Latest news with #Paks

When US wanted Iran and China to help Pakistan in war against India

Indian Express

21 hours ago

Politics
Indian Express

When US wanted Iran and China to help Pakistan in war against India

The United States has bombed Iran using its strategic bomber aircraft fleet. This is an opportune time to recall the past friendship of the US with Iran and how at one point in the India-Pakistan war in December 1971, it wanted Iran to help Pakistan with urgent fuel supplies and also fighter aircraft to save the country from decimation at India's hands. Declassified US State Department documents include minutes of a meeting held in Washington on December 9, 1971, which was chaired by Henry Kissinger, then national security advisor to US President Richard Nixon. In this meeting, the US officials worried about the lack of fuel reserves in West Pakistan and the fact that the Pakistani military would soon come to a standstill because its major fuel reserves had been destroyed by Indian attacks on the Karachi port. Kissinger asked the officials if fuel supplies could be rushed from Tehran to Pakistan so that West Pakistan could be saved from being captured by India after the successful conquest of East Pakistan. In the same meeting, discussions were also held on supplying Pakistan with fighter aircraft from Iran and asking China to make threatening mocks on the border with India. CIA Director Richard Helms informed the participants that in the last few hours, he had received a report from Karachi that the oil tanks there had been hit again, in the 12th or 13th air raid, and that six or eight of them had been burning. 'An ESSO representative has indicated that this means the loss of 50% of Karachi's oil reserves, which amounts to over 80% of the POL [petrol, oil, lubricants] for all of Pakistan. He estimates that they are left with a two-week supply, possibly less at the rate at which POL is now being consumed,' he said. Kissinger asked the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas H Moorer for his estimate of the military situation. Moorer stated that in East Pakistan, in the absence of a ceasefire, it was just a matter of time until the Pakistan Army would be essentially ineffective. 'Their supplies are cut off and they have no air left. Any serious fighting could be over in ten days or two weeks, depending on whether the Paks continue to fight to the last man or whether they begin to surrender in large numbers, which does not seem to be in the cards now,' he said. The admiral added that in West Pakistan, the Pakistanis are trying to occupy enough of Kashmir to give them a bargaining chip if and when there is a ceasefire. 'They are trying to block the main lines of communication. South of the Kashmir area, the Indians outnumber the Paks two-to-one, and they may plan to move south to Lahore, although there is no indication of that now. The best Pakistan can do is to gain as much control of Kashmir as possible,' he said. Moorer added that the Pakistanis can operate for about three weeks or so. 'However, if there is a period of attrition, with no ceasefire, the Indians can hold out longer and the Paks have had it. Mrs. Gandhi has stated that her objective is to destroy the Pak military forces,' he said. Kissenger asked whether in that case in a prolonged war, even if Pakistan got Kashmir, it would be unable to hold it and it would lead to the destruction of the Pakistan Army. 'Exactly. When East Pakistan is gone, the Indians will transfer their divisions to West-possibly four of the six divisions now in the East. This will take one to three weeks, depending on how much air they use. If the war continues to the end, the outcome for Pakistan is inevitable,' said Admiral Moorer. At this point, John N Irwin, the undersecretary of state, mentioned a CIA paper, Implications of an Indian Victory Over Pakistan, that predicts the possible acceleration of the breakup tendencies in West Pakistan— possibly into as many as four separate states. The admiral pointed out that the Indian objective was to take out the Pakistani tanks and planes. 'If they run out of POL and can't move, they'll be sitting ducks,' he said. The meeting then discussed the possibility of trucking POL from Tehran. 'There is one road. We have one report that indicates that Chinese trucks are coming in but we don't know what they are carrying. Iran is the logical source of POL. I talked to the Turkish Chief of Staff at NATO and asked him how much assistance he thought Iran was prepared to give to Pakistan. He said he thought the Shah wanted to be helpful, but had one eye cocked on Iraq. In the end, he didn't believe the Shah would give significant assistance,' said the Admiral. The documents also reveal that on instructions from Washington, a senior embassy official met the Shah of Iran in Tehran on December 8, 1971, to discuss the possibility of Iranian military support for Pakistan. The Shah stated that he had informed the Pakistani ambassador in Tehran that, in light of the treaty of friendship signed by India and the Soviet Union, he could not send Iranian aircraft and pilots to Pakistan. He was not prepared to risk a confrontation with the Soviet Union. The Shah proposed an alternative way to support the hard-pressed Pakistani Air Force. He suggested that the United States urge King Hussein to send Jordanian F-104 fighters to Pakistan. The Shah in turn would send two squadrons of Iranian aircraft to Jordan to defend Jordan while Jordanian planes and pilots were in Pakistan engaged in support of fellow Muslims. 'The Embassy official indicated that, because of legal constraints regarding the use of military equipment provided by the United States, it would be difficult for officials in Washington to give permission for the transfer of the F-104s from Jordan to Pakistan, or to overlook their absence in Jordan. The Shah said that the United States could not hope to achieve the objective of bolstering Pakistan while maintaining that it was not involved in the effort,' the document says. President Nixon, Attorney General John N Mitchell, and Henry Kissinger had earlier met on the afternoon of December 8, 1971, for an extended discussion of the crisis in South Asia. Turning to the situation in East Pakistan, Kissinger warned that 'the Indian plan is now clear. They are going to move their forces from East Pakistan to the west. They will then smash the Pakistan land forces and air forces.' He added that India planned to 'annex the part of Kashmir that is in Pakistan.' Kissinger went on to attribute to the Gandhi government the goal of balkanising West Pakistan into units such as Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier Province. West Pakistan would become a state akin to Afghanistan and East Pakistan would equate with Bhutan. Nixon said that he had given Prime Minister Indira Gandhi a warning during his dinner in Washington with her. 'I told her that any war would be very, very unacceptable.' Kissinger observed that any such warning obviously fell on deaf ears. 'She was determined to go.' 'As I look at this thing, the Chinese have got to move to that damn border. The Indians have got to get a little scared,' said Nixon. He instructed Kissinger to get a message to that effect to the Chinese. Kissinger suggested that another pressure move would be to move a US aircraft carrier force into the Bay of Bengal. Summarising the decisions they were considering, Kissinger said, 'We should get a note to the Chinese, we should move the carrier to the Bay of Bengal.' Nixon interjected, 'I agree.' Kissinger also pointed to the threat to West Pakistan, 'At this stage, we have to prevent an Indian attack on West Pakistan.' Nixon agreed. Kissinger continued, 'We have to maintain the position of withdrawal from all of Pakistan.' He stated that by introducing its military power into the equation, in the form of a carrier and other units from the Seventh Fleet, the US was seeking to prevent 'a Soviet stooge, supported by Soviet arms' from overrunning an ally. Nixon returned to his conviction that China could exercise a decisive restraining influence on India. 'The Chinese thing I still think is a card in the hole there. I tell you a movement of even some Chinese toward that border could scare those goddamn Indians to death.' Kissinger agreed, 'As soon as we have made the decision here, we can then talk to the Chinese.' Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger engaged in conversation outside the Oval Office. Source: US National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials Project Photo Collection)

