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

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29 killed in clashes, suicide attack in Pakistan

Militant ambush, gunbattles, suicide attack leave 29 dead in Pakistan near Afghan border

HUSSAIN AFZAL
AP News
http://wire.antiwar.com/2010/01/23/29-killed-in-clashes-suicide-attack-in-pakistan/
Jan 23, 2010 08:27 EST

Militants ambushed Pakistani security forces at checkpoints in two regions close to the Afghan border Saturday, sparking gunbattles that left 22 insurgents and two troops dead, officials said.

Elsewhere in the northwest, a suicide bomber killed a police officer and three passers-by, part of a relentless wave of violence by al-Qaida and Taliban insurgents also blamed for attacks on U.S. and NATO troops across the frontier in Afghanistan.

Government officials Mohammad Yasin and Mohammad Naseem said two troops were wounded in the clashes at checkpoints in the Orakzai and Kurram tribal regions. They said a search and clearance operation launched afterward also seized 25 suspected insurgents.

The force commander in Kurram, Col. Tausif Akhtar, said troops had cleared six villages of Taliban fighters.

Many militants fleeing a Pakistani military offensive in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan have ended up in the two regions, where they have often targeted government forces.

Washington has welcomed the military campaign but is pushing the Pakistani army to do more to target the Taliban blamed for violence across the border in Afghanistan, especially those based in North Waziristan. The Pakistani army has said it is too taxed to launch another operation right now.

"We have gone in Orakzai and Kurram because they were affecting our operations in South Waziristan," Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told DawnNews TV on Friday night. "We are too thin on the ground. We are too over-stretched. It is not possible to get into any other area for operations."

The army deployed some 30,000 troops against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan in mid-October and has retaken many towns in the region. But many fear the militants have just set up in other parts of the vast, lawless border regions and will continue to threaten the Pakistani government and U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Illustrating that threat, a suicide bomber rammed a vehicle laden with explosives into a police station near South Waziristan on Saturday. One officer and three passers-by died in the assault, police chief Farid Khan said.

Eight people were also wounded in Tank, one of the main towns leading to South Waziristan from Punjab province.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Saturday that a paramilitary soldier had been arrested for involvement in the Oct. 5 suicide attack on the U.N. food agency's office in Islamabad that killed five staffers.

Pakistani Taliban at the time claimed responsibility for targeting the World Food Program, saying the agency's work was not in "the interest of Muslims."

Malik didn't reveal the identity of the man, but said he was also involved in the Dec. 2 suicide attack outside the entrance of the Pakistan navy's headquarters in Islamabad that killed one guard and wounded 11 other people.

___

Associated Press writer Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan contributed to this report.

Source: AP News

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Pakistan says reaches out to Afghan Taliban


By Sue Pleming and Michael Georgy Sue Pleming And Michael Georgy
Sat Jan 23, 6:05 am ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100123/wl_nm/us_pakistan_taliban


Paramilitary soldiers inspect burnt vehicles along the Chaman Pakistan-Afghanistan border August 31, 2009.
REUTERS/Saeed Ali Achakzai
 
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – U.S. ally Pakistan is reaching out to "all levels" of the Afghan Taliban in a bid to encourage reconciliation in its war-torn neighbor, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

President Barack Obama has said a political solution was needed to stabilize Afghanistan and has emphasized that success would not be possible without the support of Pakistan.

"We are trying to reach out to them at all levels and all of us would like that our efforts should bring some results but at this point in time it is very difficult to say," ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said of Pakistan's efforts.

The Afghan government is preparing a reintegration plan with the Taliban that targets lower to mid-level Taliban fighters but has not focused on more senior leaders of the insurgency.

International donors are meeting in London on January 28, when Afghan President Hamid Karzai is expected to seek their support for his reintegration plan.

Analysts say Pakistan is well placed to mediate in Afghanistan, where it nurtured the Taliban in the 1990s.

Basit said it was important that there be reconciliation at all levels and that Pakistan was helping in this regard. He declined to give any details.

"Whether or not our efforts will yield results, we will see," he told Reuters in an interview.

"We don't want to discuss the specifics. There are efforts being made and we are trying to win over those Taliban or forces who are 'reconcilables'. Let's see," he added.

Asked specifically whether Pakistan was targeting top-level leaders, he said: "We are trying at all levels but where we succeed is another matter."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Pakistan this week and urged it to root out Afghan Taliban based in its northwestern border enclaves, from where they have been orchestrating an intensified insurgency in Afghanistan.

UNDER PRESSURE

Pakistan has repeatedly told Washington that it was already fighting a homegrown Taliban and does not have the resources to open up new fronts against Afghan militant groups based in its northwest. Such groups include the Haqqani network, which the U.S. military says is the biggest threat in Afghanistan.

The United States has intensified unmanned drone attacks on militants in northwest Pakistan after a deadly attack on U.S. intelligence agents across the border in Afghanistan's Khost province on December 30.

Pakistan complains the attacks are an affront to its sovereignty and have asked the United States for drone technology as well as armed drones to do the job itself.

"We do need drones -- unmanned vehicles -- which are capable also of firing missiles," he said.

"Pakistan is capable of handling these drone attacks militarily but we would not like to unnecessarily ratchet up problems with the U.S.," he said.

During his visit, Gates offered a dozen unarmed surveillance drones. Basit said his government was considering the offer but reiterated that Pakistan wanted armed drones.

Gates also urged the Pakistanis to expand military operations to North Waziristan but was told it could take six months to a year before this happened, said Basit.

"If we expand our operations then that will require us to pull out from the eastern border which under the circumstances is not possible," he said, referring to the border with rival India.

"That is a serious issue for us and we hope that at the end of the day our friends, the Americans, will be cognizant of our security perceptions," he said.

Basit complained the United States was behind on delivering funds promised to pay for anti-militant efforts. The United States says Pakistan has denied visas for auditors and other U.S. officials needed to ensure the money is spent properly.

Gates annoyed Pakistan when he said on Wednesday in New Delhi that India may lose its patience with Pakistan after any repeat of a Mumbai-style attacks and militants in the region may use this to provoke the two rivals to war.

"Such a statement was very unhelpful and undiplomatic ... These can be exploited by India," said Basit.

New Delhi is increasingly frustrated at what it sees as Islamabad's failure to bring to justice the masterminds of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks.

It blames militants belonging to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group for the attacks that killed 166 people.

(Editing by Robert Birsel and Paul Tait)

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U.S. policy confusion on Pakistan and India

Jan 24, 2010 16:32 EST
http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/2010/01/24/u-s-policy-confusion-on-pakistan-and-india/

What is the U.S. policy towards Pakistan and India, and in particular over how to deal with their rivalry over Afghanistan which complicates U.S. efforts to bring stability there? I’ve been trying to find an answer for weeks now amid a raft of contradictory signals and statements coming from different U.S. officials.

First we had the leaked report by General Stanley McChrystal in September suggesting the issue should be handled with caution given Pakistani sensitivities about a big rise in India’s presence in Afghanistan following the fall of the Pakistani-backed Taliban in 2001.

“Indian political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan, including significant development efforts and financial investment,” it said. “In addition the current Afghan government is perceived by Islamabad to be pro-Indian. While Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani counter-measures in Afghanistan or India.”

Then we had a series of reports, most recently here, suggesting Washington might welcome a bigger role for India in Afghanistan – precisely the kind of development that would exacerbate tensions with Pakistan given the current sour mood between New Delhi and Islamabad.

U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke toured the region saying President Barack Obama’s administration would welcome better relations between India and Pakistan. But then he was followed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates who, if anything, actually worsened tensions between the two by saying that India might retaliate in the event of a another big attack like the Nov. 2008 assault on Mumbai.

