Baitullah Mehsud Threatens Washington
BY Herschel Smith
15 years ago
The Captain’s Journal received numerous visits today from searches concerning Baitullah Mehsud. It seems that he has threatened Washington.
The commander of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility Tuesday for a deadly assault on a Pakistani police academy and said the group was planning a terrorist attack on the White House that would “amaze” the world.
Baitullah Mehsud, who has a $5 million bounty on his head from the U.S., said Monday’s attack on the outskirts of the eastern city of Lahore was retaliation for U.S. missile strikes against militants along the Afghan border.
“Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world,” Mehsud told The Associated Press by phone. He provided no details.
Mehsud has never been directly linked to any attacks outside Pakistan, but attacks blamed on his network of fighters have widened in scope and ambition in recent years. The threat comes days after President Barack Obama warned that al-Qaida is actively planning attacks on the United States from secret havens in Pakistan.
Pakistan’s former government and the CIA named Mehsud as the prime suspect behind the December 2007 killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Pakistani officials accuse him of harboring foreign fighters, including Central Asians linked to al-Qaida, and of training suicide bombers.
In his latest comments, Mehsud identified the White House as one of the targets in an interview with local Dewa Radio, a copy of which was obtained by the AP.
For regular readers of The Captain’s Journal, there isn’t anything new in this threat. We have discussed it before.
The globalist jihad movement of al Qaeda has been merged with the Tehrik-i-Taliban of Pakistan. The TTP shout to passersby in Khyber “We are Taliban! We are mujahedin! We are al-Qaida!” There is no distinction. A Pakistan interior ministry official has even said that the TTP and al Qaeda are one and the same.
TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud has said “We want to eradicate Britain and America, and to shatter the arrogance and tyranny of the infidels. We pray that Allah will enable us to destroy the White House, New York, and London.” Now there are even indications that the original Afghan Taliban under Mullah Omar have morphed into an organization that desires regional Islamist revolutions.
Only recently (March, 2009) did the U.S. see the danger with him and begin to target Baitullah Mehsud with UAVs. If readers will tool back through the archives for Baitullah Mehsud, you will find that we have been discussing him for approximately one year, warning throughout the last year of his globalist intentions.
What turns out to be big news today, you found out about one year ago. That’s why you read The Captain’s Journal.
UPDATE: Welcome to Instapundit readers, and thanks to Glenn for the link. While you’re on board, drop by and check out reports of a son at war in Fallujah, 2007, and recently returned from the 26th MEU.
On April 1, 2009 at 9:38 am, Warbucks said:
When is a $5-million ($US) bounty too low?
A reasonably good chart showing per capital income ($US) by each country http://siakhenn.tripod.com/capita.html lists several important regions:
Afghanistan $ 800 (est. 2004)
France $33,800 (est. 2007)
Iran $12,300 (est. 2007)
Iraq $ 3,600 (est. 2007)
Israel $28,800 (est. 2007)
Saudi Arabia $20,700 (est. 2007)
United Arab Emirates $55,200 (est. 2007)
United States $46,000 (est. 2007)
Scenario: Assume the information received comes from an informant residing “in-harms-way” who is part of a family group of say 20-members the informant is emotionally invested in protecting at all costs.
Question: When is a bounty offered too low?
Having money can be hard to conceal. There are hundreds of little tell-tale leaks from bankers and merchants, to quality of clothes, to quality of carpets on the floor of your abode, to the age of the tires on your car, to the high-tec gadgets you use in your day to day life, to the wedding dowry you offer or prepare for your daughter, to the inadvertent gratuities of your generous nature.
Sooner or later if you remain resident in the same area or country, or region, neighbors are going to figure out you have money. Multiply your personal life’s needs by perhaps a 20 family members’ that a bounty will need to assist.
A bounty is probably too low, when the prospective informer feels:
(a) The bounty payer can not be trusted,
(b) Payment terms are complicated, tricky, and indefinite,
(c) The bounty is not enough to protect his/her 20-member network.
It isn’t rocket science to think through the adequacy of a bounty. If you really want information from people other than “single-young-bachelors-without-family-members” then maybe it would be prudent that the group offering the bounty create and promote bounty amounts that address real concerns.
It seems to me that $5-million is too low by a ridiculous magnitude. The informant surely will reason he/she needs safety and escape for the entire 20-member network plus ample money and enhanced lifestyle guaranteed to each on varying degrees.
Thinking things through a little more and considering the likely cultural obligations confronting the informant, shouldn’t we be offering something much different and much greater by many orders of magnitude, than we currently offer?