Jihad, Inc. Part III

(See also: Jihad, Inc. Part I and Jihad, Inc. Part II, both of which are found under Stop Islamic Conquest: The Killing at the old blog.)

Unless otherwise noted, quotes are from: Cooperative Research Complete 911 Timeline Afghan/Pakistani Drug Connection (see original for links to sources):

Afghan opium production rises from 250 tons in 1982 to 2,000 tons in 1991, coinciding with CIA support and funding of the mujaheddin. Alfred McCoy, a professor of Southeast Asian history at the University of Wisconsin, says US and Pakistani intelligence officials sanctioned the rebels’ drug trafficking because of their fierce opposition to the Soviets: “If their local allies were involved in narcotics trafficking, it didn’t trouble [the] CIA. They were willing to keep working with people who were heavily involved in narcotics.”

So, allegedly, the CIA not only helped set up the terrorist networks we are now battling, but at the very least turned a blind eye to the beginning of this current wave of heroin trafficking from South Asia that we are now failing to deal with.

From Heroin, Taliban and Pakistan, B. Raman, Friday, August 10, 2001:

PAKISTAN'S illegal heroin economy has kept its legitimate economy sustained since 1990 and prevented its collapse. It has also enabled it maintain a high level of arms purchases from abroad, and finance its proxy war against India through the jehadi organisations.

While no estimate of the money spent by it on its proxy war is available, according to Pakistani analysts (Friday Times, March 9), about 80 per cent of its total external debt of $38 billion, that is, about US $30.4 billion, was incurred on arms purchases since 1990.

The use of the heroin dollars for such purposes started after the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1988. In the 1980s, at the instance of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Internal Political Division of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), headed by Brig (retd). Imtiaz, who worked directly under Lt Gen Hamid Gul -- who was Director-General, ISI, during the later years of Zia-ul-Haq and the first few months of Ms Benazir Bhutto's first tenure as the Prime Minister (1988-90) -- started a cell for the use of heroin for covert actions.

This cell promoted the cultivation of opium and the extraction of heroin in Pakistan as well as in those parts of Afghanistan under Mujahideen control for being smuggled into the Soviet-controlled areas to get the Soviet troops addicted. After the withdrawal of the Soviet troops, the ISI's heroin cell started using its network of refineries and smugglers to send heroin to the West and use the money to supplement its legitimate economy.

Not only the state economy, but also many senior officers of the Army and the ISI benefited from the heroin dollars.

Production of poppies in Afghanistan skyrocketed during the years of the Soviet occupation. The CIA, working with Pakistan's Interservice Intelligence (ISI), supported the production of heroin in areas subject to Mujahideen control. The heroin was smuggled across enemy lines in an attempt to get Soviet soldiers hooked on narcotics. The revenues were used to fund the jihad against the Soviet occupation

Much of the money was laundered through the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), the largest Islamic bank in the world, headquartered in Pakistan. Bin Laden and many other militants had accounts there before the bank was finally shut down in 1991.

From Cooperative Research Complete 911 Timeline Afghan/Pakistani Drug Connection again:

In December 1994, Philippine police reportedly begin monitoring a Pakistani businessman by the name of Tariq Javed Rana. According to Avelino Razon, a Philippine security official, the decision to put Rana under surveillance is prompted by a report that “Middle Eastern personalities” are planning to assassinate Pope John Paul II during his upcoming January 1995 visit to Manila. “[We] had one man in particular under surveillance—Tariq Javed Rana, a Pakistani suspected of supporting international terrorists with drug money. He was a close associate of Ramzi Yousef,” Razon later recalls. But it is possible that police began monitoring Rana before this date. In September, the Philippine press reported that he was a suspect in an illegal drug manufacturing ring, and the US embassy in Manila received a tip that Rana was linked to the ISI and was part of a plot to assassinate President Clinton during his November 1994 visit to Manila (see September 18-November 14, 1994). [CounterPunch, 3/9/2006] While under surveillance in December, Rana’s house burns down. Authorities determine that the fire was caused by nitroglycerin which can be used to improvise bombs. One month later, a fire caused by the same chemical is started in Ramzi Yousef’s Manila apartment (see January 6, 1995), leading to the exposure of the Bojinka plot to assassinate the Pope and crash a dozen airplanes. [Contemporary Southeast Asia, 12/1/2002; CounterPunch, 3/9/2006] Rana is arrested by Philippine police in early April 1995. It is announced in the press that he is connected to Yousef and that he will be charged with investment fraud. He is said to have supported the militant group Abu Sayyaf and to have helped Yousef escape the Philippines after the fire in Yousef’s apartment. A search of the Lexis Nexus database shows there have been no media reports about Rana since his arrest. Around the same time as his arrest, six other suspected Bojinka plotters are arrested, but then eventually let go (see April 1, 1995-Early 1996). [Associated Press, 4/2/1995]

Weapons and narcotics smuggling are connected to Islamic terrorists in the Philippines.