Gates made a similar comment towards the end of last year, when he said al Qaeda and its Islamist allies might try to use an attack to provoke a conflict between Pakistan and India. The problem this time around was the context. Saying this in Washington is one thing; saying it in India is quite different. Pakistan had already been jumpy about Indian intentions after its army chief said the military should be prepared to fight a two-front war against both China and Pakistan. Indian analysts describe those remarks, made at a closed-door seminar, as an aspirational view of the need for military preparedness, rather than any kind of immediate threat; but they went down badly in Pakistan and therefore coloured the way Gates’ remarks were interpreted.

You have to wonder whether Gates had been properly briefed about the context when he talked about Indian losing patience in the event of another big attack, or indeed why someone with such long experience of the region would make what appeared to be a diplomatic gaffe shortly before flying into Pakistan to try to win support there.  Did he, to borrow a word from the now U.S. Secretary of State, ”misspoke”?

 Juan Cole, who has generally been supportive of the Obama administration, was unforgiving, writing on his blog Informed Comment that its policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan were in disarray:

“Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates’s trip to Pakistan this weekend has in many ways been public relations disaster, and I think it is fair to say that he came away empty-handed with regard to his chief policy goals in Islamabad. Getting Pakistan right is key to President Barack Obama’s policy of escalating the Afghanistan War, and judging by Gates’s visit to Islamabad, Obama is in worse shape on the AfPak front than he is even in Massachusetts. Since he has bet so heavily on Afghanistan and Pakistan, this rocky road could be momentous for his presidency.”

Meanwhile Britain is hosting a conference on Afghanistan this week aiming to flesh out the timetable set by Obama for drawing down troops by 2011 and to convince regional players to cooperate rather than compete over a country which has long been a battleground for proxy wars. But as I wrote in this analysis, anything that might now be achieved in terms of easing tensions between India and Pakistan is likely to come too little, too late to deliver policy results in time for the 2011 deadline.

According to Steve Coll at the New America Foundation, who I quoted in the analysis, Washington’s need to achieve results in Afghanistan by 2011 is at odds with the longer-term clock followed by India and Pakistan. ”My sense is that the administration feels stymied by India’s continued insistence that it does not want any outside help and the frustratingly slow pace by which India and Pakistan are trying (to find a way back to negotiations),” he said. ”The U.S. doesn’t seem to be able to construct a breakthrough.”

The tensions between India and Pakistan complicate the current situation by undermining U.S. efforts to convince the Pakistan Army to turn on Afghan Taliban militants which it may eventually need to counter Indian influence in Afghanistan in the event of a U.S. withdrawal.  Pakistan has also kept the bulk of its forces on the Indian border, limiting its capacity to mobilise troops to fight militants on the Afghan border.  In the short to medium term, India and Pakistan are at odds over how far Taliban fighters should be brought into a process of reconciliation in Afghanistan. And in the long term, both could end up backing opposite sides in any renewed civil war between a weak government in Kabul and Taliban militants active in parts of the countryside. Then of course, both countries have nuclear weapons, so even without Afghanistan, it’s not a place where you would ever want tensions to escalate out of control.

So you would think that after a year in office, the U.S. administration would have a policy on how to deal with relations between India and Pakistan and their roles in Afghanistan. But I’m still looking for it.

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January 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/world/asia/25waziristan.html?ref=world

Pakistan’s Rebuff Over New Offensives Rankles U.S.

By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID E. SANGER


Pakistan is refusing to step up attacks in North Waziristan.


WASHINGTON — The Pakistani Army’s announcement last week that it planned no new offensive against militants for as long as a year has deeply frustrated senior American military officers, and chipped away at one of the cornerstones of President Obama’s strategy to reverse the Taliban’s gains in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

When Mr. Obama announced his decision in December to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, he and his aides made clear that the chances of success hinged significantly on Pakistan’s willingness to eliminate militants’ havens in its territory, including in the tribal region of North Waziristan. United States officials described the American and NATO surge of troops as a hammer, but they said it required a Pakistani anvil on the other side of the border to prevent the Taliban from retreating to the mountains.

Now that strategy appears imperiled by Pakistan’s latest statement. On Thursday, soon after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived on a two-day trip to the country, the Pakistani Army’s chief spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, rebuffed American pressure to step up attacks in North Waziristan. That area is the main base of operations for the Haqqani network, which stages operations against American and Afghan forces in Afghanistan. It is believed to be responsible for many of the attacks on Kabul, including a devastating assault early last week near the presidential palace.

Fighters from Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban have also been concentrated in North Waziristan, including many who were driven out of their positions in South Waziristan by recent Pakistani Army operations.

“This has become the center,” a senior administration official said, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss American strategy publicly.

American officials said they had not been surprised by the Pakistani announcement. Since the last two years of the Bush administration, the United States has been arguing for a far more active Pakistani military presence in North Waziristan. But some said they had been surprised that the rebuff was issued while Mr. Gates was in the country, rather than after he left.

General Abbas told reporters it could be 6 to 12 months before the army consolidated its current operations and began any new offensive. Some American officials think it could be longer.

The critical question is how much the Pakistani decision will undercut Mr. Obama’s strategy. During a speech at West Point on Dec. 1, he said his administration would reassess the plan at the end of 2010, after all the troops deployed as part of the increase were in place. But if the Pakistani position does not change, the operations on Pakistan’s side of the border will not have begun by the time Mr. Obama has made his assessment.

Mr. Obama made no public demands on Islamabad when he announced the troop increase at West Point, but he said he was acting “with the full recognition that our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan.” He quickly added: “We need a strategy that works on both sides of the border.”

Mr. Obama praised the Pakistani Army for waging an offensive in Swat and South Waziristan, where the Pakistani Taliban were taking aim at the country’s fragile government. He promised to work with the Pakistanis to strengthen their ability to combat the militants, but he said the United States had “made it clear that we cannot tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known and whose intentions are clear.”

Pakistani officials have not refused to go after Qaeda or Taliban fighters in North Waziristan. But they have made it clear that their forces are too tied up now to conduct new, larger operations on Washington’s schedule.

As a practical matter, American officials said, Pakistan’s inability or reluctance to open a new front in North Waziristan will increase the reliance on missile strikes from drones operated by the C.I.A. to disrupt attacks aimed at Afghanistan.

American officials said that Pakistani military leaders had never promised a specific timetable for beginning a new offensive, but that announcing a delay of as much as 12 months could aid the militants’ planning and morale on both sides of the border.

“It’s disappointing, but not entirely surprising,” said a senior Defense Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing his ties with Pakistani counterparts.

Mr. Gates and other American officials sought to put the best face on the situation last week, saying that the Pakistani Army was stretched thin from its previous offensives against militants.

“Pakistani leadership will make its own decisions about what the best timing for their military operations is, about when they are ready to do something or whether they are going to do it at all,” Mr. Gates told Pakistani journalists on Friday, the day after General Abbas’s comments.

“The way I like to express it is, we’re in this car together, but the Pakistanis are in the driver’s seat and have their foot on the accelerator,” Mr. Gates said. “And that’s just fine with me.”

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the military’s Central Command, said at a conference in Washington on Friday that American officials must be mindful of the limitations facing Pakistan’s military.

General Petraeus said that the Pakistani leaders would need to negotiate agreements with local tribal leaders to hold the gains that the Pakistani military has achieved in places like Swat and South Waziristan. But he emphasized that any deals must be more resilient than previous pacts in the tribal areas, which fell apart and allowed the militants to regain control.

Senior American officers in the region said that cooperation with their Pakistani counterparts had improved in recent months.

NATO military leaders, for instance, recently provided a detailed briefing on the campaign in Afghanistan to Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani army chief of staff, a senior American officer said. Pakistani officers reciprocated last week with a briefing for NATO officers on their campaign plans, the American officer said.

