Six BJP workers arrested for planting ISIS flags in Assam

In a sensational development, police in Assam have arrested six BJP workers in connection with the discovery of an ISIS flag in the state’s Nalbari district.
The arrested BJP members have been identified as Tapan Barman from Kaihati, Mojamil Ali from Chamata, Moon Ali from Baruakur, Pulak Barman from Belsor, Dwipjyoti Thakuria, Sorojjyoti Baishya and Khelua Patowary.

The cops arrested them on Monday from Piplibari for their alleged role in the incident, reported website NENow.

Cops had swung into action after local in Kaihati area of Belsor Police Station had discovered an ISIS flag tied to a treat with the message urging people to join the dreaded terrorist outfit.

What’s noticeable in the flag posted by the BJP members is the Arabic texts, which different to what appears on the ISIS flags. The second part of the text, Muhammadur Rasuloollah, has been written wrongly.

The NENow website further reported that similar flags with ‘ISIS NE’ written on them were discovered in Goalpara district on a river bank. Cops had suspected that this could have been the handiwork of miscreants, who were keen to create communal tension in the area.

Curiously, the flags were found days ahead of the visit of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, to the state.

36 किलो गांजा और पांच महिलाओं के साथ विश्व हिंदू परिषद का नेता गिरफ्तार

बलिया। नेता सफेदपोश के आड़ में क्या क्या गुल खिलाते हैं इसका जीता जागता उदाहरण बलिया रेलवे स्टेशन पर शुक्रवार को देखने को मिला। जब बलिया रेलवे स्टेशन पर जीआरपी ने चेकिंग के दौरान विहिप के पूर्व जिलाध्यक्ष रामअशीष राय को 36 किलो 340 ग्राम गांजा और असम की पांच महिलाओं के साथ गिरफ्तार किया। बलिया जीआरपी ने डिब्लूगढ़-अमृतसर एक्सप्रेस में चेकिंग के दौरान यह बरामदगी की।

बलिया जीआरपी प्रभारी दिलीप पांडेय ने बताया कि विहिप के पूर्व जिलाध्यक्ष रामअशीष के साथ पांच महिलाएं और दो बच्चे अपने बैग में गांजा भरकर बंगाल से आ रहे थे। ट्रेन में चेकिंग के दौरान संदेह होने पर सभी के बैग की तलाशी ली गई तो मामला प्रकाश में आया। जीरआपी ने सभी का चालान कर न्यायालय भेज दिया।

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Conversion Threat: BAJRANG DAL’S VALMIKI MEMBERS BREAK IDOLS

Moradabad: Describing Yogi Sarkar of Uttar Pradesh as anti-Dalit, at least families of fifty Valmiki communities of Moradabad district have threatened to abandon Hinduism and adopt Islam.

On Saturday, people accused the BJP of being anti-Dalit and sacked statues of gods and goddesses of Hindu religion in Ramganga river in their homes. They immersed the idols and the images in the nearby river.

People gathered in the Chhatarpur Park of Jigar Colony and shouted slogans against the BJP government. Although activists of Bajrang Dal had also come and made desperate attempts to persuade them but the people of Valmiki community refused to budge and threaten to read namaz and would adopt Islam.

Video of the Protest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puwjJFqp1WA

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Cow Terrorists Brutally Thrash Man in Ujjain

In what seems to be an another case of cattle vigilantes turning violent in Madhya Pradesh, cow vigilantes assaulted a man in Ujjain district of the state. 

Bhopal: In what seems to be an another case of cattle vigilantes turning violent in Madhya Pradesh, cow vigilantes assaulted a man in Ujjain district of the state. 

A video of the incident, released by ANI, shows a group of men brutally thrashing, kicking the victim repeatedly. 

According to the report, the police have arrested at least four persons in connection with the case whereas search for others is underway.

Muslim Exodus from A Sambhal Village due to Terror

Lucknow, May 12: Eight Muslim families have fled their western Uttar Pradesh village following three consecutive nights of attacks by armed mobs, despite police security, after a young Muslim man was accused of eloping with a married Hindu neighbour.

