statism watch

Quick, check under the bed, bomb more Pashtun civilians, ohgodwhateverittakes please save us.

Related: Washington Post: CIA Psyops Unit Created Fake Bin Laden Video, Discussed ‘Gay Saddam’ Campaign | U.S. can’t confirm latest ‘bin Laden’ tape authentic | Bin Laden not in Pakistan, says prime minister | U.S. ‘missed chance’ to capture bin Laden in 2001 | Another dubious Bin Laden tape: Obama ‘powerless’ in Afghanistan | Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for seven years — and are the U.S. and Britain covering it up to continue war on terror? | A Sibel Edmonds Bombshell — Bin Laden Worked for U.S. Until 9/11 | CIA: Bin Laden still in Pakistan | Al-Qaeda Chief In Iraq: Captured, Killed, Never Actually Existed, Now Captured Again | IntelCenter Releases Video of Former CIA Employee Zawahiri Threatening America | Delta Force Officer: We Weren’t Allowed to Kill Osama Bin Laden | Purported bin Laden tape decries Israel’s anniversary | Benazir Bhutto: Bin Laden Murdered | New Bin Laden Video: 100% Forgery | U.S. Government Caught Red-Handed Releasing Staged Al-Qaeda Videos | Swiss scientists 95% sure that Bin Laden recording was fake

CBC News
June 27, 2010

CIA Director Leon Panetta says al-Qaeda is probably at its weakest since the Sept. 11 attacks because of U.S.-led strikes, with only 50 to 100 militants operating inside Afghanistan and the rest hiding in Pakistan’s mountainous western border region.

Panetta said Sunday the U.S. hasn’t had good intelligence on Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts for years and that the terrorist network is finding smarter ways to try to attack the United States.

Of greatest concern, he said, is al-Qaeda’s reliance on operatives without previous records or those living in the U.S.

“We are engaged in the most aggressive operations in the history of the CIA in that part of the world, and the result is that we are disrupting their leadership,” Panetta told ABC television’s This Week.

The rare assessment from the U.S. spy chief comes as President Barack Obama builds up U.S. forces in Afghanistan to prop up the government and prevent al-Qaeda from returning. About 98,000 U.S. troops will be in Afghanistan by fall.

Panetta initially said in the interview that the Taliban leadership was at its weakest point since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when it escaped from Afghanistan into Pakistan. He later corrected himself to say he was talking about al-Qaeda.

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Funny, haven’t seen this in the Canadian media, at least not yet. But it merely confirms what we’ve known for some time, adding to a mounting pile of evidence that operations in Pakistan are not what they seem, not by a long shot. Read the report here.

Related: U.S. officials say Pakistani spy agency released Afghan Taliban insurgents | Arrested Terrorist Leader Exposes Extensive CIA Connections | CIA admits Blackwater presence in Pakistan | Taliban: Blackwater to blame for Pakistan attacks | How the US Funds the Taliban | Taliban Chief Blames Blackwater, ISI for Peshawar Blast | Ex-CIA agent confirms US ties with Jundullah | Iranian commanders assassinated, Iran fingers Western intelligence | Madsen: CIA collusion with “Al Qaeda” financiers and attack planners | Whistleblower Who Linked “Taliban” Leader To US Intelligence Is Assassinated | Pakistani president Asif Zardari admits creating terrorist groups | Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al-Qaeda To Kill U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries | The Main Result of the “War on Terror”: The Destabilization of Pakistan | Report: CIA runs secret bases in Pakistan | Delta Force Officer: We Weren’t Allowed to Kill Osama Bin Laden | Key Benazir Bhutto assassination witness shot dead | CIA, Pakistani ISI have long, complicated relationship | US scales up covert destabilization efforts in Iran, continues funding ‘al-Qaeda’ | Report: U.S. Gave Green Light For Taliban Prison Attack | Investigative Reporter Seymour Hersh: US Indirectly Funding Al-Qaeda Linked Sunni Groups in Move to Counter Iran | US Allowed Taliban, Al-Qaeda Airlift Evacuation

Press TV
June 13, 2010

A new report claims there are direct links between Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

A new report has suggested that Pakistan’s intelligence agency is supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, providing them with funds and training.

