INDIAN AMERICAN INTELLECTUALS FORUM
41-67 Judge Street, Suite 5P
Elmhurst, New York 11373
(718) 478-5735/(718) 271-0453
_________________________
MEMORANDUM TO U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20520
Attn: Mr. Donn Titus
March 1, 2010
Sub: (1) Declare Pakistan a Terrorist State
Dear Mr. Titus:
On behalf of Indian American Intellectuals Forum (IAIF), I am very happy to present this Memorandum to you. IAIF is an advocacy group organized and established under the laws of the State of New York since 1999. Our objectives are to strengthen the Indo-American relations and create awareness among our citizens about the menace of terrorism.
In this connection, we would like to state that in 1999, we were given an opportunity by the State Department to meet their staff and present our viewpoint about what action should be taken against Pakistan to save the globe from the curse of terrorism. In the past eleven years since then, the world situation has not just gone from bad to worse but it has actually assumed alarmingly dangerous proportions.
In that period of time, Pakistan has literally become a hub of Islamic fundamentalists. There are more than one million Taliban studying in Pakistani Madrasas (Islamic religious schools). Pakistani society by now has been completely radicalized. Pakistan has become not only a nuclear power but also a nuclear proliferating country. Since no serious attention was paid to our similar plea in 1999 regarding declaring Pakistan a terrorist state then, the world had to pay a very heavy price for creating this Frankenstein.
Pakistan is using terrorism as a tool for its foreign policy to accomplish its political objectives. Notorious terrorists – Syed Salahuddin, the head of United Jihad Council, Hafiz Abdur Rahman Makki, the leader of terror amalgam Jamaat-ul-Dawah and brother-in-law of Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed; Dowd Ibrahim, chief of the dreaded Company D; Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar; LeT terrorists Azam Cheema, chief Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, Qari Saifullah Akhtar, Ilyas Kashmiri – and other terror groups are working at the beck and call of Pakistan. All the above individuals and groups are notorious for ruthlessly murdering innocent people in the name of Allah. The dastardly beheading of two Sikhs in Pakistan by Taliban is the latest instance of that policy.
Most terror training camps in Pakistan are running under the nose of and in close collaboration with Pakistan’s spy agency ISI. Pakistan authorities have turned a blind eye to the 6.5 acre terror training base, in the south of Punjab province. Here, the outlawed terror group Jaishe-e-Mohammad, linked with 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament and then beheading of US journalist Daniel Pearl, is setting up a large new base just outside the Bahawalpur town in Pakistan's Punjab province with anti-India inscriptions on its walls, The Sunday Telegraph had reported.
It is alleged that massacre of seven CIA agents at a Forward Operating Base in Afghanistan was masterminded by Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistani commando-turned-jihadist. Again, this is the same Ilyas Kashmiri, the Commander of another terror outfit HuJi, who has issued a global warning to the Cricket players against visiting and playing in India.
Lashkar-e-Taiba al-Alami, an unknown terrorist group which has claimed responsibility for the Pune blasts near Mumbai (in India) in which 17 people were killed is following an al-Qaida agenda of targeting the US and its allies, such as Israel and India.
It is reported that David Coleman Headley (Daood Gilani) and Mohammad Amjad Khwaja who were arrested by the FBI in Chicago in October last year have told their American interrogators that ISI in collaboration with HuJi and Lashkar-e-Toiba has put together a team of Indian Jihadists in Karachi for sending them back into India on another terror project.
In an interview to Indian Express dated Feb. 5, 2010, Pulitzer Prize-winner Steve Coll who is the author of two defining books: Ghost Wars and The Bin Ladens,said that “India’s security problems are graver than America’s in relation to the Jihadi terrorism.”
Ironically, the US has given Pakistan $15 billion dollars to fight the Al Qaida in Pakistan. In the meantime, Pakistan has only been dilly dallying and fooling us; many Taliban groups actually provide shelter to Al Qaida. US Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair has said that “Islamabad’s conviction that militant groups are an important part of its strategic arsenal to counter India’s military and economic advantages will continue to limit Pakistan’s incentive to pursue an across-the-board effort against extremism.”
One biggest difficulty we face is our ignorance of the tenets of Koran, Hadith and Sira. As such we formulate our policies on assumption that there are two sets of Muslims: moderates and radicals. In reality, contrary to the popular perception, every mainstream Islamic school teaches the necessity to subjugate unbelievers, by force or by any means and bring them under the hegemony of Islamic law.
Last Month, US Vice President Joe Biden said in Washington that his greatest concern was not Afghanistan nor threat of Iran turning nuclear. His biggest worry was Pakistan, which he said had a significant radicalized population and only a “functional democracy.” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has also stated that Iran was not as great a threat to the global security as other nuclear-proliferating countries such as North Korea and Pakistan.
