Ray

Speculative.

However, worth taking note.

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"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Archer

You need to look up the NE terrorist movement. Fighting in the name of Christ or Marx or anyone is possible, irrespective of what Christ himself preached!

__________________
Karmani Vyapurutham Dhanuhu

My bow is stretched for its task

Jay

Sir,
I read this news before and it is speculative. Srilankan tamil muslims loathe LTTE, so I dont really believe unless I see a concrete evidence. Infact, the majority of the muslims live in the East, where the rebel commander Karuna enjoys some advantage over LTTE. So may be the Srilankan govt is trying to discredit LTTE and step up the animosity between India and LTTE....its all speculative.

But one thing for sure, LTTE and the muslims do not have any long lasting friendship so far.

__________________
A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

Jay

Opinions vary on SL Muslim regiment

By: PK Balachandran
Courtesy: Hindustan Times - March 29, 2006

The Muslims of Sri Lanka are divided on the establishment of a Muslim regiment in the Sri Lankan Army.

The Sinhalas see it as a positive step but the Tamils are resolutely opposed to it.

The Sri Lankan Army has started recruiting Muslims for a Muslim regiment with the avowed purpose of giving a chance to the Muslims to enter the army and also give security to Muslim villages in the troubled Eastern districts of the island.

The 100,000 strong Sri Lankan Army is almost completely drawn from the majority Sinhala community.

One of the recommendations of conflict resolution experts has been that the army should be made multi-ethnic, with fair representation for the various communities living in the island.

Defence Ministry officials have been quoted as saying that the Army is hoping to recruit 500 to 800 Muslims in the first phase.

Muslim view

Some Muslims consider a separate Muslim regiment necessary for the protection of the Muslims in the troubled Eastern districts, where they are persecuted by the LTTE.

But others say that it will only increase the tension between the Muslims and the Tamils in those areas.

"It will exacerbate the problem, not help solve it," said Rauff Hakeem, leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), the largest Muslim political party.

Many Muslims like Hakeem fear that the formation of such a regiment, meant for deployment in the Eastern districts, will raise the hackles among the Tamils and the LTTE, who see the Muslims as a threat to their movement for autonomy or independence for the Tamil-speaking North Eastern Province.

Tamil-Muslim differences had led to a lot of bloodshed and displacement in the North East since 1985.

Of late, the LTTE has been accusing the Muslims of having terrorist groups called "Osama" and "Jihad".

In the last peace talks with the Sri Lankan government in Geneva in February, the LTTE had given some information on "Jihad".

Of course, the Muslims have vehemently denied that there is any armed or terrorist group amidst them.

"The Muslims had not demanded a Muslim regiment in the Army," Hakeem said.

"We had only demanded recruitment of Muslims to the police force so that the law and order situation in the Muslim majority areas in the East could be maintained with greater social and cultural sensitivity," he said.

"We are not opposed to greater recruitment of Muslims to the Sri Lankan Army. A national army has to be multi-ethnic and representative. Even a separate Muslim regiment may be necessary for the convenience of Muslim soldiers in view of their special religious needs. But this is not the time to establish such a regiment given the sensitivity of the issue," Hakeem maintained.

"A Muslim army regiment should be part of a final peace settlement of the ethnic question," he suggested.

"Government should have gone step by step. It should have consulted the Muslim political parties and the Ulema before taking a decision," the SLMC leader added.

Hakeem further said that the Muslims of Sri Lanka were a peaceful people who had never thought of fighting for their rights with arms.

"We have been asking for separate representation at the peace talks. But instead of conceding this, the government has given us a separate Muslim regiment which we never wanted!"

"The government seems to want our cooperation in war and not in peace!" he remarked.

IM Ibrahim, President of the Kalmunai Mosques Federation, said that the decision to set up a Muslim regiment was "not welcome".

"The Muslims had not demanded it. We suspect that it is meant to create tension between Muslims and Tamils," he said.

