How the US Funds the Taliban
This article appeared in the November 30, 2009 edition of The Nation.
Reuters Photos
Taliban fighters in an undisclosed location in Afghanistan.
On October 29, 2001, while the Taliban's rule over Afghanistan was under assault, the regime's ambassador in Islamabad gave a chaotic press conference in front of several dozen reporters sitting on the grass. On the Taliban diplomat's right sat his interpreter, Ahmad Rateb Popal, a man with an imposing presence. Like the ambassador, Popal wore a black turban, and he had a huge bushy beard. He had a black patch over his right eye socket, a prosthetic left arm and a deformed right hand, the result of injuries from an explosives mishap during an old operation against the Soviets in Kabul.
Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.
But Popal was more than just a former mujahedeen. In 1988, a year before the Soviets fled Afghanistan, Popal had been charged in the United States with conspiring to import more than a kilo of heroin. Court records show he was released from prison in 1997.
Flash forward to 2009, and Afghanistan is ruled by Popal's cousin President Hamid Karzai. Popal has cut his huge beard down to a neatly trimmed one and has become an immensely wealthy businessman, along with his brother Rashid Popal, who in a separate case pleaded guilty to a heroin charge in 1996 in Brooklyn. The Popal brothers control the huge Watan Group in Afghanistan, a consortium engaged in telecommunications, logistics and, most important, security. Watan Risk Management, the Popals' private military arm, is one of the few dozen private security companies in Afghanistan. One of Watan's enterprises, key to the war effort, is protecting convoys of Afghan trucks heading from Kabul to Kandahar, carrying American supplies.
Welcome to the wartime contracting bazaar in Afghanistan. It is a virtual carnival of improbable characters and shady connections, with former CIA officials and ex-military officers joining hands with former Taliban and mujahedeen to collect US government funds in the name of the war effort.
In this grotesque carnival, the US military's contractors are forced to pay suspected insurgents to protect American supply routes. It is an accepted fact of the military logistics operation in Afghanistan that the US government funds the very forces American troops are fighting. And it is a deadly irony, because these funds add up to a huge amount of money for the Taliban. "It's a big part of their income," one of the top Afghan government security officials told The Nation in an interview. In fact, US military officials in Kabul estimate that a minimum of 10 percent of the Pentagon's logistics contracts--hundreds of millions of dollars--consists of payments to insurgents.
Understanding how this situation came to pass requires untangling two threads. The first is the insider dealing that determines who wins and who loses in Afghan business, and the second is the troubling mechanism by which "private security" ensures that the US supply convoys traveling these ancient trade routes aren't ambushed by insurgents.
A good place to pick up the first thread is with a small firm awarded a US military logistics contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars: NCL Holdings. Like the Popals' Watan Risk, NCL is a licensed security company in Afghanistan.
What NCL Holdings is most notorious for in Kabul contracting circles, though, is the identity of its chief principal, Hamed Wardak. He is the young American son of Afghanistan's current defense minister, Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, who was a leader of the mujahedeen against the Soviets. Hamed Wardak has plunged into business as well as policy. He was raised and schooled in the United States, graduating as valedictorian from Georgetown University in 1997. He earned a Rhodes scholarship and interned at the neoconservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute. That internship was to play an important role in his life, for it was at AEI that he forged alliances with some of the premier figures in American conservative foreign policy circles, such as the late Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick.
Wardak incorporated NCL in the United States early in 2007, although the firm may have operated in Afghanistan before then. It made sense to set up shop in Washington, because of Wardak's connections there. On NCL's advisory board, for example, is Milton Bearden, a well-known former CIA officer. Bearden is an important voice on Afghanistan issues; in October he was a witness before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Senator John Kerry, the chair, introduced him as "a legendary former CIA case officer and a clearheaded thinker and writer." It is not every defense contracting company that has such an influential adviser.
But the biggest deal that NCL got--the contract that brought it into Afghanistan's major leagues--was Host Nation Trucking. Earlier this year the firm, with no apparent trucking experience, was named one of the six companies that would handle the bulk of US trucking in Afghanistan, bringing supplies to the web of bases and remote outposts scattered across the country.
