Civil War is being Incited in Pakistan - a new murderous phase begins

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Bin Laden not in Pakistan, PM says

STORY HIGHLIGHTS:

-Britain pledges £50 million for to Pakistan's anti-terrorism efforts

-Gordon Brown praises efforts to tackle militants in Swat Valley

-Yousaf Raza Gilani insists bin Laden not hiding in Pakistan


Gordon Brown met with Yousaf Raza Gilani at 10 Downing Street.

December 3, 2009 6:23 a.m. EST
London, England (CNN) -- Pakistan's prime minister Thursday rejected claims al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is hiding within his country amid mounting global pressure on Islamabad to tackle terrorists linked to escalating conflict in neighboring Afghanistan.

"In fact Pakistan is fighting a war on terrorism," Yousaf Raza Gilani told reporters at a joint press conference with his British counterpart Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street.

"We have good defense and intelligence cooperation with the U.S.. I don't think Osama Bin Laden is in Pakistan."

Pakistan has regularly been identified as the suspected hiding place of bin Laden since a major military offensive in Afghanistan in the wake of the 2001 al Qaeda attacks in the United States failed to uncover his whereabouts.

Brown, who has in the past criticized Pakistan's failure to track bin Laden, on Thursday pledged £50 million ($83 million) to Pakistan to help efforts to tackle terrorism, linking it to threats on British soil.

"This is your fight, but it is also Britain's fight," Brown told Gilani, offering praise for a recent military offensive that routed an emboldened Pakistani Taliban occupation of the Swat Valley, north of Islamabad.

"Your leadership in the last few months have been absolutely vital," Brown said.

Earlier this week Brown pledged 500 more British troops to the war effort in Afghanistan and U.S. President Barack Obama's plan to deploy 30,000 more troops to fight terror groups in Afghanistan and along the border of Pakistan.
 

 
 
 
 

 
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/12/03/pakistan.bin.laden/index.html 

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Gunmen Attack Mosque Near Pakistan Army HQ, 26 Killed

Friday, December 04, 2009 
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,579285,00.html


ISLAMABAD  —  Pakistani officials say at least 26 people have been killed in an attack on a mosque outside the capital.

Police say gunmen stormed the mosque during Friday prayers after an explosion at a checkpoint at an army installation near the military headquarters in Islamabad's sister city of Rawalpindi.

Rawalpindi Police Chief Rao Iqbal says at least 26 people have been killed and more than 30 wounded. He said gunfire was continuing in the area.

The attack underscores the resilience of militant networks despite army offensives against the Taliban in the northwest regions bordering Afghanistan.

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Saturday, December 05, 2009
13:00 Mecca time, 10:00 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/12/200912585615710308.html
   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Security high after Pakistan attack 

 
Pakistani security forces have been put on alert
in the wake of the attack on a mosque [AFP]

 
Security forces in the Pakistani garrison city of Rawalpindi have launched a hunt for gunmen who carried out a deadly attack on a mosque near the country's army headquarters.

Troops in Rawalpini were on high alert on Saturday, a day after attackers stormed a mosque in the city, killing at least 37 people, including 17 children.

The commander of the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan claimed responsibility for the attack in a call to the BBC's Urdu service.

The mosque was attacked because it was used by the army, he said.

Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from Rawalpindi, said that the Taliban consider "this mosque [to have been] a fair target - that it was not a religious establishment because it was attended to by the Pakistani army".

In depth :

-  Video: Civilians flee Pakistani army offensive
-  Video: Security crisis in Pakistan
-  Video: Pakistan army HQ attacked
-  Profile: Pakistan Taliban
-  Witness: Pakistan in crisis
-  Riz Khan: The battle for the soul of Pakistan
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/12/200912585615710308.html
 
"This attack took place in a residential neighbourhood. To get into the neighbourhood, you need to show your ID [and] your car is searched," he said.

"This is supposed to be one of the most secure areas of Rawalpindi, so how these people got in is a big question.

"The other big question is 'if the Taliban can strike here, how on earth can we protect ourselves?'"

Police and witnesses said seven or eight gunmen were armed with assault rifles and hand grenades when they entered the mosque.

"They threw three grenades inside the mosque, one was thrown on the ladies' side, and two grenades were thrown inside the [men's section of the] mosque," one witness told Al Jazeera.

"I could only hear the shouting of the people."

'Significant' breach

The attack appeared to be the latest in a series to hit Pakistan in recent months as the military presses ahead with an offensive against al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the country's northwest.

The United States condemned the assault, saying it underscored the need for Washington to support Islamabad in fighting the Taliban.

"These attacks highlight the vicious and inhuman nature of this  enemy whose true target is the democratically elected government of  Pakistan and the security of all Pakistanis," Ian Kelly, US state department spokesman, said.

He added that the attacks reinforce the "need for us to support the government of Pakistan".

Peshawar blast

Separately on Saturday,  there was panic in Peshawar when a blast killed at least three people and injured several others.


A blast in Peshawar was found to have been caused by a chemical reaction [EPA]

The blast was initially reported as an attack, but authorities later said that the explosion had been caused by a chemical reaction, and ruled the possibility of an attack.

"It was a low intensity explosion caused by a chemical reaction," Shafqat Malik, the local bomb disposal chief, told the AFP news agency.

The region's information minister had earlier said the blast was caused by a car bomb detonated by "remote control", but police confirmed to Al Jazeera that the blast was an accident.

The rising tension across Pakistan comes amid a military offensive against suspected Taliban bases in South Waziristan.

About 30,000 government troops have been ranged against 10,000 fighters suspected of having links to the Taliban and al-Qaeda since mid-October.

While the military campaign has gone better than expected, some politicians and many ordinary Pakistanis say that the government should negotiate with the fighters.

The United States is unable to send troops into the border region, but has launched at least 60 aerial bombing raids at targets there over the last year.

Those attacks have killed scores of alleged pro-Taliban fighters but they have also been criticised by the Pakistan government as an infringement of the country's sovereignty.

US officials said on Friday that they were looking at increasing the frequency of the raids and expanding them into Pakistan's western province of Baluchistan.
 
 Source: Al Jazeera and agencies 
 
 
 
 
 

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South Asia
Dec 5, 2009 
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KL05Df03.html 
 
US takes hunt for al-Qaeda to Pakistan

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - Notwithstanding the surge of 30,000 additional United States troops in Afghanistan, as outlined by US President Barack Obama in his policy speech on Tuesday, the next phase of the war will primarily be aimed at fighting al-Qaeda in Pakistan's tribal areas, while all efforts in Afghanistan will focus on a peaceful settlement to pave the way for an American exit.

This is the view of one of the two principal intermediaries between the US and the Afghan national resistance, Daoud Abedi (the other is Mullah Zaeef), whose role was first reported by Asia Times Online. (See Holbrooke reaches out to Hekmatyar April 10, 2009.) http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KD10Ak04.html

Washington initiated dialogue with the veteran mujahid, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), through his longtime lieutenant, Abedi. Abedi is an Afghan-American based in Los Angeles, a prominent businessman and social worker as well as being a former representative of the HIA.

He believes that Obama's surge is the start of an exit strategy to bring peace to Afghanistan by pushing the war into the Pakistani tribal areas against al-Qaeda. After all, the objective of the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was to topple the Taliban regime as it had allowed al-Qaeda to operate in the country. After eight years, the US's efforts have been reset around this objective, even if it means greater activity in Pakistan.

In his Tuesday speech, Obama urged Pakistan to fight the "cancer" of extremism and said the US would not tolerate Pakistan allowing its territory to be a safe haven for militants. Testifying this week on Obama's new war plan, his senior military and diplomatic advisers all stressed that Pakistan was a critical component of the strategy.

There are already pointers of the war moving more in Pakistan's direction.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a close ally of the US, this week said that both al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, were still at large and questioned why Pakistani security forces had not done more to catch them. "If we are putting our strategy into place, Pakistan has to show that it can take on al-Qaeda," he said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani responded that his country had not received any credible intelligence on the whereabouts of the leaders. “I doubt the information which you are giving is correct because I don't think Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan," he said.

In a related development, the White House this week is reported to have approved an expansion of the Central Intelligence Agency's drone program from the North Waziristan and South Waziristan tribal areas in Pakistan to southern Balochistan province. Top Taliban and al-Qaeda figures are believed to operate from Balochistan. Here, Pakistan already faces a low-level insurgency from Baloch rebels seeking provincial autonomy.

Unmanned drone attacks in the tribal areas over the past few years have killed a number of al-Qaeda members as well as Pakistani Taliban commanders. This year alone, nearly 50 strikes in the northwestern border regions have killed 415 people.

The grand plan

Abedi visited Pakistan and Afghanistan earlier this year and held talks with US and British officials, including the US envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke. In a personal capacity, Abedi, whose roots go back to Kandahar in Afghanistan, knows several top Taliban leaders and commanders.
In an exclusive e-mail correspondence with Asia Times Online, Abedi said he was privy to information that Obama had been prepared to announce the withdrawal date of July 2011 - as he did on Tuesday - but without sending the extra troops. However, there were two main problems:

The US would not accept a Taliban government, to be known to the world as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, to be led by the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar. That is, under no circumstances would Mullah Omar be allowed to feature in any new setup.

The US wanted to be able to claim the defeat of al-Qaeda - at present, the US believes it has only been 70% successful.

Abedi said, "If they [the US] can be assured somehow that the Taliban are not going to overrun any transitional government, and are going to allow the so-called international community to leave behind a stable transitional government which could function for at least 18 months to two years based on Islamic and so-called international values, they might very much be willing to do what they are saying, which is to exit even faster than 18 months."

Abedi suggested, "If the Obama administration somehow managed to come up with the [necessary] number of Afghan soldiers and police to hand over security to them, and then a [loya jirga] grand council was called by [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai after 18 months and political power was turned over to a number of people [transitional government] who were for the time being accepted by all sides of the conflict, this would give the occupiers a chance to leave ... Brother Hekmatyar and Mullah Omar Mujahid both have said that they won't attack foreign forces on the way out if they pull out of the country immediately.

"The other side [Karzai government] would not be a concern for the US; they can be slapped on the face and told to shut up and do what they are told ... just like [what happened after] the so-called [August presidential] elections when they told [rival runoff candidate Abdullah] Abdullah to back off and stay quiet, which he gladly did ..."

Abedi, who has had dialogue with senior US officials in addition to Holbrooke on behalf of Hekmatyar, continued, "We know that July 2011 is a start date without an exact end date, and it may be argued at that time that the situation on the ground does not allow US forces and NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] to leave the country ... What do you think the US and its allies would do next? Would there be another surge? Atom bomb? Or something else?"

Abedi said that for the US, losing or winning the war in Afghanistan is immaterial - its real fight is against al-Qaeda, and therefore in the next phase of the war, the real fight, will be against al-Qaeda.

"I think the US knows that they have lost the war in Afghanistan, but they have not finished the work in the tribal area near the Durand Line [that separates Pakistan and Afghanistan]. Don't you think that the US might use the 30,000 fresh soldiers as a wall to prevent al-Qaeda members from entering into Afghanistan while they [US] and the Pakistani army attack from all sides to these above-mentioned areas for a final push to do the last and most damage to al-Qaeda, claim victory, and then start leaving gradually to save their face?

"Don't you think that is the reason they are cornering [Pakistani President Asif Ali] Zardari to deal with the military directly so the military can implement enough pressure on the so-called Pakistani Taliban to let al-Qaeda go from their grip so they [US] can hunt them down," said Abedi.

Abedi said this was the most suitable way for the US to direct the war only towards al-Qaeda so that deals could be set up with the Afghans. Abedi is convinced that the US should not prolong the war as it is already lost. (Obama admitted in his speech on Tuesday that vast tracts of Afghanistan are under Taliban control).
For Abedi, a 24-month package - withdrawal after 18 month and six months to set up a transitional government - is the best answer for Afghanistan as it offers opportunities for all of the parties involved.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

 
 
 

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Mullah Omar stays most of the time in Pakistan: Petraeus

* US commander says Haqqani network in North Waziristan a ‘big concern’ * Washington helped create extremist organisation

Daily Times Monitor
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\12\05\story_5-12-2009_pg7_15

LAHORE: Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar stays most, if not all, of the time in Pakistan, US Army General David Petraeus told the National Public Radio (NPR) on Friday.

In an interview with NPR, Petraeus said Pakistan had taken important steps against the Taliban in the last nine months. “I think there was a major development there about nine months ago that is very worth discussing. And that is a recognition by the Pakistani population, by virtually all of the political leaders, including the major opposition figure, Nawaz Sharif, and the bulk of the clerics that the most pressing threat to the very existence of Pakistan is the extremist syndicate, again, and, in particular, the Pakistani Taliban,” he said. He particularly mentioned the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as an existential threat to Pakistan.

Petraeus said the TTP and the Afghan Taliban were “a threat to our Pakistani partners or even a trans-national threat in terms of extremism”.

Haqqani: The US general said the Siraj Haqqani network, believed to be operating from North Waziristan, was a “big concern”.

“The leader of the Haqqani network is a big concern because, although their leadership tends to be occupying an area on the Pakistani side of the border, the Haqqani network is one of the syndicate of extremist elements that operate in the eastern part of Afghanistan.” “[Haqqani] is the head of an organisation that causes significant problems in Afghanistan and also can cause problems for Pakistani authorities as well.”

Extremist creativity: The US general said Washington had been party to the creation of these militant groups. “The existence of these organisations, their initial development was actually a reaction to Soviet occupation [of Afghanistan] and funded by, among others, some of the US contribution to the anti-Soviet occupation of Afghanistan,” he said. “We funded many of them when they were the mujahideen who were fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.”

He told NPR that the Afghan Taliban were located “in various locations in Pakistan... typically in Balochistan. It’s called the Quetta shura”. “I’m not sure that folks will say [the Taliban] right inside the city [Quetta] or precisely — it will move around and so forth. But... has historically been centred on that city,” Petraeus said. “And when the Taliban were ejected, defeated along with Al Qaeda and other extremist elements that were located in Afghanistan prior to 9/11... they dispersed in these very rugged areas of eastern Afghanistan, the tribal areas of Pakistan and then down in the Balochistan as well”.

He said there were limits to how fast the world expected Pakistan to overcome terrorism. “The fact is that they have shifted a substantial amount of their military capability from, for example, the Indian border, from other locations, indeed to deal with this extremist threat. And I think you cannot underestimate how important the steps they have taken in the last nine or 10 months have been,” he said.

“They have also taken very significant casualties in these fights with the extremists. And their civilians have suffered severe losses as well, as these extremists have fought back,” Petraeus said. “And again, a good bit of this fighting, of course, has been from the [TTP] former Baitullah Mehsud organisation and from some of the other extremist elements that have — as the Pakistani forces, the frontier corps and the military have gone after them — have indeed then blown up innocent civilians in marketplaces, visiting cricket teams, [and] of course all the way back to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.”

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Last Updated: 00:27 IST(5/12/2009)
http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/pakistan/Pak-not-a-stooge-of-America-or-Britain/Article1-482991.aspx

Pak not a stooge of America or Britain: Gilani

Amid a war of words with Britain over the presence of top al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan's restive tribal areas, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said his country is not a stooge of America or Britain, but an ally among equals in the battle against terrorism.

"It is our war that we are fighting, not a proxy war for the US. Pakistan is an ally among equals in the battle against terrorism, not an American or British stooge," Gilani told The Times.

Rejecting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's charge that Osama bin Laden was probably in Pakistan's wild tribal territories and that the government should have done more to catch him, Gilani said "Certainly, he's not there."

Gilani made it clear that the al-Qaeda leader was not in Pakistan during his tenure - since March 2008.  Nor did he have any intelligence to the effect that bin Laden had been on Pakistani soil at any point since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

If the US wanted Pakistan to pursue him it would have to furnish evidence that he was there, Gilani said.

He shrugged off Brown's criticism, calling him "a seasoned parliamentarian" and implying that the remarks were intended for public consumption.

Gilani was glad that Brown had "clarified" them yesterday.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/482991.aspx
© Copyright 2009 Hindustan Times

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Weekend Edition
December 4-6, 2009
http://www.counterpunch.org/idrees12042009.html

A War That Can't be Won

Pakistan Creates Its Own Enemy

By MUHAMMAD IDREES AHMAD

On the day I arrived in Peshawar a few weeks ago, the evening stillness was broken by nine loud explosions, each preceded by the sucking sound of a projectile as it arced into Hayatabad, the suburban sprawl west of the city. Their target was a Frontier Constabulary post guarding the fence that separates the city from the tribal region of Khyber.

