Pakistan receives first AWACS delivery from Sweden

An Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft.

Pakistan has received the first delivery of Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft from Sweden months after India obtained a similarly system from Israel. The first of four Saab-2000 AWACS planes was handed over to the Pakistani Air Force (PAF) on Tuesday, said a spokesman for the force. "The aircraft landed at one of the PAF's main operating bases, marking the achievement of a major milestone in the overall modernization plan of the PAF," the spokesman said in a statement. It's not clear how much Islamabad has paid for the planes. The AWACS can detect high- and medium-altitude aircraft. It can also pick up surface targets over the sea. Pakistan's main rival India received it's first AWACS from Israel in May. The nuclear-armed nations have fought three wars since their independence — more than 60 years ago.

http://www.markthetruth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=502

Indian sea based nuclear capability

By Javed Arshad Jawahar Lal Nehru at the time of Independence had envisioned Indian Navy operating with at least three air craft carriers to achieve its strategic interests in Indian Ocean. Whosoever succeeded him as the prime minister, irrespective of his political affiliations, pursued Nehru's vision and worked towards acquisition of air craft carriers for Indian Navy. To add to this vision was her daughter's who in early 70s tasked the Indian Navy to avail all means to ensure that India enjoys dominance over Indian Ocean. Consequently, the Indian nuclear scientists commenced working in 1971 on production of a compact nuclear power plant suitable for installation on nuclear submarines. The construction of nuclear submarines (ATV programme) was started in 1974 and to avail the Russian help a delegation visited Russia in 1982 during which they were introduced to a Russian Charlie Class nuclear powered cruise missile submarine (K-43), the submarine that was later leased to Indian Navy. India rolled out its first of the ATV nuclear submarines named 'Arihant' and became the only sixth country in the world to possess under water nuclear capability. The launching of the nuclear submarine by India with Russian collaboration speaks of the kind of defense relationship that they enjoy with each other. Albeit, the development has altered the balance of power in the region and added a new dimension in Pakistan's threat perception. Since the on board missiles outfit comprise Club and Sagarika missiles with respective ranges from 300 to 1000 kms, the Indian nuclear submarines will be Pakistan specific. There is a need for Pakistan to acquire its own sea based nuclear capability over time to counter the impending threat. Coming back to the Russian connection in Indian Nuclear submarine development it established a training centre for the Indian sailors at Vladivostok in 1982 to train them on handling of nuclear submarines and qualified the first batch in 1983. They were then trained at sea on board K-43 that was later inducted in Indian Navy for two years on lease as INS CHAKRA. The Indian submariners were imparted extensive training on board by a group of thirty Russian experts that remained on board through out its operations with the Indian Navy. INS CHAKRA covered 72000 NMs wherein the on board nuclear reactor remained critical for over 430 days during its service with the Indian Navy. After expiry of the lease of INS CHAKRA in 1990, a similar deal was re-negotiated with the Russians in 2001 with two aims. One, to keep the Indian navy personnel trained on board INS CHAKRA current with the nuclear submarines operations and two, to avail Russian expertise to complete its own ATV. As per the deal, India would fund two under construction nuclear submarines under Project 971 Nerpa (Akula Class nuclear submarines) with the first one to be delivered in 2004. However, the process got delayed and the final terms of agreement were finally signed in 2004 along with the contract for Admiral Gorshkov, the air craft carrier. It was also initially agreed that four Indian crews would be trained in Russia on board Akula Class submarines, the submarines would be leased for between three to ten years and that India would pay lease money worth US $ 25 million every year. Transfer of the first Akula Class Submarine to the Indian Navy was planned for August 2007 however; it was later postponed to September 2009 mainly due to the increased expenditures on its completion. Later on an accident on board the first designated Akula submarine for the Indian Navy during its sea trials further delayed the delivery. The second submarine is stated to be transferred to the Indian navy by 2010 however; the same also would likely be delayed much further. However, there are reports that Russia might transfer its own operational Akula Class Nuclear Submarines to India to compensate for the delays in meeting the delivery schedule. As Russia is nurturing India to turn it into a global power so is United States. It was with the expertise of the later that India was able to install its first low frequency transmitter in the south of the country to communicate with the submerged submarines deployed over long distances. France also came handy in lending a great support to India in the provision of sonars expertise and helped it install the same on board India's ATVs. This courting of India in nuclear field by UN Security Council members who keep on voicing their concerns on nuclear proliferation, is despite the fact that India has a chequered history in safe guarding its nuclear stockpiles. Christopher Pine, a nuclear safeties expert working with Natural Resource Council in Washington has categorized India's nuclear safe keeping practices as worse with the least nuclear safeguards in the whole world. As per Press Trust of India's report of 12 April 2006, three people were arrested for selling a Kilogram of enriched uranium contained in India's Atomic Energy Department sealed box. There was also news that reported arrest of one Ravinder Singh, an agent of India's Intelligence agency 'RAW', trying to sell India's nuclear secrets to other countries. In November 2005 two British Companies were suspended for aiding India's nuclear capable Agni missile programme and a US court also fined 'Fibre Materials' a company that clandestinely exported missile control panel to India, which was reversed engineered by Indian DRDL and used on Agni Missiles systems. The way the India is being all around nuclearised by the UN Security Council members, there is no option for Pakistan but to focus its energies to acquire sea based nuclear capability to thwart Indian hegemonistic designs and threat to its own sovereignty. India's clandestine activities in Pakistan's Baluchistan Province and the North Western Frontier Province, speak of the threat that it poses to the national security of Pakistan. Pakistan has always worked to preserve its national security and bears no inclination to rule or influence littoral states through age old medium, the seas. (The writer is retired Naval Officer and free lance contributor) http://www.markthetruth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=481&start=0

