US suspends 'all high-level dialogue' with Pakistan

[Magda Hassan]

Why did the CIA's Raymond Davis Make Cell Phone Calls to the Taliban?

7th March 2011


From: "Blowback From the Arrest of the CIA's Raymond Davis"

By DAVE LINDORFF | CounterPunch | March 2, 2011

… Both Pakistani and Indian news organizations are claiming, based upon intelligence sources, that Davis was involved in not just intelligence work, but in orchestrating terrorist activity by both the Pakistani Taliban and the terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has been linked to both the assassination of Benezir Bhutto and the capture and beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Multiple calls to members of both groups were found by police on some of the cell phones found on Davis and in his car when he was arrested in Lahore.
It is unclear how far the blow-up in Pakistan over the exposure of America's role in stirring up unrest in that country will go. Clearly, the ISI and the Pakistani military have long had their own complicated relationship with the Pakistani Taliban, and much of the current anger in both the ISI and the military has to do with the US being found to be working behind their backs, including in its contact with those groups. …
http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff03022011.html

Raymond Davis had Taliban links: Pak media

Press Trust of India | NDTV | February 22, 2011

Islamabad: American official Raymond Davis, arrested for double murder, had "close links" with Taliban and was "instrumental" in recruiting youths for it, the Pakistani media claimed today, close on the heels of reports in the US that he was a CIA agent tracking movements of terror groups like the LeT.

The "close ties" of 37-year-old Davis, arrested in Lahore on January 27 for killing two men he claimed were trying to rob him, with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan came out during investigations, The Express Tribune' reported quoting an unnamed senior official of Punjab Police.
"Davis was instrumental in recruiting young people from Punjab for the Taliban to fuel the bloody insurgency (in Pakistan)," the official said.
The report came a day after The New York Times, citing US government officials, said that Davis "was part of a covert, CIA-led team of operatives conducting surveillance on militant groups deep inside the country."
Among the groups that Davis was keeping an eye on was the banned Lashker-e-Taiba, which carried out the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, the New York Times said.

The Express Tribune quoting unnamed sources said that call records retrieved from mobile phones found on Davis had allegedly established his links with 33 Pakistanis, including 27 militants from the banned Taliban and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. The report claimed Davis was "said to be working on a plan to give credence to the American notion that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are not safe."

"For this purpose, he was setting up a group of the Taliban which would do his bidding," it said.
Davis' job was to trace the links of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in different parts of Pakistan but instead investigators found that he had developed "close links" with the Taliban, the report said quoting a source. …

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/raymon...a-87066?cp

From: "The Case of Raymond Davis: A CIA Operative Working with the Taliban?"

By Greg L | African American Clarion Call | February 27, 2011

… Now there are reports coming out that Davis was masterminding terrorist activities working with the Taliban. If true, there are two main reasons for that; destablization of Pakistan and never ending war. Destablization feeds the war machine which justifies them continuing to be at the government trough. Further, this feeds into the designs of the oligarchs for that region of the world.
There is still right and wrong in this world and regardless of how some may try to flip that and mislabel them, that doesn't alter fundamental truths. A tiger doesn't change his stripes just because he moves from place to place and the things he's accustomed to doing one place he will do in another. A government can not claim to be a force for good or to support freedom, while doing the exact opposite abroad. It's only a matter of time before the experience and knowledge honed against a foreign nation is deployed domestically. That is why we need to be concerned about this story. Again, just to be clear, the allegation being made by both Indian and Pakitani newspapers is that the CIA is actively working with the Taliban to foment terrorism; a significant allegation and something that's quite newsworthy. I must have missed the headlines on this.
http://theafricanamericanclarioncall.com/?p=3095

Recruiting "Freshmen" Taliban by unlikely character: Raymond Davis [B]…
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Mar 4, 2011 … " … The news that the CIA contractor recruited for the Taliban came when the US was encouraging Pakistan to send military against Taliban forces near the Afghanistan border. … "

Raymond Davis close ties with the TTP (the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan) has also been established. "Davis was instrumental in recruiting …

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