"The Muslims and Tamils of the East want to live together," he declared.

But MIM Mohideen, Secretary General of the North East Peace Assembly (NEPA), said that a Muslim Regiment was necessary because the Muslims of the East were defenceless.

"It is a very good decision and answers a felt need," he said.

"The Sinhalas have the Sri Lankan Army (which is mostly Sinhala). The Tamils have the LTTE and other militant groups. But the Muslims have no outfit to defend themselves," he pointed out.

"And it is better to have a well trained and well disciplined Muslim regiment in the regular army than a badly trained and ill-disciplined paramilitary group," he added.

Mohideen said that the need for a separate instrumentality for the defence of the Muslims had become necessary because talks with the LTTE and other Tamil militant groups over the last two decades had not borne any fruit. Muslims continued to be killed and harassed with impunity, he said.

Tamils oppose

"The Tamils oppose the Muslim regiment on the grounds that it will create Tamil-Muslim conflict in the East and is a ploy to divide the Tami-speaking people on religious lines and de-merge the North and the East," said Suresh Premachandran, MP belonging to the pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the largest Tamil party in Parliament.

"Tamil-Muslim tension began in the East only after the former Minister of National Security, Lalith Athulathmudali, established Muslim Home Guards to attack Tamil villages in the 1980s. The present step is part of this long standing strategy to divide the Tamil speaking people," he said.

"If there is Tamil-Muslim tension in the East, the demand for the separation of the Eastern districts from the Northern districts, now being made by the Sinhalas and the Muslims, will gather strength, and that will be used to break the unity of the Tamil-speaking people," Premachandran said.

"The LTTE's charge that a government-supported Muslim terrorist group called "Jehad", exists in the Eastern districts may have an element of truth in it. The decision to form a Muslim regiment in the army with recruits from the East may well be a ploy to regularise and legitimise the Jehad group," Premachandran said.

Third view

A third view has been expressed by Champika Liyanaarachchi, Associate editor of Daily Mirror.

In her column on Wednesday, she wondered what could stop the government from setting up a Tamil regiment also.

She said that a Tamil regiment could help the Eastern Tamils fight against the LTTE.

"Already there is considerable degree of support to the government from the anti-LTTE elements, especially in the Eastern province, and absorbing these into the main set up will benefit the government."

"While one could look at such a scenario purely from a militaristic point of view, such streamlining is likely to help the government's efforts towards bringing about a resolution of the conflict as well," Liyanaarachchi said.

Jay

Pakistan-based Islamic group eyes eastern Sri Lanka - analyst

[TamilNet, June 15, 2004 12:17 GMT]

Pakistan’s plans to appoint a former Director of its Intelligence Bureau (IB) as Ambassador to Sri Lanka "could have serious implications for the national security of India" a senior Indian analyst said this week, citing Colombo's importance as a base for Pakistani agents and a Pakistan backed militant group's increasing activities in Sri Lanka's eastern districts.

B. Raman, a former senior civil servant, argues in the latest issue of the weekly magazine Outlook that India must urge Sri Lanka to reject the planned appointment of [Col (retd) Bashir Wali] which was reported by Jang, a Pakistani Urdu daily.

Raman, Director of the Institute for Topical Studies in Chennai says a gradual militarisation of the internal IB, formerly a police organization, “has made it for all practical purposes a wing of the ISI” [Inter-Services Intelligence].

“There has been no evidence so far of the ISI using Colombo as a base for covert actions directed against India. However the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) has been showing increasing interest in taking jihad to the Muslims of the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka,” he says.

The LET, a Pakistan-based Kashimiri group, is described as the armed wing of the Markaz Dawa-Wal-Irshad, an Islamic fundamentalist organization.

Pakistan denies assisting LET, whose ideology, according to some analysts, goes beyond Kashmiri independence to the establishment of Islamic rule over all parts of India.

“There have been persistent reports of the beginning of a radicalisation of small sections of the Tamil-speaking Muslim youth of the Eastern Province [of Sri Lanka],” Raman says.