At first the contract was large but not gargantuan. And then that suddenly changed, like an immense garden coming into bloom. Over the summer, citing the coming "surge" and a new doctrine, "Money as a Weapons System," the US military expanded the contract 600 percent for NCL and the five other companies. The contract documentation warns of dire consequences if more is not spent: "service members will not get food, water, equipment, and ammunition they require." Each of the military's six trucking contracts was bumped up to $360 million, or a total of nearly $2.2 billion. Put it in this perspective: this single two-year effort to hire Afghan trucks and truckers was worth 10 percent of the annual Afghan gross domestic product. NCL, the firm run by the defense minister's well-connected son, had struck pure contracting gold.
Host Nation Trucking does indeed keep the US military efforts alive in Afghanistan. "We supply everything the army needs to survive here," one American trucking executive told me. "We bring them their toilet paper, their water, their fuel, their guns, their vehicles." The epicenter is Bagram Air Base, just an hour north of Kabul, from which virtually everything in Afghanistan is trucked to the outer reaches of what the Army calls "the Battlespace"--that is, the entire country. Parked near Entry Control Point 3, the trucks line up, shifting gears and sending up clouds of dust as they prepare for their various missions across the country.
The real secret to trucking in Afghanistan is ensuring security on the perilous roads, controlled by warlords, tribal militias, insurgents and Taliban commanders. The American executive I talked to was fairly specific about it: "The Army is basically paying the Taliban not to shoot at them. It is Department of Defense money." That is something everyone seems to agree on.
Mike Hanna is the project manager for a trucking company called Afghan American Army Services. The company, which still operates in Afghanistan, had been trucking for the United States for years but lost out in the Host Nation Trucking contract that NCL won. Hanna explained the security realities quite simply: "You are paying the people in the local areas--some are warlords, some are politicians in the police force--to move your trucks through."
Hanna explained that the prices charged are different, depending on the route: "We're basically being extorted. Where you don't pay, you're going to get attacked. We just have our field guys go down there, and they pay off who they need to." Sometimes, he says, the extortion fee is high, and sometimes it is low. "Moving ten trucks, it is probably $800 per truck to move through an area. It's based on the number of trucks and what you're carrying. If you have fuel trucks, they are going to charge you more. If you have dry trucks, they're not going to charge you as much. If you are carrying MRAPs or Humvees, they are going to charge you more."
Hanna says it is just a necessary evil. "If you tell me not to pay these insurgents in this area, the chances of my trucks getting attacked increase exponentially."
Whereas in Iraq the private security industry has been dominated by US and global firms like Blackwater, operating as de facto arms of the US government, in Afghanistan there are lots of local players as well. As a result, the industry in Kabul is far more dog-eat-dog. "Every warlord has his security company," is the way one executive explained it to me.
In theory, private security companies in Kabul are heavily regulated, although the reality is different. Thirty-nine companies had licenses until September, when another dozen were granted licenses. Many licensed companies are politically connected: just as NCL is owned by the son of the defense minister and Watan Risk Management is run by President Karzai's cousins, the Asia Security Group is controlled by Hashmat Karzai, another relative of the president. The company has blocked off an entire street in the expensive Sherpur District. Another security firm is controlled by the parliamentary speaker's son, sources say. And so on.
In the same way, the Afghan trucking industry, key to logistics operations, is often tied to important figures and tribal leaders. One major hauler in Afghanistan, Afghan International Trucking (AIT), paid $20,000 a month in kickbacks to a US Army contracting official, according to the official's plea agreement in US court in August. AIT is a very well-connected firm: it is run by the 25-year-old nephew of Gen. Baba Jan, a former Northern Alliance commander and later a Kabul police chief. In an interview, Baba Jan, a cheerful and charismatic leader, insisted he had nothing to do with his nephew's corporate enterprise.
But the heart of the matter is that insurgents are getting paid for safe passage because there are few other ways to bring goods to the combat outposts and forward operating bases where soldiers need them. By definition, many outposts are situated in hostile terrain, in the southern parts of Afghanistan. The security firms don't really protect convoys of American military goods here, because they simply can't; they need the Taliban's cooperation.
