Welcome back TSIBR readers! Allow me to apologize for the hiatus… but also note that the dates of the hiatus coincide near-perfectly with the death and resurrection of the ‘now becoming globally infamous’ Hakimullah Mehsud. Long time TSIBR readers know that TSIBR has been following the Mehsud led Pakistani Taliban (the TTP – Tehrek-e-Taliban in Pakistan – to the Pakistanis) for well over a year. Want proof? Just take a look up to your left and you will see a TSIBR blog search tool, plug in Mehsud, and you will find treatises on the developing threat dating back to at least June of 2009. Indeed, here is a video of Kane talking about the growing Mehsud threat – the post is entitled “The Dawn of the Mehsud Offensive” and was posted on July 12, 2009 – nearly a year prior to the Mehsud orchestrated (albeit failed) Times Square Bombing:
http://thesystemisblinkingred.blogspot.com/2009/07/kane-on-dawn-of-mehsud-offensive-video.html
Before we get into the failed bombing itself, let’s review a few of the key reasons why TSIBR keyed on Mehsud, and continued to, out of a panoply of key and scary terrorist figures in the world. This post should be particularly interesting to those most interested in premonition, for in the following description the many nexuses between education and premonition that led TSIBR to focus on Mehsud will be laid bare.
We began with an educated supposition – the initial supposition that led TSIBR to focus on the Mehsuds simply involved deteriorating leadership for the al Qaeda-Taliban Alliance – bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the like are becoming old and tired. This supposition led TSIBR to search for potential leaders; from what shadowy corner was new leadership likely to emerge?
TSIBR immediately focused on Pakistani terror groups in trying to answer that question. There are two main reasons why: 1) As has been harped on repeatedly at TSIBR, the main goal of the al Qaeda-Taliban Alliance today is to force the US or India or both to incontrovertibly cross Pakistani borders with guns ablazing. At best, such an event would widen legitimate calls for Jihad like few others could; at worst, it would foment a massive war between India and Pakistan, with the US (India’s staunch ally) and China (Pakistan’s staunch ally) potentially being dragged in as adversaries. 2) A main reason, if not the main reason, al Qaeda has had trouble extending its influence over the past years involves Pakistanis and Afghanis viewing al Qaeda as foreign interlopers. The Taliban on the other hand are viewed as homegrown. Thus TSIBR surmised that as long as Af-Pak remains the key front in the War on Terror (for lack of a better term), new leadership would necessarily have to be culled from a Taliban group, a Pakistani Taliban group.
Readers should therefore find it unsurprising that TSIBR watched with bated breath as the TTP formed around a leader known as Baitullah Mehsud, starting c.2005. By 2007 Baitullah had consolidated power, and along the way had also become very pro al-Qaeda. This was atypical for the Taliban in Pakistan, which previously shied away from links with foreign interlopers. But Baitullah’s charisma, backed with al Qaeda’s financing, succeeded in creating a powerful Pakistani Taliban umbrella group with an increasingly international focus. As we moved into 2008, Baitullah Mehsud gave two interviews to Islamic media outlets starkly threatening the US with attacks. As TSIBR remarked at the time, such a man does not do so without a greenlight from key leadership figures throughout the al-Qaeda-Taliban alliance. When TSIBR got wind of the interviews, goosebumps and hackles started to rise, an educated premonition was forming…
Now, imagine Joshua Kane sitting on his couch about to watch a Frontline focusing on terror in Pakistan. Now imagine Joshua Kane spitting out his soda as a NATO Hum-V appears on the screen carrying none other than Baitullah Mehsud and his right hand man and driver, Hakimullah Mehsud. These two men were going to sit for an interview with Frontline, and unsurprisingly, during the interview, Baitullah, with Hakimullah at his side, issued threats against the West. Suddenly, as Kane stared at the soda on his chest, an image was recalled, an image from a Frontline first aired in 1998, an image of bin-Laden in a blue turban issuing grave threats against the US and Israel. It was the only western media outlet in which bin-Laden himself threatened the West prior to 9/11. Surely anyone mimicking such a momentous interview was doing so with a generalized greenlight from Alliance leadership…
For that moment, if not from that moment, it was clear to TSIBR that Baitullah was likely their man – the next face of the al-Qaeda-Taliban Alliance. Although, at the time I do recall remarking that there was something extraordinary about Baitullah’s driver – the man, Hakimullah, clearly wanted to speak, and he clearly was revered by the Taliban surrounding Baitullah, on whose side he sat. When Hakimullah arose, prior to Baitullah, a large smile on his face, and fired up Baitullah’s captured NATO Hum-V, the Taliban let out a memorable roar, and it became clear to TSIBR that this young firebrand had the terrorist X-factor like few else – he could be a superstar terrorist. It all seemed a bit crazy then, less so now.