When I lived here seven years ago, Hayatabad hosted many Afghan refugees; those with fewer resources lived in the slums of Kacha Garhi, along the Jamrud Road to the Khyber Pass. Many established businesses here, and dominated commerce and transport in parts of the city. Some temporarily migrated in summer to Afghanistan, where it was cooler. But Peshawar was a sanctuary, as Afghanistan was perpetually at war. Now, many Afghans are leaving because Afghanistan feels safer. There are checkpoints all over the city, many kidnappings, and in the past month, there have been at least three suicide bombings and four rocket attacks, most targeting Hayatabad.

This war began in 2002 under intense US pressure, with piecemeal military action in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), a semi-autonomous region of seven agencies along Pakistan’s north-western border. The Afghan Taliban were using the region to regroup after their earlier rout: veteran anti-Soviet commander Jalaluddin Haqqani headquartered his network in North Waziristan; Gulbuddin Hikmatyar’s Hizb-e-Islami had a presence in Bajaur. However, the military, reluctant to take on pro-Pakistan Afghans, whom the government sees as assets against growing Indian influence in Afghanistan, instead marched into South Waziristan to apprehend “foreigners” (mainly Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs). Following the regional code of honor, the tribes refused to surrender the guests and were subjected to collective punishment that soon united them against the government. Disparate militant groups coalesced into the Pakistani Taliban, distinct from and less disciplined than its Afghan counterpart. Ineffectual tribal elders were marginalized or assassinated. The leadership shifted to individuals such as Nek Muhammad, 27, a charismatic veteran of the Afghan war, a sworn enemy of the US presence in Afghanistan.

Although FATA had been a transit base for rebels and weaponry during the anti-Soviet struggle, this did not undermine the tribal structures or the political administration. There were no insurgents, according to Rustam Shah Mohmand, an astute analyst of frontier politics, “because the policy of the government and the aspirations of the people converged”. He suggests three causes for the present impasse: President Pervaiz Musharraf’s decision in 2001 to join the US “war on terror”; the use of indiscriminate force to support what was seen as an American war; and the disappearances and rendition of suspects, many innocents among them, given into US custody for money.

These combined to create a gulf between public opinion and government policy, and in 2002 led to the protest vote that brought the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA, an alliance of religious parties opposed to the “war on terror”) to power in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The evisceration of established institutions, particularly the office of the Political Agent, which since the days of the Raj had served as the federal government’s liaison with the tribal maliks (chiefs), worsened the insecurity. Traditional tribal structures and the concept of regional responsibility also suffered.

In 2004, after two attempts on Musharraf’s life, the government ordered 5,000 troops supported by helicopter gunships into South Waziristan. The military suffered heavy losses and the government was forced to sign a peace treaty with Nek Mohammad that briefly ended hostilities. The ceasefire broke when, on 18 June 2004, the young amir was assassinated in a US drone strike for which, in the first of many such incidents, the Pakistani government claimed responsibility, rather than admit its sovereignty had been breached by the US. Two more peace deals followed, but both ended when in August 2007 Pakistani forces stormed a mosque in Islamabad held by militants sympathetic to the Taliban, an operation that killed many innocents. A sustained terrorist campaign followed, and the blowback began to hit Pakistan’s major cities. In response, the military expanded its operations into other agencies including Bajaur, Mohmand and Khyber. The fighting was intense, and neither side gave quarter. Millions were displaced, and anger against the government grew.

Phantom enemy

On the bus to Peshawar I’d met a youth, studying English literature at the University of Punjab, who was returning home to evacuate his family from the Khyber Agency. I asked him who the Taliban were, and he replied dryly “we all are”. A taxi driver showed me the flood of refugees from Khyber’s Bara region, and said the Taliban were a “phantom enemy” invented by the Pakistani establishment to justify foreign aid. He warned the government’s actions were actually creating the enemy that it claims it is at war with.

Around the time of the mosque siege the war also spilled into the mainland. Tensions had simmered since 2007 in Malakand’s Swat valley and culminated in the Pakistan army’s incursion this year into the region. The operation followed the failure of a peace settlement, the Nizam-e-Adl, that the government had signed with the Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM), a local movement committed to the restoration of the region’s old legal order. Until the early 1970s, the three districts of Malakand – Swat, Dir and Chitral — were independent princely states, each with its own legal system — in Swat, a variant of sharia. Following Swat’s accession to Pakistan, the old system was superseded by Pakistan’s legal framework; however, no legal infrastructure evolved to cope with the change. Cases languished in district courts and justice was often indefinitely postponed. From the late 1970s on, this led to calls for the restoration of the old order, and in 1989 Sufi Muhammad established TNSM to formally pursue this cause.

The movement twice took up arms in the 1990s, but the governments of Benazir Bhutto (1994) and Nawaz Sharif (1999) made concessions to defuse hostilities. However, by 2002 the TNSM had all but disappeared after Sufi Muhammad led a contingent of 10,000 men into Afghanistan to fight US forces, most of whom were killed or captured. Sufi Muhammad’s credibility suffered and on his return he was whisked off to a prison in Dera Ismail Khan.

In 2005 Muhammad’s son-in-law, Mullah Fazlullah, was able to revive TNSM, with a more radical edge. The group was further strengthened by the arrival of militants fleeing US drone attacks in FATA. After the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Taliban Movement of Pakistan, TTP) was established in December 2007 with Baitullah Mehsud as its leader, Mullah Fazlullah changed his organization into a local chapter of the movement. With its populist rhetoric, its swift justice and opposition to the old feudal elite, it found favor with the underclass and attracted many disaffected youths. This, observed Asif Ezdi, a political analyst, was “because the state has failed [the youth], massively and comprehensively: the wellspring of Islamic militancy in Pakistan is to be found in the alienation of the mass of the population by a ruling elite that has used the state to protect and expand its own privileges, pushing the common man into deeper and deeper poverty and hopelessness”.

Rule of justice

With unemployment, easy access to weaponry and training, and rising political consciousness because of a vibrant private media, there was no shortage of angry young men to swell the Taliban ranks, especially when the war was also seen as a struggle against the entrenched elite. “In some areas at least, it has pitted landless tenants against wealthy landlords,” Ezdi notes. This, he says, was “in a country where ordinary people have little chance of overcoming status barriers, with the government, the political system and the elite all arrayed against them. It is this combination of revolutionary and religious zeal which makes the Taliban such a formidable force”.

However, as more power accrued to the TTP, petty criminals also joined. This not only granted them immunity from the Taliban’s brutal justice, but access to weapons and a powerful support network. They used these immediately, terrorizing rivals and ordinary people alike. Following their own narrow interpretation of Islam, they banned female education; more than a hundred schools were bombed. Whatever initial support the Swat Taliban had enjoyed evaporated quickly; even the TTP dissented when its spokesman Maulvi Omar urged Fazlullah to reconsider the decision to ban girls’ education.

Eager to check the growing power of the TTP, in 2008 the Pashtun nationalist government of NWFP released Sufi Muhammad, who had renounced violence, to negotiate peace with the militants. These efforts culminated in the Nizam-e-Adl (rule of justice) legislation of February 2009, which briefly ended hostilities after the government agreed to establish sharia courts and the militants agreed to disarm. After much delay, the legislation was ratified by the central government on April 14, 2009 and, although both sides failed fully to meet obligations, some normalcy briefly returned to the valley.

Western commentators and their local allies were quick to denounce the legislation as Pakistan’s “surrender to the Taliban”. The country, they said, was on the verge of collapse, its nuclear arsenal about to land into the hands of the Taliban, who were within 60 miles of the capital. Pressure mounted on the Pakistani government and in May, when a group of TTP militants rode motorbikes into the neighbouring Buner valley, the incident was presented by the media as a prelude to a march on the capital. The tanks rolled.

While the operation succeeded in dislodging the militants, nearly three million citizens were displaced, and of those who remained, many were killed in the bombing of civilian neighborhoods. The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) declared it the worst refugee crisis since Rwanda, and the capacity of the international aid organizations was seriously stretched. More than 80 per cent  of the refugees were absorbed by families, friends and well-wishers; the UNHCR conceded it was only able to provide 33 per cent of the relief assistance needed for the rest. The Pakistani government failed to provide assistance and much of the foreign aid money lined the pockets of corrupt officials. The unaffected eastern provinces of Sindh and Punjab restricted entry to the refugees; this highlighted the ethnic dimension of the conflict, since the Pashtuns see themselves as primary targets.

Yet, unlike the military operations in FATA, the operation enjoyed relatively high popular support among Pakistanis (41 per cent). It was hailed as a success by politicians, the military and the media.

Everybody recognized that it was imperative to counter militancy and criminality in Malakand but not all agreed that force was the only way to do it. “I think [the war] was avoidable,” said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a veteran journalist and the most respected analyst of frontier politics, “but Pakistan is not a free and independent player. There was much pressure from the US and other countries, and for a variety of reasons the government couldn’t resist.”

Yusufzai dismisses the idea that the militants were a threat to the country or its nuclear assets. “The government itself is saying that there were no more than 5,000 Taliban; they were controlling Swat, they had entered Buner — how many men could they have spared to march on the capital?” Pakistan is a country of 173 million, with a million under arms and an advanced air force. “The Taliban had neither the capacity nor the intention to invade the capital. They were only interested in the Malakand division, and even there their influence was limited to three of its seven districts.” The Nizam-e-Adl encompassed the same concessions that two previous, secular governments had made, and Sufi Muhammad’s influence could have defused hostilities and marginalized the radicals.

Roedad Khan, a former federal secretary and political commentator, queries whether all political options had been exhausted. “There never was a more unnecessary war... a war more difficult to justify and harder to win. No one can be bombed into moderation and, given the unconventional methods of the insurgents, force alone has a slim chance of success since the militant doesn’t have to win, he just has to keep fighting.”

Mohmand has questions. “If the aim of the operation was to confront the elements challenging the writ of the state, it should have targeted only them. Why did the government have to invade the whole territory? By using air power and indiscriminate bombardment the government ensured that common people would suffer.” Although the government has declared victory in Swat, he argued, the success could prove pyrrhic if “the social, economic and political causes that led to the emergence of the Taliban are not addressed and comprehensive reconstruction doesn’t follow”.

Tribe against tribe

In yet another act of political myopia, Pakistan diminished its options when in September it invited members of the Taliban shura (advisory committee) for negotiations and then arrested them. The policy of arming militias to counter the Taliban (along the lines of the Iraqi “awakening councils”) is equally dangerous. In a region where blood feuds last for generations, Yusufzai points out, this means perpetual violence, pitting tribe against tribe. The government’s policy of home demolitions ignores the fact that in the frontier region a single house is shared by an extended family, and when a home is demolished for the sins of an errant son, the state creates more recruits for the insurgency.

An uneasy peace prevails in Swat today, and militant violence has declined. However, more than 200 suspected militants and sympathizers have been killed in extra-judicial executions by security forces and local vigilantes since the end of major combat operations. The population remains in a permanent state of fear: “If, earlier, people were terrorized by the Taliban, today they live in fear of the army,” says Yusufzai. “Anybody can be labelled a Talib”, he notes; some locals have chosen to settle scores by falsely accusing rivals of being Taliban sympathizers. “Your house is then demolished, you are taken into custody, and next day your body is found dumped in a field. People are very scared, they are afraid to talk, and the media” — which mostly cheered on the military — “is compromised.”

The Taliban attacks continued, accelerating in October in anticipation of the new military incursion in South Waziristan. Under the leadership of Hakimullah Mehsud, 28, a campaign of bombings began which, with calculated cruelty, hit targets in Hangu, Kohat, Shangla and Peshawar, killing mostly civilians. The attacks got more audacious as the government escalated the aerial bombing ahead of the ground invasion. Punjabi allies of the Taliban even managed a successful attack on military headquarters in Rawalpindi. Pakistan’s vulnerability became even clearer when a wave of attacks hit the heavily fortified capital.

Meanwhile the US drone attacks in the FATA region continue. Of 701 citizens killed in 60 strikes between January 29 , 2008 and April 8, 2009, only 14 were suspected militants according to one investigation; the brunt is borne by civilians. Public opinion is incensed: according to an August 2009 Gallup poll, 59 per cent of Pakistanis see the US as the biggest threat, compared with 18 per cent for traditional rival India. Only 11 per cent see the Taliban as the biggest threat (although that number is growing). While the poll also revealed 41 per cent support for the military operation in Swat, a higher number (43 per cent) favored a political resolution. The insecurities of the Pakistani defense establishment are worsened by US assistance to India, including the transfer of advanced military and nuclear technology.

With the inducement of aid dollars, Pakistan with its poorly equipped army is trying to achieve what the US and Nato have failed to accomplish in Afghanistan. But the longer the military operations continue the more regions are likely to slip from under its control as the numbers of the aggrieved multiply, the military stretches thin and vulnerabilities increase. Already the insurgency has spread to parts of Punjab. Yet a form of military metaphysics prevails among the Pakistani elite and western commentators, who continue to hope that militancy can be bombed out of existence. Anti-war voices are denounced as Taliban sympathisers.

The recent entry of 28,000 Pakistani troops into South Waziristan has precipitated yet another mass exodus; a third of the population has been displaced. Though the Pakistani Taliban have few supporters left, Associated Press (AP) found refugees venting their anger at the government with chants of “Long live the Taliban”. Instead of winning hearts and minds, the government is delivering them to the enemy. If the Pakistani Taliban are disliked, the government is disliked more. Despite the best efforts of the elite to take ownership of the war, the notion persists that Pakistan is fighting an American war, a view that will be harder to dispute following reports that the attack on Waziristan is being assisted by US drone surveillance.

According to the journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, the military has again taken a gamble marching into South Waziristan “as it is highly unlikely to eliminate the militant threat. Indeed, the past seven or so years have shown that after any operation against militants, the militants have always gained from the situation”. Already the Taliban are regrouping in Swat, and “it is likely that by the time the snow chokes major supply routes, the Taliban will have seized all lost ground” . Yet the media and western commentators remain sanguine.

The day the rockets hit Hayatabad the featured article on Foreign Policy magazine’s AfPak Channel was headlined “Everything’s coming up roses in Pakistan”. The attack was attributed to Mangal Bagh Afridi, leader of the banned Lashkar-e-Islam and a former ally of the government who not long ago was credited with driving out fugitives and petty criminals and providing protection to Nato convoys. Alliances remain transient, yet another reason to refrain from arming militias to fight proxy wars. The morning after the rockets I walked to the local market to buy tandoori bread. Once sold for Rs 2, it now sells for Rs 15. Wages have stagnated and inflation and unemployment are high. On the street there was no talk of the threat to lives. Everyone complained about the impossible cost of living.

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad is the co-founder of Pulsemedia.org

This article appears in the current edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, whose English language edition can be found at mondediplo.com. This full text appears by agreement with Le Monde Diplomatique. CounterPunch features one or two articles from LMD every month.

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Ten killed in suicide attack in Peshawar

Monday, 07 Dec, 2009   
 http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/metropolitan/03-explosion-in-peshawar-ss-03



 A Pakistani man removes a gas cylinder from a burning rickshaw after a suicide bombing in Peshawar, Pakistan on Monday, Dec. 7, 2009. – AP Metropolitan

 PESHAWAR: A suicide bomber struck outside a court in Pakistan's Peshawar on Monday, killing 10 people and wounding 49 others in the latest blast in a city beset by Taliban violence, officials said.
Peshawar, capital of the troubled northwest, had seen the brunt of Taliban attacks avenging military offensives against them across the region, with more than 270 people killed in the city since early October.

Bashir Bilor, a senior minister in the northwest provincial government, told reporters that a man carrying explosives drove up to a district sessions court in the centre of the city in a rickshaw.

'He got down and tried to enter the building but could not do so because of our security arrangements,' he said.

'The injured included three policemen and two lawyers.'

He told AFP that the severed head of the bomber has been found about 70 metres (230 feet) away from the blast site.

Zafar Iqbal, a senior doctor at Peshawar's main Lady Reading hospital, confirmed that they had five bodies delivered to the hospital, and added that at least 49 people were wounded in the blast, some seriously.