Jihad isn't just big business; it's a global empire.

Pakistan’s army chief and the head of the ISI, its intelligence agency, propose to sell heroin to pay for the country’s covert operations, according to Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister at the time. Sharif claims that shortly after becoming prime minister, army chief of staff Gen. Aslam Beg and ISI director Gen. Asad Durrani present him with a plan to sell heroin through third parties to pay for covert operations that are no longer funded by the CIA, now that the Afghan war is over. Sharif claims he does not approve the plan. Sharif will make these accusations in 1994, one year after he lost an election and became leader of the opposition. Durrani and Beg will deny the allegations. Both will have retired from these jobs by the time the allegations are made. The Washington Post will comment in 1994, “It has been rumored for years that Pakistan’s military has been involved in the drug trade. Pakistan’s army, and particularly its intelligence agency… is immensely powerful and is known for pursuing its own agenda.” The Post will further note that in 1992, “A consultant hired by the CIA warned that drug corruption had permeated virtually all segments of Pakistani society and that drug kingpins were closely connected to the country’s key institutions of power, including the president and military intelligence agencies.” [Washington Post, 9/12/1994]

Pakistan isn't just infested with Khawarij terrorists; it is infested with narcotraffickers as well, and has been for years.

Two points to remember:

1) Narcotrafficking and terrorism are, especially in the Islamic world, just two faces of the same enemy.

2) Pakistan, like Saudi Arabia, is the Bush Administration's bestest buddy in the War on Terror. With friends like these....

Late 1996

Bin Laden establishes and maintains a major role in opium drug trade, soon after moving the base of his operations to Afghanistan. Opium money is vital to keeping the Taliban in power and funding bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network. One report estimates that bin Laden takes up to 10 percent of Afghanistan’s drug trade by early 1999. This would give him a yearly income of up to $1 billion out of $6.5 to $10 billion in annual drug profits from within Afghanistan. [Financial Times, 11/28/2001] The US monitors bin Laden’s satellite phone starting in 1996 (see November 1996-Late August 1998). According to one newspaper, “Bin Laden was heard advising Taliban leaders to promote heroin exports to the West.” [Guardian, 9/27/2001]

Sure, Islamic charities are nice, but the real money is in narcotrafficking. And, it takes real money to finance a good holy war -- readers from my other blog know how expensive jihad is, and how profitable it is, too.

Autumn, 1998

By this time, US intelligence has documented many links between the Pakistani ISI, Taliban, and al-Qaeda. It is discovered that the ISI maintains about eight stations inside Afghanistan which are staffed by active or retired ISI officers. The CIA has learned that ISI officers at about the colonel level regularly meet with bin Laden or his associates to coordinate access to al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. The CIA suspects that the ISI is giving money and/or equipment to bin Laden, but they find no evidence of direct ISI involvement in al-Qaeda’s overseas attacks. The ISI generally uses the training camps to train operatives to fight a guerrilla war in the disputed Indian province of Kashmir. But while these ISI officers are following Pakistani policy in a broad sense, the CIA believes the ISI has little direct control over them. One senior Clinton administration official will later state that it was “assumed that those ISI individuals were perhaps profiteering, engaged in the drug running, the arms running.” One US official aware of CIA reporting at this time later comments that Clinton’s senior policy team saw “an incredibly unholy alliance that was not only supporting all the terrorism that would be directed against us” but also threatening “to provoke a nuclear war in Kashmir.” [Coll, 2004, pp. 439-440]

From How Pakistan’s ISI funds its proxy war by Syed Nooruzzaman, Sunday, November 28, 1999:

That the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate of Pakistan has been pumping in crores of rupees to sustain the proxy war unleashed on India is a well-known fact. But how is the huge fund generated? How does it reach the militants fighting the undeclared war in the Kashmir valley?

Actually, it might not be such a well-known fact. Pakistan for many years just narrowly missed being on the State Department's list of states that sponsor terror because of its proxy war in Kashmir. Then 9/11 happened, and President Bush made his infamous statement:

President George W. Bush, Thursday, September 20, 2001:
Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

(See also Stop Islamic Conquest: ... or you are with the terrorists." Part II and Stop Islamic Conquest: Alligators by the Swampful.)

When President Bush made that statement, India, eyeing Pakistan and Kashmir, had to wonder if he really meant it. (Israel had to, as well, eyeing the Palestinian Authority.)

Still from How Pakistan’s ISI funds its proxy war by Syed Nooruzzaman, Sunday, November 28, 1999:

Surprisingly, militants are not the only people to benefit from these funds received mainly as donations. Certain politicians too have had their share. However, donations are not enough to lubricate the proxy war. There are certain other ways also to ensure an uninterrupted supply of money. These include: (1) sale of narcotics on a large scale (the United Nations Drug Control Programme has it that the ISI annually makes around $ 2.5 billion through this source and it must be spending anything between Rs 537.5 crore and Rs 1,075 crore on fuelling militancy every year); (2) printing of fake currency notes by the National Jehad Council at its printing press at Muzaffarabad in occupied Kashmir; (3) collections made in West Asia and European countries for the Jehad Fund; and (4) extortions from traders, contractors and other moneyed people.