The report released Sunday by the London School of Economics (LSE) says that support for the Taliban is the “official policy” of Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) and the body provides funds and sanctuary for the militant group on a larger scale than previously thought.

LSE, which is deemed a leading British institution, also suggests that support for the Taliban “is approved at the highest level of Pakistan’s civilian government.”

“Pakistan appears to be playing a double-game of astonishing magnitude,” said the report’s author, Matt Waldman, after allegedly speaking to several militants in Afghanistan as well as Western and Afghan security officials.

Almost all of the Taliban militants interviewed in the report believed that the ISI was represented on the Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s supreme leadership council based in Pakistan.

“Interviews strongly suggest that the ISI has representatives on the (Quetta) Shura, either as participants or observers, and the agency is thus involved at the highest level of the movement,” the report said.

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Related: Pakistan Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud is alive, says spy agency | Pakistani Taliban leader reportedly killed in U.S. strike | Killer of CIA agents in Afghanistan called for revenge for Baitullah Mehsud | Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for seven years — and are the U.S. and Britain covering it up to continue war on terror? | Pakistani militant leader dead: Taliban | Pakistani president Asif Zardari admits creating terrorist groups | Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al-Qaeda To Kill U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries | Whistleblower Who Linked “Taliban” Leader To US Intelligence Is Assassinated | CIA: Bin Laden still in Pakistan | The Main Result of the “War on Terror”: The Destabilization of Pakistan | Al-Qaeda Chief In Iraq: Captured, Killed, Never Actually Existed, Now Captured Again | Report: CIA runs secret bases in Pakistan | Key Benazir Bhutto assassination witness shot dead | CIA, Pakistani ISI have long, complicated relationship | US Allowed Taliban, Al-Qaeda Airlift Evacuation

Steve Watson, PrisonPlanet.com
June 2, 2010

Three really does seem to be the magic number

The next time you consider voicing opposition to the illegal bombardment of Pakistan with drone delivered U.S. missiles, consider this — the drones are effective. So effective, in fact, that they can kill terrorists who have already previously been killed.

Once again this week we have been reliably informed by U.S. officials via the ever present SITE intelligence group via the terrorists themselves, that a drone delivered missile has successfully taken out Al Qaeda’s number three man:

The operational leader of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan was killed in an American missile strike in Pakistan’s tribal areas in the last two weeks, according to a statement from the terrorist group issued late Monday that American officials believe is correct.

The militant leader, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, an Egyptian, was a top financial chief for Al Qaeda as well as one of the group’s founders, and was considered by American intelligence officials as terrorist organization’s No. 3 leader behind Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, another Egyptian.

al-Yazid a.k.a. Saeed al-Masri is thought to be a long time associate of Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. The 9/11 Commission pinpointed him as a possible direct financier of the attacks. He also most notably was alleged to have claimed responsibility for the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007.

The timing of al-Yazid/al-Masri’s reported demise is remarkable as it comes at exactly the same time as a major UN report that says the drone strikes are illegal and should be stopped immediately.

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Considering the Taliban and Pakistani military intelligence are integrated in a number of vaguely defined ways, it should be interesting to see how this plays out. And US bases in Pakistan are not new, the CIA has reportedly had a bricks and mortar presence in the field for some time now. We won’t even get into the highly questionable aspects of the Times Square ‘bombing’ here, you can read about that by perusing the links below.

Related: Taliban behind Times Square plot, says US AG Holder | CIA Drones No Longer Need a Name to Kill | Times Square Bomber Linked With CIA-Controlled Terror Group | Faisal Shahzad on Homeland Security List Since 1999 | Times Square Eyewitness: Bomb Scare Looked Like Drill | New York terror suspect received calls from Pakistan before buying SUV, charged with using ‘Weapon of Mass Destruction’ | Officials seize on Times Square incident to push precrime surveillance network expansion | Frenzied manhunt ends with airplane arrest of New York terror suspect | Potential suspect identified in Times Square bomb plot | Times Square bomb police focus on video of man watching smoking car | ‘Amateurish’ Explosive Found in Parked SUV in Times Square, Suspect Reportedly Recorded

Greg Miller, Washington Post
May 29, 2010

The U.S. military is reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan in the event that a successful attack on American soil is traced to the country’s tribal areas, according to senior military officials.