7 Bodies Found With Warnings

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The bodies of seven people accused by the Taliban of spying for the United States were found in North Waziristan on Sunday, officials and residents said.

Notes attached to the bullet-ridden bodies accused the victims of working with the United States as it carries out a wave of drone strikes in the region, and warned that anyone else who did so would meet the same end.

Drone attacks in the region have increased significantly since the bombing of a C.I.A. base in Khost, Afghanistan, that killed seven Americans on Dec. 30.

Elisabeth Bumiller contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.

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Taliban kill seven in Pakistan for being "U.S. spies"

Sun Jan 24, 4:48 am ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100124/india_nm/india456385
 
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Taliban militants killed seven Pakistani tribesmen in the volatile North Waziristan region on the Afghan border who they suspected of spying for the United States, security officials said on Sunday.

Militants have killed a large number of tribal elders, government officials and Afghan nationals on suspicions of spying in Waziristan.

The bullet-riddled bodies of five tribesmen were dumped on a roadside in a village 35 km (20 miles) south of North Waziristan's main town of Miranshah, the officials said.

"All of them appeared to have been killed last night and a hand-written note was lying near these bodies saying they were American spies," a security official in Miranshah said by telephone.

"Whosoever spied for America will face the same fate," another security official quoted the note as saying. Two other bodies were found elsewhere in the region with a similar note from the Taliban.

North Waziristan straddles Afghanistan's southeastern Khost province where a Jordanian double-agent, Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, killed seven CIA employees in a suicide bombing inside U.S. Forward Operation Base Chapman on Dec. 30.

The Taliban later issued a farewell video that showed the bomber sitting beside Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.

The United States has stepped up its attacks by pilotless drones in North and South Waziristan since the Khost bombing.

A U.S. missile strike on Jan. 14 in South Waziristan aimed at Mehsud killed a dozen militants. The Taliban said he was wounded.

The army launched an offensive against Mehsud's fighters in South Waziristan in mid-October and has captured most of their bases.

The United States praised Pakistan's military campaign but wants it to eliminate Afghan militants who cross the border from their Pakistani tribal sanctuaries to fight Western forces.

North Waziristan is a major sanctuary for the Afghan Taliban.

The army has ruled out any new offensive for up to a year, saying it had to consolidate its gains in South Waziristan.

(Reporting by Haji Mujtaba; Writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Paul Tait)

(For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/afghanistanpakistan)

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Substantial drone technology given to Pakistan: Malik
 
http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=26872
 

Monday, January 25, 2010

By our correspondent

LAHORE: Interior Minister Rehman Malik has again denied the existence of Blackwater in Pakistan, reiterating his commitment to resign if any such agency will be found working in the country.

Talking to media persons outside the Governor’s House on Sunday, the interior minister said neither any US security agency was working in the country nor any such agency would be allowed to work in future, adding US Defence Secretary Robert Gates had also endorsed the fact but his statement was distorted. He said the US had given half of the drone technology to Pakistan whereas diplomatic efforts were under way to acquire the rest.

When asked to comment over the law of screening for Pakistanis in the US, Malik said 13 out of 14 countries in the list of screening were Muslim countries and the Organisation of Islamic Conference should raise the issue from its platform. Answering another query about the missing persons, he said available information regarding them would be provided to the Supreme Court.
 

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Drone attacks to figure in talks with US
 
 http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=26874
 

Monday, January 25, 2010

By Sami Abraham

WASHINGTON: The crucial issue of US drone attacks along the Pak-Afghan border area is expected to dominate the discussions between top Pak-US officials during the forthcoming Islamabad visit of US National Director of Intelligence (NDI) Dennis Blair. A top US official confirmed on condition of anonymity here on Sunday that Dennis Blair is expected to arrive in Islamabad in the next few days. However the exact date of his landing in Pakistani capital could not be disclosed due to security reasons.

The official also confirmed that Dennis Blair, whose office oversees 16 spy agencies of United States including CIA which is understood to carry out drone attacks in Pakistan, is expected to meet President Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani and Pak military leadership.
 

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Obama Administration's Use of Drones

Responsible for Increase in Civilian Deaths


by William Fisher

http://uruknet.com/index.php?p=m62585&hd=&size=1&l=e


t r u t h o u t Monday January 25, 2010


The Obama administration is ramping up its use of drone unmanned aircraft to execute targeted killings in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and perhaps in other locations - and, in the process, killing civilians along with insurgents, and risking the compromise of US moral imperatives and foreign policy goals.

That's the view of a leading civil rights organization, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), calling on the president to lift the curtain of secrecy and level with the American people.

The ACLU is asking the government to release basic information about its use of drones to execute targeted killings. The group believes that "the use and proliferation of this tactic must be the subject of public scrutiny and debate." The strikes are reportedly being carried out both by US military forces and the CIA.

The request is seeking information, including who may be targeted and the geographical limits on where drone strikes may occur. It wants information about the scope and consequences of drone strikes, including a breakdown of the total number of people killed, the civilian casualty toll, the number of people killed who were fighters with the Afghan Taliban or al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or who had some other terror-related affiliation or status.

"The public has been kept in the dark and is therefore unable to assess the wisdom or legality of the strikes," the group claimed.

"The use of drones to conduct targeted killings raises complicated questions - not just legal questions but policy and moral questions as well. These are not questions that should be decided behind closed doors. They are questions that should be debated openly, and the public should have access to information that would allow it to participate meaningfully in the debate," according to Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project.

One of the unmanned vehicles, known as the Predator, is capable of flying for hours, armed or unarmed, remotely controlled by pilots who are stationed thousands of miles away. The Predator is part of a growing number of similar craft that includes the Reaper and Raven as well as a new, high-tech video sensor system called the Gorgon Stare, which is being installed on Reapers.

The ACLU charged that the Obama administration has stepped up the use of drones to target individuals not only in Afghanistan, but also in Pakistan and perhaps other countries that are not active theaters of war.

"The use of unmanned drones to target and kill individuals is a profoundly new way of waging war. For the first time, military and intelligence officers can observe, track, and launch missiles at targeted individuals from control centers located thousands of miles away, without any significant US presence on the ground. The technology also permits the United States to target individuals nearly anywhere in the world," the organization claimed.

The number of civilian casualties caused by drone attacks varies from the dozens to the hundreds. Human rights organizations are particularly concerned that drones could be used to target criminal suspects rather than legitimate military targets. Criminal suspects should be arrested and tried in civilian courts, the ACLU contended, adding that failure to do so could amount to "unlawful extrajudicial killings."

The ACLU also raised concerns about the wisdom of using drones on policy and moral grounds.

"We hope that the Obama administration will live up to its professed commitments to transparency and openness in government and release this essential information in a timely manner," the group said.

The increasing use of drones by the US has drawn sharp criticism from President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and other high Pakistani officials.

Jonathan Manes, an ACLU attorney, told Truthout, "The Obama administration has stepped up the use of drones to target individuals not only in Afghanistan, but also in Pakistan, and that drones strikes might be authorized in other countries that are not active theaters of war."

Pakistan said the strikes against suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban militants along its northwest violate its sovereignty. The attacks have resulted in serious anti-American feelings in Pakistan, which Washington sees as a critical ally in its war on extremism.

Gilani has told the press that drone attacks carried out on Pakistani soil were "counter-productive." He said, "If the drone attacks had been useful, then we would have ourselves supported them."

Gilani said the militants in the northwestern tribal areas bordering Afghanistan are strengthened by US missile strikes. "Our policy is to isolate militants from the local tribes, but drone attacks unite them," he said.

His view was echoed by Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who told Reuters that intensified US drone aircraft attacks against Islamist militants in Pakistan could endanger relations between the two allies.