Local television channels showed images of blackened sandals lying in pools of water on a charred road. Smoke filled the streets as ambulances rushed to the scene and fire engines trained their hoses on smouldering cars.

An AFP reporter at the scene said that at least eight vehicles were completely destroyed by the blast, while the site was covered in smashed glass and the blood of the dead and wounded.

Senior bomb disposal official Tanveer Iqbal said that about six to seven kilograms of explosives were used in the suicide attack.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani swiftly condemned the blast, deploring 'the loss of innocent lives,' a statement from his office said.

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Eight injured in bomb blast in Quetta

Monday, 07 Dec, 2009
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/metropolitan/03-eight-injured-in-bomb-blast-in-quetta-ss-04 

   
Security officials stand armed in Quetta. – (File Photo) Pakistan


 QUETTA: At least eight people were injured on Monday when a blast took place outside the Junior Officers Residence in Chaman Housing Scheme area of Quetta.
         
Police said that the blast was so powerful that the windowpanes of nearby buildings were shattered. Reports stated that the bomb was planted on a motorcycle.

 

According to the police, all of the injured were civilians and had been shifted to civil hospital Quetta for medical treatment.

 

The blast occurred at the gate of JOR Colony, damaging two vehicles parked nearby. JOR colony is located near UNHCR offices and other international donor agency offices.

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Monday, December 07, 2009
14:40 Mecca time, 11:40 GMT 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/12/200912761827882505.html
 
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Pakistan court studies amnesty deal  

 
The amnesty deal has protected President Zardari from corruption charges [EPA] 
 
Pakistan's Supreme Court has begun a hearing on an amnesty deal that has shielded the country's president and many other senior officials from corruption charges.

A 17-member panel stated hearing the petitions against the amnesty on Monday, Azhar Hussain, a court official, said, without giving further details.

The process could pave the way for challenges to the rule of Asif Ali Zardari, the president.

The amnesty deal, known as the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), was announced two years ago by Pervez Musharraf, then the country's president.

The deal allowed Zardari and Benazir Bhutto, his wife and a former prime minister, to return from self-exile without facing corruption charges.

But the NRO has been branded unconstitutional and the debate over its legitimacy has received a great deal of coverage in Pakistani media.

President protected

The amnesty covers more than 8,000 officials and civil rights activists argue that it was unjust to help so many politicians escape prosecution for alleged wrongdoing.

As president, Zardari, who has denied a slew of corruption claims against him, enjoys general immunity from prosecution, but the Supreme Court could choose to challenge his eligibility for the post if the amnesty is declared illegal.

Legal and political analysts are divided on whether this is likely, and most expect the process to take several months to run its course.

The debate comes as Pakistan's army battles Taliban fighters in its tribal regions and the potential crisis is a cause for concern in the US, which wants Pakistan to remain focused on its anti-Taliban campaign.

The Pakistani military said on Monday that its troops had killed four suspected fighters in a search operation in the northwestern Swat valley.

The army launched a successful offensive there in April and his since launched an offensive against fighters in the tribal regions along the country's border with Afghanistan.
 
 Source: Agencies 
 
 
 
 
 

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Monday, December 07, 2009
21:16 Mecca time, 18:16 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/12/200912716236759812.html
   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Twin blasts hit Pakistan market 

 
The blasts happened at Moon Market in Lahore's Iqbal Town locality


 
At least 24 people have been killed and 75 wounded in twin explosions at a busy marketplace in the northeast Pakistani city of Lahore.

The blasts took place on Monday at the Moon Market in Lahore's Iqbal Town locality, a senior police official said.

Witnesses said ambulances and rescue teams had reached the blast site, and the injured were being shifted to a nearby hospital.

"[They were] bomb attacks, near simultaneous, but it is not clear if it was a planted bomb or detonated in a vehicle. At least seven people were killed," Mohammad Khalid, a senior Lahore police official, said.

One of the blasts hit the outside of bank and one was in front of a police area, another police official said.

In depth :

-  Video: Security crisis in Pakistan
-  Video: Pakistan army HQ attacked
-  Profile: Pakistan Taliban
-  Witness: Pakistan in crisis
-  Riz Khan: The battle for the soul of Pakistan
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/12/200912716236759812.html
 
Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, said: "This marketplace would have been packed. It's a place where families go to socialise. This underscores, yet again, how fragile and dangerous the situation in Pakistan is.

"Reports say there have been two separate blasts, but the pictures that we're seeing on local television here show mass fires breaking out ... it is likely the death toll will rise."

Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent also in Islamabad, said: "Immediately after the explosion, the entire area was plunged into darkness and rescue teams went in as fires burned throughout the shops.

The attack in Lahore was the third in the country on Monday, with one earlier in Peshawar, and a smaller one in Quetta.

Earlier attacks

At least seven people were killed in a suicide bomb attack outside a court in the northwestern city of Peshawar earlier during the day.

The bomber blew himself up at the gate to the court building after police stopped him, officials said.

Three of those killed were policemen. Dozens of other people were injured.

Peshawar, near the Afghan border, has been targeted repeatedly since Pakistan sent its troops to fight the Taliban in the tribal region of South Waziristan.

Also on Monday, eight people, including a child, were injured in a bomb attack in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, police said.

The bomb, hidden in a motorcycle parked outside the gate of a government residential complex, was allegedly detonated by remote control, police said.

The Pakistani military said on Monday that its troops had killed four suspected fighters in a search operation in the northwestern Swat valley.

The army launched a successful offensive there in April and his since launched an offensive against fighters in the tribal regions along the country's border with Afghanistan.
 
 Source: Al Jazeera and agencies 
 
 
 
 
 

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Bomb Near Pakistan Intel Office Kills at Least 12

Tuesday, December 08, 2009 
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,579690,00.html


MULTAN, Pakistan —  A bomb exploded near an intelligence office in central Pakistan on Tuesday, authorities said, damaging the building and killing at least 12 people amid a surge of extremist violence that has prompted the U.S. to offer additional aid in the country's battle against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The bombing in Multan signaled a relentless determination on the part of the militants, who — despite being pressured by a major army offensive in one of their Afghan border havens — have sustained a retaliatory campaign since October that has killed more than 400 people. On Monday, bombings elsewhere in the country killed 59 people.

TV footage from Multan showed several severely damaged buildings in the neighborhood, some with their facades ripped off. Ambulances wailed as security forces flooded the zone, where a Federal Investigation Agency office was also located.

The apparent target of the blast was a building housing an office of Pakistan's most powerful spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence. Authorities still had not determined how the attack was carried out.

Rizwan Naseer, the official in charge of the area's government-run emergency service, told a Pakistani news channel that the attack killed 12 people and wounded 30 people. It was not immediately clear how many were intelligence agents.

The attack came as U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Washington was ready to work more closely with Pakistan as soon as Islamabad expressed willingness.

"The more they get attacked internally ... the more open they may be" to help from the United States," Gates said during a trip to Afghanistan. "But we are prepared to expand that relationship at any pace they are prepared to accept."

Early Tuesday, suspected U.S. missiles struck a car carrying three people in the Taliban-riddled North Waziristan tribal region, two intelligence officials said. The region neighbors South Waziristan, the focus of the latest Pakistani army offensive, and is believed to be where many of the Taliban have fled to avoid the military onslaught. The identities of the three were not immediately clear.

All the intelligence officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Most of the militant attacks in recent weeks have been directed at security forces, though several have targeted crowded public spaces such as markets, apparently to create public anger and increase pressure on the government to call a halt to the South Waziristan offensive.

The Taliban generally claim responsibility for attacks on security officers, but not those that kill civilians, though they — or affiliated extremist groups — are suspected in all the strikes.

Late Monday, twin blasts and a resulting fire ripped through the Moon Market, a center in the eastern city of Lahore that is popular with women and sells clothing, shoes and cosmetics. Lahore police chief Pervaiz Lathore said Tuesday that the death toll in the blasts had reached 49, with more than 100 people wounded.

Authorities initially said both bombs at the market were believed to be remote-controlled, but they later said a suicide bomber was suspected to have detonated at least one of them.

Earlier Monday, a suicide bomber killed 10 people outside a courthouse in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Lahore is Pakistan's second-largest city. It has been hit several times by militants over the past year, including an attack on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team and several strikes against security installations.

By attacking Lahore and Multan, militants are bringing their war to the heart of Pakistan. Both are cities in Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province, and one far from the northwest regions where Al Qaeda and the Taliban have more easily proliferated.

Peshawar has been a more frequent target. The northwestern city lies on the main road into the lawless tribal belt. Of all the attacks since the start of October, the deadliest occurred in Peshawar, where at least 112 people were killed in a bombing at another market.

The rise in militant attacks comes amid growing political turbulence, especially regarding the future of President Asif Ali Zardari, a pro-U.S. leader hugely unpopular here.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court continued examining the legality of an amnesty protecting him and 8,000 other officials from graft prosecution. The amnesty expired last month, and judges must rule on whether to reopen corruption cases against them.

Although Zardari has immunity from prosecution as president, some experts say the court could now take up cases challenging his eligibility to run for office.

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South Asia
Dec 9, 2009 
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KL09Df01.html 
 
Battered Pakistan turns to clerics


By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - While the United States-led war is moving into a new phase with the insertion of an additional 30,000 US troops into Afghanistan for a push against the Taliban to force them to surrender and start talks, Pakistan faces one of the most serious crises in its history.

Military operations in the South Waziristan tribal area against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and al-Qaeda have succeeded in overrunning the militants' sanctuaries, but the lack of a political process has failed to isolate them. Instead, the militants have regrouped in dozens of pockets and are prepared to wage war across the country.

After a devastating attack on a mosque attended by military personnel on December 4 in Rawalpindi, in which several top officials were killed, the TTP carried out a twin-bomb attack on Monday night, in Lahore. This is the capital of Punjab province and is located in the country's cultural heartland. At least 49 people were killed and another 180 injured in the assault in the commercial center.

And on Tuesday, at least 12 people, including soldiers, are believed to have been killed when militants carried out a bomb attack in the southern Punjab city of Multan. Multan is the headquarters of the army's Second Corps and the largest city of southern Punjab.

Although there have been several similar attacks in North-West Frontier Province, the Lahore and Multan attacks are significant as they show that the militants are bringing the war into large urban centers, aiming to put maximum pressure on Pakistan. More than 400 people have been killed in recent weeks.

The dead in the Rawalpindi attack included a director general of the armored corps, Major General Bilal Omar, a brigadier, several colonels and a major. Among 17 young officers killed was the only son of the corps commander of Peshawar, Lieutenant General Masood Aslam, who is commanding operations in South Waziristan.

On American pressure, the Pakistan army about two months ago mounted an all-out war in South Waziristan, but the militants outmaneuvered the attackers. (See Militants change tack in Pakistan Asia Times Online, November 18, 2009.) The militants adopted a pattern of not confronting the regular army; rather, they dodged it and opened new fronts far from the point of the army's concentration.

Many militants have regrouped in Shawal, North Waziristan, in the town of Mir Ali, or in southwestern Balochistan province, from where they are hitting back at the security forces as well attacking the civilian population.

The situation leaves Pakistan with the only realistic option of a mixed military and political initiative.

The Saudi Arabia model

Following the killings in Rawalpindi of top retired and serving military officials and their children during Friday prayers, Pakistan has scrambled to redefine its anti-terror approach.

This has included input from the Muslim religious elite and reflects a major shift in national policy, which until now has been obsessed with destroying militants who use Pakistan as their base for international terrorism, while distancing itself from the concept of Washington's AfPak policy, which views Pakistan and Afghanistan as a single war theater.

On Sunday, Interior Minister Rehman Malik met one of the most influential clerics in the country, the Grand Mufti, Mufti Rafi Usmani, in the southern port city of Karachi. He comes from the largest seminary belonging to the Deobandi school of thought, which is also practiced by the Taliban.

Other key people involved include Qazi Hussain Ahmed, an influential figure in international Islamic movements who had close ties during the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan the 1980s to people who are now al-Qaeda leaders.

Also prominent is Maulana Fazlur Rahman, the chief of the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, a coalition partner in the federal cabinet and the largest political party of Muslim clerics. The party had close ties with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan during the late 1990s.

An anti-terror policy being considered is the one adopted by Saudi Arabia when an al-Qaeda-led insurgency was at its height after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Saudi scholars were urged to spread the word that if Muslims in Iraq carried out a resistance struggle in their own country, it was their right to do so. But if anyone tried to destabilize Saudi Arabia, under any pretext, it would be considered as treason and dealt with with iron hands. Also, along with military and law-enforcement measures, the kingdom adopted a tactic of "counter-radicalization", using religious figures to directly spread the word that al-Qaeda was an apostate group.

General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani, the chief of army staff, speaking to people injured in the Rawalpindi mosque attack, said:

Pakistan is our motherland. It is the bastion of Islam. We live and die for the glory of Islam and Pakistan. Our faith, resolve and pride in our religion and in our country is an asset, which is further reinforced after each terrorist incident.

This was the second time in a few days that Kiani had categorically emphasized the Islamic identity of the country. This is contrary to the belief of the former chief of army staff, former president General Pervez Musharraf, whose "enlightened moderation" tried to separate religion from the affairs of the state. This was reflected in Musharraf's anti-terror policy.

Mosque under fire

The TTP was quick to accept responsibility for the brazen attack on the mosque in Rawalpindi, the garrison town that is twinned with the capital, Islamabad.

Mufti Waliur Rahman Mehsud, the chief of the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan, told the British Broadcasting Corporation that officers in the mosque were "primary targets". The civilians killed were relatives of army personnel and their deaths "did not matter", he said, adding that the Taliban would continue to target the army.
He justified the attack by terming the mosque "Masjid-e-Zarrar". This was a mosque in Medina that the Prophet Mohammed ordered demolished as it had become the center of the Munafeqeen - Muslims who accepted Islam superficially but who were hand-in-glove with heretics.

"After having listened to their argument, I must say that their interpretation of Islam and their vision are dangerous, not only for Islam and Muslims but for their own cause, which they project as a Muslim resistance against foreign invasion," Mazahir Muhammad, a professor of Islamic history, told Asia Times Online.

"Even in the demolition of Masjid-e-Zarrar, the Prophet Mohammed never instructed any massacre. He simply ordered the demolition of the building, which had become a center of intrigues against Muslims. In Rawalpindi, those who were killed were only there for prayers, not for any intrigues.

"In the whole struggle of the Prophet Mohammed, he kept to wars in the battlefield, he never brought wars to the homes and families of the enemy. Islam clearly instructs to keep non-combatants away from a fight, even for pious and religious people belonging to other faiths.

"Even if they say that they are avenging the killing of their family members in South Waziristan and Swat, I would say two wrongs do not make a right. Muslim values cannot be altered by any reasoning. The Rawalpindi incident cannot be the way of any Muslim resistance," Mazahir Muhammad said.

The outlook for the situation in Pakistan, however, is only getting worse.

The Pakistan understanding is that the US wants its surge in Afghanistan to quickly dismantle the power base of the Taliban, eliminate al-Qaeda - even if it means cross-border operations into Pakistan - and then negotiate with the Taliban for political reconciliation and the US's withdrawal.

In this scenario, the war theater will spread to Pakistan and the country could face a similar fate to that of Afghanistan, which has been ravaged by war for the past several decades due to armed insurgencies and the absence of political solutions.

Pakistan's armed forces have taken control of all towns in South Waziristan, as the militants have dispersed. The next move is to tap into the local riwaj (traditions and customs), which involves tribesman guaranteeing peace in their area and assuring their territory will not be used for cross-border terrorism. The withdrawal of the armed forces and handing over control to the local Frontier Corps would be the next step.

As the attacks over the past few days show, however, terror groups are prepared to operate across the country, and they are defiant of all traditional norms, believing in their own convictions.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

 
 
 

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47 Killed in Latest Pakistan Bombings

Bombs Set Garment Shops Ablaze


by Jason Ditz, December 07, 2009
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/12/07/at-least-30-killed-in-lahore-market-bombing/

                                   

At least 37 people were killed today and 100 others wounded when a pair of remote controlled bombs were detonated in a crowded garment market in the Pakistani city of Lahore.

Women and children were reportedly among the casualties in the attacks, which set the market ablaze. No specific target was clear from the strikes, which hit in front of a private bank and in the center of the market, near a police station.

