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Colonel Imam. Photo from the Irish Times. |
This is certainly interesting. Two of our favorite former officers from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency who have close ties to the Taliban and al Qaeda have gone missing in northwestern Pakistan. From Dawn:
Two former officials of the premier intelligence agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), and a free lance journalist have gone missing in suspicious circumstances from Kohat.
Family sources of the missing ISI officials Col (retired) Imam and Sq Leader (retired) Khalid Khawaja revealed that these officers were assisting the free lance journalist Asad Qureshi who was making a documentary on Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
They were on way back to their homes after having a meeting with the Taliban leadership in tribal areas when they were allegedly picked up by unknown people. It is yet not clear who kidnapped them.
Those unknown people could be the Taliban, the ISI, or just a few of the run-of-the-mill kidnappers prevalent in Pakistan’s northwest. More on Colonel Imam here and Khalid Khawaja here and here.
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10 Comments
I hope, the drones take down these kidnappers with some collateral damage.
The best outcome in their disappearance would be if the US was responsible and now has custody of these two, for the many obvious reasons.
Well..Colonel Imam..+Hamid Gul..will have lots of lyrics to sing..better grab Hamid Gul too..before ISI hides him..
Will know a lot about Pak Army double dealing with US/NATO..
Be interesting to see how this movie ends….
The problem with the “US grabbed these people” story is they also have a journalist who was with them and is not “the opposition”. That’s a bit awkward (on so many levels).
I suspect the Taliban have these guys. Perhaps Daniel Pearl 2.0. Plus payback for the ISI. Or perhaps those two are rogue?
If one use the thumb rule the chances are that ISI should be behind this for some ulterior reasons of their own.
Following is an update from Pak media. Lets see where does it all this end.
Ex-ISI official and journalist missing from North Waziristan
Thursday, April 08, 2010
By Mushtaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR: The whereabouts of the five ‘missing’ persons including two former Inter-Services Intelligence officers and two British passport-holder journalists could not be traced even after almost two weeks.
Former ISI official Colonel (R) Imam, Chairman of Defence for Human Rights Khalid Khwaja and two journalists with one identified as Asad Qureshi mysteriously went missing on their way to North Waziristan on March 26.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s former MNA from Kohat, Javed Ibrahim Paracha said five of them visited him before leaving for North Waziristan on March 26. In North Waziristan, he said, Colonel (R) Imam, Khalid Khwaja and their colleagues were scheduled to interview some Taliban commanders for the documentary they were making for a foreign news channel.
….
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=233208
Maybe they saw Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda had to detain (or kill) them until they cover Osamas tracks so they can’t inform on his whereabouts.
Would not be surprised if they are willing hostages to be used in exhange with the quetta shura guys caught in Karachi
I bets are on them being used to settle some inter-taliban feud.