Ties between the alleged Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, and elements of the Pakistani Taliban have sharpened the Obama administration’s need for retaliatory options, the officials said. They stressed that a U.S. reprisal would be contemplated only under extreme circumstances, such as a catastrophic attack that leaves President Obama convinced that the ongoing campaign of CIA drone strikes is insufficient.

“Planning has been reinvigorated in the wake of Times Square,” one of the officials said.

At the same time, the administration is trying to deepen ties to Pakistan’s intelligence officials in a bid to head off any attack by militant groups. The United States and Pakistan have recently established a joint military intelligence center on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, and are in negotiations to set up another one near Quetta, the Pakistani city where the Afghan Taliban is based, according to the U.S. military officials. They and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding U.S. military and intelligence activities in Pakistan.

The “fusion centers” are meant to bolster Pakistani military operations by providing direct access to U.S. intelligence, including real-time video surveillance from drones controlled by the U.S. Special Operations Command, the officials said. But in an acknowledgment of the continuing mistrust between the two governments, the officials added that both sides also see the centers as a way to keep a closer eye on one another, as well as to monitor military operations and intelligence activities in insurgent areas.

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The Pentagon’s Pashtun pacification program continues. In other news, Pakistan is denying there’s any credible evidence to link the New York Times Square car bomber Shahzad to the Pakistani Taliban.The interesting twist to their denial, however, is that they’re talking about an entirely different Taliban group (Jaish-e-Mohammed) than the one the domestic US media is warning about (TTP). Made more interesting by the fact the group Pakistan is distancing itself from has a history of CIA involvement.

Related: CIA Drones No Longer Need a Name to Kill | Pakistan air strike ‘kills 71 civilians’ | WikiLeaks releases video of alleged U.S. helicopter attack on Reuters reporters | 1 in 3 Killed by U.S. Drone Attacks In Pakistan Are Civilians | Afghan ministers voice anger as civilians killed in Nato air strike | Five civilians killed in Nato rocket attack in Afghanistan | Suspected US drone ‘kills 12′ in Pakistan | U.S. prods Pakistan to expand offensive | Pakistan anti-Taliban offensive in South Waziristan ‘over’ | U.S. Military Joins CIA’s Drone War in Pakistan | US Air Force confirms new ‘Beast of Kandahar’ drone | German army chief resigns over Afghanistan air strike | Clinton confronted by Pakistanis over attacks by aerial drones | UN: Drone attacks may violate international law | US drone ’shot down over Somalia’ | Refugee flood reveals human cost of South Waziristan’s invisible war | ‘Taliban’ resist Pakistan onslaught | Pakistani troops assault ‘Taliban’ stronghold | Militants attack Pakistani cities | Pakistan launches air strikes before offensive | NATO pledges probe of deadly Afghan air strike; civilians killed | Pakistan remains silent as U.S. air attack kills 80 | Afghan Airstrike Video Goes Down the Memory Hole | Homing chips are CIA’s latest weapon against ‘al-Qaida’ targets hiding in Pakistan’s tribal belt | CIA: Our Drones are Killing Terrorists. Promise | US air strikes kill dozens of Afghan civilians | NATO denies air strike killed Afghan civilians | Don’t-ask-don’t-tell Policy: Pakistan and U.S. Have Tacit Deal On Airstrikes | Death toll climbs after U.S. air strike in Pakistan

The Associated Press
May 11, 2010

Missile strike on Taliban sanctuary in North Waziristan kills 14 alleged insurgents and is third since failed Times Square bomb

Up to 18 US missiles hit a Taliban sanctuary in Pakistan close to the Afghan border today, killing 14 alleged insurgents in the third such strike since a failed car bombing in New York drew fresh attention to the region, officials said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s foreign minister said the nation’s ties with the US have not suffered as a result of the bombing plot, which Washington has linked to militants with bases in the lawless border regions.

The number of missiles fired into North Waziristan was unusually high, reflecting multiple targets.

