Musharraf's Terrorist Handlers & Goons

The authorities confiscate Mukhtar's mail and feed vicious propaganda to sympathetic journalists, portraying her as a liar, a cheat and an unpatriotic dupe of India (and of me).

''My life and death is in God's hands,'' she said. ''That doesn't bother me. But why does the government keep treating me as if I were a liar and criminal?''

A top police official has threatened to imprison her for fornication, which would discredit her and remove her from the scene. The charge is ludicrous, for Mukhtar is constantly chaperoned — by rape victims who have sought sanctuary here and sleep on the floor beside her each night.

''For the first time, I feel that the government has a plan to deal with me,'' Mukhtar told me. And that plan, she said, is to kill her or throw her into prison.

Note that even back then Musharraf put his foot in his mouth by his utterly derogatory remarks on Mukhtaran Bibi. Now the plan to eliminate her comes directly from General Musharraf himself.

The threats have come from high up. Brig. Ijaz Shah, a buddy of President Musharraf's, traveled to Lahore in December to deliver a personal warning. He met Dr. Amna Buttar, an American citizen who has interpreted for Mukhtar in the U.S. and heads a Pakistani-American human rights organization that is supporting her (www.4anaa.org).

According to Dr. Buttar, Mr. Shah started by defending the president's record on women's rights. But then, alluding to a planned visit by Mukhtar to New York, he added: ''We can do anything. We can just pay a little money to some black guys in New York and get people killed there.''

While brilliantly exposing Mukhtaran Mai's suffering from the Pakistani military establishment, Mr. Kristof fails to mentions the terrorist connections of Brig. Ijaz Shah. Please allow us to fill in this important gap. It so happens that Brig. Shah is no ordinary buddy of Musharraf. He is one of Musharraf's several terrorist handlers who does all the dirty work in covering up the past and present misdeeds of the Pakistani Army and the ISI. These people are loyal to him and are routinely rewarded with lucrative appointments in Pakistani businesses or diplomatic services.

Most notably, Brig. Shah was the ISI handling officer of the British-born international terrorist Ahmed Omar Sheik - the convicted murderer of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Indian intelligence has been on Omar Sheik's case since the nineties when he was active in Jammu & Kashmir and elsewhere as part of the terrorist group Harkat-ul Mujahideen. He was subsequently arrested in 1994 in a fierce gun battle with Indian security forces and was found guilty by an Indian court. In 1999, while serving a prison sentence for terrorist offence, he was released to secure the release of the passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines flight 814.

Then in February 2002, on being cornered by Pakistani police under strong American pressure, Omar Sheikh turned himself to his close confident Brig. Shah rather than surrender to the police or worse the American FBI. The retired Brigadier who then was the Home Secretary of the Pakistani Punjab region briefed Sheikh for one full week before 'handing' over to the police so that no beans are spilled.

Before being kidnapped and murdered, Mr. Pearl himself was investigating on reports of $100,000 being wire transferred by Omar Sheik to Mohammed Atta, the 9/11 mastermind. This ISI-Al-Queda link was established just days after 9/11 by Indian intelligence which provided the U.S. with the proof of the involvement of Omar Sheik aided by the then ISI chief Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad. Hearing this, Musharraf wanting to cover-up ISI 's role in 9/11 quickly fired Lt. Gen Ahmad just as the U.S. started its campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Recall that during the coup of 1999, Lt. Gen Ahmad lent a crucial hand to Musharraf in overthrowing the Nawaz Sharif civilian government. Old loyalties die hard - so subsequently in 2003, Lt. Gen. Ahmad was rewarded with the plum position as chief of the cash-rich and army-run Fauji Fertilizer Company. So first Musharraf spins a story of ISI's 'rogue' elements acting hand in glove with Al-Queda, puts on a show of his 'commitment' to fighting terror by removing them from post only to subsequently reward them later.

Coming back to the Brigadier in question, in 2003 the press freedom defense group, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that the editor of the Pakistani magazine Weekly Independent received a threatening call from Brig. Shah - warning not to write articles critical of the Pakistani Army. For the services rendered, Musharraf tried to appoint Brig. Shah as High Commissioner to Australia which was rejected by their Foreign Affairs department. The Australians having cracked down on Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba on their soil have every reason to be wary about a HC nominee with ties to several terrorist groups. So to offset this, in 2004 Musharraf named Brig. Ijaz Shah as the chief of the powerful Intelligence Bureau. Nevertheless, Brig. Shah wanting to give another try at the Australia accompanied Musharraf during his visit there in 2005. Also note that this is not the first time where ex-ISI/Army types with terrorist links have been awarded with foreign service appointments to continue their terrorist activities under diplomatic conver. Earlier, we saw the case of Col. Bashir Ali as the High Commissioner to Sri Lanka.

This article goes on to show yet again how Musharraf puts on a show of enlightened moderation and feigned co-operation on the Global Offense Against Terror (G.O.A.T.) While in reality he uses his loyal clique of commanders to do every possible dirty job - from deliberately helping out terrorists in world-wide acts of jihad to acts of obdutarist intimidation in favor of medievilism and feudalism at home. We not only join Mr. Kristof in his call to the wily General:

So General Musharraf, back off! Leave Mukhtar alone, and go find Osama.