The development fits neatly into the "love jihad" narrative, whose promoters include current chief minister Yogi Adityanath and which entails an alleged plot by young Muslim men to seduce and convert Hindu women.

The families left Nandrauli village of Sambhal district, 420km northwest of Lucknow, last night after the third attack, which happened hours after a deputy inspector-general of police had visited the village to reassure the Muslims.

Each of the attacks took place amid the presence of 20 personnel from the Provincial Armed Constabulary - a state paramilitary force - and 10 police constables who had been stationed before the Muslim homes to protect them. Read Full

Terror in Udaipur

UDAIPUR: Verbal spat between tribal and Muslim groups over a long-standing issue on Thursday night turned violent as tension brewed up in Banswara on Friday afternoon.

Situation remained tensed at Kalika Mata and Khaatwada area as two warring groups pelted stones at each other and set some vehicles, shops and houses on fire. Attack at several places were reported and the mob damaged police vehicles and cameras. Many people including 8-10 policemen suffered injuries during the scuffle. The mob also hurled stones on police which compelled them to use tear gas. Additional forces were pressed into services from Udaipur, Chittorgarh and Dungarpur along with imposition of curfew for situation control .

IG Anand Srivastava, SP Kaluram Rawat, collector Bhagwati Prasad and many officials took stock of law and order in these areas. Normalcy was restored by evening, however, internet services were barred to prevent any untoward incident.

There had been a long standing dispute since 1998 between these two communities at Kalikamata area over a temple place. A Sarva Samaj meeting was organised to find solution for the dispute a fortnight back. However, during a procession of Shab-e-Baraat on Thursday night, members of both groups messed up. They set two bikes ablaze and attacked with swords which intensified the situation and police swung into action.

Fury of the mob continued on Friday as miscreants created disturbances in several patches. " We have rounded up few people. Extra battalion from Udaipur, Dungarpur, Chittorgarh, Mewar Bhil Corp (MBC), RAC have been deployed and things are getting better gradually," Banswara SP Kaluram Rawat said.

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Police Backs Cow Terrorists in Jammu

Jammu: Police came to rescue of a Gujjar-Bakarwal family when their truck carrying cows was cornered by a group of self-styled cow vigilantes at Narwal Jammu on Friday night.

The incident invited condemnation from Muslim organizations of Jammu who demanded strict action against the goons.

 Eyewitnesses told news agency CNS that a group of self-styled cow vigilantes stopped a truck carrying cows near Narwal Jammu. Fearing for their lives, the Gujjar family locked the truck and refused to come down. Despite informing them that the truck has valid government permission, the cow vigilantes continuously chanted ‘Bam Bam Bole’ slogans.

 Eyewitnesses added that a police flying squad tried to pacify the self-styled cow vigilantes; however, the goons tried to assault them and forced them to retreat. “A respectable lawyer from Bhatandi Jammu tried to intervene; however, cow vigilantes didn’t budge and tried to drag out the cows from the truck. When this drama was going on, a police party from Bagh-e-Bahu police station emerged on the spot and dispersed the cow vigilantes. The police seized the truck as well.

When contacted, a police official from Bagh-e-Bahu police station said the truck was released as the Gujjar family was carrying a valid permission. When asked why an FIR was not lodged against miscreants, he said the matter was resolved amicably.

Meanwhile, Jammu Muslim Front while condemning the incident said that it is the job of police to check cow smuggling and self-styled ‘Gau-rakshaks’ exist only to harass nomads. “It is shameful that the family carrying with valid permission was harassed and intimidated,” president Jammu Muslim Front Qazi Imran told CNS.

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Saudia, Mother of all Terrorism

Saudi Arabia's wealth and arrogance are build on a oil-black house of cards.

Saudi Arabia considers itself as the leading nation of the Arab world and at times the entire Muslim world. Most Arabs and most Muslims do not agree. Saudi Arabia is indeed a country that many Arabs hate and many Muslims have grown to reject because of the extreme and intolerant religion called Wahhabism which is practised in the Kingdom. Wahhabism bares little resembles to the peaceful, brotherly religion that is mainstream Islam.