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New evidence has apparently come to light linking Shahzad to the clownish video produced by SITE (which neither mentioned Times Square nor a car bomb) when the Smoking SUV first made its appearance in Times Square. What that evidence is, the authorities have declined to share with the public. But why not just declare open season on Waziristan before we get this settled, that seems reasonable. Meanwhile, talks are ongoing to explore the idea of giving the Taliban amnesty and power-sharing rights in a peace settlement. The Taliban, who were only ever involved in regional border conflict. If this makes any sense to you, please comment. Because all this journal can think of is the fact that the battle plans for Afghanistan (and Iraq) were in place months before 9/11, the US was already gearing up to maintain a presence in Yemen before ‘underwear bomber’ Abdulmutallab produced his own fog of war this past holiday season, and now the CIA has given the young robot drone pilots new orders - fire at will in Pakistan, if targets acquired are acting terrorist-y. The war just keeps expanding. Oh, and this gets better – there may not even be a trial for Shahzad, the would-be bomber, who’s been just as compliant as Abdulmutallab. Say, when is Abdulmutallab’s trial scheduled for?

Related: CIA Drones No Longer Need a Name to Kill | Times Square Bomber Linked With CIA-Controlled Terror Group | Faisal Shahzad on Homeland Security List Since 1999 | Times Square Eyewitness: Bomb Scare Looked Like Drill | New York terror suspect received calls from Pakistan before buying SUV, charged with using ‘Weapon of Mass Destruction’ | Officials seize on Times Square incident to push precrime surveillance network expansion | Frenzied manhunt ends with airplane arrest of New York terror suspect | Potential suspect identified in Times Square bomb plot | Times Square bomb police focus on video of man watching smoking car | ‘Amateurish’ Explosive Found in Parked SUV in Times Square, Suspect Reportedly Recorded

Glenn Somerville, Reuters
May 9, 2010

WASHINGTON – The United States is convinced that a Pakistani Taliban group closely allied with al Qaeda was behind the attempted bombing in New York’s Times Square, administration officials said on Sunday.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Islamabad was cooperating in the ongoing investigation of the May 1 incident and the Obama administration will keep the pressure on for their continued help.

“We’ve now developed evidence that show the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack,” he said in an interview on ABC television’s “This Week.”

“We know that they helped facilitate it. We know that they probably helped finance it. And that he was working at their direction,” he said, referring to Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistan-born naturalized American who is now under arrest.

Shahzad, 30, was arrested last Monday, two days after authorities say he parked a crude car bomb in New York’s busy Times Square. Authorities say he has been cooperating in the investigation.

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Related: Pakistan air strike ‘kills 71 civilians’ | WikiLeaks releases video of alleged U.S. helicopter attack on Reuters reporters | 1 in 3 Killed by U.S. Drone Attacks In Pakistan Are Civilians | Afghan ministers voice anger as civilians killed in Nato air strike | Five civilians killed in Nato rocket attack in Afghanistan | Suspected US drone ‘kills 12′ in Pakistan | U.S. prods Pakistan to expand offensive | Pakistan anti-Taliban offensive in South Waziristan ‘over’ | U.S. Military Joins CIA’s Drone War in Pakistan | US Air Force confirms new ‘Beast of Kandahar’ drone | German army chief resigns over Afghanistan air strike | Clinton confronted by Pakistanis over attacks by aerial drones | UN: Drone attacks may violate international law | US drone ’shot down over Somalia’ | Refugee flood reveals human cost of South Waziristan’s invisible war | ‘Taliban’ resist Pakistan onslaught | Pakistani troops assault ‘Taliban’ stronghold | Militants attack Pakistani cities | Pakistan launches air strikes before offensive | NATO pledges probe of deadly Afghan air strike; civilians killed | Pakistan remains silent as U.S. air attack kills 80 | Afghan Airstrike Video Goes Down the Memory Hole | Homing chips are CIA’s latest weapon against ‘al-Qaida’ targets hiding in Pakistan’s tribal belt | CIA: Our Drones are Killing Terrorists. Promise | US air strikes kill dozens of Afghan civilians | NATO denies air strike killed Afghan civilians | Don’t-ask-don’t-tell Policy: Pakistan and U.S. Have Tacit Deal On Airstrikes | Death toll climbs after U.S. air strike in Pakistan

Noah Schactman, Wired.com
May 6, 2010

Once upon a time, the CIA had to know a militant’s name before putting him up for a robotic targeted killing. Now, if the guy acts like a guerrilla, it’s enough to call in a drone strike.