One of the big problems for the companies that ship American military supplies across the country is that they are banned from arming themselves with any weapon heavier than a rifle. That makes them ineffective for battling Taliban attacks on a convoy. "They are shooting the drivers from 3,000 feet away with PKMs," a trucking company executive in Kabul told me. "They are using RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] that will blow up an up-armed vehicle. So the security companies are tied up. Because of the rules, security companies can only carry AK-47s, and that's just a joke. I carry an AK--and that's just to shoot myself if I have to!"
The rules are there for a good reason: to guard against devastating collateral damage by private security forces. Still, as Hanna of Afghan American Army Services points out, "An AK-47 versus a rocket-propelled grenade--you are going to lose!" That said, at least one of the Host Nation Trucking companies has tried to do battle instead of paying off insurgents and warlords. It is a US-owned firm called Four Horsemen International. Instead of providing payments, it has tried to fight off attackers. And it has paid the price in lives, with horrendous casualties. FHI, like many other firms, refused to talk publicly; but I've been told by insiders in the security industry that FHI's convoys are attacked on virtually every mission.
For the most part, the security firms do as they must to survive. A veteran American manager in Afghanistan who has worked there as both a soldier and a private security contractor in the field told me, "What we are doing is paying warlords associated with the Taliban, because none of our security elements is able to deal with the threat." He's an Army veteran with years of Special Forces experience, and he's not happy about what's being done. He says that at a minimum American military forces should try to learn more about who is getting paid off.
"Most escorting is done by the Taliban," an Afghan private security official told me. He's a Pashto and former mujahedeen commander who has his finger on the pulse of the military situation and the security industry. And he works with one of the trucking companies carrying US supplies. "Now the government is so weak," he added, "everyone is paying the Taliban."
To Afghan trucking officials, this is barely even something to worry about. One woman I met was an extraordinary entrepreneur who had built up a trucking business in this male-dominated field. She told me the security company she had hired dealt directly with Taliban leaders in the south. Paying the Taliban leaders meant they would send along an escort to ensure that no other insurgents would attack. In fact, she said, they just needed two armed Taliban vehicles. "Two Taliban is enough," she told me. "One in the front and one in the back." She shrugged. "You cannot work otherwise. Otherwise it is not possible."
Which leads us back to the case of Watan Risk, the firm run by Ahmad Rateb Popal and Rashid Popal, the Karzai family relatives and former drug dealers. Watan is known to control one key stretch of road that all the truckers use: the strategic route to Kandahar called Highway 1. Think of it as the road to the war--to the south and to the west. If the Army wants to get supplies down to Helmand, for example, the trucks must make their way through Kandahar.
Watan Risk, according to seven different security and trucking company officials, is the sole provider of security along this route. The reason is simple: Watan is allied with the local warlord who controls the road. Watan's company website is quite impressive, and claims its personnel "are diligently screened to weed out all ex-militia members, supporters of the Taliban, or individuals with loyalty to warlords, drug barons, or any other group opposed to international support of the democratic process." Whatever screening methods it uses, Watan's secret weapon to protect American supplies heading through Kandahar is a man named Commander Ruhullah. Said to be a handsome man in his 40s, Ruhullah has an oddly high-pitched voice. He wears traditional salwar kameez and a Rolex watch. He rarely, if ever, associates with Westerners. He commands a large group of irregular fighters with no known government affiliation, and his name, security officials tell me, inspires obedience or fear in villages along the road.
It is a dangerous business, of course: until last spring Ruhullah had competition--a one-legged warlord named Commander Abdul Khaliq. He was killed in an ambush.
So Ruhullah is the surviving road warrior for that stretch of highway. According to witnesses, he works like this: he waits until there are hundreds of trucks ready to convoy south down the highway. Then he gets his men together, setting them up in 4x4s and pickups. Witnesses say he does not limit his arsenal to AK-47s but uses any weapons he can get. His chief weapon is his reputation. And for that, Watan is paid royally, collecting a fee for each truck that passes through his corridor. The American trucking official told me that Ruhullah "charges $1,500 per truck to go to Kandahar. Just 300 kilometers."