So far no specific militant group has claimed credit for the attack but the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the usual suspects in such a strike, have only rarely hit Lahore over the past several years.

The attack was the second bombing attack of the day. A separate incident saw a suicide bomber kill at least 10 people in front of a Peshawar courthouse.

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US Drone Strike Kills at Least Three in Pakistan

Missiles Launched at North Waziristan Car, Three Slain

by Jason Ditz, December 07, 2009
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/12/07/us-drone-strike-kills-at-least-three-in-pakistan/

                                         

A US drone launched a pair of missiles at a car in Aspalga Village, North Waziristan overnight, killing three suspected militants and injuring three other apparent bystanders in the tiny village outside of Miranshah.

The attack was the first US drone strike since President Obama’s Afghan escalation speech, at which time he is also said to have quietly approved an escalation of US strikes against Pakistani territory.

It is just the latest of several dozen air strikes against Pakistan’s tribal areas in recent years. President Obama has dramatically increased the rate and severity of the attacks since taking office.

The latest reports have the US looking to expand its drone strikes outside of the tribal areas and into Balochistan and the rest of Pakistan. The Pakistani government has rejected the notion of expanding the strikes.

Visit page for links !

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Shia leader gunned down

Staff Report
Tuesday December 8

http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C12%5C08%5Cstory_8-12-2009_pg7_36

KARACHI: The central leader of Pasban-e-Aza, a Shia organisation, Syed Shahid Hussain, was gunned down by unidentified assailants, in the remit of the Brigade police station on Monday.

Police quoting eyewitnesses said three unidentified suspects barged into Hussain’s apartment in the Assistant Commissioner Apartments, and opened fire on him using 9mm pistols. He was being shifted to the Civil Hospital Karachi but he died before reaching there. The victim was married and was a property dealer by profession. Pasban-e-Aza’s leader Askari Raza said the deceased had no enemies, but was affiliated with the Pakistan People’s Party as well as the Pasban-e-Aza.

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Admiral Mullen: No Discussion of Putting Troops in Pakistan

Insists Pakistan's Future Will Be Decided in Afghanistan

by Jason Ditz, December 08, 2009
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/12/08/admiral-mullen-no-discussion-of-putting-troops-in-pakistan/

                                             


Hoping to quash persistent reports that the United States is mulling a ground invasion of northern Pakistan, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen insists no discussion at all has happened about putting US ground forces in Pakistan, and that the only troops allowed in Pakistani territory are the ones training Pakistan’s military.

Instead, Admiral Mullen sees the US war in Afghanistan as a means for stabilizing Pakistan, which will probably come as a surprise to Pakistanis which have seen their nation grow less and less stable as the war drags on.

“I also believe that Pakistan’s future will in great part be driven by what kind of country Afghanistan is, stable or unstable,” Mullen said. And while Pakistan would doubtless benefit from a stable Afghanistan, it is clearly paying a heavy price for American intervention in the nation.

Since 2001 the largely forgotten hinterlands of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas have filled with Afghan refugees and insurgents, and American pressure has forced Pakistan to launch a series of costly invasions against the regions, which have led to deadly attacks in Pakistan’s major cities.

Pakistani officials have also expressed concern that the US escalation in Afghanistan will drive yet more militants across the border, and that it will destabilize Balochistan, its largest province and home to a growing separatist movement.

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Pakistan: Detained Americans Admit Jihad Plan

Thursday, December 10, 2009 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,579888,00.html

ISLAMABAD —  Five Americans arrested at a house linked to a militant group in eastern Pakistan have told investigators they came to the country to take part in "jihad" or holy war, police said Thursday.

U.S. officials believe the five are men who were reported missing more than a week ago by their families in the Washington, D.C., area. The families asked the FBI for help after finding a farewell video left by the men showing scenes of war and casualties and saying Muslims must be defended.

The men, ages 19 to 25, were picked up Wednesday at a house in the city of Sargodha that has been linked to the banned militant organization Jaish-e-Mohammed, officers said. Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistan-based group, is alleged to have ties to Al Qaeda.

Police chief Javed Islam said authorities had shared findings of their probe with FBI officials who had arrived in Sargodha. The U.S. Embassy, however, would not confirm if the FBI had sent representatives to the area.

"These young Americans are in our custody," the police chief said. "They are telling us that they came to Pakistan for jihad."

Islam said investigators were trying to determine if the men had established contacts with any militants.

Pakistan is home to a slew of militant groups waging a violent struggle against the government, mostly in the northwest, and is also seen as a global hub for Al Qaeda. Some Western nations are worried that citizens — especially of Pakistani origin — are traveling to the country to connect with Al Qaeda or take part in training or indoctrination sessions.

Three of the arrested Americans are of Pakistani descent, one is of Egyptian descent and the other has Yemeni origins, police officer Tahir Gujjar said.

Two other police officials said Thursday the men were cooperating with investigators after first giving conflicting statements. Investigators seized a laptop computer along with extremist literature from the house.

The house was believed to have been used by Jaish-e-Mohammed, the officers said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Members of the network have been accused in the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002, and in a bombing in the city of Karachi the same year that killed 11 French engineers.

A senior government official who also spoke on condition of anonymity said authorities detained some Pakistanis alleged to have helped the Americans.

Islam said the arrested Americans had spent the past few days in Sargodha, 125 miles south of the capital, Islamabad.

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December 10th, 2009

Pakistan arrests 5 men reported missing in United States

STORY HIGHLIGHTS :

-NEW: One source identified the missing Howard student as Ramy Zamzam

-One of 5 left video mentioning "the ongoing conflict in the world," viewer says

-Five are from Virginia and their families had contacted the FBI soon after they went missing

-State Department does not have confirmation that individuals are Americans

WATCH VIDEO :

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/12/09/pakistan.arrests/index.html


Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Five people arrested in Pakistan had been reported missing in the United States, and police are confident they were planning terrorist acts, a Pakistani police official told CNN.

It is too soon to link the men with any terrorist organizations, said Tahir Gujjrar, deputy superintendent of police in Sargodha, Pakistan, but preliminary investigations suggest they had sought to link up with the Jaish-e-Mohammed and Jamaat ud Dawa militant organizations. Neither group showed interest, however, Gujjrar said.

The five were from Virginia and their families had contacted the FBI soon after they went missing, he said. They include two Pakistani-Americans, two Yemeni-Americans and an Egyptian-American.

The arrests came after a raid on a home in Sargodha, about 120 miles south of Islamabad, Gujjrar said.

No U.S. officials have confirmed Gujjrar's information, and there was no evidence charges had been filed. The FBI had said earlier that it was trying to determine whether a link existed between the five missing men and the arrests in Pakistan.

A U.S. law enforcement official not authorized to speak for attribution said the five missing men were all American citizens. Asked if they are the same men arrested in Pakistan, the official said, "We think it is, but we don't have it firm ... The truthful answer is, we don't know."

The State Department said it does not have confirmation of the arrested individuals' identities or whether they are Americans. The U.S. embassy in Islamabad is seeking further information.

If the individuals are Americans, the United States will be seeking consular access, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said.

"If they are American citizens, we are going to be very interested in the charges they have been detained on and the circumstances in which they are being held," he said. "That is something we would do anywhere and that is why the embassy is seeking further information."

Under the Geneva Conventions, Pakistan is required to notify the United States about any Americans arrested, Kelly said.

The U.S. law enforcement official said none of the five missing men had shown up on law enforcement's radar before they were reported missing. "These guys never surfaced with us before."

Authorities believe their intent was to wage jihad overseas rather than with terrorist acts in the United States, the official said, but "there is still a lot of uncertainty about what they were up to."

A Pakistani official said the men arrived in Karachi on November 30 and went on to Lahore and then Sargodha, where they were arrested Wednesday, the official said. The arrests came at the behest of local police. Preliminary investigations are ongoing, the official said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a statement Wednesday it was assisting in the investigation of "five Muslim young men from Virginia who left the country recently under mysterious circumstances."

The parents of the missing youths and local Muslim leaders approached the council about the disappearances and the organization "immediately informed the FBI," the council said.

Council spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said one of the missing youths was a student at Howard University, and all five knew each other.

One of the youths left a video behind, Nihad Awad, the council's executive director, told reporters. "I was disturbed by the content of it," he said.

One person appeared in it, and made references to "the ongoing conflict in the world, and that young Muslims have to do something," Awad said. He said the video "juxtaposed certain verses of the Quran," and he suggested there was a misunderstanding of those verses and their potential misuse.

The video is about 11 minutes long, he said, and is "like a farewell." Awad said it did not specify what the youths would be doing, but he has seen similar videos on the Internet, and "it just made me uncomfortable."

One source identified the missing Howard student as Ramy Zamzam, who was studying dentistry at the Washington college. No further details were immediately available, and it was not immediately known whether he was among those arrested in Pakistan.

The council and the Muslim community realize there is a problem, although it is not widespread, Awad said, and is "going to launch a major campaign of education to refute the misuse of verses in the Quran, or the misuse of certain grievances in the Muslim world. We believe that we can do a lot to reinstate confidence in young American Muslims, that they have to be fully engaged, as the majority of them are engaged in civic life and in the political process."

He and other Muslim officials cautioned against a rush to judgment against the youths, and praised their families and members of the Muslim community for approaching law enforcement and assisting in the investigation.

At the end of November, he said, the youths told their parents they were attending a local conference, but their parents became suspicious when calling their cell phones because they got what sounded like an overseas ring tone. The families then went to the council.

"The main concern was to get them back and figure out what was going on and protect any national security and everybody's rights," Hooper said. He said he understood the five left the country in a couple of groups at the end of November.

Along with the families and Muslim community leaders, the council said it was working to assist investigators.

Imam Johari Abdul-Malik of the Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations in the Washington area, said that while the five were active in their mosques, "From all of our interviews, there's been no sign that they were in any way outwardly radicalized ... there haven't been any reports that there was anything outwardly suspicious in their behavior."

The FBI is aware of the arrests, and is also investigating a report of five people reported missing from the Washington area, said Katherine Schweit, spokeswoman for the agency's Washington field office.

"We are working with Pakistan authorities to determine their identities and the nature of their business there" -- if the people arrested are the people who are missing, she said. She declined to elaborate, citing an ongoing investigation.

U.S. authorities have been wary of Islamic militants recruiting young Muslims from the United States to fight overseas.

Prosecutors in Minnesota recently arrested eight Somali-American men on charges related to what they said were efforts to recruit youths from the Minneapolis area to fight for al-Shabaab, a Somali guerrilla movement battling the African country's U.N.-backed transitional government. At least two young men from Minnesota have been killed in Somalia, including one who blew himself up in what is believed to have been the first suicide bombing carried out by a naturalized U.S. citizen.

The matter has "always been a concern," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday. "We have been well aware of the threats that we continue to face along with friends and allies around the world ... we know that we have to work more closely with both Afghanistan and Pakistan to try to root out the infrastructure of terrorism that continues to recruit and train people."

CNN's Jeanne Meserve and Elise Labott contributed to this report.
   
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/12/09/pakistan.arrests/index.html 

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Allegory about Afghan Shura and Al-Qaeda in Pakistan

AMERICA LOOKING FOR EXCUSES TO ATTACK PAKISTAN


BY Brig Asif Haroon Raja

http://www.uruknet.de/index.php?p=m60910&hd=&size=1&l=e

December 9, 2009

Like the myth of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda headquartered in FATA which I discussed in my previous write up, another absurd claim has been made that Mullah Omar along with his Shura is based in Quetta. This story woven by spin doctors has caught the imagination of policy makers in Washington and they are playing it impishly. Pakistani leaders already harassed by never ending allegations are at a loss how to respond to the latest assault since denials make no impression on the accusers.

After repeating the story several times, US officials laid bare their actual motive by mentioning their flaming desire to employ the horrible drones in Baluchistan including its capital as well. Let us carryout a dispassionate appraisal of this claim. It is now a well known reality that Afghan Taliban hold control of nearly 80% Afghan Territory and wield complete sway in southern, eastern and to some extent western Afghanistan. These regions provide them a secured base to operate into western, central and northern Afghanistan and return back. Had their hold over southern and eastern Afghanistan been weak, it was logical to assume that they might have made FATA or Pashtun belt of Baluchistan adjacent to Helmand Province as their bases of operation.

Now that over 30000 troops of Pakistan Army have taken full control of South Waziristan and division plus force is in North Waziristan, part of which is in Makeen area, any possibility of Afghan Taliban operating from these regions is ruled out. Same is applicable to Al-Qaeda. The only possible space which still requires further scanning is the countryside west of Ladha and Makeen towards Afghanistan border. Using boots on ground strategy, our troops are gradually clearing these areas as well.
Within Afghanistan, morale of US-NATO forces has sunk low and bunker mentality has crept in. Karzai regime has no control over state affairs and his credibility after August fraudulent electionAfghan Shura has eroded further. He is seen as an American stooge at the mercy of non-Pashtun Northern Alliance. Afghan National Army and Police are in bad shape and operationally unfit to confront Taliban challenge. Afghan Pashtuns which are the predominant ethnic entity hate Americans because of their discriminatory attitude against them and are supportive of Taliban. Gulbadin Hikmatyar led Hizb-e-Islami and Jalaluddin Haqqani are also anti-American and anti-Karzai.

Given the favourable operational environment in Afghanistan for the Taliban, it will be utterly foolish on part of Mullah Omar and his Shura to abandon the fully secured bases in Afghanistan and opt for insecure base in Quetta where CIA, FBI, US marines, Blackwater, MI-6, RAW, BLA, BRA, BLF command strong influence. Target killings by BLA in Quetta have become a norm. Jacobabad and Pasni air bases are still under the operational control of US troops as revealed by Lt Gen ® Shahid Aziz and confirmed by Defence Minister. Shamsi base near Kharan had been in use for launching drones. Quetta being the capital city is too open and conspicuous for Mullah Omar to hide particularly when heavy head money for him has been announced and success or failure of Taliban resistance movement depends upon his survivability. Pashtun areas in Baluchistan have not only kept themselves dissociated from RAW backed Baluch insurgency, now turned into separatist movement, but also kept both Afghan and Pakistani Taliban at bay. Under such insalubrious environments, it is preposterous for the US to keep insisting that Afghan Shura is in Quetta. Latest fabrication is that Afghan Taliban Shura has shifted to Karachi under the supervision of ISI where Omar has established a Madrassah.

If for discussion sake we accept the wacky claims of presence of Afghan Shura in Quetta and that of Osama led Al-Qaeda in FATA theoretically; it implies that as far as US is concerned battle for Afghanistan is almost over. The news should have logically transported Gen McChrystal and his team with joy that the entire Taliban leadership and Al-Qaeda have fled to Pakistan and it will now be much easier for them to get hold of few thousand rag tag Taliban fighters and not more than 100 Al-Qaeda fighters abandoned by their leaders or to win them over? The only precautionary measure required to be taken was to prevent re-entry of Afghan Shura and Al-Qaeda leadership by enhancing border check posts and surveillance means along the entire Afghan-Pakistan border as frequently requested by Pakistan. In addition, he needed to fence and mine the entire length of border as repeatedly proposed by Pakistan but refused by Karzai and USA for reasons best known to them. No such thing has happened since Chrystal is depressed because of Osama phobia. Within Pakistan, once US intelligence agencies acquired credible intelligence, should they not have carried out joint raids on suspected locations without wasting a minute? CIA, FBI and US diplomats should not have encountered any bottlenecks since they move about in Pakistan unchecked and enjoy full cooperation of all law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Was it wise on part of US leadership to broadcast the locations of Omar and Osama prematurely thereby giving them full chance to runaway?

Well knowing that Pakistan Army is deeply committed in fighting foreign agencies sponsored terrorists in various parts of NWFP and FATA and achieving fruitful results, the US instead of feeling mighty pleased and encouraging it to further stabilise these vital regions, it has once again begun to sing the nauseating mantra of 'do more’ and that too in new areas. Areas in Waziristan which are presently quiet and neutral are being provoked through drone attacks to make them restive. Orakzai Agency is being developed into another bastion. The US is pressing Pakistan to shift more troops from its eastern border and to start operations in Wazir inhabited South Waziristan and in North Waziristan where it alleges most runaways have fled. It is trying to create conditions wherein Pakistan Army is compelled to fight the combined force of Maulvi Nazir, Hakimullah Mehsud and Gul Bahadur. United front would ease up pressure on Hakimullah led TTP, which is in disarray. The US also want the Army and FC in Baluchistan to shift its focus from Baluch held areas where RAW-CIA-MI-6 backed separatist movement is raging and to concentrate towards peaceful Pashtun areas including Quetta where it suspects Afghan Shura is hiding. The US-NATO forces after their failed operation in Helmand are expected to launch another operation in that province once additional US troops arrive so as to force the militants to flee to neighbouring Pashtun belt of Baluchistan and make it volatile.