He cites the activities of the ‘Osama Brigade’ amidst the communal clashes in the Eastern province in 2002 and reports that Tamil Nadu police had arrested some members of a local organisation called the Muslim Defence Force who said they had planned meetings with the LET in eastern Sri Lanka.

“The LET is very close to the ISI and it would not have taken its initial moves to explore the possibility of using Sri Lanka as a clandestine base for its activities and for creating sleeper cells there without the knowledge and prior clearance of the ISI,” Raman feels.

“In the past, the ISI had posted its officers in junior and middle level clerical posts as well as in diplomatic posts in the Pakistani High Commission in Colombo [but] it had never posted its officers as the head of the Pakistani diplomatic mission [though] a journalist who was allegedly close to the ISI [was],” he says.

“Past evidence indicated that the main interest of the ISI in using Colombo as a base was to collect intelligence about developments in sensitive Indian nuclear and missile establishments, many of which are located in South India, particularly in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.”

“For collecting intelligence about these establishments, the ISI generally uses Sri Lankan Tamil-speaking Muslims visiting India as well as South Indians visiting Colombo,” Raman says.

“Colombo also serves as a convenient transit point for arranging clandestine visits of Indians co-operating with the ISI to Karachi by the flights of the Pakistan International Airlines without any entry of their visits in their passports.”

TamilNet: Pakistan-based Islamic group eyes eastern Sri Lanka - analyst

Jay

New Delhi & the Tamil Struggle
- An Amoral Role

Pakistan Intelligence Base in Colombo

B.Raman in SAAG, June 2004
Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Distinguished Fellow and Convenor, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter.

"Now that the Sri Lankan Government seems to have confronted India with a fait accompli by agreeing to the appointment of a die-hard anti- Indian sponsor of terrorism against India (Col. Wali) as the head of the Pakistani diplomatic mission in Colombo, India has to carefully analyse the implications of his presence in Colombo and take the necessary follow-up action. His presence in Colombo will pose a threat not only to India's national security, but also to stability and law and order in Sri Lanka's Eastern Province."

[see also the View from China: Xinhua Report in Chinese People's Daily Online, 15 August 2006 "Indian government strongly condemned terrorist violence in Sri Lanka and hoped it will not be repeated, said the spokesman of Indian Ministry of External Affairs on Monday 14 August 2006. "The Government of India has all along strongly condemned all incidents of terrorist violence and this incident is no exception. We deplore the targeting of a diplomatic convoy by terrorist elements and we hope that such terrorist incidents and attacks would not be repeated," said Navtej Sarna, spokesman of Indian Ministry of External Affairs. A blast took place in Colombo, Sri Lankan capital, on Monday, killing seven people, and was said to aim at Pakistani high commissioner Bashir Wali Mohammed. He narrowly escaped unhurt.]

Part I (12-06-2004)

For its intelligence-collection and covert action operations directed against India, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) uses four external bases - Kathmandu, Dubai, Bangkok and Colombo.

2. While Kathmandu and Dubai are used by the ISI for intelligence collection as well as covert actions, Bangkok is used as an alternate sanctuary and as a clandestine meeting place to brief and debrief its agents in India. After the Mumbai blasts of March,1993, the ISI had the perpetrators of the terrorist attack shifted to Bangkok from Karachi and kept them there for some time in different hotels in order to prevent the detection of their links with the ISI by the US diplomatic missions in Pakistan, which were enquiring into Indian allegations in this regard.

3.Past evidence indicated that the main interest of the ISI in using Colombo as a base was to collect intelligence about developments in sensitive Indian nuclear and missile establishments, many of which are located in South India, particularly in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

4. For collecting intelligence about these establishments, the ISI generally uses Sri Lankan Tamil-speaking Muslims visiting India as well as South Indians visiting Colombo. Colombo also serves as a convenient transit point for arranging clandestine visits of Indians co-operating with the ISI to Karachi by the flights of the Pakistan International Airlines without any entry of their visits in their passports.

