There is a RAW agent behind everything; and India is about to crush poor Pakistan, etc...
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Link to Pakistani NewspaperISLAMABAD — Pakistan warned Afghanistan against anymore regional "point scoring" on Thursday after Kabul signed a pact with Islamabad's archenemy New Delhi that some fear could prompt Pakistan to strengthen its alleged support for Afghan insurgents.
Pakistan is under increasing American pressure to cut ties with militants that it is widely believed to be holding onto for use as potential partners against Indian influence in Afghanistan once Washington withdraws its combat troops in 2014.
The strategic partnership signed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai on a visit to India on Tuesday added to concerns in Islamabad that New Delhi was increasing its influence on Pakistan's western flank. The deal came at a sensitive time for Islamabad, which is facing renewed accusations by U.S. and Afghan officials of collusion with militants in attacks on Afghan soil.
In Pakistan's first reaction to the deal, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua said "this is no time for point scoring, playing politics or grandstanding."
"At this defining stage when challenges have multiplied, as have the opportunities, it is our expectation that everyone, specially those in position of authority in Afghanistan, will demonstrate requisite maturity and responsibility," she told reporters.
President Karzai tried to assuage concern over the agreement Wednesday, saying it was not intended as an aggressive move against Pakistan. He said the pact simply made official years of close ties between India and Afghanistan's post-Taliban government. New Delhi has given significant amounts of civilian aid to Kabul over the last 10 years to build roads, schools and hospitals.
Karzai's words likely carried little weight in Pakistan, which is sandwiched between Afghanistan to its west and India to its east. Pakistan's army has long viewed policy in Afghanistan through one lens: countering the perceived danger of Indian influence in the country.
"The agreement will heighten Pakistan's insecurities," said Talat Masood, an analyst and former Pakistani general. "Pakistan has always felt that it is being encircled by India from both the eastern and western borders."
An editorial in Pakistan's leading English-language newspaper, Dawn, expressed concern that the pact — the first of its kind between Kabul and any country — could "lead to ill-advised efforts to ramp up Pakistani involvement in Afghanistan."
Pakistan and India have fought three wars and been fierce enemies since the two were carved out of British India in 1947.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have also been rocky, with many Pakistani officials viewing Karzai as too close to India, where he attended university.
To check India's power in Afghanistan, Pakistan has historically supported Islamist militants like the Taliban who it believes are also opposed to India and its majority Hindu population. Islamabad has also allegedly backed militants who have carried out attacks in Kashmir, an area claimed by both Pakistan and India.
Pakistan maintains it severed ties with the Taliban and other militants following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. But Washington and Kabul say otherwise.
The U.S. has recently accused Pakistan's main spy agency, the ISI, of supporting the Haqqani militant network, which is allied with the Taliban and is suspected of carrying out a recent attack against the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. The group is believed to be based in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area near the Afghan border.
Afghan's interior minister has accused the ISI of being involved in last month's suicide bombing in Kabul that killed former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was leading the government's U.S-backed effort to talk peace with the Taliban.
Masood, the former general, also expressed concern that Afghanistan's pact with New Delhi could prompt Pakistan to step up support for militant proxies. Washington's growing ties with growing global power India have also made Islamabad suspicious, he said.
"The agreement will further reinforce their feeling that the Americans and the Indians are pursuing a policy toward Afghanistan that is hostile to Pakistan's interests," said Masood.
The Afghan-Indian strategic partnership outlines areas of common concern including trade, economic expansion, education, security and politics. One of its most sensitive provisions stipulates that India will help train and equip Afghanistan's security forces.
India is already helping train more than 100 members of the Afghan national security forces, said an official with the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the coalition was not a signatory to the partnership agreement.
Greater Indian involvement in Afghanistan's security forces would likely spark further concern in Islamabad.
Despite Afghanistan's efforts to strengthen ties with India, analysts and former officials said there were limits to the country's ability to sideline Pakistan, even if it wanted to. One of the most important is geography.
"The imperative of geography is that landlocked Afghanistan will continue to have to look to Pakistan for trade access and related issues for the future," said Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani diplomat.
