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Taliban ’knew of Cheney visit’

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 1 March 2007
7 comments

International Attack-Terrorism Governments USA

Taliban ’knew of Cheney visit’
27/02/2007 12:07 - (SA) 

Islamabad - A suicide attack at an Afghan air base where US vice-president Dick Cheney was staying shows that the Taliban and al-Qaeda have penetrated local intelligence agencies, analysts and officials said.

The blast early on Tuesday at Bagram air base near Kabul also highlights the increasing sophistication of the extremist outfits as they prepare for a feared spring offensive against Western troops, they said.

The day before the explosion Cheney warned President Pervez Musharraf of neighbouring Pakistan to crack down on militants regrouping in Pakistan’s tribal areas to mount attacks across the border and further afield.

"This shows how much the militants have penetrated the intelligence of the Afghan security forces. It is a most shocking attack," retired Pakistani general turned analyst Talat Masood told AFP.

Visit unannounced

Cheney’s visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan were unannounced and shrouded in even tighter secrecy than when US President George W Bush travelled to the two countries in March 2006.

Author Ahmed Rashid, who has written a book on the Taliban, said the bombing was a "very provocative" move by the Taliban.

"They were waiting for a high-level visit to carry out an attack. This visit, although highly secretive, was known in circles in Kabul and Islamabad," he said.

A senior Pakistani counter-terrorism official said the "sophisticated" attack "indicates the militants’ preparedness and the quality of their intelligence collection in the run-up to the so-called spring offensive".

He added: "They must have had information (a) few days before that the US vice-president would be in town and stay at Bagram. This is not something you can plan with 12 hours notice."

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,9294,2-10-1462_2075713,00.html

Forum posts

  • Good post. It’s just another piece of evidence that the term, intelligence, in American hands - regardless of whether it defines knowledge, as in what’s really happening, or defines the gathering of information about adversaries - has become an oxymoron. How is it that America has remained so isolated from the global scene, and particularly from the principal parties involved in the "War on Terror," that it doesn’t have a clue about the other side’s capability for intelligence? It’s astonishing.

    This level of ignorance isn’t first and foremost a clear sign of plain stupidity, i.e., strictly not knowing. It’s a sign of the insolence, of the arrogance, of the neoimperialistic sense of superiority that the Neocons have exhibited since the war began. It’s more than just racism, i.e., "we know better than those ignorant dark sinned people." It’s more than mere incompetence, though that is an integral part. It’s the same phenomenon that imperialist powers have had throughout the ages: the presumed ignorance and incapability of a much weaker adversary. Which is why the main forces America have used to transform Iraq, Afghanistan and other regions have been disproportionately militaristic. Where were the translators? Where were the city planners? The sociologists? The economists? The engineers not
    associated with corporate profitability? The teachers?

    At least the European imperialists had the good sense to first send over the missionaries to pacify the masses. Instead America decided on "smart" bombs. This is a result of conducting textbook operations, only the textbooks used apply to exceptionally rare circumstances like the Falkland Islands or Granada wars.

    What’s amazing about the situation is that in 2001 there was
    a ragtag group, probably consisting of no more than 10, 000 ideologically inspired "terrorists"
    who, for the most part, were trained originally by America to fight the U.S.S.R. How is it that America has remained ignorant about their intentions? Their operations? Their intelligence capabilities? Were the operatives involved
    asleep at the wheel? Or is it possible that the Neocons were hoping that the ragtag group of revolutionaries - al Qaeda - would successfully mount an offensive against the West that would in turn provide the rationale for the PNAC design?

    Is it possible al Qaeda had Western assistance
    with 9/11? Is it likely? Is it possible the recent bombing upon Cheney’s arrival was the result of planted Western intelligence for the sake of sustaining the "War on Terror"? Or is it true that American intelligence is in such bad shape that the "intelligent" people in charge don’t really know what’s going on?

    • Keeping the TERRORISM ramped up is JOB#1.........BOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I think I aee a alCIAda or taliban outside,hiding in the BUSHes......OOPS ,just craped my drawers.....gotta go..
      ...........celtic canine

      Comming soon....Official, "I’m with the MOSSAD" active ware and and bumper stickers...

    • The CIA headquarters in DC, is named the Bush center for Intelligence. enough said?

    • I don’t think hardly anyone still believes the fairy tale that the Administration didn’t know 9-11 was going to occur, the only question for me is how much were they actively involved in aiding or carrying it out. When I heard Bush make the comment (paraphrasing) about how ’that was sure one bad pilot’ when he was asked about his first thoughts of the trade center hit, one realizes he is either (A) retarded, (B)doing to much coke (still) or(C) knew in advance and was mumbling gibberish (or possibly all of the above.)Being as he HAD to know there was a "drill" going on that very day *simulating* planes running into structures like the towers one sees through his stupid remarks and realizes how dangerous and REAL is the threat that those that carried out 9-11 as a way to get INTO Afghanistan and Iraq, and maybe Iran, and who knows where else, MAY STRIKE AGAIN and soon. Be FOREWARNED! Also know that reps of the Taliban were meeting with Bush at Crawford 3 months prior to 9-11, in which negotiations for the Unical pipeline through Afghanistan were being made, and reportedly ONLY when the oil deals fell through and the Taliban decided to go with a South American company instead of a U.S. backed one did they become "terrorists". Play ball with the oil and you can do anything legally, but fail to negotiate an oil deal and become a "terrorist". What a crooked bunch of murdering bastards, the AMERICAN PEOPLE deserve BETTER!

    • HOW INVOLVED????? the Mossad and the NSA/CIA chose them, groomed them, psyoped them, and helped them board the planes.....just another SirhanSirhan,Lee H.Oswald,Mannie Noreiga "patsy setup".................they are experts at this kind of genocidal manipulation!!!!
      .............celtic canine,A Student of the Conspiratorial Version of History

  • "...shows that the Taliban and al-Qaeda have penetrated local intelligence agencies,..."

    That’s one claim and not provable. Then there’s the equally plausible scenario that the US Military itself made the attempt. After all, al-Qaeda is CIA spawn.

    • ... “Then there’s the equally plausible scenario that the US Military itself made the attempt.”

      Indeed. They are probably just as aware as any of us how deadly serious the situation has become.

      See a couple of other posts on this site, first of all a strange report from Sorcha Faal’s rather funky, yet occasionally quite well-informed Russian site.

      Not a word from the world’s government officials nor from the press, mainstream or other, to confirm or infirm any of this. But then we get all that rather inconsistent information about Cheney’s flight (see my comment there).

      I wouldn’t put it past the segments of the (most likely military and intelligence) establishment who want to get rid of him, to tip off their suicide-bomber sponsoring friends.

      Qûr Tharkasdóttir