But when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, she told a news conference the US was standing "shoulder to shoulder" with Pakistan in its military offensive. And the increased use of unmanned Predator drones is one of the highest profile ways the US is doing that.

The White House authorized an expansion of the CIA's drone program in Pakistan's tribal areas to parallel the president's decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. The New York Times reported that 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."

US strategy for eliminating safe havens for militants in the region turns on increasing covert pressure on al-Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan, while ground forces attempt to reverse the Taliban's advances in Afghanistan.

Investigative reporter Jane Mayer of The New Yorker magazine has revealed that the number of US drone strikes in Pakistan has risen dramatically under President Obama. During his first 9.5 months in office, Obama authorized at least 41 CIA missile strikes in Pakistan, a rate of approximately one bombing a week. President Bush sanctioned approximately the same number of attacks in his final three years in office.

The attacks have killed between 326 and 538 people, according to Mayer. She wrote, "there is no longer any doubt that targeted killing has become official US policy."

One of the most high-profile critics of the US drone program has been the United Nations human rights envoy, Philip Alston, the UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions.

Alston told Amy Goodman of the Democracy Now! radio program that the US government's use of Predator drones may violate international law. He also raised the issue in a report to the UN General Assembly's Human Rights Committee and said the US should explain the legal basis for using unmanned drones for targeted killings.

In June, Alston presented a critical report on the drone program to the UN Human Rights Council, but he said US representatives ignored his concerns.

He said, "If you're a Defense Department person, it's a very attractive proposition. One can use the Predators without putting US servicemen in any harm. They are very effective. They can kill very significant numbers of people."

But, he added, "The problem is that we have no real information on this program. What Jane Mayer exposed in her New Yorker piece is probably the most detailed information we have. She herself said that the CIA provides no information. It's extraordinary that it's the Central Intelligence Agency which is actually operating a missile program, which is actually deciding who to kill, when and where."

Alston added, "There's no accountability for it. There's no indication of the rules that they use. So, I said before, there are rules, that it's possible to justify a particular killing, but the CIA has never tried to do that. They have simply issued a general assurance: 'No, no, everything's fine. We really follow the rules, and we're very careful.' Well, if Israel or some other country that we're scrutinizing says that, we say, 'Sorry, guys, it's not enough. We need to get the details'."

Alston has called on the American government to make clear the details of the program; the legal basis, under US law, on which they are relying; the rules that they have put in place which govern the CIA actions, assuming there are rules; and what sort of accountability mechanisms they have. Do they review what they've done? They identify an individual. Often these identifications are very vague. But they say, "'O.K., we've got X in our sights.' Did they actually kill X? Did they kill someone else? How many other civilians did they kill? There's never any accounting of that. And we need that sort of retrospective analysis, as well."

He added that, in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, "The United States has not done nearly enough, even today, to make sure that private military contractors do not carry out virtually all tasks, including, it seems, running a part of the drone program."

But the drone program also has its fans. One of them is John Yoo, the former Office of Legal Counsel deputy who wrote the so-called "torture memos. " Yoo appeared at the conservative American Enterprise Institute recently.

He said that in some areas, President Obama has gone beyond George W. Bush when it comes to the use of executive power. Yoo pointed toward the Obama administration's increased use of predator drones overseas as an example.

"If we were still in peacetime, and this were the criminal justice system, police are not allowed to shoot missiles at people who might be criminals, might be about to commit a criminal act or might have committed a criminal act, even if we have a hard time finding and arresting them," said Yoo. He added that in this area Obama has gone beyond Bush.

He said figuring out how to target terrorists is much more difficult because they do not wear uniforms or have territories. "It's a complicated process that we had not had to think about before, but that doesn't mean it's not a war."

Two leading US senators are also strong supporters of the drone program. They are Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Joe Lieberman, Independent of Connecticut. Their recent visit to Islamabad underscored tensions between the anti-terrorist allies caused by strikes unmanned aircraft strikes against suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda targets.

"Friends don't always agree on every issue," Senator . McCain said at a news conference in Islamabad, adding that the United States will "try to find common ground" with Pakistani leaders on the drone issue, but that "we have to do everything we feel is necessary to protect Americans from the attacks of terrorists who may be based here."

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari asked the senators to seek a halt to the drone attacks. He said they are undermining domestic support for the war against Islamist militants and asked that the United States give Pakistan the technology to carry out such strikes on its own.

Following the December 30 suicide bombing at a US base in eastern Afghanistan that killed seven CIA officers and contractors, Washington has also increased its use of the controversial strikes near the Afghan border. Suspected US missiles killed four people and injured three in the latest raid on the North Waziristan tribal area. That was the sixth attack in the region in a week, the Associated Press reported. The AP quoted two Pakistani intelligence officials, who said a pair of missiles struck a house and a vehicle in a village near the town of Miran Shah. They did not identify the victims.

It is the civilian deaths that are giving US policymakers serious headaches. The strategy outlined by Gen. Stanley McChrystal - and supported by Obama with the deployment of 30,000 additional troops - centers on protecting the Afghan people. It is unclear how killing civilians with drone attacks furthers that goal.

In a related development, military observers have revealed - and their revelations have been confirmed by the US military - that a new, "stealthy" US drone, nicknamed "The Beast," is operating out of Kandahar, Afghanistan.

But they question what it's doing there. One military web site wrote, "Since the Taliban do not have radar, why deploy an expensive, stealthy drone when conventional models like the Predator and Reaper work so well? And what's the point of having a high-level, strategic craft in that theater?"

It says the speculation is that The Beast may be carrying out missions outside of Afghanistan, with Iran and Pakistan both being possible candidates.

The Air Force has confirmed The Beast's existence to Aviation Week magazine. "Officially, it's an RQ-170 Sentinel, developed by Lockheed and flown by the flown by the 30th Reconnaissance Squadron at Tonopah Test Range in Nevada," the magazine reported.

And, in something of an embarrassment for the US military, The New York Times reported that insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan have hacked into live video feeds from Predator drones, a key weapon in a Pentagon spy system that serves as the military's eyes in the sky for surveillance and intelligence collection.

Though militants could see the video, The Times said there is no evidence they were able to jam the electronic signals from the unmanned aerial craft or take control of the vehicles, according to a senior defense official speaking on condition of anonymity.

Obtaining the video feeds can provide insurgents with critical information about what the military may be targeting, including buildings, roads and other facilities. The military has reportedly known about the vulnerability for more than a decade, but assumed adversaries would not be able to exploit it.

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US Drone aircraft shot down in Pakistani tribal agency 
 
Military and Security    1/24/2010 7:52:00 PM
 
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2056628&Language=en
 
ISLAMABAD, Jan 24 (KUNA) -- Amid unabated missile strikes in the bordering tribal belt, a US unmanned surveillance drone was brought down by local tribesmen Sunday evening in Waziristan region, said reports.
Local tribesmen near Datakhel district of North Waziristan tribal agency claimed that they fired on the predator and brought it down, state-run Pakistan Television (PTV) citing unnamed tribesmen reported.
However, when contacted the security sources refused to confirm the report and said that they were gathering the information.

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Pakistani Govt Still Denies Blackwater Presence

Interior Minister Claims 'Conspiracy' Behind Reports

by Jason Ditz, January 25, 2010
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/01/25/incredibly-pakistani-govt-still-denies-blackwater-presence/


Despite a massive backlog of media reports and anonymous quotes from officials confirming Blackwater’s presence in Pakistan, the government still felt comfortable openly lying about it. This should perhaps somewhat dampen the shock today when, despite official confirmation from the US government, Pakistan’s government continued to stick to the lie.


