Hoax Phone Call 'Almost Took Pakistan to War last Week'

Hoax Phone Call 'Almost Took Pakistan to War last Week'

www.timesonline.co.uk

A hoax telephone call almost sparked another war between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan at the height of last month's terror attacks on Mumbai, officials and Western diplomats on both sides of the border said on Sunday.

Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani President, took a telephone call from a man pretending to be Pranab Mukherjee, India's Foreign Minister, on Friday, November 28, apparently without following the usual verification procedures, they said.

The hoax caller threatened to take military action against Pakistan in response to the then ongoing Mumbai attacks, which India has since blamed on the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), they said.

Mr Zardari responded by placing Pakistan's air force on high alert and telephoning Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, to ask her to intervene.

But when Dr Rice called Mr Mukherjee, he said that he had not spoken to Mr Zardari and that his last conversation with Shah Mahmood Qureishi, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, had been quite civil.

"It's unbelievable, but true," said a Western diplomat familiar with the frantic diplomatic exchanges that eventually resolved the misunderstanding.

"It was a little alarming, to say the least."

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 8-12-2008 by grover]

I wonder, just wonder whether the person; as yet undetermined, was the mastermind behind the Mumbai attacks in the first place.

Consider... some of the statements both by the group(s) thought to have fomented the attacks and some of the statements made by the sole surviving attacker seem to indicate that the plan is to instigate a war between the two powers.

If so I could easily see that call fitting into the overall plan....

HOWEVER since the caller got through "without following the usual verification procedures", it would seem to suggest either the Pakistani's are very sloppy about these things OR the call itself came from within the Pakistani government itself.

www.timesonline.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

Don't look now, but they play joke and they also put pee pee in his coke too.

[edit on 12/8/2008 by Mr Gone]

I might have to agree with the latter half of your hypothesis grover. According to reports there are quite a few officials in the Pak gov't who sympathize with Kasmiri situation. Definatley not too far-fetched. Scary as hell though.

No matter this is deeply disturbing...

Someones are trying to provoke a possible nuclear war in the most unstable region in the world.

Its madness.

This is why we will end up with a one world government. Nukes in the hands of incompetents.

CIA has voice modulation technology that can pull this off. Maybe it was Mossad. I can't see someone trying this as a hoax and risk being responsible for deaths of many people.

To anon. I simply cannot see how a nuclear war between Pakistan and India (assuming it got that far) would be in any way in the interests of either the United States or Israel... because if it did happen, it would set a region, already a tinderbox off.

Because both countries would need to purchase arms, lots of them, and the military industrial complex is quite willing to sell.

It's all about the cash.


And wonderful hoax phone calls.

"Is this Asif?"
"Yes it is, who is this? Patil?"
"Yeah, yeah, it's Patil...just called to tell you you have a face like a pair of hairy buttocks!"
"Right! That's it, that's the last crank call I accept from you, Patil! I swear I'm coming over right now!"

Really easy way to understand this one guys....
Where is the one region in the world that is an absolute thorn in the side of the forced peace and total control of the world peoples plan????
The one region that wont stop the so called extremists from forming more and more groups then refusing to do anything other than fight them too. This alone is the major stiking point holding back their plans for a one world government. The other major oil etc countries have jumped on board they have who they need and are now going to get rid of the unneeded....

They would have needed more than voice manipulation.
Anyone can put on an Indian like voice.
But the people handling the call in Pakistan said it was certainly definitely 100% from the Indian external affairs office, or they would not have put the president on the phone.They have this on speed dial remember.
So whoever it was can spoof caller ID.Which is doable but very hard.

During this time, an attempt was made by the mysterious hoax caller, again claiming to be the Indian Foreign Minister, to speak to the US Secretary of State.
But because of the security checks laid down by the Americans, the caller could not get through to Dr Rice.

Whoever it was was trying to call Rice.
That's a good alibi for the CIA setting this up themselves.
Oh the hoaxer tried to call us to.

Some senior diplomats and intelligence officials are convinced the source of the mischief was someone in the Indian External Affairs ministry. They base their case on the caller ID, which established a Delhi number.

It's not hard to spoof caller ID....not at all....whatsoever.

There are websites where you can pay to get a calling card that provides minutes to dial into a spoof box and spoof your call. You can make whatever you want appear on the caller ID and whatever number you want. So I could call my friend with this from the actual white house number and it say "president george w bush" on the caller id. Google it...one of the sites is spoofcard.com or something like that. It's available to anyone.

reply to post by Mr Gone


That you actually believe that governments wouldn't know about and prevent that from the very start is quite funny.

reply to post by grover


What are you talking about? It does exist if you wanna look it up and there's no law against it.

Here, here's a link to the site even:

www.spoofcard.com...

And they even give you a free sample call. Try it yourself.

That you actually believe that something like this isn't possible is quite funny.




[edit on 12/8/2008 by Mr Gone]

I guess if proper procedures for handling phone calls had taken place, there would have been no need to put everybody on high alert or the need to call Rice to intervene. I guess somebody dropped the bomb. Maybe next time they will be more careful and take the time to verify who is calling.

reply to post by Mr Gone


That's not what I am saying. I know it exists... but any security team worth its salt knows about it and can block such crank calls or they would be happening all the time... the issue with the Pakistani call is that security procedures weren't followed which is why I suggest it came from inside the government itself.

reply to post by grover


As far as I know, the government is aware that this technology exists and they scorn it. I believe they are trying to make caller ID spoofing illegal except to law enforcement. The technology IS traceable though.

Some people it seems just have a serious wish to have the world (or their part of it) destroyed.

Somewhat on-topic ---- FAUX News yesterday was still reporting this as real..... The anchor said (paraphrasing because I forgot the names, too busy for google at the moment) "President such and such still denies call, but president such and such #2 is sure it was him".

What the heck is Faux news trying to pull??? Afterall, it IS universally accepted that this was a prank call, I thought........