The only problem is, it apparently didn’t happen. At least not the way ABC News claims. Instead of being direct US backing, by way of the CIA, for a State Department listed terrorist organization (a big no-no), Foreign Policy is reporting today that the whole thing was actually a Mossad plot designed to frame the CIA and the administration.

Officials cite internal memos, classified of course, from the 2007 and 2008 investigation into the allegations, which found that in reality the people who bought off Jundallah were Mossad agents, with faked US passports and large amounts of US dollars.

“It’s amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with,” one of the officials said. “Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open. They apparently didn’t give a damn what we thought.”

Indeed the unspoken goal of the “false flag” appears to have been to damage what little trust the Iranian government had in the US. Captured Jundallah leaders confessed on Iranian TV that they were funded and directed by the CIA, and apparently they believed that is what was happening.

The report goes on to say that President Bush “went ballistic” when he heard about the Mossad plot, saying it was “putting Americans at risk.” There was also concern it would severely damage relations with Pakistan, since Jundallah has traditionally also attacked targets in Pakistani Balochistan.

The US State Department has been struggling to publicly deny the US-Jundallah relationship, and retired US Gen. Joe Hoar slammed the Israeli move, saying “It gets us involved in their covert war, whether we want to be involved or not.”

Pakistani police have said that the thee border guards will be charged with murder for the attack, while Iran has reportedly arrested a number of Pakistani fishermen for crossing the maritime border as well.

Disputes along this border are not unusual, and Iran is particularly aggressive in policing the border for Balochi militant factions like the US-backed Jundallah, which often operate out of Pakistan but launch attacks against targets inside Iran.

The closure could leave Pakistan with almost  no open border crossings nationwide, as the border with India is historically closed and Pakistan has blocked the border with Afghanistan to protest the US attack on a pair of Pakistani military bases.

Pakistan ordered the US out of the base last month after the deadly US attack on a pair of Pakistani bases in the Mohmand Agency. The attacks killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

The base’s history is somewhat convoluted, as the base had been given to the United Arab Emirates in the early 90’s, and it was Emirati officials, not Pakistan, which transferred the base to US control. Since then the base has been used primarily for surveillance drones, but with the drone war increasingly targeting Pakistani soil, it has become a growing issue.

The US control over the base is something of a poorly kept secret, as Pentagon officials continue to express official mystification at the orders and deny that any troops are deployed there, even as Pakistani officials confirm that the troops who are there are indeed leaving. Though US forces in Shamsi was an established fact for years, Pakistani officials only admitted it to parliament in May.

Which is a step up from the last time Shamsi was made an issue by the Pakistani government. In July Pakistan demanded the US leave the base and while publicly denying that they had any troops at the base anonymous US officials told top media outlets that they had no intention of actually leaving. With tensions soaring however, it seems the estimated 70 US personnel on base are now leaving while the getting is good.

The two slain Pakistanis, Abdullah and Mohammed Usman, were residents of the Chagai district of the Baluchistan Province, and had gone to Helmand to visit relatives there. There was no report from NATO on why they were attacked.

The border between Chagai District and Helmand is heavily traveled and a number of Pakistanis cross daily to gather firewood in the southern Afghan province. Pakistan’s Frontier Corps confirmed the killing and said it happened inside Afghanistan territory, not Pakistani territory.

Such killings are liable to fuel even more anti-US sentiment across Pakistan, with tensions already at a record high in the wake of Friday’s attack on a pair of Pakistani military bases in Mohmand Agency, which killed 24 soldiers.

The gunmen halted the bus, forced the passengers out and then opened fire into the crowd. Witnesses say they allowed all the non-Shi’ites to leave before they started shooting, suggesting it was another sectarian attack.

It is the second such attack in the past few weeks, as another group of gunmen attacked a busload of Shi’ite pilgrims just outside of Quetta in late September, killing 29 of them.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani condemned the killings and vowed that the killers would be brought to justice. The pledges would likely have meant more if such killings had not repeatedly happened unpunished.

The pilgrims were heading to neighboring Iran to visit religious sites. The attackers, eight in total, forced the pilgrims off the bus at gunpoint before opening fire. So far no group has claimed credit for the attack, and the attackers got away.

Shi’ites have been a popular target in an upsurge in violence in and around Balochistan, and officials say that pilgrims are normally provided with additional security. They say that they were never informed about this bus, however.

Several Balochistan Shi’ite groups have announced a three-day period of mourning in the wake of the attacks, and protests took place in Shi’ite neighborhoods of Quetta, where demonstrators accused the government of ignoring the growing Taliban presence in the province.

The attacks happened in the morning at around 9 AM, when a bomber detonated a car bomb outside the home of Colonel Khalid. A second attacker entered the house, firing randomly before detonating an explosive vest. Reports have Col. Khalid, his wife and two children among the slain.

Officials say that the over 100 kg of explosives were used in the attack, and the first blast was so powerful it set many nearby cars ablaze, and broke out the windows of dozens of nearby buildings.

The Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed credit for the attacks but provided no additional details. Other speculation had the attack as revenge for previous al-Qaeda arrests, but the TTP did not mention these.

Mauritani was reported to be put in charge of hitting economic targets important to the US, and was said to be planning attacks on oil tankers using explosives-laden speed boats. The US praised the capturing.

Mauritani and the other operatives, Abdul Ghaffar and Messara al-Shami, were captured in a suburb of the Balochistan capital city of Quetta. Though none of the three was on any public list of known global terrorists, officials insisted all three, especially Mauritani, were significant captures.

Though it is netting Pakistan praise now, the operation will likely add to international pressure on the Pakistani government to launch even more operations in and around Quetta, which a number of foreign nations claim is being used as a base of operations for the Afghan Taliban and others.

The attack targeted a tent in the parking lot of a Shi’ite mosque, which was being used for post-Ramadan prayers by worshipers. The bomber detonated his car bomb near the tent.

So far no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Lahkar-e Jhangvi (LeJ) has regularly attacked Shi’ite sites across the region and is considered a likely culprit.

The attack was condemned by the Hazara Democratic Party (HDP), one of the key opposition parties in the region with strong support in the Shi’ite community. They declared a 10-day mourning period over the attack.

Officials said that 13 of the tankers were totally destroyed while six others were seriously damaged in the attack. The attackers fled and no one, either attacks or drivers, were reported killed or wounded.

The overwhelming majority of NATO’s supplies for Afghanistan come through Pakistan, and there are two main routes, the western route through Balochistan, which was attacked today, and the Khyber Pass route, which has seen a huge number of attacks in and around Peshawar.

This has led NATO to attempt to create a new northern supply route through the former Soviet Union. Though this has been used for some equipment, the enormous cost of using this route has made it prohibitive for the huge supply of goods needed for a 150,000-strong occupation force.