 
Rehman Malik

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik today again insisted that there was “no evidence” Blackwater had ever been in the nation, and even claimed that US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who publicly confirmed Blackwater’s presence, privately told Malik the quote was the result of a “conspiracy” by Pakistan’s media.

Malik is perhaps in the most trouble of the Zardari government over the Blackwater revelation, having previously pledged to resign if it turned out Blackwater was operating in the country. Senate officials over the weekend formally demanded that resignation.

Malik’s denial also runs contrary to comments by other Pakistani officials, including Information Minister Qamar Zamar Kaira, who insisted that they had never denied Blackwater’s presence to begin with.

Despite the denials, redenials, and the denials of the denials, it was never really any mystery that Blackwater was operating in the nation, as reporters have confirmed the presence of contractors in Blackwater uniforms patrolling through the streets of Peshawar carrying assault rifles on a number of occasions. The forces were patrolling in front of a Blackwater base in Peshawar’s University Town, with both base and contractors clearly marked as members of the US private security force.

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Pakistan's former spymaster: Taliban leader is ready to talk

By Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay,
 Mcclatchy Newspapers
Mon Jan 25, 7:16 pm ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20100126/wl_mcclatchy/3409576
 
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — The U.S. must negotiate a political settlement to the Afghanistan war directly with Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar because any bid to split the insurgency through defections will fail, said the Pakistani former intelligence officer who trained the insurgent chief.

Omar is open to such talks, asserted retired Brigadier Sultan Amir Tarar , a former operative of Pakistan's premier spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate . He is popularly known as Colonel Imam, whose exploits have gained him near-legendary status in central Asia .

"If a sincere message comes from the Americans, these people (the Taliban ) are very big-hearted. They will listen. But if you try to divide the Taliban , you'll fail. Anyone who leaves Mullah Omar is no more Taliban . Such people are just trying to deceive," said Tarar, a tall, imposing man with a long gray beard and white turban, in an interview with McClatchy .

His comments came as the U.S. and its NATO allies appear increasingly anxious to find a path toward a political resolution to the more than eight-year-old war whose escalating human and financial costs are fueling growing popular opposition.

In Washington , U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones was asked by McClatchy if the Obama administration ruled out having the ISI act as a conduit between Omar and the U.S., as Pakistani officials are advocating.

"We are pursuing a general strategy of engagement," replied Jones, a former four-star Marine general. "We'll see where this takes us."

Senior U.S. and European officials have in recent days been heavily promoting a "re-integration" plan under which low-level Taliban fighters are to be offered jobs, education and protection in return for renouncing al Qaida and defecting to the Afghan government. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is expected to unveil the initiative at an international conference on Afghanistan in London on Thursday.

Karzai also is being encouraged to reach out to senior Taliban leaders, who U.S. commanders think may be induced to switch sides under the pressure of a stepped up military campaign by the 116,000-strong U.S.-led international force bolstered by 30,000 more American soldiers, most of who are due to arrive this summer.

"The U.S. remains committed to continued engagement by the Afghan government to politically reconcile any Afghan citizen willing to renounce al Qaida and violence and to accept the Afghan Constitution," said an administration official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

Some U.S. officials and experts, however, see little chance for progress on a political resolution.

Omar, who has led the Taliban since its inception in 1992 and is thought to be directing the insurgency from a sanctuary in the western Pakistani city of Quetta, has repeatedly rejected negotiations until all foreign forces leave Afghanistan , they pointed out.

"I don't think anything is happening here," said a U.S. defense official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue with a journalist.

Furthermore, the insurgents have expanded to 34 of Afghanistan's 36 provinces, and they think they're winning and that they only have to out-wait the Obama administration, which set July 2011 as the start of a U.S. troop withdrawal.

"If I were sitting on the side of those trying to be brought into some kind of reconciliation process, I'd be saying time is on my side," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official with long experience in Afghanistan and Pakistan who requested anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity.

Tarar, 65, a key player in Afghanistan from the 1979-89 Soviet occupation until 2001, said he trained Omar after he graduated from an Islamic seminary in 1985 to fight as a guerrilla against the Soviet forces. At the time, the ISI was running secret camps for "mujahedin" fighters along the Afghan border with U.S. funding.

Tarar, who worked closely with the CIA and was schooled in guerrilla warfare at Fort Bragg, N.C. , arranged for Omar's medical treatment after he was injured. They met again in 1994 after the Pakistani official was posted in the western Afghan city of Herat and "got closer to each other," Tarar said.

The ISI saw the potential of Omar's movement of Islamic purists in the mid-1990s and heavily backed them against the government formed by the victorious anti-Soviet mujahedin. When the Taliban swept into Kabul in 1996, they gave sanctuary to Osama bin Laden .

The Pakistani security establishment thinks that Omar's ambitions are limited to Afghanistan , and that the Taliban can now be persuaded to share power with other Afghan factions.

"Mullah Omar is highly respected, very faithful to his country. He's the only answer. He's a very reasonable man," said Tarar, who insisted he was speaking in a personal capacity. "He's a very effective man, no other man is effective. He's for peace, not war. The Americans don't realize this. He wants his country to be peaceful. He doesn't want to destroy his country."

Tarar said that Omar would be willing to cut a deal, if it would lead to the departure of foreign troops and included funds to rebuild Afghanistan . "I can help," he said. "But can I trust the Americans?"

Pakistan admitted last weekend that it is talking to "all levels" of the Taliban .

Western diplomats think the ISI must be involved in any negotiations or it would act as a spoiler, continuing to provide aid to the Taliban and allied insurgent groups as part of a goal to install in Kabul a pro- Pakistan regime that would sever close ties with India .

Tarar said that without talks, the war would grind on with U.S. forces ignoring the counterinsurgency textbooks that call for the use of minimal force and winning the support of the people.

"The time is on the Taliban's side. The longer the Americans stay, the more complete will be their defeat. They will not be routed but they will be worn out, psychologically and physically," he said.

(Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent. Landay reported from Washington .)

MORE FROM MCCLATCHY

Guantanamo releases continue: four detaines sent to Europe

New Afghan initiative: convince insurgents to switch sides

Taliban attackers strike heart of Afghan's capital capital

In eastern Afghan province, preview of upcoming surge strategy

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The gun markets of Pakistan

By Suroosh Alvi, Founder, Vice Magazine and VBS.TV

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
-VBS.TV gains rare access to gun market in Pakistani tribal area
-Massive shop manufactures up to 1,000 guns a day, most by hand
-Area has been home base for the Taliban since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan

GO here for VIDEO :      MUST SEE
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/01/25/vbs.gun.markets.pakistan/

Editor's Note: The staff at CNN.com has recently been intrigued by the journalism of VICE, an independent media company and Web site based in Brooklyn, New York. VBS.TV is Vice's broadband television network. The reports, which are produced solely by VICE, reflect a very transparent approach to journalism, where viewers are taken along on every step of the reporting process. We believe this unique reporting approach is worthy of sharing with our CNN.com readers. Viewer discretion advised.

Brooklyn, New York (VBS.TV) -- On January 22, 2006, the New York Times reported that all foreign journalists were being banned from Pakistan's tribal areas, which has been called "the most dangerous place in the world." A week before that, the CIA fired missiles remotely from a Predator aircraft into the Waziristan tribal area. They were hoping to eradicate a bunch of al Qaeda operatives. Instead, they killed 18 women and children.

One week before that, I arrived in Pakistan to visit Darra Adamkhel, the massive open-air market located deep in the tribal areas, where a frighteningly high percentage of Islamic holy warriors goes to buy their guns.

Gaining access to the tribal areas was next to impossible. It took months of pre-planning with the consul general of Pakistan in Montreal and top officials in Peshawar. They repeatedly denied us entry because, according to them, the Pakistani Army had too many "sensitive operations" going on in that region. Without my personal advantage (a family friendship with the governor of the Northwest Frontier Province), we never would have gotten in.