5. There has been no evidence so far of the ISI using Colombo as a base for covert actions directed against India. However, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) has been showing increasing interest in taking jihad to the Muslims of the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. There have been persistent reports of the beginning of a radicalisation of small sections of the Tamil-speaking Muslim youth of the Eastern Province. During the riots in the Eastern Province in the middle of 2002, pamphlets in the name of a so-called Osama Brigade came to notice. The Chennai media had reported subsequently that some members of an organisation called the Muslim Defence Force (MDF) arrested by the Chennai Police had been in touch with one Abu Hamza of the LET based in the Gulf and that they were to meet him clandestinely in Sri Lanka. However, the meeting did not materialise as Abu Hamza did not come.

6. The LET is very close to the ISI and it would not have taken its initial moves to explore the possibility of using Sri Lanka as a clandestine base for its activties and for creating sleeper cells there without the knowledge and prior clearance of the ISI.

7. The recent investigations into the clandestine nuclear proliferation activities of A.Q.Khan, the so-called father of the Pakistan atom bomb, have revealed that Bukhary Seyed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan Tamil Muslim of Indian origin, married in Malysia and with business interests in Kuala Lumpur and Dubai, was one of the external kingpins of Pakistan's clandestine nuclear procurement network. In a speech at the National Defence University of Washington DC in February last, President Bush had described this Sri Lankan Tamil-speaking Muslim as the "chief financial officer and money-launderer" of A.Q.Khan's clandestine operations.

8.In the past, the ISI had posted its officers in junior and middle level clerical posts as well as in diplomatic posts in the Pakistani High Commission in Colombo.While it had never posted its officers as the head of the Pakistani diplomatic mission, Hussain Haqqani, a journalist who was then allegedly close to the ISI, was posted as the Pakistani High Commissioner to Sri Lanka during the first tenure of Nawaz Sharif as the Prime Minister (1990-93).

9. The "Jang", the Urdu daily of Pakistan, has now reported that the Pervez Musharraf regime has decided to post Col (retd) Bashir Wali, former Director of the Pakistani Intelligence Bureau (IB), as the new High Commissioner to Sri Lanka. It is not clear at what stage is the proposal. Has his name been already sent to the Sri Lankan Government for agrement? If so, has the Sri Lankan Government given its consent?

10. The IB is part of Pakistan's Ministry of the Interior. Like its Indian counterpart, it used to be a largely Police organisation, but since the days of the late Gen.Zia-ul-Haq, there has been a gradual militarisation of the organisation. Musharraf has made it for all practical purposes a wing of the ISI, with Lt.Gen.Ehsan-ul-Haq, the Director-General of the ISI, exercising powers of supervision and co-ordination over it.

11. It was reported in the Pakistani media last year that Musharraf had tried to send Brig. (retd) Ejaz Shah, who used to handle Omar Sheikh, the accused in the kidnapping and murder case of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist,in the ISI as the Pakistani High Commissioner to Australia, but the Australian Government did not reportedly give its agrement. He then tried to send him as Ambassador to Indonesia, which also did not give its agrement. It has recently been reported that he has since been posted to the IB to supervise operations relating to India.

12. If the "Jang" report is correct, the posting of a former Director of the IB to Colombo as High Commissioner could have serious implications for India's national security. The Government of India should immediately express its concerns to the Sri Lankan Government and oppose his being based in Colombo.

Part II (18-6-2004)

"The Island", a daily of Sri Lanka, has reported as follows on June 17,2004: "Pakistan with the concurrence of Sri Lanka has appointed Colonel (retd) Bashir Wali as Islamabad's top envoy here, Sri Lankan and Pakistan High Commission officials said. "He is expected to take over the mission before end of this month," an official said."We don't see any reason to disagree with Pakistan's choice," the official said, dismissing concerns over the planned appointment among a section of political analysts in India."