We must be ready to fight Hindus, says Nizami

LAHORE - Editor-in-Chief The Nation and Chairman Nazria Pakistan Trust Majid Nizami has said that we should remain well-prepared for war against Hindus as they were casting bad eye on Pakistan and our independence, which is a blessing of Allah.

He was speaking at Aiwan-e-Karkunan Tehrik-e-Pakistan on the 53rd death anniversary of Maulana Zafar Ali Khan on Tuesday. Majid Nizami said Maulana Zafar Ali Khan was a versatile personality as he was a journalist, poet, politician and orator. He stood with the Quaid in Pakistan Movement.

He started a movement in the name of Masjid Shaheed Ganj and wanted to take over the mosque but it is a dilemma that after freedom, the Muslims could not secure this mosque due to tolerant attitude and it is still closed. It is neither Gurdawara nor mosque.

He said Zafar Ali Khan published his poems on Page One of the newspaper Zamindar and it fetched great circulation. He said Maulana Zafar Ali Khan Trust should secure Zamindar office and make it a memoir. Majid Nizami mentioned J Thunder aircraft handed over to PAF, which can fly high than Indian jets and India admitted that Pakistan has taken supremacy in air defence. There would be a war against India on waters because it is building dams on our rivers and the solution lies is smashing the dams by missiles.

As such we should be prepared for war. He said though war is not good thing but it is better to die by warring instead of dying with thirst and hunger. He said Maulana Zafar Ali Khan was great lover of the holy Prophet (PBUH).

Vice Chairman Nazria Pakistan Trust, Prof Dr Rafique Ahmad said that NPT is reminding the forgotten lesion of Pakistan Movement and its heroes. Maulana Zafar Ali Khan was one of them. He fought for the Muslims particularly of the subcontinent. He remained successful whichever field he chose. He instantaneously translated Pakistan Resolution on the call of Quaid-e-Azam and formed Majlis-e-Ittehad-e-Millat.

Chairman Maulana Zafar Ali Khan Trust and provincial Ombudsman Khalid Mehmood said that those nations who do not remember their heroes and benefactors, stop producing heroes. He said the Trust has built mazar of Maulana and published all his poetry particularly the naatia poetry, which is great asset and a source for devotion to the holy Prophet (PBUH). Chief Executive Khabrain Group Zia Shahid said that NPT keeps these personalities alive. He paid tributes to Majid Nizami and said he was above the professional rivalries. He said a party is demanding abolition of word Islamic from the official name of Pakistan but it should not forget that we will never allow nor nobody could dare to do that for the sake of receiving aid from America. He said corrupt of Musharraf era should be taken to task. He said people are poor but our rulers are rich. US did not give aid under Kerry-Lugar Act to the government because it considered them corrupt. Our rulers should bring their money back to shed the loans.

India do not want to talk to us but we are running after it for talks. Agreements are signed by weak nations and strong tore apart the agreements. President CPNE and chief editor daily Jinnah Khushnood Ali Khan said that PPP government, Army and Aiwan-e-Sadr have different viewpoint on India, which is our arch is our arch enemy. He said NAB victims should quit, as they are not our representatives. "I also do not recognise a government which do not celebrate days like Zafar Ali Khan's.

Raja Masood Ali Khan said Nov 27 should be observed as Maulana Zafar Ali Khan Day. He said Maulana Zafar Ali Khan spent every third day average in jail. His father had command on Urdu, English, Persian and Arabic who trained Zafar Ali Khan in these languages. Columnist Rafique Dogar said that Maulana was present in 1906 meeting of ML in Dhaka. He was elected in 1937 elections.

http://www.markthetruth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=473

Posted by Sajjad Ahmad

Meeting The Mossad

60 Minutes' Ira Rosen Meets The Former Head Of One Of The World's Top Spy Agencies

 

Some kids read biographies about baseball players. In high school my favorite books were about the great accomplishments of the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service.

