Those Airplane Bombs - Something Doesn't Add Up

The story coming out about two bombs air freighted from Yemen, destination Chicago, doesn't make a lot of sense.

We're told the bombs were very sophisticated, even sniffer dogs couldn't detect the explosive charges.  One was rigged with a cell phone detonator, the other a timer.   Both bombs were supposedly to detonate while the aircraft was over the Atlantic.

It seems the bombs were detected, and disarmed, before the aircraft left Europe for the United States.  The Brits were apparently onto the plot.   Yet both aircraft were allowed to continue to the United States with the presumably disarmed bombs still aboard.  That's hard to understand.

What about the Canadian F-18s sent up to escort the aircraft to the U.S. border?  Why?  Were officials afraid the flight crews of those freighters were up to no good?

But what really gets me is the description of the packages in which the al-Qaeda bombs were allegedly secreted.  Printer cartridges.   Printer cartridges being shipped, by air, from high-tech Yemen to the United States.   Coals to Newcastle?  Printer cartridges being shipped from Yemen, that hotbed of Islamist radicalism, addressed to synagogues in the States?  Synagogues?   Packages in Yemen addressed to American synagogues.  Wow that won't draw any attention at all, will it?

Now I'm no terrorist but it strikes me that an Islamist terrorist wanting to air freight a bomb onto a jet freighter in Yemen would never, absolutely not ever, address the packages to a U.S. synagogue.

This just doesn't add up.  What gives?   What do you think?

Militants Biting the Hand that Fed Them

Many of the violent events of the past several decades have come in the form of "blowback." It's a term that describes the potentially deadly plume of flame that blasts out of the backend when a shoulder-mounted rocket is fired. If you're not careful, your own weapon can inadvertently kill you.

The al-Qaeda movement is blowback. The progeny of the United States and Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency, al-Qaeda was trained, equipped and funded to help drive the Soviet forces out of Afghanistan. Afterward al-Qaeda turned on its American benefactors and ever since then Rudy Guiliani has had 9/11 Tourette Syndrome.

Outfits like this are risky but that hasn't stopped Pakistan's ISI from continuing to play the game, especially using the militants to block Afghani collaboration with India.

Now even the Pakistanis are reeling from blowback. From the New York Times:

"Pakistan’s premier military intelligence agency has lost control of some of the networks of Pakistani militants it has nurtured since the 1980s, and is now suffering the violent blowback of that policy, two former senior intelligence officials and other officials close to the agency say.

As the military has moved against them, the militants have turned on their former handlers, the officials said. Joining with other extremist groups, they have battled Pakistani security forces and helped militants carry out a record number of suicide attacks last year, including some aimed directly at army and intelligence units as well as prominent political figures, possibly even Benazir Bhutto."

Does this mean that Pakistan, its military and the ISI are finally going to turn on the militants? Maybe but I suspect they're as likely to wind up with some form of fresh accommodation involving the tribal lands adjacent to Afghanistan. The ISI has practised duplicity on a level that would make Machiavelli jealous and it's difficult to imagine that agency going "straight" anytime soon.

Musharraf to Bush - Back Off

Beleaguered Pakistani strongman and notional president, Pervez Musharraf, told Singapore's Straits Times, that American forces would be considered "invaders" if they entered Pakistan to hunt down al-Qaida militants.

"Pakistan is under growing U.S. pressure to crack down on militants in its tribal regions close to the Afghan border.

The rugged area has long been considered a likely hiding place for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden as well as an operating ground for Taliban militants planning attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.

The New York Times reported last week that Washington was considering expanding the authority of the CIA and the military to launch covert operations within the tribal regions.

Several U.S. presidential candidates have also hinted they would support unilateral action in the area.

Musharraf told The Straits Times U.S. troops would "certainly" be considered invaders if they set foot in the tribal regions.

"If they come without our permission, that's against the sovereignty of Pakistan. I challenge anybody coming into our mountains. They would regret that day," he said in the interview. "

The US has suffered a great loss of support among the Pakistani people and it's believed that any intrusion by American forces into Pakistan would only increase support for extremism and undercut Pakistan's moderate political parties.