The government assigned me and my team a political agent named Naeem Afridi. He was born and raised in the tribal areas. He took care of us while we were there, and he was a godsend. You can't do anything in this part of the world without someone like Naeem.

Our driver stopped at a security point just outside the town center, where we were introduced to the Frontier Agency militia, six angry-dad-looking guys with AKs and sidearms. They became our personal bodyguards, and followed us through the tight warren of gun shops and factories, barren little brick rooms where upward of 1,000 guns are manufactured every day. Most of the work is done by hand.

The vendors are Pashtuns, who are basically the toughest people in the world. They comprised the majority of the mujahideen who kicked the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the late '80s.

These days, the town is rumored to be completely overrun by the Taliban. They purchase the guns, then cross the border to fight the U.S. army in Afghanistan, or they drive through the mountains to the south to fight the Pakistani army.

This summer, I went back to Pakistan, and found that the fuse on this powder keg has become even shorter. The Pakistani army has surged more troops into the tribal areas, attempting to eradicate the Taliban and al Qaeda. The U.S. and British troops are attempting to do the same thing on the other side of the border in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Pakistan itself has seen violence spread to its major urban centers, where extremists have been detonating bombs and taking over police stations.

But at the same time, there is a cultural explosion taking place, a vibrant art scene and metal and rock bands popping up everywhere. The whole situation has become ultra charged by the fact that there are tons of news channels operating uncensored by the insanely corrupt government.

For Pakistan, it's a volatile, turbulent, and fascinating moment in time.
 

  
 
  
Links referenced within this article

Pakistan
http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/Pakistan
The Taliban
http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/The_Taliban
War and Conflict
http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/War_and_Conflict
VBS.TV
http://www.vbs.tv/newsroom

 

  
Find this article at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/01/25/vbs.gun.markets.pakistan  
  

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Posted by Quannah at 1:03 pm
January 28, 2010
http://blogs.alternet.org/quannahstake/2010/01/28/attack-of-the-drones-wtf/

Attack of the Drones: WTF?

I’ve been waiting for some media outlet to run a story on a seemingly ignored policy shift concerning the Predator Drone attacks in Pakistan by the CIA. I’m still waiting. So, rather than continue to wait, I decided to put this out there.

We all heard about the CIA deaths in Afghanistan on December 30, 2009, along with the Xe (Blackwater) contractors, after a Jordanian double-agent blew himself up inside a gym at a US installation — because security measures weren’t followed. But what I found most interesting about this story was the comments immediately after the attack. This was widely reported at the time. According to CNN International:

“An American intelligence official vowed Thursday (December 31, 2009) that the United States would avenge a suspected terrorist attack on a U.S. base in Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of seven CIA officers.”

So, REVENGE is now the purpose of launching Predator Drone strikes in Pakistan? Is that supposed to be the motive of our intelligence agencies in fighting counter-terrorism? WTF?

I find it interesting that, according to my research, there were 44 Predator Drone strikes in Pakistan in 2009. And since the attack on the CIA base in Afghanistan on December 30, 2009, the CIA has launched at least 11 strikes in Pakistan. In less than one month’s time. That means that in 2009, the CIA averaged 3.6 strikes per month. If we continue the uptick in attacks that we’ve seen since December 30, the total for 2010 could well exceed 132 attacks.

All based on REVENGE.

There were well over 700 civilians killed in these Drone attacks in Pakistan in 2009. In fact, for each Al Qaeda or Taliban member killed in these Drone attacks, there were 140 civilians killed. What a high price to pay for “getting” another “high value terrorist” in Pakistan! And the government always says that they managed to kill the “Number Two” or “Number Three” leader, and it has led me to think… how many Number Two or Number Three leaders of Al Qaeda or the Taliban can there possibly be? WTF?

The other disturbing thing that hasn’t been talked about much, other than Jeremy Scahill who does a phenomenal job reporting on Xe (Blackwater) and their nefarious role in the wars of the past decade, is the fact that CNN International also reported on December 30, 2009:

“Two of those killed were contractors with private security firm Xe, formerly known as Blackwater, a former intelligence official told CNN. The CIA considers contractors to be officers.”

So, not only are these growing numbers of civilians dying in Pakistan out of revenge for the deaths of CIA officers, but also for the deaths of the mercenaries Erik Prince sent to work with the CIA. WTF???

I know there are many stories in the news these days, and there are some that need to be discussed. But there are also “news” stories that are as insipid as the marriage and treatment of sexual addiction of Tiger Woods. But this story, which deserved close scrutiny, not to mention some explanation by Leon Panetta, flies under the radar.

But this is just My Three Cents…

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Rare Afghanistan convoy attack in normally safe Pakistan city

A NATO convoy bringing supplies to Afghanistan suffered a rare attack in Karachi on Thursday – the first such ambush in the relatively secure port city. A day earlier NATO said it had secured an alternate supply route through Russia.

A policeman inspects a bullet riddled truck, which was carrying supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan, after it was attacked while leaving Karachi for Kandahar on Thursday. Akhtar Soomro/Reuters


By Huma Yusuf Correspondent
posted January 28, 2010 at 8:18 am EST
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2010/0128/Rare-Afghanistan-convoy-attack-in-normally-safe-Pakistan-city

Karachi, Pakistan — A NATO convoy came under assault Thursday while carrying supplies through Pakistan to Afghanistan in a rare ambush inside Karachi, the relatively secure port city from which 300 to 400 of the coalition’s trucks leave each day.

Any assault on the Pakistani supply route is worrisome to the US-led forces in Afghanistan, who use it to ship three-quarters of their materials and will need it even more as the surge of 30,000 US troops progresses.

But the attack in Karachi – which is the commercial capital of Pakistan, and has largely escaped the bomb attacks troubling other major cities and the northwest – raises particular concern, especially if it marks the beginning of a trend.

“We will have to increase our vigilance to ensure that such attacks do not become commonplace,” said a police investigator at the Special Investigation Unit, which runs counterterrorism operations in the city.

As a sign of NATO’s desire to loosen its dependence on the Pakistan route, which comes under frequent attack, the organization said Wednesday it had secured agreement from Kazakhstan to allow transit of nonlethal supplies into Afghanistan. This paves the way for an alternate supply route that also includes Russia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

Neighborhood is home to militants
In Thursday’s assault, which took place in a western township of Karachi called Baldia, four gunmen on motorcycles opened fire and threw grenades at three trucks, wounding three people.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but some local police officials believe it was the work of the Pakistani Taliban (called Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan), which operates in the country’s northwestern tribal belt.

According to the SIU officer, Baldia township is home to militants affiliated with TTP as well as other banned sectarian outfits.

“[Baldia] is one of the few parts of the city we have not been able to infiltrate and clear of militants,” he says.

Earlier this month, a blast at a house in Baldia left eight people dead, and police later uncovered a cache of suicide vests, guns, and explosives at the property.

Few attacks in Karachi
The last attack on NATO supply trucks in Karachi took place in December 2008, when unknown attackers torched several vehicles parked at the New Truck Stand.

Security for NATO supply trucks had been increased since the 2008 attack, says Noor Khan Niazi, president of the Karachi Goods Carriers Association.

In September 2008 Shaukat Afridi, whose transport company supplied fuel to NATO forces in Afghanistan, was kidnapped for ransom and then killed by militants affiliated with Harkatul Mujahideen, a banned sectarian group.

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South Asia
Jan 30, 2010 
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LA30Df03.html 
 
Washington works the Af-Pak-India triangle

By Zahid U Kramet

LAHORE - The United States' Af-Pak special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates have been running from pillar to post between Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to end the "war on terror" and bring some sort of stability to the South Asian region.

