[Kabul Express Movie Download Dual Audio 720p
Rapheal Charlton
This report reviews the recent incidence of terrorism in South Asia, concentrating on Pakistan and India, but also including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. The existenceof international terrorist groups and their supporters in South Asia is identified as a threat to bothregional stability and to the attainment of central U.S. policy goals. Al Qaeda forces that fled fromAfghanistan with their Taliban supporters remain active on Pakistani territory, and Al Qaeda isbelieved to have links with indigenous Pakistani terrorist groups that have conducted anti-Westernattacks and that support separatist militancy in Indian Kashmir. Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Ladenand his lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are widely believed to be in Pakistan. A significant portionof Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun population is reported to sympathize with the Taliban and even AlQaeda. The United States maintains close counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan aimedespecially at bolstering security and stability in neighboring Afghanistan. In the latter half of 2003,the Islamabad government began limited military operations in the traditionally autonomous tribalareas of western Pakistan. Such operations have since intensified in coordination with U.S. andAfghan forces just across the international frontier.
The relationships between international terrorists, indigenous Pakistani extremist groups, andsome elements of Pakistan's political-military structure are complex and murky, but may representa serious threat to the attainment of key U.S. policy goals. There are past indications that elementsof Pakistan's intelligence service and Pakistani Islamist political parties provided assistance toU.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). A pair of December 2003 attempts toassassinate Pakistan's President Musharraf reportedly were linked to Al Qaeda. Lethal, but failedattempts to assassinate other top Pakistani officials in summer 2004 also were linked to AlQaeda-allied groups. Security officers in Pakistan have enjoyed notable successes in breaking upsignificant Al Qaeda and related networks operating in Pakistani cities, although numerous wantedmilitants remain at large.
The 9/11 Commission Report contains recommendations for U.S. policy toward Pakistan,emphasizing the importance of eliminating terrorist sanctuaries in western Pakistan and near theAfghanistan-Pakistan border and calling for provision of long-term and comprehensive support tothe government of President Musharraf so long as that government remains committed to combatingextremism and to a policy of "enlightened moderation." Legislation passed by the 108th Congress(S. 2845) seeks to implement this and other Commission recommendations.
The United States remains concerned by the continued "cross-border infiltration" of Islamicmilitants who traverse the Kashmiri Line of Control to engage in terrorist acts in India and IndianKashmir. India also is home to several indigenous separatist and Maoist-oriented terrorist groups. Moreover, it is thought that some Al Qaeda elements fled to Bangladesh. The Liberation Tigers ofTamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka have been designated as an FTO under U.S. law, while Harakatul-Jihad-I-Islami/Bangladesh, and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)/United Peoples Front,appear on the State Department's list of "other terrorist groups."
This report reviews the recent incidence of terrorism in South Asia, concentrating on Pakistan and India, but also including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal.(1) In the wake of the September2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, President Bush launched major military operations inSouth and Southwest Asia as part of the global U.S.-led anti-terrorism effort. Operation EnduringFreedom in Afghanistan has seen substantive success with the vital assistance of neighboringPakistan. Yet the United States remains concerned that members of Al Qaeda and its Talibansupporters have found haven and been able, at least partially, to regroup in Pakistani cities and in therugged Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. This latter area is inhabited by ethnic Pashtuns whoexpress solidarity with anti-U.S. forces. Al Qaeda also reportedly has made alliances withindigenous Pakistani terrorist groups that have been implicated in both anti-Western attacks inPakistan and terrorism in Indian Kashmir. These groups seek to oust the government of PresidentGen. Pervez Musharraf and have been named as being behind two December 2003 assassinationattempts that were only narrowly survived by the Pakistani leader. In fact, Pakistan's struggle withmilitant Islamic extremism appears for some to have become an matter of survival for thatcountry.(2) Along withthese concerns, the United States expresses an interest in the cessation of "cross-border infiltration"by separatist militants based in Pakistani-controlled areas who traverse the Kashmiri Line of Control(LOC) to engage in terrorist activities both in Indian Kashmir and in Indian cities. U.S.-designatedterrorist groups also remain active in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.