Having fully committed the army in fighting a futile US war on terror, RAW sponsored terrorists duly aided by Blackwater elements are playing havoc into major cities of Pakistan through almost daily bomb blasts and suicide attacks. Focus is on such targets which hurts the military the most. Attack on a mosque during Friday prayers in Rawalpindi on 27 November, frequented mostly by army senior officers and their sons, was most gruesome. ISI set ups have been repeatedly struck since it is frustrating the designs of enemies of Pakistan. Focus is now towards destabilisation of Punjab, after which emphasis will shift to Sindh to upturn main economic base of Pakistan. While CIA and FBI along with its shady outfits are fully involved in the destabilisation game, the US leaders are hypocritically singing tunes that Pakistan is a key ally and the US seeks its stability and prosperity. Our leaders having been provided with clinching evidence of involvement of RAW in terrorism have still not picked up courage to expose India and to forcefully ask USA to bridle its strategic ally.

Fact of the matter is that Omar, Osama and nuclear cards are being played with devious intentions. The real purpose behind it is to cast aspersion on Pakistan that Pakistan Army and the ISI are aligned with Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda and sheltering them. It implies that there is a nexus between Pakistan-Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda and Pakistan is fully supporting Taliban and Al-Qaeda in their war against US-NATO forces in Afghanistan. With leadership of the two deadly organisations based inside Pakistan, it becomes a fit case for USA to mount an offensive against Pakistan to root out safe sanctuaries and turn the corner. Cambodia model is on the cards. Indian forces have begun to mark time in concentration area. Desire for hot pursuit operations inside Pakistan and to extend the radius of action of drones has again been expressed.

The US civil and military leadership instead of wasting time in superfluous blame game and monkey tricks is better advised to concentrate on its work in Afghanistan and put things in order so that Pakistan could become peaceful. Pakistan Army having performed admirably, it is now the turn of Gen McChrystal led US-NATO forces to perform at its end by doing more and creating suitable conditions for safe and honourable exit from the quagmire of Afghanistan.

Brig Asif Haroon is a Member Board of Advisors, Opinion Maker He writer is a defence and security analyst based in Pakistan.




 

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Pakistan PM Says South Waziristan Offensive Is Over

Saturday, December 12, 2009 
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580076,00.html

 AP


Nov. 26: Soldiers of Pakistan�s army are seen outside a cave allegedly used by militants in Pakistan�s tribal area of Waziristan.


ISLAMABAD —  The Pakistani army has finished its offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan, but may soon pursue militants in another part of the lawless tribal belt along the Afghan border, the prime minister said Saturday.

Yousuf Raza Gilani's suggestion of an operation in Orakzai tribal region is another sign that Pakistan did not deal the death blow it had intended against the Taliban by taking them on in their main base.

It also illustrates the intractable nature of the extremist challenge facing this nuclear-armed nation: Even as troops flood one militant stronghold, the insurgents can regroup in another stretch of the rugged, barely governed tribal districts.

The conundrum comes amid U.S. pressure on Pakistan to crack down on militants on its territory, although to Washington's chagrin Islamabad has focused on the groups that threaten its citizens rather U.S. and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan.

"The operation in South Waziristan is over. Now there are talks about Orakzai," Gilani told reporters in televised remarks from the eastern city of Lahore. He did not give a timeframe or any other details.

Pakistan's army launched a ground offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan in mid-October, saying it was determined to terminate its No. 1 internal enemy from its most forbidding stronghold.

But the operation prompted a slew of retaliatory suicide and other bombings nationwide that have killed more than 500 people, attacks that have continued even as the military's battlefield activities have slowed down in South Waziristan.

Many of the Taliban fighters in South Waziristan are believed to have fled to North Waziristan and Orakzai. The latter has been the home base for Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.

In recent weeks, the military has launched several airstrikes against militant targets in Orakzai. Such airstrikes could be a prelude to a ground offensive, just as they were in South Waziristan.

Some 40,000 people are estimated to have fled Orakzai in the weeks since the South Waziristan offensive began, the U.N. said in a statement Friday.

Spokesmen for Pakistan's powerful military did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the prime minister's statement.

In the past, the military officials have been hesitant to put a time frame on how long troops will stay in South Waziristan even after major operations end. That region also has witnessed a civilian exodus.

Orakzai is a smaller tribal region, covering roughly 600 square miles. It is sandwiched between the Khyber and Kurram tribal region and does not directly border Afghanistan.

Although the U.S. has applauded Pakistan's pursuit of the Pakistani Taliban, American officials have also expressed hope that Islamabad will also pursue other militant groups who are more directly focused on attacking Western troops stationed in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has reached peace agreements with some of those groups — including a major one led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan — so that it can attack the Pakistani Taliban fighters without interference. It shows no sign of making any moves against militants whose top priority is battling the U.S. and NATO.

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Al Qaeda Denies Role in Deadly Pakistan Bombings

Saturday, December 12, 2009 
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580075,00.html

CAIRO —  Al Qaeda denied Saturday that it was behind a series of bombings in Pakistan that have killed hundreds of civilians, saying in a new English-language video that such attacks were un-Islamic.

U.S.-born Al Qaeda operative Adam Gadahn, who commonly delivers the organization's English messages, said the extremist network was being framed by the U.S. and Pakistani intelligence services for the bloodshed.

"The perpetration of such deplorable acts and the pinning of responsibility for them on the mujahideen, only serves the enemies of Islam and Muslims, who are today staring defeat in the face," he said, also blaming the media for implicating Al Qaeda in the attacks.

"The mercenaries of the ISI, RAW, CIA or Blackwater are the real culprits behind these senseless and un-Islamic bombings," he added.

RAW is the Indian intelligence agency, while Blackwater is the private security firm — now called Xe Services — whose involvement in the killings of Iraqi civilians have tarnished its reputation throughout the Muslim world.

More than 500 people have died in a slew of attacks in Pakistan that began in October, just as the Pakistani army started waging a ground offensive against the Taliban network in South Waziristan, a tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

A single truck bomb in the northwest city of Peshawar killed more than 100 people at a market that sells mostly women's clothes and children's toys. More recently, twin bombs at a similar market in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore killed nearly 50.

Militant groups such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban that operate in Pakistan tend most often to attack security targets. They generally avoid claiming responsibility for assaults that kill a large number of civilians.

In a transcript of the video released by the SITE Intelligence Group, a Washington-based monitor of militant Web sites, Gadahn told Pakistanis their real enemies were secular regimes, corrupt police, judges and tribal nationalists.

In Pakistan, where conspiracy theories are rife, support for militancy has only recently taken a downturn, and anti-Americanism is widespread, Gadahn's message may have some resonance.

After the market blast in Peshawar, many Pakistanis expressed disbelief that Islamist groups could have attacked other Muslims in such a manner. And in some corners of the Pakistani media, Blackwater has increasingly been floated as a culprit in nefarious events.

Gadahn grew up in Los Angeles and then moved to Pakistan in 1998, according to the FBI. He is said to have attended an Al Qaeda training camp six years later, serving as a translator and consultant for the group.

Al Qaeda's media arm, al-Sahab, is increasingly using English-language videos to address Muslims in Pakistan who are unlikely to speak Arabic. Gadahn's message specifically addressed Muslims in south Asia, including India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

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CIA admits Blackwater presence in Pakistan
 
 
13/12/2009 11:06:00 AM GMT   
 
http://aljazeera.com/news/articles/34/CIA-admits-Blackwater-presence-in-Pakistan.html

 
Despite repeated denials, the CIA has now confirmed that US security contractor Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, has been operating in Pakistan.

CIA spokesman George Little said that agency Director Leon Panetta has terminated a contract with Xe services that allowed the company's employees to load bombs on CIA drones at secret airfields in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Although the spokesman denied that Blackwater was currently involved in CIA operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan, his comments, contradicted past US assertions that the company does not operate in Pakistan.

Other than the US administration, the Pakistani government and Xe itself had denied that the company was operating in Pakistan.

Little did say, however, that the contractor still provides so-called security or support assistance to the US intelligence agency in the two countries. He did not elaborate further on exactly what that role involves.

While the New York Times published CIA's claim that Blackwater employees no longer have an operational role in the agency's covert programs in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Guardian posted a quite different article.

Citing comments from an unnamed former US official, the British daily reported that Blackwater was still operating in Pakistan at a secret CIA airfield used for launching drone attacks.

According to the official, who has direct knowledge of the operation, Xe employees patrol areas surrounding the Shamsi airbase in Pakistan's Baluchistan province.

Blackwater gained its notoriety mainly from its activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Iraqis have launched several cases against the company in US courts over violent attacks carried out by the company against unarmed people, including an unprovoked 2007 shooting spree in Baghdad that killed 17 civilians.

After the Baghdad incident Blackwater changed its name to Xe Services.

The company CEO Erik Prince also is facing allegations by a former US marine and a past employee that he organized the murder of witnesses that could have testified against his company during the hearings.

He has also been accused by the two witnesses, whose identities have not been disclosed by the courts for safety purposes, of having anti-Muslim sentiments, "encouraging and rewarding the destruction of Iraqi life", and arms smuggling.

CIA confirmation of Xe involvement in Pakistan comes a day after the New York Times reported that links between Blackwater and the CIA in Iraq and Afghanistan have been closer than has yet been disclosed.

A US Congressional committee is apparently investigating links between Blackwater and American intelligence services.

The paper said that Blackwater staff had participated in clandestine CIA raids.

Blackwater is a sensitive subject in Pakistan where its name is associated with drone strikes, bombings and violent activities that have left hundreds of civilians dead.

Before the US avowal, some Pakistani TV stations had already aired images of what seemed to be "Blackwater houses" in Islamabad. Several papers had also published reports accusing certain US officials and journalists of being Xe operatives.

Pakistan's interior minister, Rehman Malik, has even offered to resign if it is proven that Blackwater is present in Pakistan.

However, it remains to be seen whether he will keep that promise now that the CIA has confirmed that Blackwater is and was working in Pakistan.
Source: Press TV

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Obama Declares War On Pakistan


By Webster G. Tarpley, Rense.com

http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m61050&hd=&size=1&l=e

December 13, 2009

WASHINGTON, DC -- Obama's West Point speech of December 1 represents far more than the obvious brutal escalation in Afghanistan -- it is nothing less than a declaration of all-out war by the United States against Pakistan . This is a brand-new war, a much wider war now targeting Pakistan , a country of 160 million people armed with nuclear weapons. In the process, Afghanistan is scheduled to be broken up. This is no longer the Bush Cheney Afghan war we have known in the past. This is something immensely bigger: the attempt to destroy the Pakistani central government in Islamabad and to sink that country into a chaos of civil war, Balkanization, subdivision and general mayhem. The chosen strategy is to massively export the Afghan civil war into Pakistan and beyond, fracturing Pakistan along ethnic lines. It is an oblique war using fourth-generation or guerrilla warfare techniques to assail a country which the United States and its associates in aggression are far too weak to attack directly. In this war, the Taliban are employed as US proxies. This aggression against Pakistan is Obama's attempt to wage the Great Game against the hub of Central Asia and Eurasia or more generally.

US DETERRED FROM OPEN WAR BY PAKISTAN 'S NUKES

The ongoing civil war in Afghanistan is merely a pretext, a cover story designed to provide the United States with a springboard for a geopolitical destabilization campaign in the entire region which cannot be publicly avowed. In the blunt cynical world of imperialist aggression à la Bush and Cheney, a pretext might have been manufactured to attack Pakistan directly. But Pakistan is far too large and the United States is far too weak and too bankrupt for such an undertaking. In addition, Pakistan is a nuclear power, possessing atomic bombs and medium range missiles needed to deliver them. What we are seeing is a novel case of nuclear deterrence in action. The US cannot send an invasion fleet or set up airbases nearby because Pakistani nuclear weapons might destroy them. To this extent, the efforts of Ali Bhutto and A.Q. Khan to provide Pakistan a deterrent capability have been vindicated. But the US answer is to find ways to attack Pakistan below the nuclear threshold, and even below the conventional threshold. This is where the tactic of exporting the Afghan civil war to Pakistan comes in.

The architect of the new Pakistani civil war is US Special Forces General Stanley McChrystal, who organized the infamous network of US torture chambers in Iraq . McChrystal's specific credential for the Pakistani civil war is his role in unleashing the Iraqi civil war of Sunnis versus Shiites by creating "al Qaeda in Iraq " under the infamous and now departed double agent Zarkawi. If Iraqi society as a whole had lined up against the US invaders, the occupiers would have soon been driven out. The counter-gang known as "Al Qaeda in Iraq " avoided that possibility by killing Shiites, and thus calling forth massive retaliation in the form of a civil war. These tactics are drawn from the work of British General Frank Kitson, who wrote about them in his book Low Intensity Warfare. If the United States possesses a modern analog to Heinrich Himmler of the SS, it is surely General McChrystal, Obama's hand-picked choice. McChrystal's superior, Gen Petraeus, wants to be the new Field Marshal von Hindenburg ­ in other words, he wants to be the next US president.

The vulnerability of Pakistan which the US and its NATO associates are seeking to exploit can best be understood using a map of the prevalent ethnic groups of Afghanistan , Pakistan , Iran , and India . Most maps show only political borders which date back to the time of British imperialism, and therefore fail to reflect the principal ethnic groups of the region. For the purposes of this analysis, we must start by recognizing a number of groups. First is the Pashtun people, located mainly in Afghanistan and Pakistan . Then we have the Baluchis, located primarily in Pakistan and Iran . The Punjabis inhabit Pakistan , as do the Sindhis. The Bhutto family came from Sind .

PASHTUNISTAN

The US and NATO strategy begins with the Pashtuns, the ethnic group from which the so-called Taliban are largely drawn. The Pashtuns represent a substantial portion of the population of Afghanistan , but here they are alienated from the central government under President Karzai in Kabul , even though the US puppet Karzai passes for a Pashtun himself. The issue involves the Afghan National Army, which was created by the United States after the 2001 invasion. The Afghan officer corps are largely Tajiks drawn from the Northern Alliance that allied with the United States against the Pashtun Talibans. The Tajiks speak Dari, sometimes known as eastern Persian. Other Afghan officers come from the Hazara people. The important thing is that the Pashtuns feel shut out.

The US strategy can best be understood as a deliberate effort at persecuting, harassing, antagonizing, strafing, repressing, and murdering the Pashtuns. The additional 40,000 US and NATO forces which Obama demands for Afghanistan will concentrate in Helmand province and other areas where the Pashtuns are in the majority. The net effect will be to increase the rebellion of the fiercely independent Pashtuns against Kabul and the foreign occupation, and at the same time to push many of these newly radicalized mujaheddin fighters across the border into Pakistan , where they can wage war against the central government in Islamabad . US aid will flow directly to war lords and drug lords, increasing the centrifugal tendencies.

On the Pakistani side, the Pashtuns are also alienated from the central government. Islamabad and the army are seen by them as too much the creatures of the Punjabis, with some input from the Sindhis. On the Pakistani side of the Pashtun territory, US operations include wholesale assassinations from unmanned aerial vehicles or drones, murders by CIA and reportedly Blackwater snipers, plus blind terrorist massacres like the recent ones in Peshawar which the Pakistani Taliban are blaming on Blackwater, acting as a subcontractor of the CIA. These actions are intolerable and humiliating for a proud sovereign state. Every time the Pashtuns are clobbered, they blame the Punjabis in Islamabad for the dirty deals with the US that allow this to happen. The most immediate goal of Obama's Afghan-Pakistan escalation is therefore to promote a general secessionist uprising of the entire Pashtun people under Taliban auspices, which would already have the effect of destroying the national unity of both Kabul and Islamabad .