It’s another sign of that a once-limited, once-covert program to off senior terrorist leaders has morphed into a full-scale – if undeclared – war in Pakistan. And in a war, you don’t need to know the name of someone on the other side before you take a shot.

Across the border, in Afghanistan, the rules for launching an airstrike have become tighter than a balled fist. Dropping a bomb from above is now a tactic of last resort; even when U.S. troops are under fire, commanders are reluctant to authorize air strikes. In Pakistan, however, the opposite has happened. Starting in the latter days of the Bush administration, and accelerating under the Obama presidency, drone pilots have become more and more free to launch their weapons.

“You’ve had an expanded target set for [some] time now and, given the danger these groups pose and their relative inaccessibility, these kinds of strikes – precise and effective – have become almost like the cannon fire of this war. They’re no longer extraordinary or even unusual,” one American official tells CNN.

This official – like many other officials – insists that the drone strikes have torn up the ranks of militants.

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A ‘Weapon of mass distraction’, rather than destruction, seems increasingly more likely as officials claim the useless contraption they’re calling a bomb could have wreaked apocalyptic carnage, and that Manhattan needs to be locked down under a surveillance panopticon. Who, for example, was Shazad on the phone with in the hours prior to purchasing the fated SUV. His wife? His ISI handler? We’ll continue to follow these events closely. StatismWatch proposes two alternative narratives to the official story that also fit the evidence to date and would follow the pattern of scripted state-sponsored terror such as the holiday ‘Underwear bomber’ debacle that also resulted in calls for expensive new security architecture. 1) As a Pakistani national hoping to join the spook-ridden halls of power his father once strode through, Shahzad was a willing participant in what he thought was a drill to assist American intel agencies, and is either being set up as a patsy or is an asset who will disappear after voluminous and cooperative testimony. This appears to have been the case with Abdulmutallab, a pretext to push the naked body scanners and kick off operations in Yemen. 2) As an angry young man hoping to aid ‘global jihad’ against the occupiers, he was manipulated in his time at the ISI/CIA run Lashkar camps, given fake bomb training, and set up as a patsy. This appears to have been the case with Zazi. Time, as always, will tell – and if police have video of him leaving the SUV, they need to release it to the public.

Update (2010/05/05): Shahzad’s expected Wednesday arraignment came and went as it was revealed that the 30-yr-old (who greeted police as he was being deplaned with the statement “I was expecting you. Are you NYPD or FBI?“) had waived that right. Attorney General Eric Holder confirms that Shahzad is cooperating with authorities. No future court date has yet been scheduled.

Related: Officials seize on Times Square incident to push precrime surveillance network expansion | Frenzied manhunt ends with airplane arrest of New York terror suspect | Potential suspect identified in Times Square bomb plot | Times Square bomb police focus on video of man watching smoking car | ‘Amateurish’ Explosive Found in Parked SUV in Times Square, Suspect Reportedly Recorded

William K. Rashbaum, Sabrina Tavernise, Jack Healy, The New York Times
May 4, 2010

Authorities started tracking down Faisal Shahzad using email address he had given the seller of SUV

NEW YORK–A detailed 10-page document tracks the New York bomb suspect’s movements in the days before and after the failed car bomb attack, describing how Faisal Shahzad used a prepaid cellphone to contact the seller of the SUV and arrange the purchase — and how the phone received four calls from a number in Pakistan hours before he made the purchase on April 24.

The complaint, sworn out by Andrew Pachtman, an FBI. agent assigned to the Joint Terrorist Task Force, says that about an hour after the prepaid phone received the calls from the Pakistan number, Shahzad called the seller twice and later bought the Pathfinder.

Shahzad bought the Pathfinder from a Connecticut woman within the past three weeks for $1,300 cash, officials said, and it was that transaction that eventually led to his arrest on the JFK airport tarmac.

