[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 143 (Wednesday, October 5, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 5, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
     PAKISTAN'S INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES INVOLVED IN EXPORT OF TERROR

                                 ______


                           HON. PETER DEUTSCH

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, October 5, 1994

  Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I would like to share with my colleagues my 
great disquiet on reading recent reports about Pakistan's deep 
involvement in terrorism. Last month, we saw a spate of news items 
about the arrest of Yakub Memon and others suspected for having planned 
and executed the 11 bomb blasts in downtown Bombay in March 1993. 
Documents seized from Memon, an Indian citizen, included a Pakistani 
passport, birth certificate, and driving license provided to him, by 
his own admission, by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence [ISI].
  While we were still reflecting over the tremendous import of these 
reports linking an official agency with masterminding a carnage that 
left 317 dead and over l,000 seriously injured, we now see the 
September 12, 1994, Washington Post report titled: ``Heroin Plan by Top 
Pakistanis Alleged: Former Prime Minister Says Drug Deals Were to Pay 
for Covert Military Operations.''
  Mr. Speaker, ISI's murky role in running terrorist training camps in 
Pakistan to fuel insurgencies in the Indian States of Punjab and 
Kashmir has been extensively catalogued in the past. In 1992, it was 
placed on the State Department's watch list of countries sponsoring 
terrorism in the distinguished company of North Korea, Libya, Iran, and 
a few others.
  The present story, however, goes a step further by exposing a 
seemingly incredible proposal made in 1991 by Pakistan's Army Chief 
Gen. Aslam Beg and head of ISI Gen. Asad Durrani to Mr. Nawaz Sharif, 
who at that time was the country's Prime Minister. The proposal, 
revealed by the former Prime Minister himself, involved a blueprint 
prepared by the two generals ``for selling heroin to pay for the 
country's covert military operations.'' Referring to military sources 
the report says that following the end of the Afghan war:

       Foreign governments--chiefly the United States--stopped 
     funneling money and arms through the ISI to Afghan mujahideen 
     guerillas fighting the Soviet-backed Kabul Government. 
     Without the foreign funds, the sources said, it has been 
     difficult for the agency to continue the same level of 
     operations in other areas, including aiding militants 
     fighting Indian troops across the border in Kashmir. Such 
     operations are increasingly financed through money raised by 
     such private organizations as the Jamat-i-Islami, a leading 
     fundamentalist political party.

  The report also cites a Western diplomat who was based in Pakistan's 
capital, Islamabad, at that time and who had occasional dealings with 
Beg and Durrani saying that ``it's not inconceivable that they could 
come up with a plan like this.''
  Mr. Speaker, these reports reflect a disturbingly consistent pattern 
of behavior. Over the years, ISI has systematically used gunrunners, 
religious fanatics, and other similar elements to foment subversion in 
states located on India's periphery. Its use of drug money for the same 
purpose is only the latest and, in my opinion, most dangerous element. 
It is a behavior pattern that no civilized society can accept. As the 
body of evidence pointing to Pakistan's involvement in the Bombay 
bombings steadily mounts, it becomes imperative for us to review the 
case for bringing Pakistan back to the watch list of state sponsors of 
terrorism.

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 12, 1994]

Heroin Plan by Top Pakistanis Alleged--Former Prime Minister Says Drug 
            Deals Were to Pay for Covert Military Operations

                (By John Ward Anderson and Kamran Khan)