Oil prices continue their downward spiral. Just days ago Brent Crude prices hit their lowest level since OPEC agreed to cut production in March of 2017.

Even then, the cut benefited Iraq and Iran more than Saudi. With non-OPEC states like Russia becoming world energy producers and the United States moving further towards regaining energy independence, oil is unlikely to have another price boom.

Even at this early stage, Saudi society has felt the economic pinch. Last year Saudi Arabia contemplated introducing a first ever income tax on citizens. The outcry forced Riyadh to step back but new taxation on foreigners was introduced.

Saudi Arabia’s wealthy economy is almost entirely dependent on oil sales. Without oil, the otherwise resource poor country with an extremely regressive education system has nothing to offer the world and consequently nothing to offer its own people. The desert Kingdom is furthermore a cultural wasteland.

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8 Men Gang Raped Woman On Highway in UP

Rapes are very common these days; there’s hardly any place in India which is saved from such disgusting things. However, a brutal incident has come to light in Yogi Adityanath’s Uttar Pradesh; no doubt, the CM is taking many efforts to improvise situations in UP, but this case has come as a shocker.

According to reports, 8 men gang raped a woman & that too in front of her husband; yes, they tied him up and brutally raped her. This happened in Jalaun district on the 4th of May, when the couple was returning from Jaipur. After raping the woman, those men robbed them and dumped them on Auraiya-Jalaun highway.

Basically, the couple took a train to Auraiya and from there, they wanted some transport to Jalaun; it was midnight that they had reached Auraiya. While checking some public transport options, a loader van stopped there and the driver offered them a lift.

As soon as the couple got into the van, the driver drove it to a deserted area; when the van stopped at the liquor shop, some more men came in. All of them started raping the woman turn by turn and the husband couldn’t do anything as he was tied up. Moreover, when the couple started screaming, the men threatened them and asked them to keep their mouths shut.

On the 5th May i.e. Friday, an FIR was filed against those 8 men; SC Shakya, the Jalaun Additional Superintendant of Police said, “An FIR has been lodged against eight unidentified men for gangrape and dacoity. We will arrest the culprits soon.”

Full Story

Hindu Farmers and Cattle Traders, Angry with Gau Rakshaks

Those who buy and sell milch cows and oxen for farm work say cow vigilantes have made it impossible for them to conduct their business.

Watch Video

Cow vigilantism has been portrayed as a blowback against the Muslim community’s insistence on consuming beef, unmindful of the fact that slaughtering cows hurts Hindus who worship the animal. This depiction has framed the cow as an incendiary issue between Hindus and Muslims, an irreconcilable clash of cultures, so to speak.


This narrative was challenged during a three-day dharna that civil society groups and a clutch of political parties organised in Jaipur from April 24 to protest the killing of Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer who was waylaid in Alwar on April 1 while transporting milch cattle to his farm.
“We insisted it was not a Muslim issue,” said Kavita Srivastava, president, Rajasthan People’s Union for Civil Liberties, who was one of the organisers of the demonstration. “Lynching is unacceptable because it does away with the rule of law.”

Srivastava said the dharna was also a protest against criminalising the victim. “The Rajasthan home minister [Gulab Chand Kataria] continues to defend those who killed Pehlu Khan,” she said. “They are gau goondas, not gau rakshaks.”

It is very likely that some readers will dismiss Srivastava’s remark as typical of the irreverence Left-liberal activists have for religion and its symbols. But Srivastava’s sentiment is shared by many Hindu farmers, dairy owners and traders who are simmering with anger against thugs masquerading as cow protectors.

Their anger is reflected in six separate clips made from a lengthy video that a journalist friend sent to this writer. He filmed it at the cattle market held every week in Jaipur. The footage was shot on April 8. The journalist-friend’s questions to a cattle trader triggered a passionate debate in which both Hindus and Muslims participated, belying the claims that the two communities have been divided because of their contrarian sentiments on the cow.
Each of the clips in the story is followed by a synopsis for those who do not understand Hindi.

