Arms to Taliban Via Pakistan?

[Boota Masih]

December issue of the Airforces Monthly Magazine states that in 1984 India sold 100,000 rifles to the Afghan Mujahideens through the CIA for use against its cold war ally and friend the Soviet Union.

[ali]

Taliban Receives Arms Via Pakistan

Weapons hidden in aid shipments

By Julian West, The Washington Times

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The Taliban regime is receiving weapons from Pakistani arms dealers who are funded by sympathetic local businessmen and a religious trust linked to al Qaeda, the international terror network headed by fugitive Osama bin Laden.

Intelligence sources in Pakistan have described how arms are sent to the Taliban from the arms bazaars of Pakistan using a complex network of money changers, arms dealers and smugglers.

According to these sources, the main sponsor of the illicit trade is Al Rashid Trust, a Karachi-based extremist organization whose bank accounts recently were frozen by the Pakistani government after it was suspected of channeling funds to al Qaeda, the prime suspects in the September 11 attacks on the United States. The other principal backers are a few wealthy businessmen based mainly in Lahore, Pakistan.

In the past few weeks, Al Rashid Trust is believed to have smuggled an undetermined quantity of weapons and ammunition in trucks containing relief supplies such as blankets or wheat.

The arms have been shipped through the desert border crossing at Chaman, near the Pakistani city of Quetta. From there, the weapons, bought in the arms bazaars of Karachi, are being trucked along the straight desert road that leads to Kandahar, the Taliban heartland.

"The Al Rashid Trust is totally involved in supplying ammunition and weapons," said a former Pakistani intelligence source, who could not estimate the number of arms supplied.

"They are sending in heavy weapons under blankets and foodstuffs; it's nonsense to believe this has stopped."

An Afghan shipper in Peshawar, who until recently ferried fruit and other goods to and from Afghanistan, also confirmed that relief trucks had been used to transport arms during the period when the Taliban regime was under U.N. sanctions.

He described seeing a truck carrying wheat that had overturned on the potholed road leading from the Khyber Pass to Kabul two months ago.

"On top, there was a layer of sacks containing wheat," he said. "But underneath, the truck was full of boxes of ammunition and guns."

Elsewhere, weapons destined for the Taliban front lines north of Kabul have been smuggled through the mountains of the North West Frontier Province on donkey trains, using traditional contraband trails that circumvent Pakistani checkpoints.

These arms, which are funded mainly by two or three wealthy Pakistani businessmen, come from Darra Adam Khel, a dusty, one-horse town south of Peshawar devoted to the sale and manufacture of guns. Its dealers can produce anything from a perfectly replicated Luger pistol or an Uzi submachine gun to a pen that fires tiny bullets.

Arms dealers in Darra, who are paid either through wire transfers or by a system of chits exchanged for cash in the Peshawar money bazaar, undertake to deliver the arms.

Explaining how the deals are made, an intelligence source said: "The businessman just calls and says: 'So and so will visit you. Kindly help him out.' He'll then go on to order perhaps 20,000 boxes of Kalashnikov ammunition. The Darra arms dealer then takes care of the delivery, and once it's done, collects his cash."

Workers at the Peshawar office of Al Rashid Trust refused yesterday to confirm they were sending arms to the Taliban regime.

But arms dealers in Darra said their production of ammunition and weapons had gone up in recent weeks, although they would not estimate by how much or disclose their buyers.

The sources in Pakistan said they saw no evidence of Pakistani government involvement, and Western intelligence sources in Pakistan said they believed there was none.

Pakistani authorities last week seized a large consignment of weapons, including Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers, in the Bajaur Agency, a tribal area north of Peshawar.

The border also has been officially sealed. Even so, refugees arriving from Kabul report that Taliban soldiers are brandishing new weapons, indicating that weapons are still reaching the regime.

These refugees say the Taliban militia has also been moving its heavy weaponry and troops into residential areas of the capital and camouflaging the vehicles with mud to evade satellite detection.

"I asked two Taliban soldiers who came to my shop if they still had weapons after the bombing," said Najaff, a shopkeeper in Kabul who arrived in Peshawar two days ago. "They said they had received lots of new guns."

In addition to supplies from Pakistan, the Taliban militia has been asking villagers in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan to dig out any guns they may have buried earlier to fight American ground troops.

A Taliban diplomat said that many women also had asked for guns.

[ali]

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/apnews/stories/102601/D7FCVOOG0.html

Friday, October 26, 2001

MIAMI - An airplane broker pleaded guilty Friday to trying to launder $2.2 million in proceeds from illegal arms sales, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Walter Kapij pleaded guilty in a Fort Pierce federal court to conspiring to launder the money, which undercover agents had offered him in a weapons sting. He could be sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined up to $250,000.

