According to Press TV Pakistan has reversed a decision to send its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief to India to help in Mumbai terror attacks investigation.
No explanation was given in a short statement issued by the premier’s office in Islamabad for the change of plan, Press TV correspondent said Saturday.
Earlier Prime Minister Yourself Raze surprised many by announcing that the ISI Chief General Ahmed Shura Pasha would be sent to New Delhi to help the investigation into the Mumbai terror attacks that claimed at least 195 lives.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in a telephone conversation on Friday, urged his Pakistani counterpart to send the spy chief to New Delhi.
Sources said the change came after reservations in Pakistan’s top military circles over the unprecedented move. “The military leadership was not consulted before an announcement was made to the media regarding the decision to send the ISI chief to India,” a senior official said.
It is said that Pakistan will send a senior official to India instead of Pasha; however, there was no mention of when the official is likely to arrive in New Delhi.
India’s Foreign Minister Prefab said Friday that initial evidence in the Mumbai attacks show the militants had links with Pakistan. Pakistan’s president, premier and other top officials have condemned the attacks and promised full cooperation in fighting terrorism, however.
Gunmen targeted several places across the port city of Mumbai late Wednesday, killing 195 people and injuring 327 others.
UPDATE: according to the BBC, Indian security forces have captured at least one of the terrorists. His nationality? Pakistani.
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Commentary: this kind of zig-zagging by Pakistani officials is most unhelpful. Regardless of whether Pakistani national are involved in these attacks or not, Pakistan is playing with fire here and the initial decision to agree to send General Pasha to India was the correct one. This reversal, if confirmed, would send a terrible message to an already outraged Indian public opinion. Sure, the Indian press (and politicians) were probably too eager to point fingers at Pakistan, but considering the past history of terror attacks in India by individuals linked to Pakistan, the Pakistanis should not have been offended by that. The fact is that Pakistan is the single most dangerous and unstable country in the world right now and that it will need the full cooperation of all its neighbors to tackle its many causes of instability and outright danger. If there is one thing the Pakistanis cannot afford is a worsening relationship with India. Since the real power in the country is, and always has been, ISI – sending the ISI chief was a very good move. Keeping him in Islamabad is, I am afraid, a bad sign of ruffled nationalistic feathers, a luxury Islamabad simply cannot afford right now.
VS:
I am not sure yet what to make of this event. I am trying to think of it in the context of financial crisis and the new world order.
Let me state that I don’t have any associations to Pakistan (hell, I actually don’t like the fascist government system in which military and secret organizations are in charge, like another country you can think of to which Pakistan has been historically close) but I am suspicious that Pakistani officials would be THAT stupid to get involved in an attack like this. Any ideas?
that was A*must. Forgot to sign, sorry.
@anonymust: I am suspicious that Pakistani officials would be THAT stupid to get involved in an attack like this. Any ideas?
Hell yes! There are plenty of Wahabi crackpots in Pakistan, including the armed forces and, even more so, in ISI. That does not, of course, mean that the Pakistani government, as such, is in any way involved, in particular not the Prime Minister who never really holds the reigns of power anyway, or even the Chief of Staff. But inside the murky and huge constellation of various ISI branches you will find people as least as insane as Mullah Omar or OBL.
I have to tell you that I have come to the conclusion that Wahabism (in all its names including Salafism, Deobandism etc,) is not so much a theological school as it is a mental disease which turns the people afflicted by it into raving lunatics, there is no other way of putting it.
I hope that this time only the low level Pakistani crackpots are involved, but God help us all if this is not the case…
My guess is the Pakistani authorities are trying to acquit themselves from blame.
Have you seen this yet:
Indians claim terrorists took orders from Pakistan
@AA; oh shit! this is bad stuff, about as bad as I feared. Thanks for the link, I will post the full article immediately.
May be someone didn’t want the IPI project to go through so they sent this attack???
@Anonymous – as VS said Hell Yes. Pak has a number of terrorist organizations, LeT, Harkat ul Mujahideen etc which grew just like the Taliban with the blessings and active support of the ISI. (This is not made up stuff, these things have been documented very well. A quick google will reveal more about these links)
The point I am trying to make is, Pak doesn’t have an all powerful govt which knows what goes on. It has an all powerful military whose primary goal is to destabilize India. Just to give you an example, America’s darling ex-prez Musharraf was the army chief who planned and executed the Kargil War without the knowledge of it’s then PM Nawaz Sharif. That it self should tell you how screwed up that ISI is.