Comment by Riaz Haq on January 2, 2022 at 6:07pm

How #US, #UK & #Pakistan Joined Hands to Stop Another 9/11. They crushed what would come to be known as the transatlantic aircraft plot: a #terrorist conspiracy to kill thousands of passengers by detonating liquid explosives hidden in plastic bottles. https://politi.co/3sOE8N7


While the Anglo-American intelligence alliance remains rock-solid, the Pakistani-American one has badly foundered. But decades from now, historians will look back on this era’s checkered legacy and highlight OVERT as a model. The menace of transnational terrorism will likely stay with us, and so we should hope that both friendly and adversarial nations will continue to work together to keep their populations safe without losing sight of their values.

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By AKI PERITZ

01/02/2022 07:00 AM EST

Aki Peritz is a former CIA analyst and the author of Disruption: Inside the Largest Counterterrorism Investigation in History, from which this article is adapted.

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Rauf was snoozing as the bus approached the checkpoint. When it suddenly came to a halt by the railway tracks, Rauf opened his eyes and glanced out the window. It wasn’t the usual bored policeman or train operator idling along the side of the road, but a unit of elite police officers armed with gleaming Kalashnikov rifles. In the group were several plainclothes men; one motioned to the driver to open the front door. The driver obeyed and the officers told him to pull over and cut the motor. The bus driver quickly complied.

As the fog of sleep lifted, Rauf quickly put two and two together. According to his written notes that were later obtained by German authorities, he felt a terrible sinking feeling when he realized he had forgotten to switch off one of his cell phones. In a desperate, pointless effort, he turned off a few phones before the authorities made their way to the back of the bus. After visually identifying Rauf, they cuffed and hooded him, bundling the terrorist mastermind into the back of a waiting van. He didn’t put up a fight. It was over in a few minutes. Rashid Rauf was in custody.

The British, who favored letting the plot develop further, were displeased about this turn of events. The Met’s Peter Clarke was “well and truly miffed;” surveillance chief Steve Dryden was “angry.” “Livid” was how the BBC’s Margaret Gilmore described the cops’ reaction. This was an enormously complicated, calibrated operation involving hundreds, perhaps thousands, of officers. The surveillance squads had been working at full tilt; few had any semblance of a normal home life. But now the American bull had barged into their china shop.


Still, the operation was a great joint U.S.-Pakistan success. But by the following year, the shine was off that relationship. The Pakistanis began withholding assistance. Hayden, the CIA chief, recalled in his memoirs that when the United States went to Pakistan in 2007 with a plan to take out a specific al Qaeda operative, “the response was no, maddening delay, or our target suddenly and unexpectedly relocated.” In response, the CIA chose to aggressively pursue unilateral operations within Pakistan, cutting out the ISI completely. And in December 2007, Rashid Rauf mysteriously escaped Pakistani custody and disappeared.

The lack of cooperation became more obvious a few years later in the 2011 bin Laden raid, in which the United States inserted forces deep into Pakistan to kill the al-Qaeda leader without the ISI realizing what had happened. Relations between the two countries have never recovered.

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 4, 2022 at 7:59am

Pakistan concludes 'drive' to issue smartcards to registered #Afghan #refugees. Smartcards will give them faster and safer access to #health and #education facilities and to #banking services in #Pakistan. https://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2022/1/61d419634/pakistan-concl... via @refugees


UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, commends the Government of Pakistan for its country-wide campaign to verify and update the data of some 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees and to issue them with smart identity cards.

Following a short pilot, the campaign, supported by UNHCR, began on 15 April 2021 and ended on 31 December 2021. It was the first large-scale verification of refugees in Pakistan in the last 10 years.

According to early provisional results, the data of 1.25 million Afghan refugees was updated and expanded as a result of the campaign, officially known as the documentation renewal and information verification exercise (DRIVE). Among them were 200,000 children under the age of five who were registered by their refugee parents.

More than 700,000 new smart identity cards have also been issued to date. The remaining cards will be printed and distributed in early 2022.

These cards, which will be valid until 30 June 2023, contain biometric data and are technologically compatible with systems used in Pakistan to authenticate the identities of nationals.

The new smart identity cards are an essential protection tool for Afghan refugees and give them faster and safer access to health and education facilities and to banking services.

DRIVE also provided an opportunity for Afghan refugees to flag any specific protection needs or vulnerabilities. More detailed information about refugees’ socioeconomic data will allow for better tailored assistance in Pakistan and for support in case refugees decide to return home, when conditions allow.

Over 40 verification sites were operational across Pakistan during DRIVE, while mobile registration vans facilitated verifications for Afghan refugees living in remote areas. A mass information campaign was also carried out to explain to Afghan refugees about the purpose of the campaign and how to participate.

Strict measures were in place at all sites to mitigate COVID-19 risks through enhanced hygiene, physical distancing, and the scheduling of set numbers of appointments each day during the exercise.

DRIVE is part of a wider effort to assist and protect Afghan refugees, including through the support platform for the Solutions Strategy for Afghan Refugees (SSAR). The support platform was launched in 2019 to help refugee host countries while also sought to invest in former refugee return areas in Afghanistan.

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