BALUCHISTAN

The other ethnic group which the Obama strategy seeks to goad into insurrection and secession is the Baluchis. The Baluchis have their own grievances against the Iranian central government in Tehran , which they see as being dominated by Persians. An integral part of the new Obama policy is to expand the deadly flights of the CIA Predators and other assassination drones into Baluchistan . One pretext for this is the report, peddled for example by Michael Ware of CNN, that Osama bin Laden and his MI-6 sidekick Zawahiri are both holed up in the Baluchi city of Quetta, where they operate as the kingpins of the so-called "Quetta Shura." Blackwater teams cannot be far behind. In Iranian Baluchistan, the CIA is funding the murderous Jundullah organization, which was recently denounced by Teheran for the murder of a number of top officials of the Iranian Pasdaran Revolutionary guards. The rebellion of Baluchistan would smash the national unity of both Pakistan and Iran , thus helping to destroy two of the leading targets of US policy.

OBAMA'S RUBE GOLDBERG STRATEGY

Even Chris Matthews of MSNBC, normally a devoted acolyte of Obama, pointed out that the US strategy as announced at West Point very much resembles a Rube Goldberg contraption. (In the real world, "al Qaeda" is of course the CIA's own Arab and terrorist legion.) In the world of official US myth, the enemy is supposed to be "Al Qaeda." But, even according to the US government, there are precious few "Al Qaeda" fighters left in Afghanistan . Why then, asked Matthews, concentrate US forces in Afghanistan where "Al Qaeda" is not, rather than in Pakistan where "Al Qaeda" is now alleged to be?

One elected official who has criticized this incongruous mismatch is Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, who said in a television interview that 'Pakistan, in the border region near Afghanistan, is perhaps the epicenter [of global terrorism], although al Qaida is operating all over the world, in Yemen, in Somalia, in northern Africa, affiliates in Southeast Asia. Why would we build up 100,000 or more troops in parts of Afghanistan included that are not even near the border? You know, this buildup is in Helmand Province . That's not next door to Waziristan . So I'm wondering, what exactly is this strategy, given the fact that we have seen that there is a minimal presence of Al Qaida in Afghanistan, but a significant presence in Pakistan? It just defies common sense that a huge boots on the ground presence in a place where these people are not is the right strategy. It doesn't make any sense to me.' Indeed. 'The Wisconsin Democrat also warned that U.S. policy in Afghanistan could actually push terrorists and extremists into Pakistan and, as a consequence, further destabilize the region: "You know, I asked the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen, and Mr. Holbrooke, our envoy over there, a while ago, you know, is there a risk that if we build up troops in Afghanistan, that will push more extremists into Pakistan?" he told ABC. "They couldn't deny it, and this week, Prime Minister Gilani of Pakistan specifically said that his concern about the buildup is that it will drive more extremists into Pakistan, so I think it's just the opposite, that this boots-on-the-ground approach alienates the Afghan population and specifically encourages the Taliban to further coalesce with Al Qaida, which is the complete opposite of our national security interest."'[1] Of course, this is all intentional and motivated by US imperialist raison d'état. .

MALICK: "DID OBAMA DECLARE WAR ON PAKISTAN ?"

Obama's speech did everything possible to blur the distinction between Afghanistan and Pakistan , which are after all two sovereign states and both members of the United Nations in their own right. Ibrahim Sajid Malick, US correspondent for Samaa TV, one of the largest Pakistan television networks, called attention to this ploy: 'Speaking to a hall full of cadets at the US Military Academy of West Point, President Barack Obama almost seemed like he might be declaring war on Pakistan . Every time he mentioned Afghanistan , Pakistan preceded mention. Sitting at the back benches of the hall at one point I almost jumped out of my chair when he said: "the stakes are even higher within a nuclear-armed Pakistan , because we know that al Qaeda and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them." I was shocked because a succession of American officials recently confirmed that the Pakistani arsenal is secure.'[2] This article is entitled "Did Obama Declare War On Pakistan?", and we can chalk the question mark up to diplomatic discretion. During congressional hearings involving General McChrystal and US Ambassador Eikenberry, Afghanistan and Pakistan were simply fused into one sinister entity known as "Afpak" or even "Afpakia."

In the summer of 2007, Obama, coached by Zbigniew Brzezinski and other controllers, was the originator of the unilateral US policy of using Predator drones for political assassinations inside Pakistan . This assassination policy is now being massively escalated along with the troop strength: "Two weeks ago in Pakistan, Central Intelligence Agency sharpshooters killed eight people suspected of being militants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and wounded two others in a compound that was said to be used for terrorist training. The White House has authorized an expansion of the C.I.A.'s drone program in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, officials said this week, to parallel the president's decisionto send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. American officials are talking with Pakistan about the possibility of striking in Baluchistan for the first time - a controversial move since it is outside the tribal areas - because that is where Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to hide."[3] The US is now training more Predator operators than combat pilots.

BLACKWATER ACCUSED IN PESHAWAR MASSACRE OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN

The CIA, the Pentagon, and their various contractors among the private military firms are now on a murder spree across Pakistan , attacking peaceful villages and wedding parties, among other targets. Blackwater, now calling itself Xe Services and Total Intelligence Solutions, is heavily involved: 'At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.' [4]

As shocking as Scahill's report is, it must nevertheless be viewed as a limited hangout, since there is no mention of the persistent charges that a large part of the deadly bombings in Peshawar and other Pakistani cities are being carried out by Blackwater, as this news item suggests: "ISLAMABAD Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Chief of Taliban movement in Pakistan Hakimullah Mehsud has blamed the controversial American private firm Blackwater for the bomb blast in Peshawar which killed 108 people, local news agency NNI reported Thursday."[5] This was blind terrorism designed for maximum slaughter, especially among women and children.

US ALSO AT WAR WITH UZBEKISTAN ?

Scahill's report also suggests that US black ops have reached into Uzbekistan, a post-Soviet country of 25 million which borders Afghanistan to the north: 'In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, according to the military intelligence source. Blackwater does not actually carry out the operations, he said, which are executed on the ground by JSOC forces. "That piqued my curiosity and really worries me because I don't know if you noticed but I was never told we are at war with Uzbekistan ," he said. "So, did I miss something, did Rumsfeld come back into power?"' [6] Such are the ways of hope and change.

The role of US intelligence in fomenting the Baluchistan rebellion for the purpose of breaking Pakistan apart is also confirmed by Professor Chossudovsky: 'Already in 2005, a report by the US National Intelligence Council and the CIA forecast a "Yugoslav-like fate" for Pakistan "in a decade with the country riven by civil war, bloodshed and inter-provincial rivalries, as seen recently in Baluchistan." (Energy Compass, 2 March 2005 ). According to the NIC-CIA, Pakistan is slated to become a "failed state" by 2015, "as it would be affected by civil war, complete Talibanization and struggle for control of its nuclear weapons". (Quoted by former Pakistan High Commissioner to UK , Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Times of India, 13 February 2005 ). Washington favors the creation of a "Greater Baluchistan" which would integrate the Baluch areas of Pakistan with those of Iran and possibly the Southern tip of Afghanistan, thereby leading to a process of political fracturing in both Iran and Pakistan.'[7] The Iranians, for their part, are adamant that the US is committing acts of war on their territory in Baluchistan : " TEHRAN , Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Iran 's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said that there are some concrete evidences showing U.S. involvement in recent deadly bomb explosions in the country's Sistan-Baluchistan province, the official IRNA news agency reported. . The deadly suicide attack by Sunni rebel group Jundallah (God's soldiers) occurred on Oct. 18 in Iran 's Sistan-Baluchistan province near the border with Pakistan when the local officials were preparing a ceremony in which the local tribal leaders were to meet the military commanders of Iran 's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).[8]

US GOAL: CUT THE PAKISTAN ENERGY CORRIDOR BETWEEN IRAN , CHINA

Why would the United States be so obsessed with the breakup of Pakistan ? One reason is that Pakistan is traditionally a strategic ally and economic partner of China , a country which the US and British are determined to oppose and contain on the world stage. Specifically, Pakistan could function as an energy corridor linking the oil fields of Iran and possibly even Iraq with the Chinese market by means of a pipeline that would cross the Himalayas above Kashmir . This is the so-called "Pipelinestan" issue. This would give China a guaranteed land-based oil supply not subject to Anglo-American naval superiority, while also cutting out the 12,000 mile tanker route around the southern rim of Asia . As a recent news report points out: ' Beijing has been pressuring Tehran for China 's participation in the pipeline project and Islamabad , while willing to sign a bilateral agreement with Iran , has also welcomed China 's participation. According to an estimate, such a pipeline would result in Pakistan getting $200 million to $500 million annually in transit fees alone. China and Pakistan are already working on a proposal for laying a trans-Himalayan pipeline to carry Middle Eastern crude oil to western China . Pakistan provides China the shortest possible route to import oil from the Gulf countries. The pipeline, which would run from the southern Pakistan port of Gwadar and follow the Karakoram highway, would be partly financed by Beijing . The Chinese are also building a refinery at Gwadar. Imports using the pipeline would allow Beijing to reduce the portion of its oil shipped through the narrow and unsafe Strait of Malacca , which at present carries up to 80% of its oil imports. Islamabad also plans to extend a railway track to China to connect it to Gwadar. The port is also considered the likely terminus of proposed multibillion-dollar gas pipelines reaching from the South Pars fields in Iran or from Qatar , and from the Daulatabad fields in Turkmenistan for export to world markets. Syed Fazl-e-Haider, " Pakistan , Iran sign gas pipeline deal," Asia Times, 27 May 2009 .[9] This is the normal, peaceful economic progress and cooperation which the Anglo-Americans are hell-bent on stopping.

Oil and natural gas pipelines from Iran across Pakistan and into China would carry energy resources into the Middle Kingdom, and would also serve as conveyor belts for Chinese economic influence into the Middle East . This would make Anglo-American dominion increasingly tenuous in a part of the world which London and Washington have traditionally sought to control as part of their overall strategy of world domination.

US domestic propaganda is already portraying Pakistan as the new home base of terrorism. The four pathetic patsies going on trial for an alleged plot to bomb a synagogue in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City had been carefully sheep-dipped to associate them with the shadowy and suspicious Jaish-e-Mohammad, allegedly a Pakistani terrorist group. The same goes for the five Moslems from Northern Virginia who have just been arrested near Lahore in Pakistan.

INDIA AND IRAN

As far as the neighboring states are concerned, India under the unfortunate Manmohan Singh seems to be accepting the role of continental dagger against Pakistan and China on behalf of the US and the British. This is a recipe for a colossal tragedy. India should rather make permanent peace with Pakistan by vacating the Vale of Kashmir, where 95% of the population is Moslem and would like to join Pakistan. Without a solution to this issue, there will be no peace on the subcontinent.

Regarding Iran, George Friedman, the head of the Stratfor outlet of the US intelligence community recently told Russia Today that the great novelty of the next decade will be an alliance of the United States with Iran directed against Russia. In that scenario, Iran would cut off oil to China altogether. That is the essence of the Brzezinski strategy. It is urgent that the antiwar movement in the United States regroup and begin a new mobilization against the cynical hypocrisy of Obama's war and escalation policy, which suprasses even the war crimes of the Bush-Cheny neocons. In this new phase of the Great Game, the stakes are incalculable.


[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/06/feingold-why-surge-
where_n_381729.html
[2] Ibrahim Sajid Malick, "Did Obama Declare War On Pakistan?," Pakistan for Pakistanis Blog, 2 December 2009. http://ibrahimsajidmalick.com/did-Obama-declare-war-on-pakis
tan/484/
[3] Scott Shane, "C.I.A. to Expand Use of Drones in Pakistan," New York Times, December 3, 2009. See also David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, "Between the Lines, an Expansion in Pakistan," New York Times, 1 December 2009.
[4] Jeremy Scahill, "The Secret US War in Pakistan," The Nation, November 23, 2009
[5] "Taliban in Pakistan blame U.S. Blackwater for deadly blast," Xinhua News Agency, 29 October 2009, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-10/29/content_1235890
7.htm
[6] Jeremy Scahill, "The Secret US War in Pakistan," The Nation, November 23, 2009
[7] Michel Chossudovsky, The Destabilization of Pakistan, Global Research, December 30, 2007
[8] "Iran says having evidences of U.S. involvement in suicide bomb attacks," Xinhua, 29 October 2009.
[9] http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KE27Df03.html





 

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US Wants to Expand Drone Strikes Into Major Pakistani City

Officials: 'Real Discussion' of Attacking Quetta

by Jason Ditz

http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m61058&hd=&size=1&l=e

December 14, 2009

                           

Top US officials say there is a "real discussion" going on right now about launching drone attacks against the Balochistan capital city of Quetta. The comments are the latest in a series of threats against the city, one of Pakistan’s largest.

Though the Pakistani government has looked the other way and even provided behind the scenes support for the various US drone attacks against Pakistan’s tribal areas, officials say a strike on Quetta would be a deal-breaker.

"We are not a banana republic," one official declared, adding that a US attack on Quetta "might be the end of the road." Pakistan’s military has likewise repeatedly warned against attacks on the city.

The US threats are ostensibly designed to counter the Quetta Shura, a group of Afghan exiles supposedly running much of the insurgency from the city. Pakistan has repeatedly denied that the Shura even exists, though on Friday Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar insisted that security forces had degraded them to the point they no longer pose a real threat.



 

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Published on Monday, December 14, 2009 by The New York Times


Pakistan Rebuffs US on Taliban Crackdown 

by Jane Perlez

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Demands by the United States for Pakistan to crack down on the strongest Taliban warrior in Afghanistan, Siraj Haqqani, whose fighters pose the biggest threat to American forces, have been rebuffed by the Pakistani military, according to Pakistani military officials and diplomats.

                             
Jalaluddin Haqqani, right, in Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2001. The Obama administration wants Pakistan to turn on Mr. Haqqani, a longtime asset of Pakistan's spy agency who uses the tribal area of North Waziristan as his sanctuary. But, the officials said, Pakistan views the entreaties as contrary to its interests in Afghanistan. (Reuters)


The Obama administration wants Pakistan to turn on Mr. Haqqani, a longtime asset of Pakistan's spy agency who uses the tribal area of North Waziristan as his sanctuary. But, the officials said, Pakistan views the entreaties as contrary to its interests in Afghanistan beyond the timetable of President Obama's surge, which envisions drawing down American forces beginning in mid-2011.

The demands, first made by senior American officials before President Obama's Afghanistan speech and repeated many times since, were renewed in a written demarche delivered in recent days by the United States Embassy to the head of the Pakistani military, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, according to American officials. Gen. David Petraeus followed up on Monday during a visit to Islamabad.

The demands have been accompanied by strong suggestions that if the Pakistanis cannot take care of the problem, including dismantling the Taliban leadership based in Quetta, Pakistan, then the Americans will by resorting to broader and more frequent drone strikes in Pakistan.

But the Pakistanis have greeted the refrain with official public silence and private anger, illustrating the widening gulf between the allies over the Afghan war.

Former Pakistani military officers voice irritation with the American insistence daily on television, part of a mounting grievance in Pakistan that the alliance with the United States is too costly to bear.

"It is really beginning to irk and anger us," said a security official familiar with the deliberations at the senior levels of the Pakistani leadership.

The core reason for Pakistan's imperviousness is its scant faith in the Obama surge, and what Pakistan sees as the need to position itself for a major regional realignment in Afghanistan once American forces begin to leave.

It considers Mr. Haqqani and his control of broad swaths of Afghan territory vital to Pakistan in the jostling for influence that will pit Pakistan, India, Russia, China and Iran in the post-American Afghan arena, the Pakistani officials said.

Pakistan is particularly eager to counter the growing influence of its archenemy, India, which is pouring $1.2 billion in aid into Afghanistan. "If American walks away, Pakistan is very worried that it will have India on its eastern border and India on its western border in Afghanistan," said Tariq Fatemi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States who is pro-American in his views.

For that reason, Mr. Fatemi said, the Pakistani Army was "very reluctant" to jettison Mr. Haqqani, Pakistan's strong card in Afghanistan. Moreover, the Pakistanis do not want to alienate Mr. Haqqani because they consider him an important player in reconciliation efforts that they would like to see get under way in Afghanistan immediately, the officials said.

Because Mr. Haqqani shelters Qaeda leaders and operatives in North Waziristan, Washington was opposed to including Mr. Haqqani among the possible reconcilable Taliban, at least for the moment, a Western diplomat said.

