New Bin Laden Video "Coming Soon"

vinny1, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Thanks Vinny, I dont think a re-release will covince many people that he is not a tool of American/Saudi foreign policy. The peole are chattering about why the USA cant find him and they are saying that it is because he is in Dubai. Flown there by Pakistani's.

On the eve of the second anniversary of Al Qaeda's terrorist strikes in the USA on September 11, 2001, the US Government has declassified 32 documents relating to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Twenty-six of these documents are of the US State Department and the remaining are of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the Pentagon. This article analyses the contents of three DIA documents only.

The first document (15 pages), prepared in September,1999, is based on an analysis of all information received by the DIA till July 1,1999.  It is titled "Defence Intelligence Assessment". The subject of the assessment is "Osama bin Laden/Al Qaeda  Information Operations".  Nearly 90 per cent of the document has been excised before its declassification.  Hence, it does not contain anything of value.  From a perusal of the unexcised portions, one could guess that the assessment must have been about Al Qaeda's information assets such as its modern communications capability, its use of the internet

3. The second document, dated September 24, 2001, is titled "Veteran Afghan Traveller's Analysis of Al Qaeda and Taliban's Exploitable Weaknesses" and carries  the following caution: "This is an information report.  Not finally evaluated intelligence."

4. It would appear that this document  is not the traveller's report, but an analysis prepared by an official of the DIA, either in the US Embassy in Islamabad or in the DIA headquarters in Washington DC, on the basis of the traveller's report. The language used in the portion declassified and released is that of a professional intelligence analyst  and not that of an Afghan traveller.

The analysis carries the most damning  account of Pakistan's role as the real host of bin Laden and his Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. It says: "Bin Laden's Al Qaeda network was able to expand under the safe santuary extended by Taliban following Pakistan directives.  If there is any doubt on that issue, consider the location of bin Laden's camp targeted by US Cruise missiles, Zahawa. Positioned on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, it was built by Pakistani contractors, funded by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate and protected under the patronage of a local and influential Jadran tribal leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani. However, the real host in that facility was the Pakistani ISI. If this was later to become bin Laden's base, then serious questions are raised by the early relationship between bin Laden and Pakistan's ISI."

7. It describes Jalaluddin Haqqani as "the Jadran tribal leader most exploited by ISI during the Soviet-Afghan war to facilitate the introduction of Arab mercenaries " and the Taliban as "the handy cloak woven by Pakistan to shroud their progress?" Whose progress---Al Qaeda's or Pakistan's? Most probably, Pakistan's, but this is not clear.

8. The analysis describes the US objective as "the establishment of a more stable coalition Afghan Government free of the Taliban and Pakistani interference"  and advocates a  cost effective military engagement, with appropriate air support, than the mass deployment of ground forces. It says: "The enemy does not have mass, which makes them harder to engage."

9. The analysis' predictions of differences one day emerging between the Afghans and the Taliban on the one side and Al Qaeda on the other because of Al Qaeda's superiority complex and its perception of itself as an elite force destined to command have not proved correct so far.

11. It points out the impact on the minds of the Muslims made by  the characterisation of the US  as "the Great Satan". The constant reference to the US  as the "Great Satan" and not as the US serves the double purpose of highlighting the immense power of the US which could be countered only with determination and projecting that power in negative colours to create an aversion for that power. It stresses the importance of a similar characterisation of Al Qaeda by an appropriate name and not by its real name of Al Qaeda. Apparently, US policy-makers and psy-warriors have not been able to determine what that characterisation could be.

13. "During the Soviet-Afghan war, the West preferred to maintain a policy of deniability and allowed Pakistan to handle the daily administration of the war, cash and arms distribution. It was a task Pakistan carried out with great enthusiasm  and they helped themselves to  generous portion of cash and arms. The Pakistan Government also had a hidden agenda.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and, Convenor, Advisory Committee, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter.

http://www.saag.org/papers8/paper791.html