A few scant weeks after TSIBR went public with its disturbing views on Mehsud, Baitullah was killed in a drone attack. Confusion surrounded the affair for some three weeks until it became clear that Hakimullah Mehsud had risen to leadership of the TTP. Rather than review that messy affair, take a look at the posts that covered Baitullah’s death and Hakimullah’s rise, with the Zazi attempt quickly following on the heels:
http://thesystemisblinkingred.blogspot.com/2009/08/pitfalls-and-pleasures-of-social.html
http://thesystemisblinkingred.blogspot.com/2009/08/dark-forebodings-of-fall-timing-of.html
http://thesystemisblinkingred.blogspot.com/2009/09/obama-outsourcer-will-almost-spilled-be.html
From that point propagandistic pics of Hakimullah began appearing, like the following:
http://alertpak.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/hakimullah-mehsud_232561s.jpg
Again, such pics raised the hackles and goosebumps of TSIBR, still do in fact – the feedback loop between education and premonition was and is gaining strength in this case; TSIBR was and is onto something. Then, seemingly our of nowhere, there appears Hakimullah Mehsud sitting next to the CIA Khost bomber in the bomber’s posthumous video. Hakimullah asserts that the bombing was in retaliation for Baitullah (a point which we have continued to hear since); no other leader sits with the bomber. This bombing of the CIA Khost outpost, where drone strikes are orchestrated, was perhaps the best planned terrorist operation since 9/11. All intelligence points to the attack being organized by the Haqqani network, whose main focus remains Afghanistan. Haqqani is old, battle-hardened, and experienced. It makes far more sense that his network organized the successful attack (as TSIBR commented at the time). If so, then why was Hakimullah Mehsud sitting next to the bomber in his posthumous video? Here is the reason: all of the many terror groups based in Pakistan and allied with al-Qaeda have accepted Mehsud’s face as the new face of terror. This means that no matter what terror comes to American interests abroad or domestically, no matter whether its actually organized by Hakimullah’s Pakistani Taliban, no matter whether its successful or not, if the claim can be made that Hakimullah Mehsud orchestrated the event, such a claim will be made. In a bid to create new leadership for the al-Qaeda-Taliban Alliance, the Alliance members are stamping any and all terror with the face of Hakimullah Mehsud. As a young x-factor firebrand with few independent ties outside of his former master Baitullah Mehsud, Hakimullah makes perfect sense for this role. I spoke of this extensively in this January 2010 post:
http://thesystemisblinkingred.blogspot.com/2010/01/on-terror-front.html
Nevertheless, merely days after TSIBR had again reasserted such a view came the news that Hakimullah Mehsud had died in a drone attack. He had become target #1 for the CIA and they had gotten him. All intelligence agencies throughout the globe were in agreement – Hakimullah Mehsud was dead. I will not lie TSIBR readers, Kane became somewhat discouraged at that time. My hackles told me Hakimullah was alive, but the news assured me he was dead. Then a week passed, then another, then another, and still no news of new leadership for the Pakistani Taliban. Then Waliur Rehman, an old general within the Pakistani Taliban who is likely their actual leader, began giving interviews – Hakimullah is alive but underground he asserted again and again – the hackles became reinvigorated. Nightly Kane began looking for news on Hakimullah Mehsud, would he reappear? Could he be alive… from the twitter feed, dated February 5, 2010:
“Taliban continue to claim Mehsud lives. If so he's more powerful than ever. If not the TTP are less powerful than before.”