BJP calls out Pakistan deputy PM Ishaq Dar's ‘king of the skies' gaffe, posts video: ‘Stupid stuff'

Hindustan Times

16-05-2025

Politics
Hindustan Times

BJP calls out Pakistan deputy PM Ishaq Dar's ‘king of the skies' gaffe, posts video: ‘Stupid stuff'

Bharatiya Janata Party leaders have called out Pakistan for propagating lies after Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister and foreign minister Ishaq Dar, quoting a fake and an edited headline of UK-based newspaper The Telegraph, claimed victory over India inside the country's Senate. BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya said Pakistan's 'propaganda is quickly falling apart'. He said the claim made in the fake image of the newspaper was fact-checked by the local newspaper Dawn and deemed false. He also shared a video of Ishaq Dar making claims in support of Pakistani forces in Pakistan's Senate. "Pakistan's propaganda is quickly falling apart, exposing a web of lies and desperation. In a blatant attempt to save face, Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar misled the country's Senate by claiming that The Telegraph had declared the Pakistan Air Force as the "Undisputed King of the Skies." The claim was so outrageous that even Dawn, Pakistan's own leading newspaper, felt compelled to fact-check and debunk it," Amit Malviya posted on X. BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar also reacted to the issue. He also took a dig at the Congress, saying "only Rahul's Congress", apart from the Pakistan Army, 'operates on the sole premise of 'people are fools, so let's just lie'. On X, Chandrasekhar said, "Head scratchingly stupid stuff from Paks overfed, overmedalled Generals I hv said this before and cant help say this again - Apart from Pak Army, only one other organizatn operates on sole premise of "people are fools so lets just lie" - that is Rahuls Congress." Chandrasekhar's statement came in response to the post shared by the Fact Check Unit of the Press Information Bureau (PIB) on the social media platform X. The PIB Fact Check has revealed that an image circulating on social media, allegedly showing the front page of UK-based newspaper The Telegraph with the headline 'Pakistan Air Force: The undisputed king of the skies', is fake and AI-generated. It clarified that the British publication has never published any such article. On Thursday, Ishaq Dar praised the country's air force by quoting a fake page of The Telegraph. In his address to Pakistan's Senate, Dar said, "Telegraph writes Pakistan Air Force is the undisputed king of the skies." Pakistan newspaper The Dawn's iVerify Pakistan team investigated the content, found discrepancies in the viral photo, and determined that the information was false. It analysed through its tools and checked the British Publication 'The Daily Telegraph' to see if it had shared any such news story. Posts from multiple users across social media have been sharing the photo since May 10, allegedly showing the front page of The Telegraph newspaper declaring the Pakistan Air Force the "King of the Skies" amid the recent escalation with India. However, no such article was published in the newspaper, and the screenshot is fake, Dawn reported. While analysing the viral image, Dawn found multiple discrepancies, including spelling errors, mistyped and jumped sentences and language inconsistencies. Words like "Fyaw..." instead of "Force" and "preformance" instead of "performance" are incorrect, "Aur Force" appears instead of "Air Force" and "advancemend" instead of "advancement" is incorrect. These typographical and spelling mistakes are inconsistent with the editorial standards of a mainstream newspaper, Dawn reported. The layout of the page was compared to the official version of The Telegraph. The image of the article is fake and no such article has been published by the UK-based publication.