The money laundering charges grew out of plans by others to buy a Stinger missile and other arms from undercover agents. Two Pakistani nationals were charged with money laundering and attempting to violate the Arms Export Control Act.

Kapij had chartered a jet to take the money to an undercover bank account in London. He was arrested when he and an associate accepted two suitcases of money from undercover agents in Fort Lauderdale.

Kapij's associate, former Wall Street bond trader Kevin Ingram, pleaded guilty in August to a money laundering charge and agreed to testify for the government.

Diaa Mohsen, an Egyptian national, pleaded guilty last week to conspiracy to launder $350,000 in reputed proceeds from illegal arms sales.

Mohammed Malik, of Jersey City, N.J., was also charged in the weapons case. A plea hearing is scheduled for Nov. 16 in the arms case.

[RMS Azam]

CNN's Satinder Bindra is reporting from Taloqan that two military transport aircraft from Pakistan landed at Konduz airfield yesterday to take out Pakistani military personnel!

[Farooq]

Originally posted by RMS Azam
CNN's Satinder Bindra is reporting from Taloqan that two military transport aircraft from Pakistan landed at Konduz airfield yesterday to take out Pakistani military personnel!

RMS, I haven't heard the Rabid Bindra's report, but can you please clarify, i.e. were they 'allegedly' assisting/advising Taliban or against them ?

[RMS Azam]

Originally posted by Farooq


RMS, I haven't heard the Rabid Bindra's report, but can you please clarify, i.e. were they 'allegedly' assisting/advising Taliban or against them ?


They were allegedly helping the Taliban. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry has "vehemently denied" the allegation. I think Bindra cooked up the story himself. I don't trust Indians. An Indian can never be neutral when it comes to reporting on Pakistan.

[SyedA]

I doubt Pakistani govt will sit quietly and watch NA take over while Taliban vanish. Chinese border is still unguarded and China supplied the mujahadeens a lot of arms during the war with russia.

I have a feeling that this guerrilla warfare will pick up during hard winter when its hard to fight.

[Uzair]

But I fail to see why we should supply the Taliban with arms? I doubt it’s a good idea to supply a movement that is at the brink of defeat. It would be instead best to support the other Pushtun forces, not aligned to the NA. We have to be more flexible and not just rely on the Taliban anymore.

[Waqqas]

I think this is baboon propaganda and should be taken with a barrel or two of salt...

If the NA overruns Pashtun areas and if they make threatening moves or comments against Pakistan (which they have been doing), or if they continue massacring people like what they did in Mazar e Sharif and Kabul...then I would think Pakistan may extend SOME help to the Taliban. But suggesting that Pakistani choppers are flying in and out of Afghanistan while the US is pounding the place 24/7 is just another bad bollywood script designed to make Pakistan look like it supports terrorism...

BTW I have talked to a few people who are ajour with the situation and they said the Taliban got out of the cities because A LOT of innocent civilians were getting killed by the US/UK bombing. Which should also explain why the US dropped bombs on the Al-Jazeera office. He said the morale is high and the fight will continue in the mountains.

As people have said on PakDef earlier the next week or so will be crucial to Afghanistan's future.

I don't think it is justified for people to start panicking. The situation is worrying, definitely...but remember we had the Soviets in Afghanistan 20 years ago and we managed to take care of the situation. I don't think the NA is remotely in a position to threaten Pakistan...if they do they will be history.

[Gaf]

I think that the Taliban has all the weapons they need, if they want to fight a guerilla war!.. All u need are grenades, AK47s and a few MANPADS for that type of thing. One thing that Afghanisatan is not short of, is weapons...

Pakistan needs to find an ally that will do its bidding for it, but is also 'acceptable' to the international community. The taliban have not done much over the last few years to gain any credibility with the international community. The destruction of those statues was plain dumb stupid....

Pakistan needs to look into what its possibilites are in increasing the divisions in the NA to the point where they start fighting amongst themselves, in addition to locating new friends in the large number of Pashtuns...

[Gulstan]

Originally posted by Farooq


RMS, I haven't heard the Rabid Bindra's report, but can you please clarify, i.e. were they 'allegedly' assisting/advising Taliban or against them ?

It was reported on SKY news in the UK that it was senior Taliban who had been extricated in exchange for the Aid works held for attempting to convert people.