Expressing concern over the increasing Taliban threat in Pakistan, Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel considers Pakistan as its biggest strategic threat than Iran. U.S. intelligence officials also believe that the homicide bomb attack that killed seven CIA officers in Afghanistan last month was planned with the help of Osama bin Laden's close allies. It is well to remember that Al Qaida jihadists are fully protected by Taliban who in turn are hands in glove with Pakistan.
Intelligence inputs received by Indian officials indicate that Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba has acquired as many as 50 para-gliding equipments from China for the potential use to launch suicide attacks in India. This, obviously, could not be accomplished without Pakistan’s active connivance, complicity and tactical support.
Amid political turbulence in Pakistan, and heightened fears about the Taliban and other extremist groups seizing the country’s nuclear assets, there has been a rapid expansion of Islamabad’s nuclear armaments. US Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, in a confidential briefing, told members of Congress that some reports have confirmed that Islamabad is rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal. President of the Institute for Science and International Security, David Albright has said that Pakistan was scaling up its centrifuge facilities. This could destabilize the entire South Asia.
Even though it is clearly acknowledged that Pakistan has become an epicenter of terrorism, the US Congress is still considering proposals to spend 3 billion dollars over the next five years to train and equip Pakistan’s military for counter-insurgency warfare. This is in addition to 7.5 billion dollars that the Capitol Hill has already promised in civilian assistance.
We should also take a serious note of Pakistan’s disgraced scientist A.Q. Khan’s statement that Pakistan helped Iran acquire the nuclear technology with an objective to jointly emerge as a “strong block” in the region so that they can effectively counter the international pressure and ‘neutralize’ Israel’s power. Imagine the situation when the Islamic Pakistan and Islamic Iran will jointly challenge and blackmail the civilized world.
It is also a well known fact that Dawood Ibrahim’s D Company is a “5,000-member criminal syndicate operating mostly in Pakistan, India, and the United Arab Emirate.” This company has a “strategic alliance” with Pakistan’s ISI and has “forged relationships with Islamists, including Lashkar-e-Taiba and al-Qaida.”
Some press accounts further report that Ibrahim’s underworld network may have provided a boat to the 10 terrorists who killed 178 people in Mumbai (India) on 26/11 and record that the “US government contends that D-Company has found common cause with Al Qaida and shares its smuggling routes with that terrorist group.”
The US Department of Treasury has already designated Ibrahim as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) in 2006 and President Bush designated him as a Significant Foreign Narcotics Trafficker under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. It is a matter of disgust and shame that Pakistan shelters Dawood Ibrahim but denies his presence in the country in order to prevent his prosecution or extradition to India or US.
According to India's National Security Advisor, there are over 800 terror cells operating in India with "external support." Nuclear physicist and author Dr. Moorthy Muthuswamy has elucidated in his new book how passionately this jihadist infrastructure was developed in a span of over twenty years, aided by funding from the Middle East. The desire to conquer India violently for Islam is an aspiration of many nations and is seen in many a Muslim quarter as a must for creating an Islamic caliphate.
Instead of penalizing Pakistan for its support to the notorious terrorists and spreading global terrorism, US, unfortunately, is rewarding this country with the deadly weapons and billions of dollars of hard cash. We believe it is inappropriate for US to prop up Pakistan and balance its strategic partnership with India by selling deadly F-16 to Pakistan Air Force (the total number of F-16 in 2010 will be 54 as per Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses) together with other advanced weapons and avionics for air-to-air combat that appear to us unnecessary for counter-insurgency operations in mountainous area against Taliban. This is being done in spite of the admission by General Musharraf’s that Pakistan is modifying the arms, which are meant to fight the terrorists, for use against India.
Let us understand and recognize that Pakistan is a failed state. Its economy is in shambles. Fissiparous forces are pulling the country in different directions to tear it apart. Nationalist movements in Balochistan, Sind and Baltistan are gaining momentum. In Karachi, Sunni and Shi’a, Mohajirs and Sindhis, Pathans and Mohajirs are flying at each other’s throat. Murder and mayhem is the order of the day all around. Thousands of young Sindhi Muslims are joining Jiye Sind movement. Balochisthan Liberation Army is working strenuously to gain freedom from the Punjabi domination. Minority Balti Shi’a in Baltistan feel suffocated and subjugated under Punjabi army in Pakistan. In nutshell, there is turmoil all over Pakistan.
We should recognize in unambiguous terms that Pakistan is the root cause of terror and instability in that region. In order to win the war in Afghanistan it is essential that American war strategy should be focused on Pakistan. In the next 18 months, American troops will be leaving Af-Pak region. Hence, it is incumbent on us to divide Pakistan into four states before Pakistani army and Islamic fundamentalists take over Afghanistan again.
In view of the above, we believe, it is absolutely necessary that US devise appropriate measures to: (a) Declare Pakistan a terrorist state, (bi) Seize Pakistan’s nuclear facilities immediately, and (c) Break up Pakistan into four Independent States to weaken its terror-producing capacity.
Very truly yours,
Narain Kataria
President