The Afghan government will also need Pakistan to use its militant links to push forward peace talks with the Taliban, even if Islamabad hasn't done much to help so far, said Hasan-Askari Rizvi, a Pakistani political and defense analyst.
"Moving closer to India is the only strategy available to counter Pakistani pressure," said Rizvi. "But in the long run, Afghanistan can't alienate Pakistan altogether."
Lodhi, the former diplomat, said she hopes Pakistan keeps this bigger picture in mind before making hasty decisions on the security front.
"It should avoid mimicking President Karzai, who thinks pique can serve as policy," she said.
Meanwhile in Abbotabad...The conciliatory words from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, terming Pakistan a “brother” will not really undo the hurt felt in Islamabad by the agreement reached between India and Afghanistan on October 5 — Kabul’s first strategic pact with another nation. Signatures were placed on various important agreements after a visit by Karzai to New Delhi and what appear to have been extremely affable talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The central point of the deal, which also touches upon cooperation in other areas, essentially envisages a plan under which India will help train Afghan security forces — as they prepare to take over the defence of their own country once the US pulls out — a moment that is now rapidly approaching.
The accord means some of the worst fears of at least some elements in Pakistan have now changed into reality. The nexus that has been developing for some years between Kabul and New Delhi has already caused a great deal of trepidation, particularly in military circles, where the thinking runs along a single track: control over Kabul and the events that take place there is vital to Pakistan’s strategic assets. The notion of an ‘enemy’ country gaining charge there is difficult to stomach, and in the lexicon of the military, this essentially means that Pakistan is flanked on either side by nations who are not allies. The idea that “my enemies’ friend is my enemy” runs strong. And of course the current state of relations between Pakistan and the US adds a further dimension of angst to the situation.
But we must live with realities and not with imagined scenarios of what should be. Kabul, of course, has a right to choose its own friends. But the elements who make the decisions in our own country must also consider why it is wary of its own designs and what impact our links with militant elements will have on a country that has already suffered immensely because of the Taliban. The accord with India will have a clear impact on Pakistan. We must reconsider where we stand and find ways of building peace across the whole region. This, after all, is the only way to combat terrorism and create the greater trust that we need in ties with our neighbours.
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Wasn't OBL an enemy of the world? It's not like we used his information to kill a highly respected Pakistani political leader...ISLAMABAD (AP) — A Pakistani doctor accused of running a vaccination program for the CIA to help track down Osama bin Laden should be put on trial for high treason, a government commission said Thursday, a move likely to anger U.S. officials pushing for his release.
Dr. Shakil Afridi has been in the custody of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency since soon after the May 2 American raid that killed bin Laden. The agency was humiliated and outraged by the covert American operation and is aggressively investigating the circumstances surrounding it.
Afridi's fate is a complicating issue in relations between the CIA and the ISI that were strained to the breaking point by the bin Laden raid.
U.S. and Pakistani officials have said Arifdi ran a vaccination program in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad where the al-Qaida leader hid in an effort to obtain a DNA sample from him. Afridi was detained in the days after the U.S. operation. He has no lawyer.
A Pakistani government commission investigating the raid on bin Laden said in a statement that it was of the view that "a case of conspiracy against the state of Pakistan and high treason" should be registered against Afridi on the basis of the evidence it had gathered. It did not elaborate.
Such a charge carries the death penalty.
The commission, which interviewed Afridi and the head of the ISI, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha this week, has been tasked with investigating how bin Laden managed to hide in the army town of Abbottabad for up to five years, and the circumstances surrounding the U.S. operation. It is headed by a Supreme Court justice, and its members include a retired general, a former diplomat, a former police chief and a civil servant.
It is unclear why the body would make this recommendation public, and whether it will lead to charges being filed against Afridi.
The commission was formed amid intense international pressure for answers over how bin Laden was able to live undetected for so long in Abbottabad, an army town close to the capital. Skeptics will say it is unlikely to achieve that goal, given the power of the ISI and the army, and may well end up a whitewash.
The vaccination ruse has been widely criticized by aid agencies, which have said it could harm legitimate immunization programs in Pakistan. The vaccination team was reported to have gained access bin Laden's house in Abbottabad, but that it didn't confirm bin Laden's presence there.
