lpara
03-06-2003, 12:26 AM
<span style='font-family:shannon'><span style='color:330033' >Brain Drain
What the arrest of KSM means for the war on terror.
By Mansoor Ijaz
Pakistan's intelligence services have a notorious reputation for being indistinguishable from the hoodlums they chase in the name of preserving national security for the country's 155 million citizens. So it was in the wee hours of last Saturday morning that a masterful raid on an al Qaeda safe house near Islamabad by Inter-Services Intelligence officials netted one of the world's most dangerous men, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. He left behind a veritable gold mine of information about al Qaeda's current and future terrorist operations.
In the process, the ISI may have recast its tarnished image as a stalwart in the global war against terrorism and strengthened Gen. Pervez Musharraf's hands in rooting out terror cells on his soil.
The raid was a product of months of patient and deliberate planning in close coordination with U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement authorities to unearth terrorist hideouts throughout the region. It marked the first time since September 11, 2001 that ISI had used strategic surveillance and stalking techniques to flush out an al Qaeda bigwig.
And while U.S. signals intelligence and other monitoring equipment were crucial in expanding the scope of the operation and gleaning vital statistics prior to the arrests last Saturday, there was a marked shift inside ISI to employ its cultural expertise and deep knowledge of Pakistan's underground in order to bring down senior al Qaeda leaders.
Decapitating al Qaeda's nerve center with KSM's capture could lead to a collapse of its Middle East cells (http://www.nationalreview.c om/comment/comment-ijaz030403.asp)
I feel smarter just reading this http://gopusa.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif</span></span>
What the arrest of KSM means for the war on terror.
By Mansoor Ijaz
Pakistan's intelligence services have a notorious reputation for being indistinguishable from the hoodlums they chase in the name of preserving national security for the country's 155 million citizens. So it was in the wee hours of last Saturday morning that a masterful raid on an al Qaeda safe house near Islamabad by Inter-Services Intelligence officials netted one of the world's most dangerous men, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. He left behind a veritable gold mine of information about al Qaeda's current and future terrorist operations.
In the process, the ISI may have recast its tarnished image as a stalwart in the global war against terrorism and strengthened Gen. Pervez Musharraf's hands in rooting out terror cells on his soil.
The raid was a product of months of patient and deliberate planning in close coordination with U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement authorities to unearth terrorist hideouts throughout the region. It marked the first time since September 11, 2001 that ISI had used strategic surveillance and stalking techniques to flush out an al Qaeda bigwig.
And while U.S. signals intelligence and other monitoring equipment were crucial in expanding the scope of the operation and gleaning vital statistics prior to the arrests last Saturday, there was a marked shift inside ISI to employ its cultural expertise and deep knowledge of Pakistan's underground in order to bring down senior al Qaeda leaders.
Decapitating al Qaeda's nerve center with KSM's capture could lead to a collapse of its Middle East cells (http://www.nationalreview.c om/comment/comment-ijaz030403.asp)
I feel smarter just reading this http://gopusa.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif</span></span>