It's hard to pinpoint what this is, exactly--security, extortion or a form of "insurance." Then there is the question, Does Ruhullah have ties to the Taliban? That's impossible to know. As an American private security veteran familiar with the route said, "He works both sides... whatever is most profitable. He's the main commander. He's got to be involved with the Taliban. How much, no one knows."
Even NCL, the company owned by Hamed Wardak, pays. Two sources with direct knowledge tell me that NCL sends its portion of US logistics goods in Watan's and Ruhullah's convoys. Sources say NCL is billed $500,000 per month for Watan's services. To underline the point: NCL, operating on a $360 million contract from the US military, and owned by the Afghan defense minister's son, is paying millions per year from those funds to a company owned by President Karzai's cousins, for protection.
Hamed Wardak wouldn't return my phone calls. Milt Bearden, the former CIA officer affiliated with the company, wouldn't speak with me either. There's nothing wrong with Bearden engaging in business in Afghanistan, but disclosure of his business interests might have been expected when testifying on US policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. After all, NCL stands to make or lose hundreds of millions based on the whims of US policy-makers.
It is certainly worth asking why NCL, a company with no known trucking experience, and little security experience to speak of, would win a contract worth $360 million. Plenty of Afghan insiders are asking questions. "Why would the US government give him a contract if he is the son of the minister of defense?" That's what Mahmoud Karzai asked me. He is the brother of President Karzai, and he himself has been treated in the press as a poster boy for access to government officials. The New York Times even profiled him in a highly critical piece. In his defense, Karzai emphasized that he, at least, has refrained from US government or Afghan government contracting. He pointed out, as others have, that Hamed Wardak had little security or trucking background before his company received security and trucking contracts from the Defense Department. "That's a questionable business practice," he said. "They shouldn't give it to him. How come that's not questioned?"
I did get the opportunity to ask General Wardak, Hamed's father, about it. He is quite dapper, although he is no longer the debonair "Gucci commander" Bearden once described. I asked Wardak about his son and NCL. "I've tried to be straightforward and correct and fight corruption all my life," the defense minister said. "This has been something people have tried to use against me, so it has been painful."
Wardak would speak only briefly about NCL. The issue seems to have produced a rift with his son. "I was against it from the beginning, and that's why we have not talked for a long time. I have never tried to support him or to use my power or influence that he should benefit."
When I told Wardak that his son's company had a US contract worth as much as $360 million, he did a double take. "This is impossible," he said. "I do not believe this."
I believed the general when he said he really didn't know what his son was up to. But cleaning up what look like insider deals may be easier than the next step: shutting down the money pipeline going from DoD contracts to potential insurgents.
Two years ago, a top Afghan security official told me, Afghanistan's intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security, had alerted the American military to the problem. The NDS delivered what I'm told are "very detailed" reports to the Americans explaining how the Taliban are profiting from protecting convoys of US supplies.
The Afghan intelligence service even offered a solution: what if the United States were to take the tens of millions paid to security contractors and instead set up a dedicated and professional convoy support unit to guard its logistics lines? The suggestion went nowhere.
The bizarre fact is that the practice of buying the Taliban's protection is not a secret. I asked Col. David Haight, who commands the Third Brigade of the Tenth Mountain Division, about it. After all, part of Highway 1 runs through his area of operations. What did he think about security companies paying off insurgents? "The American soldier in me is repulsed by it," he said in an interview in his office at FOB Shank in Logar Province. "But I know that it is what it is: essentially paying the enemy, saying, 'Hey, don't hassle me.' I don't like it, but it is what it is."
As a military official in Kabul explained contracting in Afghanistan overall, "We understand that across the board 10 percent to 20 percent goes to the insurgents. My intel guy would say it is closer to 10 percent. Generally it is happening in logistics."
In a statement to The Nation about Host Nation Trucking, Col. Wayne Shanks, the chief public affairs officer for the international forces in Afghanistan, said that military officials are "aware of allegations that procurement funds may find their way into the hands of insurgent groups, but we do not directly support or condone this activity, if it is occurring." He added that, despite oversight, "the relationships between contractors and their subcontractors, as well as between subcontractors and others in their operational communities, are not entirely transparent."
In any case, the main issue is not that the US military is turning a blind eye to the problem. Many officials acknowledge what is going on while also expressing a deep disquiet about the situation. The trouble is that--as with so much in Afghanistan--the United States doesn't seem to know how to fix it.