Until now they have not made much progress. The war persists. A troop surge in Afghanistan was seen as the solution. And, acceding to the requests of his counter-insurgency expert, General David Petraeus, and his commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, President Barack Obama sanctioned an additional 30,000 US troops to ramp up the approximately 100,000-strong coalition force already present in Afghanistan.

Obama's December 1, 2009, address at the West Point Military Academy charted a new course when he remarked, "These additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in 2011 ... America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan." In his State of the Union address this week, Obama reiterated his commitment to having US troops begin to leave Afghanistan in July 2011.

Reinforced at frequent intervals subsequently was that Pakistan held the key to bringing the conflict to an end. But a trust deficit existed. Pakistan felt it had sufficient influence over the Afghan Taliban to pursue peace talks. The US persisted with "no quarter" to any of the Taliban.

Pakistan's perspective was that the al-Qaeda-aligned Pakistani Taliban led by Hakimullah Mahsud in South Waziristan needed to be tackled first. The US insisted the Afghan Taliban's Sirajuddin Haqqani network, which allegedly had a fallback position in North Waziristan, must be targeted simultaneously.

Pakistan asked to use armed drones on selected targets. The US opted to operate them unilaterally, indifferent to the political consequences of the collateral damage with which Pakistan would have to contend. From the Pakistani viewpoint, the cruelest cut of all came when Holbrooke announced during a visit to New Delhi that India's role was crucial to ensure regional peace, while Pakistan held India responsible for the restiveness in its western province of Balochistan.

What rankled even more was when Indian intelligence chief Lieutenant General R K Loomba was surreptitiously allowed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to visit the Afghan National Army (ANA) headquarters in Kabul. This conveyed the impression to Pakistan that the US could be looking at India to oversee ANA operations against the Taliban on the withdrawal of the international forces from the country beginning in July 2011.

A paper published by the US think-tank Council on Foreign Relations titled "Terrorism and Indo-Pakistani escalation" further aggravated the situation when it warned of more "Mumbai-style" attacks emanating from Pakistan which would warrant India's imminent retaliation. (This was a reference to the attack by militants on the Indian city of Mumbai in November 2008 in which more than 150 people were killed.)

After an exchange of fire on the Pakistan-India border shortly thereafter, Shireen M Mazari, the editor of the English-language daily The Nation, found these signals ominous. In a front-page report titled "A two-front threat emerging for Pakistan", she wrote, "A nightmare security scenario for Pakistan seems to be emerging - that of a two-front military conflict ... after meetings between Indian officials and America's Holbrooke and Gates ... we are seeing unprovoked military firing." The implication was obvious.

Pakistan's immediate reaction was that it could not provide any guarantees against more Mumbai-type attacks, with Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani reportedly saying to Gates, "Pakistan is itself facing Mumbai-like attacks almost every other day and when we cannot protect our own citizens how can we guarantee there wouldn't be any more terrorist hits in India?"

Gates is then said to have upped the ante with the caution that unlike the Mumbai attack, India would not show restraint if attacked again. The same day, Pakistan's Inter-Service Public Relations chief Major General Ather Abbas conveyed a message to the visiting US dignitary that the Pakistan army was looking to consolidate its gains rather than opening new fronts in its tribal areas.

But the hard-pressed Pakistan security apparatus had moved on to counter the rampant Taliban in another way. A week earlier, on Saturday January 16, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran inked a regional pact to confront the Afghan insurgency trilaterally and rejected a British proposal to include countries which were not contiguous to Afghanistan, but agreed to include all those that were, namely Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and China.

The Islamabad meeting and the trilateral summit that followed in Istanbul were a prelude to the grand London conference on Afghanistan that began on Thursday. The gala event has drawn 60 countries and has essentially been contrived to deliver the message that the world stands united against al-Qaeda, but ready to accede to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's reintegration proposal for the Taliban.

America had finally accepted the need for this some days earlier, with Holbrooke reported to have said, "We are ready to support it." He did not divulge how exactly this was to come about. What Holbrooke did say, however, was, "There are a lot of people out there fighting who have no ideological commitment to the principles, values or political movement led by Mullah Omar."

Mullah Omar is an al-Qaeda ideologue and he would have to be won over for the war in Afghanistan to be brought to an end. The onus of responsibility for this will inevitably fall on the International Security Assistance Force-propelled ANA forces in Afghanistan, and the Pakistan army on its side of the border. But reining in Mullah Omar is not outside the realm of reality. It begins and ends with the exit of foreign forces from Afghanistan. And that is already on the anvil.

Obama has played his cards cleverly with his surge and withdrawal strategy in Afghanistan. He has been helped by near-unanimous support for financial assistance to rescue Afghanistan at the London conference. On the implementation of its objectives, the Western coalition will not be seen to have won the war, but much less the "arch-villains". Al-Qaeda, however, is another matter.

Osama bin Laden's latest audio relay, if authentic, first and foremost referred to the plight of the Palestinians. The Palestinians are Arab. The Arabs are Muslim for much the larger part. Obama would need to be seen addressing the Israeli settlements issue and the two-state prescription in earnest if he is to make a mark in the Muslim world.

In a recent interview, Obama stressed that a second term in office was not his primary objective. Being acknowledged for his achievements during his first term was of far greater significance. Breaking the deadlock in Afghanistan would be one such achievement. But if the ultimate aim is to break al-Qaeda's back, it would require resolving the Palestine issue - and that may call for a New York conference.

Zahid U Kramet, a Lahore-based political analyst specializing in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, is the founder of the research and analysis website the Asia Despatch.

 
 
 

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Saturday, January 30, 2010
12:55 Mecca time, 09:55 GMT 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/01/201013043058944994.html
 
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Deaths in Pakistan 'drone' attack 
 

 

 
At least nine people have been killed in a suspected US drone attack in northwestern Pakistan, intelligence officials say.

Missiles hit a compound alleged to be used by Taliban fighters in Muhammad Khel, a town in North Waziristan, late on Friday.

The identities of those killed in the attack were not immediately known.

The targeted compound is believed to be a centre for local Taliban and was also a base for fighters belonging to the Haqqani network, which is known for staging attacks on US and Nato troops in Afghanistan.

Previous raids

A series of drone raids have been carried out this month in North Waziristan, home to fighters loyal to the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network.


in depth :
-  Focus: Pakistan, another bloody year?
-  Riz Khan: Is Pakistan heading towards civil war?
-  Blog: Return to the Swat Valley

 
A number of US raids in early January are reported to have targeted Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban.

He was initially reported dead, but an audio recording purportedly carrying a message from Mehsud dispelled rumours of his death and vowed revenge for the drone programme.

The US never confirms drone attacks, but its forces in neighbouring Afghanistan and the Central Intelligence Agency are the only ones known to use the unmanned aircraft capable of firing missiles.

The attacks have often resulted in civilian deaths, stirring anger among Pakistanis and even bolstering support for the Taliban and anti-US sentiment.

Toll of innocents

Washington's refusal to comment on its alleged attacks has been criticised, with even supporters of the raids as a tool in Washington's fight against the Taliban saying that the US needs to be more open to counter the fighters' allegations that only innocent civilians are dying.

"The US government doesn't even suggest what the proportion of innocent people to legitimate targets is,'' Michael Walzer, an American scholar on the ethics of warfare, said.

"It's a moral mistake, but it's a PR mistake as well.''

According to the statistics compiled by Pakistani authorities, drones killed 708 people in 44 attacks targeting the tribal areas in 2009. Authorities said more than 90 per cent of those killed in the raids were civilians.
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

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Mounting Criticism of US Drone Strikes in Pakistan

Poll Shows Only 9 Percent of Pakistanis Support Attacks

by Jason Ditz, January 29, 2010
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/01/29/mounting-criticism-of-us-drone-strikes-in-pakistan/

US drones, conspicuously absent from the North Waziristan region for several days after militants shot one down on Sunday, returned to the region today, killing five people in the town in Muhammad Khel.