2. For Col. Wali, this would be the second posting in the Pakistani High Commission in Colombo. He had earlier served as the head of the Pakistani intelligence set-up in the High Commission in the 1990s and then as an intelligence officer in the Pakistani High Commission in London.

3. It was during his previous stay in Colombo that Al Ummah, the terrorist organisation of Tamil Nadu, expanded its activities in Tamil Nadu and Kerala and , during his stay in London, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) set up secret cells in the UK to recruit volunteers for its jihadi terrorist operations from amongst the members of the Muslim community in the UK. This ultimately led to a ban on the LET by the British Government.

4. It is reported that Col. Wali was and still is an active member of the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ), which acts as the cover organisation of Pakistani jihadi organisations such as the LET, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and helps them in their recruitment of cadres not only in Pakistan, but also in other countries of the world. During his earlier stay in Colombo, he had reportedly sent a number of Tamil Muslims from the Eastern Province to Karachi to study in the Binori madrasa on scholarships provided by the TJ. Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai of this madrasa, who was considered the mentor and god father of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Pakistani jihadi and anti-Shia organisations, was assassinated by unidentified elements in Karachi on May 30,2004.

5. While in Pakistan, Col. Wali used to attend regularly the annual conventions of the LET at Muridke, near Lahore, and was also attached to the Taliban as an adviser for some months in the 1990s. He was considered a protege of Brig (retd).Imtiaz, who headed the political division of the ISI during the tenure of the late Gen.Zia-ul-Haq, and had helped Imtiaz in running the ISI operations for training the terrorists from India's Punjab in Pakistani territory and arming them.

6. When Benazir Bhutto came to power in 1988, she sacked Imtiaz, who was taken by Nawaz, the then Chief Minister of Pakistani Punjab,as his intelligence adviser. After the sacking of Benazir by the then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in 1990, Nawaz, on taking over as the Prime Minister, appointed Imtiaz as the Director of the IB, a post which has since been upgraded as Director-General. Imtiaz took Wali into the IB and made him responsible for assisting the terrorists in Punjab and J&K. The training of the terrorists from Mumbai, responsible for the blasts of March,1993, was allegedly organisded by him on behalf of the ISI in association with Dawood Ibrahim, the mafia leader, who was designated by the US in October last year as an international terrorist because of his linkages with Al Qaeda and the LET.

7. Before the appointment of Wali as the DG of the IB, the "News", the prestigious daily of Pakistan, wrote on him as follows on December 23, 2002: " Lady luck seems to have been smiling over the head of a career intelligence officer Col (retd) Bashir Wali, who is believed to have delivered half a dozen tribal MNAs to Prime Minster Jamali for government formation, owing to his present posting as the deputy director-general of IB Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas with offices in Rawalpindi.

8."Col (retd) Wali's intelligence career speaks volumes of controversy as on the one hand he is considered as one of the controversial intelligence officers, who believed In intrigues, while on the other there are many who are very fond of his intelligence 'pursuits' and considered him as an asset for the IB. Amid these allegations and counter-allegations, Col Wali after serving the Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) ultimately landed in the IB with the help of Brig (retd) Imtiaz Billa allegedly in violation of rules and regulations. For quite some time he was made OSD upon change of the first Nawaz Sharif government but as soon as Nawaz Sharif returned to power for the second time, Col Bashir Wali was posted to Sri Lanka over and above the head of the then DG IB Ch Manzoor Ahmed, who never liked him. Later on, he managed his posting to London allegedly by influencing the next DG IB Col (retd) Iqbal Niazi and stayed in London for over three years before the present DG Maj-Gen Tallat Munir brought him back after great efforts.