Fort Hood shootings suspect may have wired money to Pakistan
09:05 AM CST on Thursday, November 12, 2009
By DAVE MICHAELS / The Dallas Morning News
dmichaels@dallasnews.com
WASHINGTON – Authorities have been examining whether Fort Hood massacre suspect Nidal Malik Hasan wired money to Pakistan in recent months, an action that one senior lawmaker said would raise serious questions about Hasan's possible connections to militant Islamic groups.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., said sources "outside of the [intelligence] community" learned about Hasan's possible connections to the Asian country, which faces a massive Islamist insurgency and is widely believed to be Osama bin Laden's hiding place.
Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, would not identify the sources. But he said "they are trying to follow up on it because they recognize that if there are communications – phone or money transfers with somebody in Pakistan – it just raises a whole other level of questions."
Much remains unknown about the 39-year-old Hasan, born in Virginia to Palestinian immigrants. He lived alone near the Army base in Killeen, Texas, and would sometimes use a neighbor's computer even though he had his own.
"With what I know about Hasan to date ... I would expect we will learn more about him that will make us concerned," Hoekstra said, "rather than information that says, 'Oh man, we got that all wrong and this had nothing to do with terrorism.' "
Hasan's finances have been a mystery since last week, when the Army major and psychiatrist allegedly shot and killed 13 colleagues at the sprawling Central Texas military base. Hasan earned more than $90,000 a year and had no dependents, yet lived in an aging one-bedroom apartment that rented for about $300 a month.
"You can bet there is an ongoing, extensive investigation into every single financial transaction he made," said Matt Orwig, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas who has no direct knowledge of the Hasan case. "Federal investigative agencies are very good at tracing the flow of money, both to him and from him."
Authorities know that Hasan sent repeated e-mails, starting some time in December 2008, to a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen. That cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, formerly served as imam of a large northern Virginia mosque where Hasan worshipped. The U.S.-born cleric praised Hasan after the massacre as "a hero."
In January, al-Awlaki told readers of his blog about "44 ways to support jihad" – a term often translated as "holy war." Many of his points dealt with ways to fund such efforts.
"Probably the most important contribution the Muslims of the West could do for Jihad is making Jihad with their wealth," al-Awlaki wrote. "In many cases the mujahideen are in need of money more than they are in need of men."
He also stressed the importance of "avoiding the life of luxury."
A spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department referred questions Wednesday to the FBI, which didn't return a message seeking comment. FBI officials have said they studied Hasan's communications with an unnamed radical Muslim and concluded they were a harmless part of his academic research.
Hoekstra said he wants to know whether authorities knew about Hasan's behavior when they decided his contacts with the Yemeni imam were essentially harmless.
"The conclusion based off just the e-mails might have been perfectly legitimate," Hoekstra said. "But if the [terrorism] analyst for some reason didn't have access to all this other information, that might be where the problem is."
Some of Hasan's former colleagues in the Washington area said his behavior raised red flags that should have been addressed. While pursuing a master's degree in public health, Hasan lectured a class about suicide bombers and the conflicts faced by Muslim U.S. soldiers fighting against other Muslims.
Doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, where Hasan trained and studied, questioned whether he was mentally unstable and a possible danger to fellow soldiers, according to National Public Radio. Discussions began in spring 2008 and continued over the next year.
"Put it this way," NPR quoted one unnamed source as saying, "everybody felt that if you were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, you would not want Nidal Hasan in your foxhole."
S. Ward Casscells, former assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, told The Dallas Morning News that Hasan had trouble connecting with patients and colleagues at Walter Reed.
"Doctors at Walter Reed I worked with say he was a strange and lonely guy who did not really earn the trust of his patients and fellow doctors," said Casscells, vice president for external affairs and public policy at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. "They attribute that to his personality, not to religious discrimination."
Despite concerns about Hasan, his views and his poor job performances, the consensus was to send him to Fort Hood after he finished his medical training, The Associated Press reported. Fort Hood was considered the best assignment for Hasan because other doctors could handle the workload if he continued to perform poorly, and his superiors could document any continued behavior problems, the AP quoted an unnamed military official familiar with the discussion as saying.