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Mahadalit Women Thrashed for Entering Temple

One of the victims said some village strongmen beat them up for resisting an attempt to prevent them from entering a temple at Bishunpur Baghnagari village in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district.

Tension prevails at a village in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district, 71 km north of state capital Patna, for the second consecutive day after a Mahadalit woman registered an FIR alleging that she and other women of her family were prevented by some village strongmen from entering a temple.

Complainant Usha Devi, 30, of Bishunpur Baghnagari village in Sakra police station area said they were also thrashed for registering their protest on Friday.

Confirming the lodging of FIR, police said the injured women were provided first aid at Sakra primary health centre.

Muzaffarpur deputy superintendent of police (east) Mutaffique Ahmad said a police team was camping at the village to avert any untoward incident.

“We have strengthened security arrangements in the village in the view of tension after registration of FIR against four named and three unidentified accused. The FIR was registered on the basis of statement made by Devi,” Ahmed said.

The DSP said Devi, in her petition, alleged that Srinath Mishra, Aman Kumar, Shiv Kumar Mishra and some other village strongmen stopped them from entering a village temple when she her relatives went there to perform a pre-wedding ritual of her brother-in-law. “Devi said when they offered resistance, they were beaten up,” the DSP added.

However, a villager, on the condition of anonymity, said a cart accompanying Devi and her family was playing bawdy songs on the public address system. “The accused asked them to stop playing of songs. This infuriated the male members of Devi’s family, who got into heated arguments with the accused,” he said.

Shravan Giri, the priest of the temple where incident allegedly took place, denied any such incident. “Some women had come to perform puja. They even handed over to me ‘dakshina’ (donation) after offering prayers,” he added.

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1000 Muslims Massacred: Killers Scotfree

"Do you have any information about Adam? It has been many years since I have seen him. Is he coming home?" asks 75-year-old Roshanbi, her tired and vacant eyes full of hope. Paralysed waist down due to the shock and resultant illness following her son's disappearance, Roshanbi mistakes journalists coming to her as officers who might give information about her son who disappeared on January 10, 1993 during the Mumbai riots.

For 13 years, Roshanbi has been sitting in a dark dingy passage leading to her squalid hutment, near Hari Masjid waiting for her son. Mohammed Adam Hassan, around 30 then, was among the 60 youths rounded up at the Hari Masjid area during the riots. Most of them came back. Adam did not. He is am-ong the 168 officially missing.

According to the Srikrishna Commission Report which investigated the 1992-93 riots, the police made namaazis of Hari Masjid stand in a line and forced one Adam and another person to pick up dead bodies (after the police shot dead seven of them reportedly for rioting) and put them in vehicles. Later, he was taken by the police along with other youths. He never returned.
"It is surprising that the police claimed to have fired in order to save violent clashes. There were no injury marks nor were there any mobs," says advocate Zia-ul-Mustafa who has been fighting the cases for those who were charged from the Hari Masjid area.

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Woman Cop Highlights: Police Abuse Of Adivasi Girls

In light of this, the revelations by Dongre are important. Before her post was taken down, it was shared widely on social media — much to the chagrin of police authorities in the state. As a result, the state has ordered a probe against her for raising these concerns on a public platform like Facebook. A senior government official said, “The CM (Raman Singh) had also asked officials to refrain from making such personal remarks.”

Following armed attacks in Sukma district that killed 35 CRPF soldiers in April, Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh has called for a meeting on May 5 to build a comprehensive strategy for a counter-attack in the region. Dongre’s comments are simply another side of the same coin because they highlight the larger situation in which human rights abuses against Adivasi people take place. In the now-deleted post, Dongre had written: “The truth is that all natural and mineral resources are in these forests, which industrialists and capitalists have to empty out in order to sell.”