9."Similarly, Col Wali's promotion in 2001 also remained a questionable issue since his latest ACR was carrying adverse remarks of the former DG IB Maj-Gen Rafiullah Khan Niazi, at present, posted as GOC Log Area, Multan. The most amazing aspect of his promotion was that even the incumbent DG Maj-Gen Tallat Munir, who attended the board meeting that approved Col Wali's promotion, was not aware of this fact. Soon after realising that his promotion has been materialised despite adverse remarks by the former DG IB, Maj Gen Munir raised the issue with the Establishment Division for reversion. The reply is still awaited on the part of the Establishment Division, making the issue more and more complicated. Even Gen Niazi has reportedly raised the same point with the incumbent DG Gen Munir.

10."During Nawaz Sharif's second stint, when Saif-ur-Rehman was playing havoc with the crude intelligence business over the heads of the then two DGs IB, Ch Manzoor and Col (retd) Iqbal Niazi, through Col (retd) Mushtaq Tahir Khaili, the political secretary of the then Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, Col Wali managed to get himself adjusted with Col Tahir Khaili. The naked interference of Col (retd) Mushtaq Tahir Khaili in the IB was so prominent that he even single-handedly managed to obtain orders of the then Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, for the promotions of Col (retd) Bashir Wali and Col (retd) Hikmatullah Khatak without involving the Establishment Division and the administration of the IB. These orders had only been reversed when Ch Manzoor raised the issue with the PM house, which replied that Nawaz Sharif was under strong impression as the orders had reached to him after passing through the traditional channels.

11."Col Wali appears to be an intelligence officer, who is equipped with the skill to survive despite inviting the wrath of the top men of the agency and at the same time managing good postings by keeping goody-goody relations with those who ultimately matter. Neither Ch Manzoor nor Gen Niazi or the incumbent DG Maj-Gen Munir were fans of Col Bashir but he successfully sustained the tenure of all these DGs, which included two serving major-generals.

12."His reported 'liaison' with the Premier (My comments: the present Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali)) goes back to the dates when Jamali was the Minister in (late) Gen Zia's cabinet and Col Wali was serving with an ISI detachment in Peshawar. When Col Wali was posted in London, he reportedly helped Jamali on certain occasions, when Jamali landed in London some two years back for plantation of his elder son's affected liver. This goodwill gesture on the part of Col Wali earned him the appreciation of Jamali." (Citation ends)

13.It is not clear whether the Sri Lankan Foreign Office consulted India before conveying to Islamabad its agrement to the appointment of the former head of the Pakistani Intelligence Bureau (IB) and a former senior official of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), who used to co-ordinate the activities of the Pakistani jihadi terrorist groups in Jammu & Kashmir and other parts of India, as the new Pakistani High Commissioner in Colombo.

14. If it had, India should not have agreed to his being based in Colombo, which would pose a threat to our national security.If it had not, it speaks disturbingly of the insensitivity of the present Government to India's concerns over likely threats to its security. It may be recalled that it was the late Indira Gandhi's unhappiness over the insensitivity of the then Government in Colombo in the early 1980s to New Delhi's concerns over the security implications for India of a proposal of the Voice of America (VOA) to expand its presence in Sri Lanka and another proposal to let out the petrol storage tanks of Trincomallee to a Singapore firm with suspected links to the USA's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) which was one the factors that contributed to her decision to help the Sri Lankan Tamils, whom she viewed then as the natural allies of India, in achieving their aspirations.

15. Now that the Sri Lankan Government seems to have confronted India with a fait accompli by agreeing to the appointment of a die-hard anti- Indian sponsor of terrorism against India as the head of the Pakistani diplomatic mission in Colombo, India has to carefully analyse the implications of his presence in Colombo and take the necessary follow-up action. His presence in Colombo will pose a threat not only to India's national security, but also to stability and law and order in Sri Lanka's Eastern Province.

Tronic

Sri Lanka dare not breed anti-India parties under its wings, for the day such signs start showing; it will not take much to take LTTE back under the Indian wing. Beat terror with terror, thats the way to play the game, we should learn something from world powers like America; national security should come first, let the rest get screwed up, as they would/are doing the same to you.

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Nabha Sparasham Deeptam
-Touch The Sky With Glory