Family members said shortly after last week's rampage that Hasan opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, wanted out the Army and had sought legal advice. But Pentagon officials said they found nothing to indicate that Hasan formally sought to leave the Army, the AP said.
Even if Hasan had sought a discharge, the Army almost certainly would have denied it, senior Army officials told The Washington Post. Hasan had a continuing obligation to the Army because it provided his medical training and promoted him in May to the rank of major.
Colleagues and associates have described Hasan as a loner who voiced his opposition to the wars, including his assertion that Muslims were justified in fighting American troops. Hasan's family has said he became more distressed as he learned he was about to be deployed to Afghanistan.
"He is a kind of fundamentalist. He thinks a Muslim must defend themselves," said Golam Akhter, a civil engineer from Bethesda, Md., who said he spoke with Hasan on several occasions at the mosque where they worshipped.
He said he knew Hasan was a doctor but didn't know he was a member of the Army.
"He used to dress in long dresses just like Pakistanis, and that made me also concerned," Akhter said. "Usually only the imam uses those loose and long shirts and sleeves. That made me [wonder], being very educated, why he is using the imam's dress."
Matthew Levitt, director of counterterrorism and intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said wire transfers to Pakistan would be "extremely significant in terms of a potential network for this particular case."
Tracing money to Pakistan could be easy if Hasan used a formal bank or wire service. It would be more difficult if he sent money under another name or used an informal channel known as hawala that is popular in Pakistan and doesn't involve paperwork.
"If it turns out the person was radicalized to the point he was sending money to other insurgents or other terrorists, that takes it to another level still," Levitt said.
Staff writers Brooks Egerton and Jim Landers contributed to this report.
Photos: Inside Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's home
04:23 PM CST on Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Dallas Morning News photographer Courtney Perry and reporter Lee Hancock were the first journalists allowed inside the Killeen, Texas, apartment of accused Fort Hood gunman Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. These photos were shot on Nov. 11, 2009.
COURTNEY PERRY/DMN
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan lived in apartment No. 9 at the Casa Del Norte apartments.
COURTNEY PERRY/DMN
A 7-Eleven coffee cup (far right) is among the items left on the kitchen table of Hasan's apartment. Security video showed Hasan calmly visiting a Killeen 7-Eleven the morning of Nov. 5, hours before the mass shooting that claimed 13 lives.
COURTNEY PERRY/DMN
Coins from various countries - including Jordan and Israel - sit on the kitchen table in Hasan's apartment.
COURTNEY PERRY/DMN
The book "Dreams and Interpretations" by Allamah Muhammad Bin Sireen is among a hodgepodge of items on the kitchen table.
COURTNEY PERRY/DMN
Prayer rugs, a trash can and a heavy-duty paper shredder sit in a corner of the mostly empty apartment.
COURTNEY PERRY/DMN
Packaging for a laser gun-sight is among the items on the kitchen table. The model number matches a LaserMax Uni-Max Rail Mount, which can be mounted on a variety of firearms, including pistols.
COURTNEY PERRY/DMN
Empty bags lie on the bedroom floor.
COURTNEY PERRY/DMN
A load of clean clothes sits in the dryer.
COURTNEY PERRY/DMN
Hasan's business card sits on the kitchen table, showing his title (psychiatrist) and his specialty (behavioral health, mental health, and life skills).
COURTNEY PERRY/DMN
A shoe box packed with vitamins and medicine sits in the laundry room.
COURTNEY PERRY/DMN
The box for a heavy-duty paper shredder left in the apartment was one of the few items in the bedroom.
COURTNEY PERRY/DMN
A pump bottle of lotion sits in the windowsill in the bathroom's shower.
COURTNEY PERRY/DMN
A towel hangs over the bedroom door.
Now let me be clear about this (as Obama would say): I've got nothing against kissing, particularly if it's between men and women. It's the kissing of men by men that I find offensive, even if it's done in months other than Ramadan. But the recent 
LONDON: Pakistan won their first major title in 17 years when they stunned Sri Lanka by eight wickets in the World Twenty20 final at a sell-out Lord's here on Sunday.