In his reply to the Americans, the head of the Pakistani military, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, stressed a short-term argument, according to two Pakistani officials familiar with the response.

Pakistan currently had its hands full fighting the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan and other places, and it was beyond its capacity to open another front against the Afghan Taliban, the officials said of General Kayani's response.

The offensive has had the secondary effect of constraining the Haqqani network in North Waziristan and driving some of its commanders and fighters across the border to Afghanistan, senior American military officials in Afghanistan said.

But implicit in General Kayani's reply was the fact that the homegrown Pakistani Taliban represent the real threat to Pakistan. They are the ones launching attacks against security installations and civilian markets in Pakistan's cities and must be the army's priority, General Kayani argued, the officials said.

For his part, Mr. Haqqani fights in Afghanistan, and is considered more of an asset than a threat by the Pakistanis. But he is the most potent force fighting the Americans, American and Pakistani officials agree.

He has subcommanders threaded throughout eastern and southern Afghanistan. His fighters control Paktika, Paktia and Khost provinces in Afghanistan, which lie close to North Waziristan. His men are also strong in Ghazni, Logar and Wardak provinces, the officials said.

Because Mr. Haqqani now spends so much time in Afghanistan - about three weeks of every month, according to a Pakistani security official - if the Americans want to eliminate him, their troops should have ample opportunity to capture him, Pakistani security officials argue.

As a son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, a leading mujahedeen fighter against the Soviets who is now aged and apparently confined to bed, Siraj Haqqani is keeper of a formidable lineage and history.

In the early 1970s, the father attended a well known madrassa, Dar-ul-Uloom Haqqaniya in the Pakistani town of Akora Khattack in North-West Frontier Province.

In the 1980s, Jalaluddin Haqqani received money and arms from the C.I.A. routed through Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter Services Intelligence, to fight the Soviets, according to Ahmed Rashid, an expert on the Afghan Taliban and the author of "Descent Into Chaos."

In the 1990s, when the Taliban ran Afghanistan, Jalaluddin Haqqani served as governor of Paktia Province.

The relationship between the Haqqanis and Osama bin Laden dates back to the 1980s war against the Soviets, according to Kamran Bokhari, the South Asia director for Stratfor, a geopolitical risk analysis company.

When the Taliban government collapsed at the end of 2001 and Qaeda operatives fled from Tora Bora to Pakistan, the Haqqanis relocated their command structure to North Waziristan and welcomed Al Qaeda, Mr. Bokhari said.

The biggest gift of the Pakistanis to the Haqqanis was the use of the North Waziristan as their fiefdom, he said.

The Pakistani Army did not appear to be assisting the Haqqanis with training or equipment, he said. More than 20 members of the Haqqani nuclear family were killed in a drone attack in North Waziristan last year, showing the limits of how far the Pakistanis could protect them, Mr. Bokhari said.

Today Siraj Haqqani has anywhere from 4,000 to 12,000 Taliban under his command. He is technically a member of the Afghan Taliban leadership based in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Baluchistan Province.

That leadership is headed by Mullah Omar, the former leader of the Taliban regime. But Mr. Haqqani operates fairly independently of them inside Afghanistan.

Siraj Haqqani maintains an uneasy relationship with the Pakistani Taliban, said Maulana Yousaf Shah, the administrator of the madrassa at Akora Khattack.

Mr. Haqqani believed the chief jihadi objective should be forcing the foreigners out of Afghanistan, and he had tried but failed to redirect the Pakistani Taliban to fight in Afghanistan as well, he said.

Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan; Pir Zubair Shah from Islamabad, and Eric Schmitt from Kabul, Afganistan.

© 2009 The New York Times

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/14-11

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009
13:52 Mecca time, 10:52 GMT 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/12/20091215103515739835.html



 
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Bomb blast hits Pakistani town  
 

 
A bomb blast in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan in Pakistan's Punjab province has left several people with injuries and caused widespread damage, according to residents and officials.

The blast on Tuesday occurred in a market, close to the house of Zulfiqar Khosa, an adviser to the chief minister of Pakistan's Punjab province.

"A bomb went off in a busy market, it destroyed eight to 10 shops ... I am very certain it was a car bomb blast," Hasan Iqbal, the town's police commissioner, said.

Tariq Gurmani, a resident of the town, said that he had seen several people who had suffered injuries in the explosion.

More than 500 people have been killed in bomb blasts in Pakistan since October, in violence blamed on pro-Taliban fighters who are battling an army offensive in the country's northwest.
 
 Source: Agencies 
 
 
 
 
 

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International Law: The First Casualty of the Drone War
A comprehensive legal analysis of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan


By Max Kantar

http://uruknet.com/index.php?p=m61083&hd=&size=1&l=e

December 14, 2009

ABSTRACT. This report utilizes well-established principles of both treaty and customary international law as a measuring stick for attempting to determine the legal and moral legitimacy of the covert U.S. policy of using drones to attack targets in Pakistan. This analysis is unique in that it uses both broad assessments as well as pertinent individual case studies with the purpose of chronicling the details of several drone attacks over a period of 45 months in the interest of legal evaluation. Drawing from a vast collection of reliable press reports, independent human rights testimonies, and the most prominent, mainstream studies, this report is quite possibly the most comprehensive analysis on the topic to date and likely the first of its kind to appear in the wake of the US-Pakistan drone controversy.
 
Continue reading report here:

http://uruknet.com/index.php?p=m61083&hd=&size=1&l=e

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Blast kills 21 in Dera Ghazi Khan


Tuesday, 15 Dec, 2009       Pakistan
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/provinces/04-blast-dg-khan-qs-09




DERA GHAZI KHAN: A bomb exploded in Dera Ghazi Khan’s Khosa market on Tuesday, killing 21 and injuring at least 60, DawnNews quoted hospital sources as saying.

 

The blast occurred at a taxi stand near the residence of provincial minister Dost Mohammad Khosa.

 

The blast in Dera Ghazi Khan was the latest in a series of suicide and other explosions that have killed more than 500 people in Pakistan since October. The bloodshed has been blamed on militants retaliating for an army offensive against the Taliban in the country's northwest.

 

Local commissioner Hasan Iqbal said Tuesday's explosion appeared to be a car bomb.

 

It left a massive crater and was heard from a half-a-mile away, he said. The home of Zulfiqar Khosa, senior adviser to the chief minister of Punjab province, was badly damaged in the blast, as were several shops in the market.

 

‘It is a terrorist activity,’ said Iqbal, who said a dozen wounded people were shifted to hospitals.

 

Zulfiqar Khosa was not believed to be at the house at the time of the explosion.

 

'It was a car bomb. A car laden with explosives rammed into the gate of my residence,' Zulfiqar Khosa said.

 

'Many buildings located in the area have been demolished,' he said.

 

Raza Khan, a local resident at the scene, said people were panicking.

 

‘The whole market has collapsed,’ he told The Associated Press by phone. ‘There is smoke and people running here and there.’

 

Militants have staged several attacks in the eastern Punjab province to illustrate their reach across the country, far beyond the northwest tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.

 

Several hard-line religious schools operate in Dera Ghazi Khan. The town has also experienced sectarian attacks pitting Sunni and Shia Muslims against each other.

 

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At Least 33 Killed in Pakistan Market Blast

Bomb Aimed at Key Provincial Minister's Home

by Jason Ditz, December 15, 2009
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/12/15/at-least-33-killed-in-pakistan-market-blast/

At least 33 people were killed today and over 90 wounded when a car bomb was detonated in the Khosa Market in Dera Ghazi Khan. Dozens of the wounded are in critical condition and officials expect the final toll will continue to rise.

The bombing targeted the home of a key government minister in the Punjab Province. The minister was not home but his cousin and some relatives were wounded.

In addition to collapsing the minister’s house, the bomb also did serious damage to 10 other nearby stores and a mosque. So far no group has claimed credit for the blast.

But Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani declared those responsible “enemies of the state” and said the government would be responsible for protecting the lives of the populace. Since this is just the latest in an alarming number of bombings since the South Waziristan offensive began, the government’s ability to do so is in serious doubt, however.

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Thursday, December 17, 2009
10:41 Mecca time, 07:41 GMT 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/12/2009121765458321966.html
 
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 


 
Opposition calls on Zardari to quit 

 
The court's verdict was eagerly awaited by Pakistan's legal community [AFP]
 

 
Pakistan's main opposition party has called for Asif Ali Zardari, the country's president, to resign after the supreme court declared void an amnesty deal protecting him from corruption charges.

Following the ruling, officials from the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) said Zardari should be obliged to step down.

"It will be in his own interest, it will be in the interest of his party and it will be good for the system," said Khawaja Asif, a senior leader PML-N leader.

Siddiqul Farooq, a spokesman for the party, said: "President Asif Ali Zardari should resign on moral grounds and should not depend upon the crutches of the constitution."

Pakistan's constitution guarantees Zardari immunity while in office.

Resignations demanded

But the constitution also states that presidential candidates must be pious, honest and truthful and not have been convicted in a criminal case.

The supreme court's decision on Wednesday declaring  the amnesty agreement as being unconstitutional paves the way for corruption cases against Zardari and thousands of other officials covered by the amnesty to be revived.

"All the cabinet members must immediately tender their resignations," Farooq said.

Beneficiaries of the amnesty include Pakistan's interior and defence ministers.

A number of cases were pending against Zardari when it was announced by Pervez Musharraf, then Pakistan's president, that he and others would be immune from prosecution under the 2007 National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).

Musharraf declared the NRO while under pressure to hold elections and end eight years of military rule.

In depth

  Video: Pakistan's Zardari amnesty removed
  Profile: Asif Ali Zardari
  Profile: Pakistan Taliban
  Witness: Pakistan in crisis
  Riz Khan: The battle for the soul of Pakistan
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/12/2009121765458321966.html
 

Amnesty deal

Although Zardari has spent years in jail over corruption charges, he alleges the charges were politically-motivated and questions hang over whether he was ever actually convicted.

Zardari's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) won elections in 2008, restoring civilian rule, but the NRO expired at the end of last month and the PPP did not have enough support to renew the ordinance in parliament.

Senior figures in the PML-N, led by Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister, have already called on Zardari to give up powers inherited from Musharraf such as those to sack the prime minister and dissolve parliament.

Zardari already faces low public approval ratings and any political trouble in Pakistan is likely to be watched very closely by the West which wants Islamabad to focus on combating Islamist fighters.
 
 Source: Al Jazeera and agencies 
 
 
 
 
 

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Thursday, December 17, 2009


Pakistan holds up visas of envoys


Anne Gearan ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/17/pakistan-holds-up-visas-of-envoys/

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan | Pakistan has held up visas for U.S. diplomats, military service members and others, apparently because of hostility within the country toward the expansion of U.S. operations in Pakistan, a senior U.S. diplomat said Wednesday.

U.S. diplomats have also been stopped repeatedly at Pakistani checkpoints as part of what U.S. officials say is a wider focus on foreigners working in Pakistan. U.S. cars are searched, although diplomats are told to open the trunk but to refuse access to the passenger compartment.

The visa holdup is the latest tangible sign of the volatility of official U.S.-Pakistan relations. The two nations have an improving military relationship, but mistrust and suspicion still shadow many government interactions, including U.S. attempts to help Pakistan.

The U.S. diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive interaction between the two countries, said the visa clampdown seems to be a reaction to widespread anti-American sentiment, even though many of the affected workers would be doing jobs that bring aid and other help to Pakistan.

The official said that the reaction is probably temporary and that the U.S. does not plan to do more than press Pakistani authorities to relent.

The U.S. Embassy is already large and expanding, with plans to go from about 500 employees to more than 800 in the next 18 months. Most of the growth is related to the expansion of U.S. aid to Pakistan, some of which comes with requirements for accounting and oversight that have rankled Pakistanis.

The official said that at the embassy, several employees have gone home for Christmas leave and will be unable to return because the Pakistani authorities have not extended their visas. In all, 135 visa extensions have been denied, the official said. Other visa applications have been rejected outright, but U.S. authorities have not collected data on how many.

The official said that Pakistani authorities have not provided a comprehensive response to American complaints and that several ministries are involved.

The official said that among those whose visas were held up are mechanics who tend to a fleet of U.S. helicopters that supports Pakistani military operations in the frontier areas.

The helicopters stopped flying when there were insufficient mechanics to maintain them, the official said. Some visas were approved after Pakistani authorities inquired about the grounded helicopters.

In October, President Obama signed into law a $7.5 billion aid package for Pakistan. Pakistan's military criticized the aid as American meddling in the country's internal affairs.

The measure provides $1.5 billion annually over five years for economic and social programs and comes as Pakistan faces a string of violent militant attacks and bombings as its military orchestrates an offensive into the Taliban heartland.

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US Fails to Stop Taliban at Afghan-Pakistan Border

Upcoming Escalation Unlikely to Relieve Sense of "Shortage" in Helmand

by Jason Ditz, December 16, 2009
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/12/16/us-struggles-to-patrol-afghan-pakistan-border/


When your military is tasked with occupying an entire sparsely populated landlocked nation with rugged terrain and no infrastructure, it seems there’s no such thing as “enough” troops.

At least that’s the message coming out of Southern Helmand Province, where a few hundred US Marines are being asked to control a border region along Pakistani Balochistan which encompasses about 6,000 square miles. The troops don’t dare approach the border, because they will be hundreds of miles from the nearest field hospital.

It is exactly this sort of troop shortage that the Obama Administration would have us believe the 30,000+ man escalation is designed to relieve, but with officials aiming to control population centers across the massive nation with those troops few, if any, will find their way down to the virtually empty border region.

The reality is that the war is going so poorly and Afghanistan is so inhospitable to invaders, there is likely no number of troops which would be sufficient to give America operational control over all the important regions. The border with Pakistan alone is 2,400+ kilometers of hills, mountains and empty, unmarked fields. Short of sending a million soldiers to the nation and deploying them in rotating shifts to stand along the entire border watching, there is literally no way to prevent cross-border traffic.

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Thursday, December 17, 2009
17:54 Mecca time, 14:54 GMT 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/12/200912171478572719.html
 
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
'Drone raid' kills many in Pakistan 

 
Suspected US drone attacks have sparked public anger for inflicting civilian casualties [AFP]
 

 
At least 12 people are reported to have been killed after a suspected US drone aircraft fired seven missiles at fighters in Pakistan's North Waziristan region.

Multiple drones launched an onslaught on Thursday evening on several houses in North Waziristan's Ambarshaga area, about 30km west of the main district town  Miranshah, Pakistani security officials said.

"Five US drones fired at least seven missiles, targeting several houses in the Ambarshaga area in North Waziristan and killing more than 10 militants," a senior security official in the area told  AFP news agency.

Another security official confirmed the bombing by the drone and  said the death toll may rise due to the intensity of the strike.

In the same area at around midday, missiles from a US drone had slammed into a house allegedly used by armed groups.

Two fighters were killed in the attack near Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan.

Unmanned drones are often the weapon of choice for the United States as it targets the Taliban and al-Qaeda in remote, rugged areas along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, though the US has rarely confirmed the attacks.

The use of so-called Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), which allow the military to operate in highly dangerous areas, is expected to grow in the coming years with the US defence department expected to buy 700 next year alone.

But the long-distance, remote-controlled warfare has sparked public anger for inflicting heavy civilian casualties.
 
 Source: Agencies 
 
 
 
 
 

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Suspected U.S. Drone Strike Kills 15 in Pakistan

Thursday, December 17, 2009 
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580433,00.html


DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan  —  Pakistani intelligence officials say the latest suspected U.S. missile strike along the Afghan border has killed 15 people, including seven alleged foreign militants.

The officials say the strike involved five drones and 10 missiles, a massing of resources that suggests the U.S. had homed in on a high-profile target.

The missiles Thursday hit two compounds in the Ambarshaga area of the North Waziristan tribal region. It was the second such strike of the day in the Pakistani territory.

The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

The U.S. rarely confirms such strikes. Pakistan protests them, but is believed to secretly aid them.