The authorities found Shahzad using the email address he had given the seller, a young woman. The two had met in a parking lot in Connecticut, and Shahzad gave the Pathfinder a test drive before negotiating the price down to $1,300 from $1,800. The owner told officials she’s advertised the SUV on several websites, and that the sale was handled without any paper work.

The complaint also describes how investigators were able to get the Pathfinder’s vehicle identification number – pulling it from SUV’s engine block – even though it had been stripped from the dashboard before the SUV was left in Times Square. Investigators were then able to track down the registered owner, who had passed the vehicle on to another person, who in turn had sold it to Shahzad.

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Is he or isn’t he? No doubt the new ‘leader of the Taliban’ will be killed and resurrected for the benefit of a few more media cycles – just like this guy, ‘Omar Al-Baghdadi‘. Or this guy. Like the article says, Mehsud leads a ‘charmed life’. Could this have anything to do with the previous Taliban leader’s insistence that the group had been taken over by Western Intel? One thing is certain – media coverage of what’s happening in the Middle East is 90% lies and spin.

Related: Pakistani Taliban leader reportedly killed in U.S. strike | Killer of CIA agents in Afghanistan called for revenge for Baitullah Mehsud | Pakistani militant leader dead: Taliban | Whistleblower Who Linked “Taliban” Leader To US Intelligence Is Assassinated | Pakistani president Asif Zardari admits creating terrorist groups | Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al-Qaeda To Kill U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries | The Main Result of the “War on Terror”: The Destabilization of Pakistan | Report: CIA runs secret bases in Pakistan | Key Benazir Bhutto assassination witness shot dead | CIA, Pakistani ISI have long, complicated relationship | US Allowed Taliban, Al-Qaeda Airlift Evacuation

Declan Walsh, The Guardian
April 28, 2010

Guardian Exclusive: Setback for CIA after Pakistan intelligence official admits drone attack failed to kill the Pakistan Taliban commander

The Taliban leader in Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud, survived an American drone strike in January and is alive and well, a senior official with Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence agency told the Guardian today.

Mehsud was reported to have died in a CIA drone strike in South Waziristan in January but, although Pakistan’s interior minister claimed he had been killed, the death was never confirmed by either US or Pakistani intelligence.

Today the senior intelligence official said he had seen video footage of the missile attack on Mehsud but other intelligence had since confirmed the insurgent leader survived. He declined to elaborate further.

“He is alive,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He had some wounds but he is basically OK.”

Mehsud’s apparent survival will be a blow to the CIA, which intensified efforts to kill the flamboyant young Taliban leader early this year after he appeared in a video alongside an al-Qaida operative who killed seven American spies at a base in southern Afghanistan in late December.

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That sounds more like a potential route to expansion than a withdrawal: “Well, we said we’d withdraw from Afghanistan, we didn’t say anything about not getting involved in Pakistan”

Flashback: Full Afghan withdrawal ‘wrong,’ top Tory says | U.S. to press for Canada to keep troops in Afghanistan | No way to escape Afghan combat post-2011, Hillier says | Troops get non-combat role in Afghanistan after 2011 | Conservatives claim ‘no decision’ made on leaving some troops in Afghanistan past 2011 | Canada eyes arms sales to Pakistan | MacKay to discuss security concerns with Pakistan | ‘Some’ Troops to stay in Afghanistan past 2011: McKay

Allan Woods, The Toronto Star
April 16, 2010

OTTAWA — Canada wants to use Pakistani airbases to withdraw from Afghanistan next year, a development that provides the first hard glimpse of the military’s pullout plans and signals to both the pro-war and anti-war segments of the country that an end to Canada’s decade-long war is at hand.

A spokesman with Pakistan’s foreign ministry confirmed to the Daily Times newspaper Friday that a formal request had been received from Ottawa but Islamabad is still considering whether to grant its approval.

The foreign office must first consult Pakistan’s powerful defence ministry before giving the green light to Canada’s massive logistical undertaking.

The request to use Pakistan’s military facilities for the pullout suggests there are problems using Camp Mirage, Canada’s secret airbase located near Dubai, which is the transit point for Canadian troops and supplies entering and leaving the Afghan battlefield.

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