On a side note it was also mentioned that they are in excess of 2000 Arabs / Pakistanis/ Chechens/ Ujigurs in Kundus - The B*****D of the NA have offered to be kind to all Taliban apart from these and for them to expect no mercy. What I can't understand why is the GOP speaking him for our people and trying to protect them, even though they have landed in this situation by their own actions., it still does not absolve the GOP from doing anything. After the murder of 100 Pakistani at MAzar i Sharif, we need to speak for them.
What ever mistakes they may have made its no reason to leave them to face the fate awaiting them at the hands of the NA. For those in the UK, you only have to see the front page of the Mirror on Tuesday to see how much the NA have changed.:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Aamir M]

Gulstan, I think that the reason why our government is not making any attempt to speak out against the murder of our fellow citizens, is that they are people from the same groups that under a month ago were calling for the overthrow of the government and in some cases going as far as declaring our leadership to be apostates.

[Abbas]

The worst thing Pakistan can do to itself is supply weapons, or any support for that matter, to the Taliban. Pakistan already did its best to give them a chance to avoid the fate they are suffering now, however they rebuffed all Pakistani pleadings. Having such irrational people as an ally is counter productive to our interests.

In any case, the Taliban have been contributing to instability and insecurity in Pakistan by giving safe haven to those who have committed terrorism in Pakistan. All out support from Pakistan did not persuade the Taliban to turn over killers of our people. I am really disturbed by the number of members who are supporting Taliban, and I wonder when Pakistanis will begin to value the blood of their own citizens over that of foreigners.

The Pakistanis who went to help the Taliban are traitors as far as I am concerned; they should be stripped of Pakistani citizenship and prohibited from returning to Pakistan forever. If you are going to stake your life to fight alongside foreigners, then you have greater love for foreigners than for your own country. If you are ready to die with them, than you had better be ready to live with them too.

NavBaby.

[H Khan]

Ali,

Can you tell us your previous username on this forum?

[Boota Masih]

Bandria's report is total crap. With Afghan airspace covered 24 hours by every thing from AWACS to JSTARS to Satellites do you think Pakistanis are that stupid to be sending in their planes deep into Afghan territory. He is stooping to the level of what one reads on Bharat Rakshak. In one post they said that September 13th closure of Islamabad airport was due to the fact it was being used to bring back Pakistani troops from Afghanistan. Of all the airports and closed military fields in Pakistan, why would Pakistan use a dual use civilian airport such as Chaklala to do some thing it wants to hide from the rest of the world? Another story from Times of India says that Pakistani nukes are in Gilgit as the IAF tracked a formation of C-130s go there escorted by F-16s on September 13th. I would say classic deception by Pakistan which the Indians have taken line, hook and sinker. Nukes could have simply been put in the back of one of those thousands of multicolored, inconsequential Bedford trucks that roam our highways and taken to some deep cave or mine that dot the Potohar Plateau that is if they were not already there. Places like the Khewara salt mines are ideal as they run for tens of miles and are thousands of feet underground where no deep penetration LGB can reach. Khewra has a small airfield and as the crow flys it is only a few minutes flying time away from Sargodha. Among other things I would say its an ideal place to create a Pakistani version of NORAD.

[Waqqas]

Abbas, I don't think it is a matter of people supporting Taliban. Rather, it is a matter of countering the NA. If the NA completely destroys the Taliban then they will not listen to reason and pleas to moderate their barbaric behavior. On the other hand if the Taliban, or other Pashtun representatives, are strong, then a solution can be achieved in Afghanistan where everybody is represented in the new power structure.

As for the people who went to Afghanistan...Most of the followers of our religious and political parties are good people who are mislead by "religious" and political leaders. I would rather crack down on these leaders than on their followers.

There is no excuse for what the monsters of the NA did to those people. The NA are war criminals and should be brought to justice.

[Sultan]

Satinder Bandrias report is just fabricated news for propaganda purposes. Afterall its reported by an Indian so it hardly is going to be unbiased reporting!

[Uzair]

Pakistani support or not, the NA will NEVER completely take control of Afghanistan. Their true nature of being basically thugs will resurface very soon and the local populace will grow tired of them. Especially the tribal Pushtuns and locals who have never seen eye to eye with them. And opposition to NA is not limited to the Pushtun Taliban. There are other Pushtun forces that dislike the Taliban just as much.

So, NA can be countered without helping the Taliban. In fact it would extremely stupid to help the Taliban at a time like this, when the US is all over the place. We should just talk the talk but stay on the sidelines as a greedy NA, bolstered by Russia, India and US ruins it for themselves.

[Aamir M]

Now may be a good time to try and resume support for Gulbuddin Hekmatyr and Younus Khalis' Hezb-i-Islami movement. They are the anti-NA Pakhtuns who are taking land from the Taliban. Of course, the problem is that back in 1996, we abruptly cut off support for the Hezb, preferring the Taliban.........