Those nightly searches continued until the early morning hours of April 29th, when ABC reported that intelligence agencies now believed Hakimullah was alive. From the post on that day:
“If true, the implications for terror soon coming to American shores, stamped with the face of Mehsud, are grave.”
Which brings us up to date. Not only is Hakimullah alive, but his supposed death and resurrection have provided the Pakistani Taliban with a propaganda gold mine – undoubtedly Hakimullah’s role as key leader and dominant face has been solidified, and he now likely resides underground in a city where drone strikes cannot reach him. Moreover, intelligence agencies are finally reporting what TSIBR has long surmised – the Pakistani Taliban is becoming the umbrella group for the many dangerous and al-Qaeda sympathetic Pakistani terror groups – notably Lashkar-e-Taioba and Jaish-e-Muhammed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/world/asia/07pstan.html
These two terror groups, which focus exclusively on India, will continue to focus exclusively on India. But given their long histories, and their involvement with Pakistan’s intelligence agency (the ISI), these groups actually have an international infrastructure for terror, as indicated by the strange case of David Headley:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/03/18/headlley.mumbai.profile/index.html?hpt=C1
It is precisely that international infrastructure for terror that Mehsud’s TTP is activating currently, it is Lashkar and Jaish that give the TTP a platform from which to strike the US. Add in the Haqqani network, and it becomes clear that very powerful forces are backing the rise of Hakimullah Mehsud. None of these groups want to pollute their center of attention by switching to an American focus, for that may affect their ability to agitate against India and/or Afghanistan (in the Haqqani case). Thus they require a face to attack the United States, and Hakimullah has become that face.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/08/terrorists-new-focus-striking-officials-say/
Proof of the above abounds in the failed Times Square bombing attempt, with the bomber now being linked to both Jaish and the Pakistani Taliban:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-shahzad-20100506,0,2653766.story
Of course, and however, the Times Square bombing attempt was pretty pathetic in various ways. Which leads to a number of questions TSIBR does not yet have an answer for. It boils down to this, did Pakistani Terror groups send their A-team or their C-team to do this job. If it’s the C-team, where is the A-team, was Zazi the A-team, or is the A-team still in the US? If TSIBR had to guess, a C-team was certainly sent to prepare the Times Square bombing, while the overarching point of the poorly orchestrated attempt, in the eyes of the TTP, was simply to announce the resurrection of Hakimullah Mehsud, nothing more nothing less.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0510/Times-Square-bomb-Did-Pakistan-Taliban-send-its-C-team
Regardless, inertia now is on the side of terror coming to the US in a graver form than what we saw earlier this month – as long as Hakimullah is alive and providing that umbrella for Pakistani Terror groups, the threat remains grave. Meanwhile the Pakistani ISI continues to pay lip service to America’s desire for eradication of Pakistani Terror groups, all while covertly supporting them in a bid to counter India and maintain power in Afghanistan:
http://www.prokerala.com/news/articles/a115580.html
http://www.ndtv.com/news/world/pakistans-isi-is-protecting-lashkar-us-17716.php
Returning to premonition - in terms of hackles – TSIBR believes something far bigger is on its way to American shores. In terms of further guesses – this may be a Mumbai style massacre in Manhattan or a nuclear event in LA – this is what my intuition tells me. Mind you TSIBR readers, I desire neither, I fear both, and pray that I am wrong. That being said, does anyone else find it curious that, with Iran set to go nuclear, Obama made his entire ‘nuclear conference’ about terrorists acquiring and deploying nuclear weapons. Does Obama know something we don’t?
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-04-13-nuke-plans_N.htm
Well, TSIBR knows this much: there is much left to be said. In the coming days TSIBR will continue posting mega-updates – topics covered will include the quaking financial system, the role of China, and the coming strike on Iran. Stay tuned…
Joshua Kane
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