Naval base attack: Blaming it on the foreign bogey

Rightwing religious parties say CIA, RAW, Mossad behind Karachi attack.

LAHORE:

The heads the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Jamaatud Dawa and the Sunni Ittehad Council believe that agents from the United States, Israel or India   or all three were behind the attack on the Pakistan Navy airbase in Karachi, not Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

In a statement issued on Monday, JD chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed said India and America were trying to isolate Pakistan further in the international community by creating unrest in the country.

He said such attacks were a result of the “friendship” between Pakistan’s rulers and the US. He said no Pakistani city was safe while American forces were present in the country.

JI chief Syed Munawar Hasan said that the attack on the PNS Mehran was a well-organised act of terrorism and US, Indian and Israeli involvement could not be ruled out. “While the foreign hand is playing with Pakistan’s existence, our intelligence agencies are busy securing US targets and Interior Minister Rehman Malik is defending them by blaming every terrorist activity on Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” he said.

Hasan said this was the biggest attack on Pakistan’s military since the assault on General Headquarters in Rawalpindi.

“The enemy is trying to destabilise this country in order to deprive us of our independence and sovereignty,” he said.

Hasan said that the attack represented a “complete security failure” at the naval base. “It seems that there is no one to defend this country and the enemy can attack anywhere and at any time,” he said.

He said Malik had always denied that mercenaries from private security firm Blackwater, now knows as XE, were present in Pakistan, but the frequent terrorist attacks here proved that the US Central Intelligence Agency, Blackwater and Indian intelligence had established networks in the country.

Sunni Ittehad Council chairman Sahibzada Fazle Karim announced a countrywide protest for May 27.

He said the Indian Research and Analysis Wing, Israel’s Mossad, and the CIA were responsible for the attack.

He said the civil and military leadership must take measures to secure the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24^th, 2011.