Mr Obama's War: Ceasefire in NW Pakistan; More on US Drone Strikes

Today's Observer featured an excellent report by Jason Burke which contains some fairly significant developments in the Pakistan-Taliban-US relationship. According to Burke:

Taliban fighters and Pakistani government officials have agreed a controversial deal which will lead to a "permanent ceasefire" in the troubled northwestern Swat valley, threatening to create an outpost of militant rule and a terrorist haven only 100 miles from the capital, Islamabad.

Many are alarmed that the deal seemingly involves the reinstatement of sharia law in the region in exchange for peace, as well as at the possibility of the creation of a haven for pro-Taliban and/ or al-Qaeda militants.

Further in, there's an insight into the thinking behind the US drone strikes which, we learned this week, are being launched from bases inside Pakistan and which are likely to be "broadened in scope":

A list of 20 individuals was drawn up by the CIA and cleared with the Pakistani government in consultations last summer, despite public denials by Islamabad. Intensive strikes over recent months have pleased global intelligence services because they put al-Qaida "on the back foot", provoking damaging internal witch-hunts and forcing senior leaders to take time-consuming and demoralising security precautions.

Read the full article here.

The Latest from Israel-Gaza-Palestine (22 February)

7:20 p.m.: Benjamin Netanyahu (pictured), the Likud Party leader, has said he will meet Tzipi Livni, the leader of Kadima,  in an attempt to form a coalition government in Israel.

Netanyahu also issued a reassuring pro forma to Washington, "I intend and expect to cooperate with the Obama administration and to try to advance the common goals of peace, security and prosperity for us and our neighbours."

12 noon (2 p.m. Israel/Palestine): Egypt has opened the Rafah crossing to students, but not to other residents, for three days. The sick are also being allowed to cross, although 200 have been unable to reach Egyptian hospitals because they lack "correct paperwork".

Mr Obama's World: Sunday Update on US Foreign Policy (22 February)

Latest Post: Mr Obama’s War - Expanding the Enemies in Pakistan
Latest Post: War on Terror Watch - British Officials “Colluded with Torture” of Detainees



7:15 p.m. Pakistani militants have released a senior Government administrator and his six guards, who were abducted earlier today in the Swat Valley.

5:30 p.m. GMT: NATO and Afghan forces have killed 14 militants in battles and airstrikes outside Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

In Iraq, a Sunni  member of parliament has been accused of ordering an April 2007 suicide bombing in the Parliament canteen that killed eight people, including a fellow Parliamentarian.

12 p.m. GMT (7 a.m. Washington): Pakistani Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah has said that his forces will only extend a 10-day cease-fire this week if the Pakistani Government introduces "practical steps". The announcement undercuts Saturday's announcement by the Government that a permanent cease-fire had been agreed.

Meanwhile, the cease-fire has been further dented by the abduction of the top government official and six of his guards in the Swat Valley.

US and Iraqi troops have launched a new offensive against insurgents in Nineveh province. The province includes Mosul, where bombings and shootings have continued despite the general downward trend in violence in Iraq.

A US soldier has died in a combat patrol near Baghdad.

The US military has belatedly admitted that 13 civilians died last week in Herat province in Afghanistan in an attack which also killed three militants. US spokesmen held out against any admission until video of a dead child prompted an investigation.

Al Shahab insurgents in Somalia have attacked African Union peacekeepers. Al Shahab claimed that two suicide bombers had been sent; African Union spokesman said there was mortar fire but no suicide bombing.

Mr Obama's War: Expanding the Enemies in Pakistan

Saturday's New York Times offers confirmation that, even as he holds back from the full "surge" requested by the US military in Afghanistan, President Obama is happy to widen the battle across the Pakistan. Two missile strikes in the last week have been aimed not at Al Qa'eda or Afghan Taliban but Pakistani insurgents led by Baitullah Mehsud.

The distinction is important, especially as the media's easy label of "Taliban" across a number of religious groups obscured the distinction between Mehsud and Afghans in a Pakistan "sanctuary". The Bush Administration never authorised missile strikes against Mehsud's camps, even though, after his alleged ordering of the assassination of from Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, he was included on a list of opponents whom the CIA was authorised to capture or kill.

The Times notes that the expanded American operations are occurring even as the Pakistani Government is seeking cease-fires with Pakistani "Taliban" movements in the region, but it makes no connection between the American military effort and Pakistan's political initiative. Thus it is unclear whether the US strategy co-exists with Islamabad's effort, reaching accommodations with some local groups while striking at others, or whether it is in direct conflict with an effort to defuse tensions with insurgents. That key issue becomes even murkier in The Times' account:

According to one senior Pakistani official, Pakistan’s intelligence service on two occasions in recent months gave the United States detailed intelligence about Mr. Mehsud’s whereabouts, but said the United States had not acted on the information. Bush administration officials had charged that it was the Pakistanis who were reluctant to take on Mr. Mehsud and his network.

We are left with a footnote to watch: as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton holds a joint meeting on Thursday with Afghan and Pakistani foreign ministers, the head of the Pakistani Army, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and the head of Pakistani military intelligence, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, will meet Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Oh, yes, another little quibble with The Times story and, possibly, the Obama strategy. For The Times, the only consequences of the missile strikes are the death of 2a number of senior Qaeda figures". Nowhere does the article mention the tiny consideration that lobbing missiles at Mehsud and his followers might take out a few bystanders, as has repeatedly been the case in Afghanistan.

And, far from

War on Terror Watch: British Officials "Colluded with Torture" of Detainees

The Observer of London has seen an advance copy of a report by Human Rights Watch, to be released next month, which finds that the British domestic intelligence service MI5 had a "systemic" modus operandi in which different agents were deployed to Pakistan to interview different British suspects, many of whom alleged that before interrogation by MI5 they were tortured by the Pakistanis.