She goes on to comment on what the Adivasi community in Chhattisgarh must go through because of this: “They want Naxalism to end, but the way that the protectors of the nation abuse their daughters and daughters-in-law, the way they are burning their houses, filing false complaints against them so they are sent to rot in prison… where will they go to get justice? Don’t take my word for it, the CBI reports say this, the Supreme Court says this, this is the ground reality.“

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Violent Attacks on Christians in India

Violent attacks against Christians in India have increased at an alarming rate in 2016, with one attack occurring every 40 hours, according to a new report.

The report, published by All India Christian Council (AICC), indicated that the attacks against Christians were up by 20 percent in 2016. It also noted that physical violence against believers rose by 40 percent and murders have doubled.

“The attacks have become severe and more frequent. Incidents used to be confined to a few states. Now the violence has spread to 23 states,” it stated, noting that the sharpest rise was in the northern Uttar Pradesh state and the southern state of Telangana.

The report titled “Atrocities on Christians in India” highlights incidents of church workers being threatened, beaten and killed, as well as churches and Christian schools being vandalized, torched, bombed, and demolished. Other attacks include forced conversions of Christians to Hinduism and the disruption of church services and prayer meetings.

The rise in the attacks coincides with the victory of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the national election in 2014.

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Vigilantes terrorism in India

On April 21, five members of a family, including a 9-year-old girl, were seriously injured in an attack by a large, illegal gau rakshak (“cow protection”) vigilante group in the Reasi district of Jammu & Kashmir. The nomadic tribal people were herding their livestock, including 16 cows and calves, when they were intercepted near the Talwara area and assaulted with iron rods.

The group belonged to two important front organisations of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volutereeer Association) and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The tribesmen reported that the attackers absconded with their goats, sheep and cows. The nine-year-old girl suffered multiple fractures and one of the children went missing. Even the elders were beaten up. Their attackers also threatened to throw them into a nearby river.

Jammu & Kashmir is home to a large number of nomadic tribal herder groups that travel between Jammu’s Himalayan mountains every year for grazing.

Complete Story

Indian Muslims Under Attack

In India, attacks on Muslims and other religious minorities –under the pretext of protecting cows- have dramatically increased ever since the right-wing Hindu nationalist party came to power. As Munawar Zaman reports from New Delhi, the violence has seen an escalation. That especially after last month’s appointment of a hard-line Hindu religious leader as chief minister of the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is home to much of the country's Muslim-dominated meat industry.

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No Justice to Rape Victim Bilkis Bano

She was pregnant and was gang raped,14 members of her family brutally murdered, But, No Death Penalty For Convicts, Says Bombay High Court

MUMBAI:  

HIGHLIGHTS

Bilkis Bano gang-raped during Gujarat riots; she was 19 and pregnant, 14 of her family members, including her daughter, were murdered CBI had sought death penalty for three out of 11 convicted in the case The Bombay High Court has turned down the CBI's request for the death penalty to three men accused of gangraping Bilkis Bano, a 19-year-old pregnant woman, and brutally murdering 14 members of her family, including her three-old daughter, in Randhikpur near Ahmedabad, during the Gujarat riots of 2002.  

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had told court that this was a "rarest of rare case" and that the death penalty must be awarded to three out of 11 people convicted in the case, to send out a "stern message." A trial court in Mumbai had sentenced all of them to life imprisonment, which the High Court upheld today.   

The High Court has, however, accepted the CBI's other plea to reverse the acquittal of five Gujarat police officers and two doctors in the case.  The agency has alleged that the policemen connived with the convicts by "fudging documents and compromising the inquest panchnama." A total of 19 people were convicted by the court today.

The CBI had sought the death penalty for Jaswant Nai, Govind Nai, and Sailesh Bhatt , saying there was direct evidence that they brutally gangraped Bilkis, who was five months pregnant, and her sister and her mother. Sailesh Bhatt also allegedly snatched Bilkis' three-year-old daughter from her and crushed her head on a stone. The child died on the spot.

Bilkis's mother and sister were among the 14 of her family and 17 people from the village killed by the rioters on March 3, 2002.  Bilkis Bano, who lives in central Gujarat with her husband, had identified her rapists.

The trial was transferred out of Gujarat for the fear that witnesses might be intimidated or influenced.