       Karachi, Pakistan.--Pakistan's army chief and the head of 
     its intelligence agency proposed a detailed ``blueprint'' for 
     selling heroin to pay for the country's covert military 
     operations in early 1991, according to former prime minister 
     Nawaz Sharif.
       In an interview, Sharif claimed that three months after his 
     election as prime minister in November 1990, Gen. Aslam Beg, 
     then army chief of staff, and Gen. Asad Durrani, then head of 
     the military's Inter-Services Intelligence bureau (ISI), told 
     him the armed forces needed more money for convert foreign 
     operations and wanted to raise it through large-scale drug 
     deals.
       ``General Durrani told me, `We have a blueprint ready for 
     your approval,''' said Sharif, who lost to Benazir Bhutto in 
     elections last October and is now leader of the opposition in 
     parliament.
       ``I was totally flabbergasted,'' Sharif said, adding that 
     he called Beg a few days later to order the army officially 
     not to launch the drug trafficking plan.
       Beg, who retired in August 1991, denied Sharif's 
     allegation, saying, ``We have never been so irresponsible at 
     any stage. Our politicians, when they're not in office and in 
     the opposition, they say so many things. There's just no 
     truth to it.''
       Durrani, now Pakistan's ambassador to Germany, said: ``This 
     is a preposterous thing for a former prime minister to say. I 
     know nothing about it. We never ever talked on this subject 
     at all.''
       Brig. Gen. S.M.A. Iqbal, a spokesman for the armed forces, 
     said, ``It's inconceivable and highly derogatory; such a 
     thing could not happen.''
       The interview with Sharif, conducted at his home in Lahore 
     in May, was part of a broad investigation into narcotics 
     trafficking in Pakistan. It marked the first time a senior 
     Pakistani official has publicly accused the country's 
     military of having contingency plans to pay for covert 
     operations through drug smuggling.
       Officials with the U.S. State Department and the Drug 
     Enforcement Administration said they have no evidence that 
     Pakistan's military is or ever has been involved in drug 
     trafficking. But U.S. and other officials have often 
     complained about the country's weak efforts to curtail the 
     spread of guns, money laundering, official corruption and 
     other elements of the deep-rooted drug culture in Pakistan, 
     which along with Afghanistan and Iran lies along the so-
     called Golden Crescent, one of the world's biggest drug-
     producing regions.
       In a scathing report two years ago, a consultant hired by 
     the CIA warned that drug corruption had permeated virtually 
     all segments of Pakistani society and that drug kingpins were 
     closely connected to the country's key institutions of power, 
     including the president and military intelligence agencies.
       About 70 tons of heroin is produced annually in Pakistan, a 
     third of which is smuggled abroad, mostly to the West, 
     according to the State Department's 1994 report on 
     international drug trafficking. About 20 percent of all 
     heroin consumed in the United States comes from Pakistan and 
     its northern neighbor, Afghanistan, the second largest opium 
     producer in the world after Burma. The United Nations says 
     that as much as 80 percent of the heroin in Europe comes from 
     the region.
       It has been rumored for years that Pakistan's military has 
     been involved in the drug trade. Pakistan's army, and 
     particularly its intelligence agency--the equivalent of the 
     CIA--is immensely powerful and is known for pursuing its own 
     agenda. Over the years, civilian political leaders have 
     accused the military--which has run Pakistan for more that 
     half its 47 years of independence--of developing the 
     country's nuclear technology and arming insurgents in India 
     and other countries without their knowledge or approval and 
     sometimes in direct violation of civilian orders. 
     Historically, the army's chief of staff has been the most 
     powerful person in the country.
       According to military sources, the intelligence agency has 
     been pinched for funds since the war in Afghanistan ended in 
     1989 and foreign governments--chiefly the United States--
     stopped funneling money and arms through the ISI to Afghan 
     mujaheddin guerrillas fighting the Soviet-backed Kabul 
     government. Without the foreign funds, the sources said, it 
     has been difficult for the agency to continue the same level 
     of operations in other areas, including aiding militants 
     fighting Indian troops across the border in Kashmir. Such 
     operations are increasingly being financed through money 
     raised by such private organizations as the Jamiat-i-Islami, 
     a leading fundamentalist political party.
       A Western diplomat who was based in Islamabad at the time 
     of the purported meeting and who had occasional dealings with 
     Beg and Durrani, said, ``It's not inconceivable that they 
     could come up with a plan like this.''
       ``There were constant rumors that ISI was involved in rogue 
     drug operations with the Afghans--not so much for ISI 
     funding, but to help the Afghans raise money for their 
     operations,'' the diplomat said.
       In the interview, Sharif, claimed that the meeting between 
     him and the generals occurred at the prime minister's 
     official residence in Islamabad after Beg called one morning 
     and asked to brief him personally on a sensitive matter.
       ``Both Beg and Durrani insisted that Pakistan's name would 
     not be cited at any place because the whole operation would 
     be carried out by trustworthy third parties,'' Sharif said. 
     ``Durrani then went on to list a series of covert military 
     operations in desperate need of money.''
       Sharif, in the interview, would not discuss operational 
     details of the proposal and refused to disclose what covert 
     plans the intelligence agency wanted to fund with the drug 
     money.
       Sharif said he had ``no sources'' to verify that the ISI 
     had obeyed his orders to abandon the plan but that he assumed 
     the agency had complied.
       ``I told them categorically not to initiate any such 
     operation, and a few days later I called Beg again to tell 
     that I have disapproved the ISI plan to back heroin 
     smuggling.''
       Embittered that his political enemies cut short his term as 
     prime minister last year and helped engineer the return of 
     Bhutto, Sharif has gone on an intense political offensive to 
     destabilize her 10-month-old government. He claimed recently 
     that Pakistan has a nuclear bomb and said he made the 
     information public to prevent Bhutto from dismantling the 
     program under pressure from the West. The government has 
     denied possessing a nuclear bomb but repeated previous 
     statements that it has the ability to build one.
       Calling Sharif a ``loose cannon,'' a second Western 
     diplomatic source said, ``I'd have a hard time believing'' 
     his allegations about the military's drug trafficking 
     proposal. The official suggested that Sharif's disclosure 
     might be designed to keep Bhutto and Pakistan-India relations 
     off balance. ``If anything should bring these two countries 
     together, it is their common war against the drug problem, 
     but this seems to fly in the face of that,'' he said.

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