CIA, Punjabi Taliban and Urban Guerrilla Warfare in Pakistan

As if Pakistan was not going through enough havoc, the country is now facing a severe security threat. This time though, it is not the disruptive north, rather the region of Punjab; considered to be the state’s industrial, agricultural and cultural hub.

by Zaki Khalid

Yesterday, nine young police trainees were brutally killed and their bodies mutilated at a small house for rent in suburban Lahore. They had come from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. What this attack shows is how powerful the intelligence gathering mechanism of these militants has become. It is not easy keeping check of who comes and goes in the crowded streets and alleys today. The terrorists have laid out their network of informers well. And they belong to the notorious Moaviya Group or Momin Brigade of the TTP (Pakistani Taliban).

The group’s leader is Asmatullah Moaviya, a radical heretic mullah from Punjab who pledged his oath of allegiance to Hakeemullah Mehsud, brother of Baitullah Mehsud. Both the Mehsud brothers are long time CIA assets: Baitullah was initially held at Guantanamo Bay and mysteriously released by the US later on citing “medical issues” (we all know what they were trying to hide). The ISI during Panetta’s tenure as CIA chief gave HUMINT and TECHINT to their American counterparts so that drones could take Baitullah down. The CIA kept resisting and ISI officials were pretty sure by then that something smelt bad. However, a few days later the Pakistani spooks provided manufactured reverse intelligence to the CIA and they accidentally killed their own asset.

Hakeemullah is dead or alive, that is yet to be confirmed. News reports also mentioned that Asmatullah Moaviya was arrested by security agencies from Lakki Marwat area. This news too, is disputed and hence needs verification.

Meanwhile, let me get you back on track to what the alarming thing is. An attack of such an improbability and precision in the heart of bustling Lahore has made it clear that Pakistan’s central east zone is being prepared into being a battlefield for urban warfare. Guerrilla warfare is being analyzed by security threat analysts in the ISI and according to others, Pakistan’s Army Chief General Kayani is strongly considering options to revive Civil Defence drills across Pakistan under highly secure and supervised locations. Since a few days, my colleagues at TX and I have been discussing what civilians like us will do to cope with the dangers of an urban guerrilla warfare.

To a great extent, there are exaggerations prevailing in peoples’ speculation that Blackwater is behind all this. From my talks with a Major from the ISI stationed in Lahore, Blackwater a.k.a. Xe LLC a.k.a. ‘Academi‘ does not have any presence in Pakistan anymore. However, this does not mean that the country has been rid of the Virginian Menace: CIA. I was told that there are still a considerable number of CIA personnel in Pakistan but ever since the last months of Gen Pasha’s tenure, they are under strict surveillance. MI6 is dormant but French intelligence is again into adventurism. It was reported by my sources last month that French embassies have been giving clearance to many North African people. Some Moroccan and others from Algeria. German Al Qaeda recruits have already started to increase and all their penetration into Pakistan is via Afghanistan. Indian intelligence RAW has been training TTP militants for well over 5 years now. The Moaviya group is direct CIA with no intermediary.

A close friend and brother in Egypt’s General Intelligence Directorate chipped in to add that Qatar has been recruiting jihadists-for-hire from Libya, Somalia and Algeria. They used them first against Gaddafi, then in Syria and now in Pakistan. France and Qatar’s spy agencies have been collaborating together on this with frequent visits of the DGSE chief to Doha.

Getting back to the issue at hand: The “Punjabi” Taliban, or so they call it. In the troubled Balochistan province, scores of Hazaras especially citizens adhering to Shiite beliefs are being massacred by the day. Their killers are also the Moaviya group and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Aalami. So on the western front we have sectarian killings and on the eastern, urban warfare. Last week, a Pakistan Army camp in Wazirabad near Gujrat city was attacked and soldiers embraced martyrdom. This was the second such attack in Punjab. Previously, four MI officials and a Pakistan Army Major were attacked and martyred near Chakwal city last year in November by the same Moaviya group.

Punjab’s threat level has gone from orange to red. The militants have openly warned of more such attacks in the future especially on intelligence desks around Punjab and police stations and jails. In short, Pakistan in entirety now faces an existentialist threat. Lahore is placed on prime position and next comes Karachi.

What could be a better technique to get Pakistan Army into fighting small pocket wars within Punjab and Sindh so that India waits for the right time to pounce?

The TTP were never affiliated with the Afghan Taliban who are resisting allied forces in Afghanistan. Mullah Omar and his aide Zabeehullah Mujahid have been saying for more than five years now that they do not endorse or support TTP attacks on Pakistanis. That sums it all up. As far as religious extremism goes, Punjab is a hotbed of sectarian militant groups. Some are militant anti-Shiites and others militant anti-Sunnis. All are headed by the same grandmaster i.e. CIA. Weapon supplies are stocked in Khost and especially Kunar. I tweeted about some related developments recently that Special Task Force 373 units were seen meeting with four RAW Majors in Afghanistan at an undisclosed Indian Consulate. This was just a week ago.

With America wanting to destabilize Pakistan before it leaves and turn it into a buffer state, Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division is formulating a new contigency-based formula for Punjab (details later, perhaps). The military is on one hand dealing with terrorists (local assets for foreign powers) as well as the hyper-sensational Pakistani media, which is more a mouthpiece for the enemy than the country itself. Pakistan’s military establishment is engaged in multi-pronged warfare: counter terrorist and counter psyops.

I leave my readers with this for now. I try to remain formal but it gets hard especially when I see children roaming around my city that might flow with rivers of blood in the coming days. God save us. God save all Pakistanis and every innocent soul in the world from the tyranny of Zion and its Luciferian machinations in the form of CIA, NATO, MOSSAD, “AL QAEDA” et al. Amen to that.

Zaki Khalid

Zaki is a geopolitics and security analyst based in Lahore, Pakistan who has a keen interest in the study of Open-Source Intelligence and Psychological Warfare. He covers the global scenario with a special emphasis on the MENA and Asia regions at large. He has a Bachelors degree with majors in French, Journalism and Education from the University of Punjab.

His brief independent profile can be viewed here: http://cuttings.me/users/zakikhalid

Besides contributing to VT as a columnist, he is the Director General at Terminal X (www.terminalx.org), Pakistan’s most authoritative portal on defence, intelligence and geopolitics. TX is considered an authority on references from the Pakistani military and intelligence developments, having been taken on air by TVN Chile, Iran’s Press TV and Radio Channel Islam International (South Africa), to name a few.

Personal blog: http://zakikhalidtx.tumblr.com/