The trial court had in January 2008, convicted 12 people, sentencing them to life imprisonment. They had all appealed against their conviction in the High Court. One of them has since died.

Source

Does India need a new Ram Temple

A response to the author's newspaper piece titled, 'Why we need a Ram Temple in Ayodhya'

Dear Chetan,

I just read a piece you have written in a newspaper titled Why we need a Ram Temple in Ayodhya, and felt I should respond.

Now, as everyone knows, you are one of contemporary India’s most popular writers. Besides putting out your novels, you also tweet regularly, and write columns in different papers, and a lot of people read what you write. Whenever I have come across something you have written, more often than not I have disagreed with it. Often I will laugh at some article by you or some comment you have made, but till now I have not felt the need to engage or argue with you. So, why do I need to respond now, and why to this particular piece of writing? Let me try and explain.

Chetan, our country and society are at a very dangerous moment in our history. For reasons I have laid out before and will briefly repeat below, I am very wary of Narendra Modi, his organisation the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-Bharatiya Janata Party and their Hindutva ideology. However, I cannot imagine that all the millions who have voted for Modi and his people are all believers in the world-view that the prime minister and his close followers hold.

For every possibly dodgy Electronic Voting Machine vote that the RSS-BJP may have gained, I have to accept that there may be many more voters who have voted for them believing in the promises of sabka vikaas – a non-corrupt government, a non-dynastic, non-nepotistic party command, and so on.

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Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran

The U.S. knew Hussein was launching some of the worst chemical attacks in history -- and still gave him a hand.

The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America’s military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned.

In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq’s war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.

The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq’s favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration’s long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn’t disclose.

U.S. officials have long denied acquiescing to Iraqi chemical attacks, insisting that Hussein’s government never announced he was going to use the weapons. But retired Air Force Col. Rick Francona, who was a military attaché in Baghdad during the 1988 strikes, paints a different picture.

"The Iraqis never told us that they intended to use nerve gas. They didn’t have to. We already knew," he told Foreign Policy.

According to recently declassified CIA documents and interviews with former intelligence officials like Francona, the U.S. had firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks beginning in 1983. At the time, Iran was publicly alleging that illegal chemical attacks were carried out on its forces, and was building a case to present to the United Nations. But it lacked the evidence implicating Iraq, much of which was contained in top secret reports and memoranda sent to the most senior intelligence officials in the U.S. government. The CIA declined to comment for this story.

In contrast to today’s wrenching debate over whether the United States should intervene to stop alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government, the United States applied a cold calculus three decades ago to Hussein’s widespread use of chemical weapons against his enemies and his own people. The Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and condemnation would be muted.

In the documents, the CIA said that Iran might not discover persuasive evidence of the weapons’ use — even though the agency possessed it. Also, the agency noted that the Soviet Union had previously used chemical agents in Afghanistan and suffered few repercussions.

It has been previously reported that the United States provided tactical intelligence to Iraq at the same time that officials suspected Hussein would use chemical weapons. But the CIA documents, which sat almost entirely unnoticed in a trove of declassified material at the National Archives in College Park, Md., combined with exclusive interviews with former intelligence officials, reveal new details about the depth of the United States’ knowledge of how and when Iraq employed the deadly agents. They show that senior U.S. officials were being regularly informed about the scale of the nerve gas attacks. They are tantamount to an official American admission of complicity in some of the most gruesome chemical weapons attacks ever launched.

Top CIA officials, including the Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, a close friend of President Ronald Reagan, were told about the location of Iraqi chemical weapons assembly plants; that Iraq was desperately trying to make enough mustard agent to keep up with frontline demand from its forces; that Iraq was about to buy equipment from Italy to help speed up production of chemical-packed artillery rounds and bombs; and that Iraq could also use nerve agents on Iranian troops and possibly civilians.

Officials were also warned that Iran might launch retaliatory attacks against U.S. interests in the Middle East, including terrorist strikes, if it believed the United States was complicit in Iraq’s chemical warfare campaign.