In March 2004, the Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Christina Rocca, told theSenate Foreign Relations Committee that the top U.S. policy goal in the region is "combating terrorand the conditions that breed terror in the frontline states of Afghanistan and Pakistan."(3) The 9/11 Commission Report,released in July 2004, emphasizes that the mounting of large-scale international terrorist attacksappears to require sanctuaries in which terrorist groups can plan and operate with impunity. It alsonotes that Al Qaeda benefitted greatly from its former sanctuary in Afghanistan that was in part madepossible by logistical networks that ran through Pakistan. The report further notes that Pakistan'svast unpoliced regions remain attractive to extremist groups and that almost all of the 9/11 attackerstraveled the north-south nexus from Kandahar in Afghanistan through Quetta and Karachi inPakistan. The Commission identifies the government of President Musharraf as the best hope forstability in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and recommends that the United States make a long-termcommitment to provide comprehensive support for Islamabad so long as Pakistan itself is committedto combating extremism and to a policy of "enlightened moderation."(4)
Legislation passed by the 108th Congress seeks to implement this and other Commissionrecommendations, in part through the provision of comprehensive and long-term assistance toPakistan.(5) The NationalIntelligence Reform Act of 2004 (P.L. 108-458) calls for U.S. aid to Pakistan to be sustained at aminimum of FY2005 levels, with particular attention given to improving Pakistan's educationsystem, and extended the President's authority to waive coup-related sanctions through FY2006. Itfurther required the President to report to Congress by June 15, 2005, a description of a long-termU.S. strategy to engage with and support Pakistan. In passing the Foreign Operations FY2005Appropriations bill (P.L. 108-447), Congress approved the President's $700 million aid request forPakistan, half of which is to fund security-related programs.(6) Pending legislation in the109th Congress includes the Targeting Terrorists More Effectively Act of 2005 (S. 12). Sec. 232 of the bill identifies "a number of critical issues that threaten to disrupt" U.S.-Pakistanrelations, calls for "dramatically increasing" USAID funding for Pakistan-related projects, wouldrequire the President to report to Congress a long-term strategy for U.S. engagement with Pakistan,would set nuclear proliferation-related conditions on assistance to Pakistan, and would earmark $797million in economic and military assistance to Pakistan for FY2006.
In early 2005, the United States began advertizing in mass-circulation Urdu-languagenewspapers and on radio and television stations in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province topromote a rewards program for wanted Al Qaeda suspects. In May, Al Qaeda fugitive Abu Farajal-Libbi, a Libyan native wanted in connection with lethal December 2003 attempts to assassinatePresident Musharraf, was captured in the northwestern Pakistani city of Mardan. Informationprovided by Libbi reportedly led to the arrest of six suspected Al Qaeda members, including twoArabs and four Pakistanis, and the targeted killing of an alleged Al Qaeda bomb expert near theAfghan border. Musharraf claimed that Pakistan had "broken their [Al Qaeda's] back" with recentarrests. Two months later, in the wake of deadly July bombings in Britain and Egypt, Musharrafagain declared that Al Qaeda's ability to operate in Pakistan had been destroyed.(7) Debate over the whereaboutsof fugitive Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden continues to focus on the rugged Afghan-Pakistaniborder region: Pakistani officials generally insist there is no evidence that bin Laden is hiding there,but numerous U.S. officials have suggested otherwise. In June, Director of Central Intelligence Gossclaimed to have "an excellent idea of where [bin Laden] is" and suggested that "sanctuaries insovereign states" and "our sense of international obligation" present obstacles to his capture.(8) The Pakistani president hasissued contradictory statements on the topic.
Efforts to kill or capture Al Qaeda and Taliban militants near the Afghanistan-Pakistanborder continue to bring mixed results. An apparently resurgent Taliban has suffered majorbattlefield losses in eastern and southern Afghanistan during the spring and summer of 2005, butU.S. and Afghan officials continue to claim that insurgents are able to cross into Afghanistan toattack U.S.-led forces before returning to Pakistan and, in June, Afghan officials were complainingof a "steady stream of terrorists" entering their country from Pakistan. The Afghan-Pakistani riftdeepened, spurring President Bush to make a personal call to Musharraf in an effort to smoothrelations between two key U.S. allies in the region. In July, Pakistan reported moving 4,000additional troops to the border region, bringing the total to some 80,000, and Prime Minister Azizvisited Kabul, where he vowed "seamless cooperation" with the Afghan government in fightingterrorism and Islamic extremism. Still, U.S. officials continue to urge Islamabad (and Kabul) to "domore" to end insurgent operations in the region and some reports indicate that Taliban recruiting andtraining continues to take place on Pakistani territory without government interference.(9)
795a8134c1