Robbie Keane's Ferencvaros lose Hungarian cup final on penalties

Irish Examiner

15-05-2025

Sport
Irish Examiner

Robbie Keane's Ferencvaros lose Hungarian cup final on penalties

The double dream is over for Robbie Keane. The former Ireland skipper saw his Ferencvaros side lose the Hungarian cup final on 4-3 penalties on Wednesday night to Paks. Paks took the lead through Barna Toth before the break in the Magyar Kupa decider. Third-placed in the league, the underdogs led until the dying moments when Lenny Joseph equalised and brought the game to extra time. After a scoreless extra 30 minutes, the game went to a shoot-out, with Keane's side ultimately losing out. "They didn't have any serious chances apart from the goal," Keane said. "Before the break, you should not concede a goal from such a mistake. In the second half, we played with the upper hand, because we made good use of the open areas on the wings, but the last quality pass was missing from our game, which is the most important thing in football." "I would never blame anyone for a missed penalty," he continued. "It can be a terrible feeling, but I told my players to remember this feeling so they never have to go through it again." Keane added that from Thursday they will focus on the remaining two league matches to win the Hungarian championship. It would be the seventh title in a row for the Hungarian heavyweights. The Dubliner's side currently hold a three-point lead over second-place Puskás Akadémia with two games remaining. A victory this weekend against Fehervar would seal the championship. Keane previously led Maccabi Tel Aviv to the 2023–24 Israeli Premier League title.

Heartbreak for Robbie Keane as Ferencváros lose cup final on penalties

The 42

14-05-2025

Sport
The 42

Heartbreak for Robbie Keane as Ferencváros lose cup final on penalties

Updated at 22.11 IT WAS A disappointing night for Robbie Keane, as his Ferencváros side lost the Hungarian cup final 4-3 on penalties against Paks. Paks, who are third in the Hungarian league, took the lead through Barna Tóth on the brink of half-time in the Magyar Kupa final. The underdogs led until second-half stoppage time, when a goal from French forward Lenny Joseph brought the game to extra time. The match remained all square before the league leaders were beaten in the climactic shootout. Advertisement Keane's side could still end the season on a high. They currently hold a three-point lead over second-place Puskás Akadémia with two games remaining. A win on Sunday against 10th-place Fehérvár would see Ferencváros secure the league title for a seventh consecutive season. Hungary's most successful club have won 35 titles in total, well ahead of the next best (MTK Budapest with 23). Keane took over from Pascal Jansen as manager last January with the team in second. They have enjoyed an upturn in fortune since then, with four league victories from four along with progress to the final, leading to the Tallaght native recently being recognised as the league's manager of the month for April. The Dubliner previously guided Maccabi Tel Aviv to the 2023–24 Israeli Premier League title before stepping down as manager. Keane also briefly was in charge at the Indian side ATK in 2018, and also had spells on the coaching staff with Ireland, Middlesbrough and Sam Allardyce's four-game spell as Leeds manager. Elsewhere, Bologna won the Italian Cup tonight after beating AC Milan 1-0 in Rome and ending a 51-year wait for a major trophy. Dan Ndoye scored the goal in the 53rd minute, which gave Bologna a historic victory, their first honour since last winning the cup in 1974. Additional reporting by AFP

Robbie Keane's double dreams over after Ferencvaros suffer dramatic cup final defeat in penalty shoot-out

Irish Independent