At least 10 Britons are identified in the report, which is based on sources within Pakistan's intelligence bureaus. Human Rights Watch outlined its concerns last October to the Foreign Office but has not received a response.

In a separate article in The Observer, lawyers for Binyam Mohamed (pictured), the British resident still held at Guantanamo Bay, revealed the extent of the "dozens" of beatings he has received at the US detention facility.

UK agents 'colluded with torture in Pakistan'
MARK TOWNSEND

A shocking new report alleges widespread complicity between British security agents and their Pakistani counterparts who have routinely engaged in the torture of suspects.

In the study, which will be published next month by the civil liberties group Human Rights Watch, at least 10 Britons are identified who have been allegedly tortured in Pakistan and subsequently questioned by UK intelligence officials. It warns that more British cases may surface and that the issue of Pakistani terrorism suspects interrogated by British agents is likely to "run much deeper".

The report will further embarrass the foreign secretary, David Miliband, who has repeatedly said the UK does not condone torture. He has been under fire for refusing to disclose US documents relating to the treatment of Guantánamo detainee and former British resident Binyam Mohamed. The documents are believed to contain evidence about the torture of Mohamed and British complicity in his maltreatment. Mohamed will return to Britain this week. Doctors who examined him in Guantánamo found evidence of prolonged physical and mental mistreatment.

Ali Dayan Hasan, who led the Pakistan-based inquiry, said sources within the country's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), the Intelligence Bureau and the military security services had provided "confirmation and information" relating to British collusion in the interrogation of terrorism suspects.

Hasan said the Human Rights Watch (HRW) evidence collated from Pakistan intelligence officials indicated a "systemic" modus operandi among British security services, involving a significant number of UK agents from MI5 rather than maverick elements. Different agents were deployed to interview different suspects, many of whom alleged that prior to interrogation by British officials they were tortured by Pakistani agents.

Among the 10 identified cases of British citizens and residents mentioned in the report is Rangzieb Ahmed, 33, from Rochdale, who claims he was tortured by Pakistani intelligence agents before being questioned by two MI5 officers. Ahmed was convicted of being a member of al-Qaida at Manchester crown court, yet the jury was not told that three of the fingernails of his left hand had been removed. The response from MI5 to the allegations that it had colluded in Ahmed's torture were heard in camera, however, after the press and the public were excluded from the proceedings. Ahmed's description of the cell in which he claims he was tortured closely matches that where Salahuddin Amin, 33, from Luton, says he was tortured by ISI officers between interviews with MI5 officers.

Zeeshan Siddiqui, 25, from London, who was detained in Pakistan in 2005, also claims he was interviewed by British intelligence agents during a period in which he was tortured.

Other cases include that of a London medical student who was detained in Karachi and tortured after the July 2005 attacks in London. Another case involving Britons allegedly tortured in Pakistan and questioned by UK agents involves a British Hizb ut-Tahrir supporter.

Rashid Rauf, from Birmingham, was detained in Pakistan and questioned over suspected terrorist activity in 2006. He was reportedly killed after a US drone attack in Pakistan's tribal regions, though his body has never been found.

Hasan said: "What the research suggests is that these are not incidents involving one particular rogue officer or two, but rather an array of individuals involved over a period of several years.

"The issue is not just British complicity in the torture of British citizens, it is the issue of British complicity in the torture period. We know of at least 10 cases, but the complicity probably runs much deeper because it involves a series of terrorism suspects who are Pakistani. This is the heart of the matter.

"They are not the same individuals [MI5 officers] all the time. I know that the people who have gone to see Siddiqui in Peshawar are not the same people who have seen Ahmed in Rawalpindi."

Last night the government faced calls to clarify precisely its relationship with Pakistan's intelligence agencies, which are known to routinely use torture.

A Foreign Office spokesman said that an investigation by the British security services had revealed "there is nothing to suggest they have engaged in torture in Pakistan". He added: "Our policy is not to participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture, or inhumane or degrading treatment, for any purpose."

But former shadow home secretary David Davis said the claims from Pakistan served to "reinforce" allegations that UK authorities, at the very least, ignored Pakistani torture techniques.

"The British agencies can no longer pretend that 'Hear no evil, see no evil' is applicable in the modern world," he added.

Last week HRW submitted evidence to parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights. The committee is to question Miliband and Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, over a legal loophole which appears to offer British intelligence officers immunity in the UK for any crimes committed overseas.

It has also emerged that New York-based HRW detailed its concerns in a letter to the UK government last October but has yet to receive a response.

The letter arrived at the same time that the Attorney General was tasked with deciding if Scotland Yard should begin a criminal investigation into British security agents' treatment of Binyam Mohamed. Crown prosecutors are currently weighing up the evidence.

Hasan said that evidence indicated a considerable number of UK officers were involved in interviewing terrorism suspects after they were allegedly tortured. He told the Observer: "We don't know who the individuals [British intelligence officers] were, but when you have different personnel coming in and behaving in a similar fashion it implies some level of systemic approach to the situation, rather than one eager beaver deciding it is absolutely fine for someone to be beaten or hung upside down."

He accused British intelligence officers of turning a blind eye as UK citizens endured torture at the hands of Pakistan's intelligence agencies.

"They [the British] have met the suspect ... and have conspicuously failed to notice that someone is in a state of high physical distress, showing signs of injury. If you are a secret service agent and fail to notice that their fingernails are missing, you ought to be fired."

Britain's former chief legal adviser, Lord Goldsmith, said that the Foreign Office would want to examine any British involvement in torture allegations very carefully and, if necessary, bring individuals "to book" to ensure such behaviour was "eradicated".