"As Iraqi attacks continue and intensify the chances increase that Iranian forces will acquire a shell containing mustard agent with Iraqi markings," the CIA reported in a top secret document in November 1983. "Tehran would take such evidence to the U.N. and charge U.S. complicity in violating international law."

At the time, the military attaché’s office was following Iraqi preparations for the offensive using satellite reconnaissance imagery, Francona told Foreign Policy. According to a former CIA official, the images showed Iraqi movements of chemical materials to artillery batteries opposite Iranian positions prior to each offensive.

Francona, an experienced Middle East hand and Arabic linguist who served in the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, said he first became aware of Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iran in 1984, while serving as air attaché in Amman, Jordan. The information he saw clearly showed that the Iraqis had used Tabun nerve agent (also known as "GA") against Iranian forces in southern Iraq.

The declassified CIA documents show that Casey and other top officials were repeatedly informed about Iraq’s chemical attacks and its plans for launching more. "If the Iraqis produce or acquire large new supplies of mustard agent, they almost certainly would use it against Iranian troops and towns near the border," the CIA said in a top secret document.

But it was the express policy of Reagan to ensure an Iraqi victory in the war, whatever the cost.

The CIA noted in one document that the use of nerve agent "could have a significant impact on Iran’s human wave tactics, forcing Iran to give up that strategy." Those tactics, which involved Iranian forces swarming against conventionally armed Iraqi positions, had proved decisive in some battles. In March 1984, the CIA reported that Iraq had "begun using nerve agents on the Al Basrah front and likely will be able to employ it in militarily significant quantities by late this fall."

The use of chemical weapons in war is banned under the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which states that parties "will exert every effort to induce other States to accede to the" agreement. Iraq never ratified the protocol; the United States did in 1975. The Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the production and use of such arms, wasn’t passed until 1997, years after the incidents in question.

The initial wave of Iraqi attacks, in 1983, used mustard agent. While generally not fatal, mustard causes severe blistering of the skin and mucus membranes, which can lead to potentially fatal infections, and can cause blindness and upper respiratory disease, while increasing the risk of cancer. The United States wasn’t yet providing battlefield intelligence to Iraq when mustard was used. But it also did nothing to assist Iran in its attempts to bring proof of illegal Iraqi chemical attacks to light. Nor did the administration inform the United Nations. The CIA determined that Iran had the capability to bomb the weapons assembly facilities, if only it could find them. The CIA believed it knew the locations.

Hard evidence of the Iraqi chemical attacks came to light in 1984. But that did little to deter Hussein from using the lethal agents, including in strikes against his own people. For as much as the CIA knew about Hussein’s use of chemical weapons, officials resisted providing Iraq with intelligence throughout much of the war. The Defense Department had proposed an intelligence-sharing program with the Iraqis in 1986. But according to Francona, it was nixed because the CIA and the State Department viewed Saddam Hussein as "anathema" and his officials as "thugs."

The situation changed in 1987. CIA reconnaissance satellites picked up clear indications that the Iranians were concentrating large numbers of troops and equipment east of the city of Basrah, according to Francona, who was then serving with the Defense Intelligence Agency. What concerned DIA analysts the most was that the satellite imagery showed that the Iranians had discovered a gaping hole in the Iraqi lines southeast of Basrah. The seam had opened up at the junction between the Iraqi III Corps, deployed east of the city, and the Iraqi VII Corps, which was deployed to the southeast of the city in and around the hotly contested Fao Peninsula.

The satellites detected Iranian engineering and bridging units being secretly moved to deployment areas opposite the gap in the Iraqi lines, indicating that this was going to be where the main force of the annual Iranian spring offensive was going to fall, Francona said.

In late 1987, the DIA analysts in Francona’s shop in Washington wrote a Top Secret Codeword report partially entitled "At The Gates of Basrah," warning that the Iranian 1988 spring offensive was going to be bigger than all previous spring offensives, and this offensive stood a very good chance of breaking through the Iraqi lines and capturing Basrah. The report warned that if Basrah fell, the Iraqi military would collapse and Iran would win the war.