They had kidnapped war criminal Adolf Eichmann from Argentina before the police in the country knew he was there or even missing. A beautiful woman had inspired an Iraqi pilot to defect to Israel with his top-secret Mig-21. A Mossad mole nearly became Syria's Minister of Defense. And in a story popularized by Steven Spielberg's movie Munich, the Mossad quietly and systematically killed those responsible for the murder of their athletes at the Munich Olympics.

The man responsible for directing much of these accomplishments was the legendary Mossad chief Zvika Zamir, who I met and spoke with on several occasions in Israel. He was one of only three people who Egyptian spy Ashraf Marwan met with during his four years of spying for the Israelis. He didn't want to go on camera - Mossad agents are adverse to publicity - but Zamir wanted me to know how convinced he was about Marwan not being a double agent.

A former head of Israeli Military Intelligence revealed in the Israeli press a few years ago that Marwan was responsible for misleading Israel during the run-up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War; Zamir believed that the former military intel chief was just covering up for his own failings to predict the war.

Zamir is now in his late eighties but still quite sharp. He said that Marwan enjoyed fine cigars and good clothes and the company of beautiful women.

Zamir said he would often test Marwan. One time he asked Marwan to name the commanding officer of individual Egyptian military units, names Zamir had already known from another inside spy. Marwan, he said, never lied to him.

Zamir says the day before the war began, he met with Marwan in London where Marwan not only told him the war would begin but also gave him the war plans, which included specific points of where parachute landings would occur.

Amazingly, the Israel Army chief of staff didn't look at it until the fighting was well under way.

When Ashraf Marwan was found dead, Zamir said he blamed himself because he felt he didn't do enough to protect his identity. He also says Marwan's death will have long range repercussions for the Israelis in trying to recruit other Arab defectors.

Two days after my last Zamir meeting, I was directed, one afternoon, to go to a particular park bench in Ramat Gan, a Tel Aviv suburb. I felt like I was in a spy movie, as an old Jewish man who looked a little like the Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky, sat down next to me and said simply, "I hear you have some questions about Marwan."

It turned out "Shmuel" as we will call him, was the former head of European operations for over 30 years for the Mossad. It was Shmuel who was first contacted by Marwan in 1969, and hurriedly arranged a meeting at a London restaurant.

He directed one of Israel's legendary agents to meet Marwan that day, an agent simply called "Dubi." If Israel had a James Bond, it was Dubi.

Everyone from the Mossad avoids discussing details about Dubi, in part to protect him and in part to keep his accomplishments part of the secrets held by a small fraternity of Mossad agents.

For one extraordinary afternoon I was a kid again, hearing stories about the Mossad, from one of its most important figures. They are a very proud organization which might explain why they will never publicly acknowledge that Marwan might have gotten the better of them.

As a last question I asked how the relationship between Israel and Marwan ended, my new friend told me that it was the Israelis that ended it: "We had a peace with Arabs and he wasn't worth paying $100,000 for each meeting. What do you think he would give us, the Egyptian wheat reports?"

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/12/60minutes/main5009197.shtml

 

Posted by Sajjad Ahmad

Babri Mosque

 

India does not realise it because of the prevalent Hindu-chauvinist ideology, but it will not come to any sort of closure over the 1992 Babri Mosque demolition until its main perpetrators are punished. This was demonstrated yet again as the Bharatiya Janata Party stalled business in the Upper House over the alleged publication in an Indian newspaper of the Liberhan Report into the demolition, and its naming of senior BJP figures, like former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and party chief Lal Kishan Advani, as responsible, and for judging the demolition 'meticulously planned'. The BJP continued its protest despite Home Minister P. Chidambaram's assurance that there was only one copy of the report with his Ministry.

As the demolition was carried out by the BJP and it allies, the present Congress-led government wants to take action, but it will not, not just because it shares the BJP's Hindu-supremacist ideology, but because a Congress government at the Centre did nothing to stop the demolition, and therefore any full probe will tear the mask off senior Congress figures and reveal them for what they are: people filled with anti-Muslim hate who preach secularism at the same time as their actions show them to be filled with prejudice.

Yet the present Congress-led government must not duck the task of bringing all the culprits to justice, even if they hold, or have held, high office. Previous reports have found leading BJP figures responsible, so the party should not try to cover up the successive electoral defeats it has suffered by protecting them. The party should be ready to make necessary sacrifices. However, the real task before both parties is to make sure that no Babri Mosque demolition occurs again, something that is only possible by an acceptance that the Nehruvian model of secularism has not just failed, but was always false, and that Indian Muslims are just as good citizens as anyone else.

 

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Opinions/Editorials/25-Nov-2009/Babri-Mosque

 

Posted by Sajjad Ahmad