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Chasing Shadows In Pakistan

By Iftekhar A Khan

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24213.htm

December 18, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -Pakistan -- - Prime Minister Gordon Brown has asked Pakistan to track down Osama bin Laden as according to him Laden has sought refuge in FATA. When world leaders’ statements are equivocal and banal, understand that there’s a hidden agenda behind them and you’re on the deceiving end. Mr Obama and Mr Brown take turns in making similar statements to coerce Pakistan to do more. Doing more, in their parlance, means to ‘sanitise’ the turbulent tribal belt, which is the future route of oil and gas pipelines from the Central Asian States to Pakistani port - Gawadar. Today, if the US department of geological survey (USGS) were to announce that CAS contained no energy reserves, US and its partners in exploitation of energy resources would declare victory and withdraw from Afghanistan post haste. Imperialist powers would quickly forget whether or not the Afghan people were protected against the Taliban or the apocryphal Al-Qaida, women emancipated from their blue cloaks, and democracy spread in the country.

Mr Brown's predecessor, Tony Blair, faces an inquiry headed by John Chilcot for fabricating Iraq dossier before the US-led forces began to wreak death and destruction in a sovereign Muslim country on the pretence that it had WMDs. Simon Jenkins's article in the UK Guardian had an attention-grabbing title: “We want Blair's head. Chilcot will not give it to us.” Today it's Blair tomorrow it could be Brown. One lied to people to fabricate his case for Iraq and the other is doing the same by sending more troops in the harm way. The British premier is aware that Laden died long ago. UK's top sniffing agency, MI6, must have informed him that Laden was no more yet Mr Brown browbeats Pakistan to produce him. Laden alive is more useful to the imperialist powers than Laden dead.

Mythical Laden was a kidney patient on dialysis before the US-led NATO forces invaded Afghanistan. He could have never survived the Tora Bora bombing and indiscriminate use of daisy cutters and bunker busters. Yet Mr Brown goes on parroting the demand of his senior, Mr Obama, to locate him. British have a knack of and penchant for mendacity and twisting facts with a poker face. The world knows that the war in Afghanistan, costing billions of dollars, has nothing to do with capturing Laden or eliminating Al-Qaida; it’s primarily a war to control energy resources and to dominate the region. That’s the game being played out.

Truth is that Mr Obama seems to have lost control of US foreign and defence policies. The hawks of the military industrial complex and national security advisers who war-game with public lives and resources in alien lands dictate US policies. Would Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of Hellfire missiles and General Atomics, manufacturer of Predator and Reaper drones that fire these missiles want the war to end? Would defence contractors Blackwater (Worldwide Xe), DynCorp or Krestal and reconstruction giants Halliburton and Bechtel want the flames of war to extinguish? No, because war is their industry and killing their business. Such corporations, on the other end, finance politicians’ election campaigns. So wars are lucrative corporate projects.

Prime Minister Gillani said a few days ago that troop surge in Afghanistan will destabilise Pakistan, but our superior ally, instead of paying heed to it, has decided to inject more troops. Some of the young soldiers will probably spend last Christmas at home. The US agenda in Pakistan is not obscure anymore; the superpower intends to stretch war with drone strikes in Balochistan beside FATA. The US already knows that the weak-kneed Pak government beholden to it will make superficial noises of little consequence and not much else. This supports the oft-repeated stance that destabilisation activity surrounds the arc: CAS-Afghanistan-FATA-Balochistan (Gawadar). With surge in US and coalition troops in Afghanistan, the region round the arc is likely to boil over. People are seething with anti-Americanism; they attribute deaths and destruction of property because of daily blasts to US war on terror the country has been sucked into. Email:pinecity@gmail.com

Iftekhar A Khan - Pakistan

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Bomb Blast Near Mosque Kills 10 in Pakistan

Friday, December 18, 2009 
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580530,00.html


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan —  A homicide car bomber detonated his explosives near a mosque inside a police compound in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing 10 people in the latest attack by suspected Taliban militants waging war against the Pakistani government.

The Taliban have stepped up their campaign of violence since the military launched a major offensive in mid-October in the militant stronghold of South Waziristan in Pakistan's lawless tribal area near the Afghan border. Friday's attack was the second in two weeks against a mosque used by Pakistan's security forces.

Most of the 10 people killed in the attack in the Lower Dir region were police leaving the mosque after Friday prayers, said the area's police chief, Feroze Khan.

The blast wounded another 28 people, also mostly police, said a local hospital official, Ghulam Mohammed.

Lower Dir is next to the Swat Valley, which Pakistani soldiers wrested from the Taliban earlier this year. But periodic attacks have continued in the area.

Militants have also staged attacks in Pakistan's heartland, many of them against the country's security forces.

A team of militants armed with guns, grenades and bombs raided a mosque near army headquarters outside of Islamabad on Dec. 4, killing 36 people.

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Pakistan, US lock horns over 'war on terror'
 
 
18/12/2009 11:28:00 AM GMT   
 
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/articles/34/Pakistan-US-lock-horns-over-war-on-terror-.html

 
The Pakistani army rejects US pressure to open a new front against Afghan militants operating on its territory, a move that has added to tensions between the two countries.

In an interview Thursday in Rawalpindi, army spokesman Brig. Syed Azmat Ali denied allegations that the country was sheltering the Afghan militants.

"We can't start fighting in North Waziristan while we are in every agency in the tribal area fighting the Taliban there."

Pakistan says some 30,000 of its troops have been fighting the militants in their stronghold of South Waziristan since October.

The US has stepped up its pressure on the Pakistani army to launch a new offensive against the militants in neighboring North Waziristan region, where some Taliban affiliated militants are fighting against US-led troops in neighboring Afghanistan.

Hundreds of militants fled into Pakistan to escape a US-led invasion of Afghanistan eight years ago.

America and its NATO allies say Pakistan is reluctant to go after the Afghan Taliban, particularly the so-called Haqqani network, led by former US ally Jalaluddin Haqqani.

Meanwhile the Pakistani military spokesman highlighted that 2,000 Pakistani soldiers have been killed fighting the militants since 2001.

"We're tired of this mistrust and this questioning of our commitment and of our sincerity,'' Ali said.

The military spokesman also accused the US and NATO forces of not doing enough to stop militants and weapons crossing from over the porous Afghan border into Pakistan

Senior civilians and military officials in Islamabad say they were stretched to the limit in a bloody war against Pakistan-based militants and will not expand operations against the Afghan Taliban.

Also, the US says Pakistan is delaying hundreds of visas for US officials and contractors, a move that has added to tensions between the two countries.

The disagreements are an early sign of the problems ahead in Pakistan for US President Barack Obama, who has sent 33000 additional troops to Afghanistan to end a 9-year long conflict there.


Source: Press TV

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US Drones Kill 12 in North Waziristan

Third Strike in 24 Hours in Tribal Area

by Jason Ditz

http://www.uruknet.de/index.php?p=m61216&hd=&size=1&l=e

December 18, 2009

                           

US Predator drones launched their third strike in the past 24 hours today, firing multiple missiles at a suspected "hideout" in Datta Khel village, North Waziristan Agency, and killing at least 12 suspects.

The "hideout" in question amounted to a cluster of tents occupied by nomads who regularly migrate back and forth across the border from Pakistan to Afghanistan. The identities of the slain were not clear.

A pair of drone attacks yesterday killed at least 17 people and wounded numerous others in roughly the same region. The US has yet to comment on any of the attacks, which is in keeping with their usual strategy with the CIA drone strikes.

US officials have been trying to cajole Pakistani forces into invading North Wazirsitan, a difficult proposition for a government already fighting myriad wars across its northern border at America’s behest. If the US attacks continue, however, it could provoke a reaction from the militants in the region, sparking a broader war that forces Pakistan to get involved, ready or not.


vist site for links
 

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Symptom of a Deeper Malady


Pakistan's Refugee Disaster


By STEWART J. LAWRENCE
http://www.uruknet.de/index.php?p=m61206&hd=&size=1&l=e

 

Internally displaced Pakistani tribal women and their children


December 18, 2009

Pakistan is suffering one of the worst humanitarian disasters since the Bangladesh crisis in 1971, thanks to President Obama's decision to fund the Pakistan army's escalating internal war against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

According to human rights observers, in the past 5 months alone, an estimated 2-3 million internal refugees have been forced out of their homes by the Pakistan army's indiscriminate attacks on insurgent bases and civilians living in the northern Swat Valley or in the contested border region with Afghanistan, including most recently, in SouthWaziristan.

While as many as 1 million internal refugees have received assistance and protection from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the rest have been left to fend for themselves in makeshift tent camps or have migrated to nearby population centers. The dispersed and informal nature of the refugee flow, coupled with Pakistan’s attempts to block aid to areas of suspected insurgent support, has complicated the relief effort. A special UNHCR appeal to the international community for emergency funding totaling $500 million has produced less than 25% of the funds needed for ongoing refugee care.


Prior to the most recent Pakistan offensive in Waziristan, Pakistan-based Nadia Tariq Ali of the New York-based Asia Foundation, described the refugee crisis in stark terms:

"The [refugee crisis] is immense and growing. The military offensive uprooted millions of people from three northwestern districts. As the offensive gained strength and people fled their homes for safety, the Pakistani government seemed unprepared for the crisis. Initially, no refugee camps existed; so many people went to the homes of their relatives and friends in other cities. However, in subsequent days, tens of thousands of people have gone to the special sites established for the [displaced persons] in Mardan, Swabi, and Peshawar. Unfortunately, these facilities lacked even the most basic amenities of life: food, proper sanitation, and health facilities. The disruption of normal life has affected displaced persons psychologically, economically, socially, and emotionally."

Coverage of the refugee crisis has been hampered by the difficulty Western NGOs and journalists face gaining access to the war zones under Pakistani army control, many of them located in highly inaccessible terrain. Even now, many details, including the numbers of solider and civilian killed and wounded, and the precise number and locations of the displaced, remain sketchy. In Octboer, there were reports that half the refugees from the Swat Valey and the northern frontier regions were preparing to return home, but because the army's campaign damaged local infrastructure and services, those reports are probably exaggerated.

The media blackout in the war zones isn't due simply to restricted access. According to reporters in Islamabad, US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke has adopted a standing policy of refusing to answer media questions about the Pakistan war's rising civilian toll, because of the obvious embarrassment it could cause US policy there.

In fact, not all of this civilian toll – or Holbrooke’s reluctance to answer questions – is due to Pakistan's ground war. Since last summer, the CIA has escalated Predator drone attacks against suspected Al-Qaeda and Taliban cells in Pakistan’s frontier zone, which, despite official denials and disinformation about the attacks’ "surgical precision," have also caused disproportionate civilian casualties. David Kilcullen, one of the leading US counterinsurgency experts and a top Pentagon advisor with access to classified intelligence has appealed to the Obama administration to abandon its use of drones, calling the current level of "collateral damage" - 98 civilians killed or injured for every 1-2 insurgents eliminated - "immoral."

The unprecedented refugee toll inside Pakistan is calling into question several aspects of American war strategy. First, many observers, including US military experts like Kilcullen, are worried that the Pakistani army, despite American prodding, is simply incapable of adapting itself to wage low-level counter-guerrilla operations at an "acceptable" level of violence. Pakistan's national defense doctrine identifies a potential war with India as the main threat to its national security. For this reason, 200,000 or more Pakistani troops are still positioned near the border with India to blunt a hypothetical Indian attack. That leaves too few troops available to be deployed against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgents.

But force distribution and size ratios are only part of the problem, experts say. Because of its conventional force structure and training, the Pakistan army also employs fighting tactics designed to attack enemy forces rather than to secure the local population and protect it from insurgent political pressure. These tactics include large infantry sweeps and aerial bombardment with artillery, fighter planes and helicopter gunships that leave civilians in insurgent areas with little choice but to flee or be killed. Almost by definition, a high refugee population in an insurgency setting is a sign that the pursuing force is pursuing the wrong strategy, COIN experts say.

It is generally agreed that in contrast to Afghanistan, where the Taliban enjoys popular support, most Pakistanis have grown increasingly hostile to the Pakistani wing of the Taliban and its Al-Qaeda allies, especially since last summer when the insurgents violated the terms of their cease fire and began a wave of urban terror. But the inability of the Pakistan army to protect the civilian population, and its eventual withdrawal from the current war zones, will simply leave a new void of security in rural areas that the insurgents will return to fill. A similar pattern played itself out in earlier and smaller Pakistani military offensives against the Taliban in 2008, but this year the civilian toll, and the political fall-out, will be higher, Pakistanis say.

The United States had hoped that the Pakistani army would adopt the kind of "population-centric" counterinsurgency campaign that prevents large-scale violence and refugee flows. However, a detailed report prepared by a Pakistani military researcher, entitled Pakistani Capabilities for a Counterinsurgency Campaign, and published in September 2009 by the Washington, DC-based New Americas Foundation, suggests otherwise. In fact, despite US prodding, and last August’s massive increase in US aid ($7.5 billion over the next 5 years), there is little chance that the Pakistani army will comply, the report concludes. In addition to being overly focused on the threat from India, the military’s rural security forces remain poorly trained and equipped, and its relations with the civilian government are too fragile to build effective civil-military cooperation to prosecute a successful COIN campaign.

Moreover, an overhaul of the Pakistani army would almost certainly require in-country training and support from US military advisors. Their presence, once known, would likely provoke a public backlash, strengthening the insurgents’ political appeal, the report says.

In fact, even with an improved counterinsurgency strategy, there is ample evidence that the Pakistan army, for strategic political reasons, is highly unlikely to move aggressively against the Taliban. Pakistan, in fact, has long supported the Afghan Taliban as a way of keeping the neighboring Karzai government, which it views as aligned with India, its mortal enemy, at bay. Thus, the army is careful to distinguish the Pakistani wing of the Taliban movement, which has recently turned on the Pakistan army as part of a strategy of global jihad, from the Afghan wing of the Taliban, which is also based in Pakistan, but apparently not wedded to jihad. Both wings of the Taliban have enjoyed friendly relations with the army, especially its intelligence services known as ISI, for years.

Some observers believe that the Pakistan army’s recent military offensives against the Taliban, despite their intensity, are largely "showpiece" operations that the army knows will merely scatter the insurgents without seriously degrading their capabilities. The offensives send a signal of the army’s growing displeasure with some elements of the Taliban, and reaffirm the army’s determination to exercise aggressive control over its national territory, in the face of claims by some ethnic groups for greater political autonomy. The offensives also demonstrate to India Pakistan’s military preparedness, while suggesting to the Obama administration that Pakistan is willing to "play ball."

In fact, it is quite clear that Pakistan has no intention of severing its long-standing relationship with the Taliban. Any doubts about this were erased last week when the government announced that it would not support a proposed American campaign against Taliban leaders based in Baluchistan in southern Pakistan. The US would like to launch Predator drone attacks against the Afghan Taliban leadership council headed by Mullah Muhammad Omar that has long been based in Quetta, Baluchistan, just across the border from Afghanistan. However, last summer, when the US first announced such plans, the Pakistan army balked, and quietly transported Omar and other Taliban leaders to safe houses in Karachi.

Pakistan’s willingness to aggressively pursue the Taliban, and its granting of permission for Predator drone attacks against Omar’s leadership group in Baluchistan were two of the conditions that Congress attached to the last August aid package to Pakistan. In recent weeks, the United States has also let it be known that unless the Pakistani army cooperates, the Pentagon plans to take independent action against the Taliban. In addition to CIA drone attacks, the Pentagon would like to dispatch US Special Forces teams to hunt down Taliban leaders in Baluchistan, as they have inside Afghanistan.

Any such move would likely be a political disaster for the United States and Pakistan. Pakistan still officially denies that American drone attacks are occurring in the border region with Afghanistan. Opposition to US war plans in the region is strong, and even President Obama enjoys only a 20% approval rating among Pakistanis, according to recent polls. On December 16, The New York Times reported that Pakistan had begun blocking visa requests for dozens of US diplomats, an unprecedented move by a friendly ally that suggests the depth of official Pakistani opposition to US threats and pressure tactics.

In the meantime, with the winter months fast approaching, hundreds of thousands of "unintegrated" refugees who do not find more durable shelter, even as military sweeps continue, could face exposure and starvation. Some aid groups are demanding that the United States pressure Pakistan to respect international humanitarian law and allow independent access to the refugees. However, in this, as in all other national policy matters, Pakistan will remain highly resistant to American aid leverage, making token gestures, but always insisting on its own prerogatives. It’s a dangerous sign of even worse things to come.

Stewart J. Lawrence is a foreign and defense policy specialist based in Washington, DC. He is grateful to numerous US-based Pakistani commentators for their insights. He can be reached at stewartlawrence81147@gmail.com