President Reagan read the report and, according to Francona, wrote a note in the margin addressed to Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci: "An Iranian victory is unacceptable."

Subsequently, a decision was made at the top level of the U.S. government (almost certainly requiring the approval of the National Security Council and the CIA). The DIA was authorized to give the Iraqi intelligence services as much detailed information as was available about the deployments and movements of all Iranian combat units. That included satellite imagery and perhaps some sanitized electronic intelligence. There was a particular focus on the area east of the city of Basrah where the DIA was convinced the next big Iranian offensive would come. The agency also provided data on the locations of key Iranian logistics facilities, and the strength and capabilities of the Iranian air force and air defense system. Francona described much of the information as "targeting packages" suitable for use by the Iraqi air force to destroy these targets.

The sarin attacks then followed.

The nerve agent causes dizziness, respiratory distress, and muscle convulsions, and can lead to death. CIA analysts could not precisely determine the Iranian casualty figures because they lacked access to Iranian officials and documents. But the agency gauged the number of dead as somewhere between "hundreds" and "thousands" in each of the four cases where chemical weapons were used prior to a military offensive. According to the CIA, two-thirds of all chemical weapons ever used by Iraq during its war with Iran were fired or dropped in the last 18 months of the war.

By 1988, U.S. intelligence was flowing freely to Hussein’s military. That March, Iraq launched a nerve gas attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja in northern Iraq.

A month later, the Iraqis used aerial bombs and artillery shells filled with sarin against Iranian troop concentrations on the Fao Peninsula southeast of Basrah, helping the Iraqi forces win a major victory and recapture the entire peninsula. The success of the Fao Peninsula offensive also prevented the Iranians from launching their much-anticipated offensive to capture Basrah. According to Francona, Washington was very pleased with the result because the Iranians never got a chance to launch their offensive.

The level of insight into Iraq’s chemical weapons program stands in marked contrast to the flawed assessments, provided by the CIA and other intelligence agencies about Iraq’s program prior to the United States’ invasion in 2003. Back then, American intelligence had better access to the region and could send officials out to assess the damage.

Francona visited the Fao Peninsula shortly after it had been captured by the Iraqis. He found the battlefield littered with hundreds of used injectors once filled with atropine, the drug commonly used to treat sarin’s lethal effects. Francona scooped up a few of the injectors and brought them back to Baghdad — proof that the Iraqis had used sarin on the Fao Peninsula.


In the ensuing months, Francona reported, the Iraqis used sarin in massive quantities three more times in conjunction with massed artillery fire and smoke to disguise the use of nerve agents. Each offensive was hugely successful, in large part because of the increasingly sophisticated use of mass quantities of nerve agents. The last of these attacks, called the Blessed Ramadan Offensive, was launched by the Iraqis in April 1988 and involved the largest use of sarin nerve agent employed by the Iraqis to date. For a quarter-century, no chemical attack came close to the scale of Saddam’s unconventional assaults. Until, perhaps, the strikes last week outside of Damascus.

Source

Meerut: Retd. Colonel's Residence Raided

Meerut (UP): One crore cash, animal skin, animal organs and around 40 rifles and pistols were recovered when the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) conducted raids at a Colonel (retd.) residence in Meerut district of Uttar Pradesh.

The team of the DRI conducted the raid at the house of Devendra Singh.

Raid continued for 16 hours on the basis of confidential information following which about 50,000 cartridges, including 40 rifles and pistols, about one crore rupees of cash and wild animals skulls, horns, leopard skins, have been recovered.

Interestingly, a stash of 117 kilos of meat was also recovered in a huge container.

"The raid was done in the morning and foreign arms, rifles and pistols were recovered. Licenses of arms were not found. At the same time the team interrogated the Retired Colonel and asked about his national level shooter son Prashant Bishnoi, who is absconding but he did not tell the police," said Manoj Kumar (Senior Intelligence Officer), reported ANI.

However, no arrest has been made yet as the cops are looking for Prashant Bishnoi.

Meanwhile, police forces have been deployed outside Singh's house.

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