So, narcotrafficking is big business, and Pakistan's political and military establishment is corrupt and in bed with the drug runners, who are either terrorists or in bed with terrorists.

I wonder if President Bush knows that?

Still from How Pakistan’s ISI funds its proxy war by Syed Nooruzzaman, Sunday, November 28, 1999:

In fact, militancy has become a flourishing business. The recruits get either a fixed salary or work on a contract basis. According to The Tribune’s information, a local militant’s monthly salary varies between Rs 2,500 and Rs 5,000 depending on various factors. A foreign mercenary gets between Rs 5,000 and Rs 8,000. The financial support given to the family of a deceased militant ranges from Rs 1500 to Rs 3000 a month. A fresh recruit can secure anything between Rs 5,000 and Rs 20,000 as a one-time payment, depending on his capacity to bargain. A guide gets between Rs 30,000 and Rs 50,000, a porter between Rs 7,500 and Rs 20,000 and a motivator Rs 5,000.

"In fact, militancy has become a flourishing business." Readers of Stop Islamic Conquest have known that for a while.... :)

Still from How Pakistan’s ISI funds its proxy war by Syed Nooruzzaman, Sunday, November 28, 1999:

There is widespread unemployment and poverty in certain areas of Pakistan, Afghanistan and some Muslim-dominated West Asian countries. This helps in recruiting youngsters for the destructive scheme, specially when the “salary” is so tempting. Religion comes handy in brainwashing the poverty-stricken people to risk their lives for a “cause”. This is sheer exploitation of simple souls.

Neither does this come as news to my readers. While bin Laden is making BIG bucks as the CEO of Jihad, Inc., many of the expendable Mujahideen are sexually-frustrated men from the Islamic world (consider how polygamy deprives many poor men of their chances to have a wife, and other issues, to see the sex-connection in the willingness to blow oneself up and get to those seventy-two virgins). Of course, many of the expendable Mujahideen are surprisingly well-off and have university studies behind them, too. (I guess universities have always been good at producing radicals -- look at the communists, feminists, etc.)

Again from Cooperative Research Complete 911 Timeline Afghan/Pakistani Drug Connection:

Operation Diamondback, a sting operation uncovering an attempt to buy weapons illegally for the Taliban, bin Laden, and others, ends with a number of arrests. An Egyptian named Diaa Mohsen and a Pakistani named Mohammed Malik are arrested and accused of attempting to buy Stinger missiles, nuclear weapon components, and other sophisticated military weaponry for the Pakistani ISI. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 8/23/2001; Washington Post, 8/2/2002]

A sting operation busts some ISI agents trying to buy nukes and man-portable surface-to-air missiles!

Some other ISI agents came to Florida on several occasions to negotiate, but they escaped being arrested. They wanted to pay partially in heroin. One mentioned that the WTC would be destroyed. These ISI agents said some of their purchases would go to the Taliban in Afghanistan and/or militants associated with bin Laden. [Washington Post, 8/2/2002; MSNBC, 8/2/2002]

Remember that the description is from August of 2002, but the events described precede 9/11.

Mohsen pleads guilty after 9/11, “but remarkably, even though [he was] apparently willing to supply America’s enemies with sophisticated weapons, even nuclear weapons technology, Mohsen was sentenced to just 30 months in prison.” [MSNBC, 8/2/2002] Malik’s case appears to have been dropped, and reporters find him working in a store in Florida less than a year after the trial ended. [MSNBC, 8/2/2002] Malik’s court files remain completely sealed, and in Mohsen’s court case, prosecutors “removed references to Pakistan from public filings because of diplomatic concerns.” [Washington Post, 8/2/2002]

And, the cover-up begins?

Walter Kapij, a pilot with a minor role in the plot, is given the longest sentence, 33 months in prison. [Palm Beach Post, 1/12/2002] Informant Randy Glass plays a key role in the sting, and has thirteen felony fraud charges against him reduced as a result, serving only seven months in prison. Federal agents involved in the case later express puzzlement that Washington higher-ups did not make the case a higher priority, pointing out that bin Laden could have gotten a nuclear bomb if the deal was for real. Agents on the case complain that the FBI did not make the case a counterterrorism matter, which would have improved bureaucratic backing and opened access to FBI information and US intelligence from around the world. [Washington Post, 8/2/2002; MSNBC, 8/2/2002]

The cohorts of terrorists, Pakistani intelligence agents, try to buy Stingers and nukes. The result: basically, a hand-slapping on the individuals involved, burial of the connection to Pakistan, and business-as-usual.

President George W. Bush, Thursday, September 20, 2001:
Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

Which side are you on, President Bush?