[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 145 (Friday, October 7, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: October 7, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
PAKISTAN'S LINKS WITH FUNDAMENTALISM AND INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM
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HON. PETER DEUTSCH
of florida
in the house of representatives
Friday, October 7, 1994
Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I am shocked to see reports detailing the
extensive involvement of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in supporting
Islamic fundamentalist terror groups in Afghanistan and India. I have
seen Peter Arnett's excellent documentary ``Terror Nation? U.S.
Creation?'' shown on CNN last month. The film provides a graphic
account of the links between the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the
fundamentalist regime of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. I was disturbed to note
that some Afghan groups that have had close affiliation with Pakistani
Intelligence are believed to have been involved in the New York World
Trade Center bombings.
Following an investigation, Peter Arnett reports about the New York
bombing, ``It happened at this apartment complex. Police at the well-
patroled community say the Skeikh's Driver, Mahmud Aboubalima was
Shalabi's most frequent visitor. Police consider Aboubalima their prime
suspect. He is the second person from the Afghan Refuge Center
implicated in a U.S. crime. But he has not been charged. Shalabi's
family blames Sheikh Rahman for the killing, a charge a cleric denies.
With Shalabi gone, Aboubalima takes control of the Afghan Refugee
Center. Aboubalima, Sheikh Rahman and Hampton El were bound together
not only by the Brooklyn-based Afghan Center, but also by the holy war
headquarters in Peshawar, Pakistan, the bustling base of operations for
the Afghan resistance. It is in Peshawar that the New York terror
campaign takes shape. Peshawar was the headquarters of Sheikh Rahman's
international network. Peshawar was also the headquarters of Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar's party, which trained four of the key New York suspects.
Hekmatyar's links to the New York suspects came as no surprise to pro-
Western afghan officials. They officially warned the U.S. government
about Hekmatyar no fewer than four times. The last warning delivered
just days before the Trade Center attack.''
Speaking to former CIA Director Robert Gates, about Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar, Peter Arnett reports, ``The Pakistanis showered Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar with U.S. provided weapons and sang his praises to the CIA.
They had close ties with Hakmatyar going back to the mid-1970's.
Hekmatyar's Islamic fervor played well with the fundamentalist powers
of Pakistan.''
Mr. Speaker, I have now come across a report in the Washington Post
of September 12th from Karachi, Pakistan, which states that:
``Pakistan's army chief and 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.'' The report provides considerable detail on the degree
to which Pakistan's military leaders have been involved in their
pursuit of an Islamic nuclear bomb and export of fundamentalism into
India. It says, ``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 than half of its 47 years of independence) of
developing the country's nuclear technology and arming insurgents in
India and other countries without civilian 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.''
The significance of these reports at a time when India's
investigative agencies are discovering growing evidence of Pakistani
involvement in the heinous bombings in Bombay last March can not be
under estimated. A prime suspect in the bombings has recently been
arrested with documents including a passport, driving license and birth
certificate provided to him by the same intelligence organization. The
use of drug money by the intelligence services of the Islamic Republic
of Pakistan for bringing the destabalizing effects of fundamentalism
into Afghanistan and India can not be condoned. The Administration
should investigate these reports with full vigor and share its findings
with the Members of the House.
[From the Washington Post, Sept. 12, 1994]
Heroin Plan by Top Pakistanis Alleged
(By John Ward Anderson)
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 Durani, then head of
the military's Inter-Services Intelligence bureau (ISI), told
him the armed forces needed more money for covert 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 than
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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