Western intelligence agencies believe Osama bin Laden's group is now able to operate largely freely in the area. However, bin Laden is facing an ideological revolt by one of al-Qaeda's founding leaders who blames, blaming him for "every drop" of blood spilt in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, who goes by the nom de guerre Dr Fadl, helped bin Laden create al-Qaeda and then led an Islamist insurgency in Egypt in the 1990s. But after a change of heart, he has launched a public denunciation of the group. His latest book, which has been serialised in newspapers across the Arab world, amounts to a frontal attack on al-Qaeda's ideology and on the personal failings of bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

26/11 PROBE: MONEY FROM PAK USED TO BUY VoIP CARD

The FBI investigations into the November terror attack have established a Pakistan link to the payments made for the VoIP card from Callphonex of the US. VoIP allows one to make cheap phone calls over Internet and payment for it can be made by wire transfer from anywhere in the world. ‘‘We have traced the financial transactions to Pakistan,’’ a senior official said. At the same time, the official said that they have not been able to gather evidence admissible in court to pinpoint that the calls originated from Pakistan.
‘‘We are in the process of gathering further evidence and solve the jigsaw puzzle in the next few days. However, we have been able to obtain enough material linking Pakistan to the terror attack, but at this stage some of it is not admissible as evidence in the court,’’ the officer said. One of the virtual numbers from which the call to the terrorists was made was set up with a US company Callphonex by one Kharak Singh who claimed to be from India. The money for the same came through Western Union money transfer from one Javed Iqbal in Pakistan.

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