US State Department evades issue of Pakistan's links to Haqqani Network

The Long War Journal ^ | Sept. 7, 2012 | Bill Roggio and Lisa Lundquist

[Brad from Tennessee]

After announcing the upcoming designation of the Haqqani Network, two anonymous senior State Department officials gave a briefing on the action, and were challenged by reporters Justin Fishel from FOX News and Adam Entous from The Wall Street Journal on the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency's support of the Haqqani Network:

Note how the State Dept. officials dance around the issues of Pakistan's support for the Haqqani Network and why the US isn't even considering adding Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism:

------------------------snip-----------------------------

QUESTION: Yeah, thank you very much. I just wanted to follow up on Justin's question. When you say that this is targeting the Haqqani Network, period, I don't really understand how we can say that after what Admiral Mullen said a year ago about the Haqqanis being a veritable arm of the ISI. I mean, why isn't this a step towards looking at Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism at this point?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: I want to just unequivocally state that this in no way is the consensus, unanimous view of this Administration; that we are making absolutely no effort to begin a process to designate Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism. If anything, as I just noted, they have been an extremely valuable ally in countering extremism and terrorism, and we are committed to continuing and maintaining and increasing that coordination and cooperation. . .

[Brad from Tennessee]

This is part of a transcript of a telephone interview with two State Department officials who try to explain why Pakistan is not sponsoring terror groups when all evidence points to the contrary. This is not a spoof.

[Nachum]

The list, Ping

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[piasa]

What’s funny is that Pakistan’s ambassador to the US in the early Obama admin was and maybe still is a guy with the surname Haqqani.

[Brad from Tennessee]

Some people say there’s no such thing as a coincidence.

[piasa]

“PAKISTAN, KASHMIR & THE TRANS-ASIAN AXIS,” http://www.freeman.org/m_online/bodansky/axis.htm, Two Research Papers By Yossef Bodansky(1), 1. PAKISTAN’ KASHMIR STRATEGY, 2. ISLAMABAD’S ROAD WARRIORS, Copyright © 1995 Yossef Bodansky

[piasa]

1990s early : () In order to escalate their Islamist Jihad, the [Pakistani] ISI established in the early 1990s the Markaz-Dawar, a center for world wide Islamist activities. Mulavi Zaki, the center’s spiritual leader, told the trainees that their destiny was to fight and liberate “the land of Allah from infidels” wherever they might be. The commanders and instructors are AIM members, primarily Ikhwan {my note: see MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD}from Algeria, Sudan and Egypt. Most of them had fought for more than a decade in Afghanistan. In early 1992, with world attention paid to their presence in Peshawar area, some of these ‘Afghans’ were transferred to Azzad Kashmir where new camps were being built for them by the Pakistani Army.——— “PAKISTAN, KASHMIR & THE TRANS-ASIAN AXIS,” http://www.freeman.org/m_online/bodansky/axis.htm, Two Research Papers By Yossef Bodansky(1), 1. PAKISTAN’ KASHMIR STRATEGY, 2. ISLAMABAD’S ROAD WARRIORS, Copyright © 1995 Yossef Bodansky

[Brad from Tennessee]

I guess when Bin Laden left Tora Bora and made it through the pass into Pakistan it was like dying and going to heaven.