The drone strikes, and more importantly America’s default “no comment” position on them except on those rare occasions when they successfully kill a high profile target, have long been a sore spot for the Pakistani public, but the broad base of this opposition has only increased.

According to a Gallup poll, only 9 percent of Pakistanis support the idea of US drone strikes on Pakistani soil. There is increasing pressure for the US to be more transparent with their attacks, in hopes that it might calm the opposition to them.

President Barack Obama has dramatically increased the number of drone strikes since taking office. In 2009 the US launched 44 drone strikes in Pakistan, killing over 700 people. The vast, vast majority of those were civilians, with only a handful of meaningful militant leaders slain. Today’s attack was the 12th attack of 2010. Though the attacks killed just under 100 people, only one named militant, al-Qaeda bodyguard Mahmoud Mahdi Zeidan, has been confirmed killed.

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Suicide Attack in NW Pakistan Kills Sixteen
 
 
30/01/2010 08:29:35 PM GMT   
 
 
http://aljazeera.com/news/articles/34/Suicide-Attack-in-NW-Pakistan-Kills-Sixteen.html

 
A suicide bomber blew himself up at a military checkpoint in northwest Pakistan's on Saturday, killing 16 people including two soldiers.
   
A man wearing a vest packed with explosives walked up to the post in Khar, the main town in the restive tribal region of Bajaur, and detonated himself, senior administration official Iqbal Khattak told AFP. "The death toll has gone up to 16 including two paramilitary soldiers," he said. Another 23 people were wounded, with six in a critical condition, he added. The injured include one security official, Khattak said.
   
A senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the blast and military casualties.
¬
 

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US Aid Program for Pakistan Frontier a Flop, Audit Says

by Sananda Sahoo, January 31, 2010
http://original.antiwar.com/Sananda%20Sahoo/2010/01/30/us-aid-program-for-pakistan-frontier-a-flop-audit-says/


A 45-million-dollar program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that has been in place for nearly two years in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has failed to develop local government agencies to ensure delivery of basic services, according to an audit by USAID’s inspector general.

he three-year project is run by Maryland-based private contractor Development Alternatives, Inc (DAI). The program is one of several in western Pakistan that are funded by U.S. taxpayers to counter the growing influence of Taliban and al Qaeda in the region.

Pakistan is set to receive 7.5 billion dollars over the next five years from U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration as part of a long-term economic assistance plan.

The region has been the site of an intense conflict between the Pakistani military and Taliban fighters since 2008. The fight has displaced thousands of civilians and has killed hundreds.

Two years and 15 million dollars later, the report said, all that DAI was able to achieve was to provide some initial steps toward modernizing the institutions in the region along the Afghan-Pakistan border, and complete some media activities.

"Little has been achieved in building the capacity of FATA governmental institutions and NGOs," said the audit report, dated Jan. 28.

The USAID program aims to empower the FATA Secretariat, which is responsible for providing services such as health care, education and public works. The FATA Development Authority, a governmental institution that was created in 2006, is responsible for the region’s economic development.

Both the agencies report to the governor of the North-West Frontier Province, a particularly poor region of Pakistan.

In January 2008, USAID awarded a three-year, 43.4-million-dollar contract to Development Alternatives to increase the capacity of FATA governmental institutions and NGOs.

In May 2009, to cover the cost of security measures, the mission increased the contract amount by 2.2 million dollars to a total of 45.6 million dollars. The increase includes the costs of relocating contractor expatriate staff from Peshawar to Islamabad, following the assassination of the chief of another USAID program in November 2008.

As of Oct. 31, 2009, USAID had allocated around 19.7 million dollars and spent around 15.5 million dollars.

According to the report, most capacity building activities began after October 2008, 10 months into the 36-month period. The late start led to little progress in building the capacity of the FATA Secretariat and the FATA Development Authority.

The audit says that one of the reasons for the delay is the deteriorating security situation in Peshawar.

Still, it criticized the project’s plans involving installing computers and training of staff. It said 340 of the 400 computers remained boxed up and unused.

"The report is a very partial perspective on a broader issue," Steven O’Connor, DAI’s communications director, told IPS. "It can be dangerous for the people – both from DAI and Pakistanis – who are working on the project."

The report said that the program also failed to increase the capacity of NGOs to promote good governance. It, however, acknowledges that the few FATA-based NGOs that exist lack human and financial resources to promote aims of the program effectively.

The report noted that in most instances, local NGOs needed to strengthen their proposal preparation skills, financial management practices, and monitoring and evaluation capabilities before they could start to promote good governance.

After President Obama took office last year, the United States started rethinking its strategy toward Pakistan, including greater involvement of Pakistani organizations in implementing aid programs. As a result, in June 2009, USAID rejected a DAI funding request of 15.3 million dollars and approved 4.7 million dollars in additional funds.

The report did not address the financial problems of the project consistently, according to O’Connor. "This project was stopped in its tracks by funding freeze," he said.

It also did not take into account the security issues which have been a key factor in the project, he said. As the project was picking up speed, there was a spike in drone attacks and later, almost midway through the project, there was a blanket order to move the project out of Peshawar, O’Connor said.

"That eroded the trust of the people," he said.

There also is a discrepancy between some facts in the report and DAI’s version of it. The inspector general’s report recommends that USAID confirm the existence of 72 laptops that were given to DAI.

But O’Connor says that all those laptops were in use in the field when they were reported "missing."

"We have accounted for 68 laptops and I am sure the rest will be accounted for soon," O’Connor said.

The Maryland-based company says that the project is ongoing and is still funded.

Inter Press Service

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January 31, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/world/asia/31pstan.html?ref=world

Missile Strikes Kill 15 in Pakistani Tribal Region, Officials Say

By PIR ZUBAIR SHAH

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Three missiles believed to have been fired from American drones killed 15 militants in North Waziristan late Friday night, Pakistani security officials said Saturday. The target of the strike was a compound in the Mamad Khel area of North Waziristan, the officials said.

Four Arab and two ethnic Uzbek fighters were killed, along with local militants, a security official said. Four militants were wounded.

Drone attacks in the region have increased significantly since the Dec. 30 suicide bombing attack at a C.I.A. base in Khost, Afghanistan, which borders Pakistan’s North Waziristan region. Seven Americans and a Jordanian were killed in that attack.

American officials say North Waziristan is the main haven for militants from Al Qaeda and for the Afghan Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani. He is closely allied with the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, who claimed responsibility for the Khost bombing.

Drone attacks are controversial in Pakistan, whose officials argue publicly that the attacks violate their sovereignty. Privately those officials do not oppose the strikes, which many United States officials say have been effective in weakening the Taliban and Al Qaeda by killing many of their senior leaders.

Separately, at least 16 people were killed Saturday and dozens wounded in a suicide attack on a checkpoint in the main market of Khar, the capital of the Bajaur tribal area, according to local residents and Pakistani news reports.

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Merkel calls for bigger Islamabad role in Afghanistan

Merkel has refused to set a date for the withdrawal of troops, saying this could encourage the Taliban to lay low for a while and then launch a big attack

Reuters
Published: 00:00 January 31, 2010
http://gulfnews.com/news/world/pakistan/merkel-calls-for-bigger-islamabad-role-in-afghanistan-1.576145

Berlin: Pakistan should be more closely involved in solving the Afghan conflict, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a newspaper interview due to be published Sunday.

"There will be no peace in this region unless Pakistan carries its share of responsibility," Merkel told German weekly Welt am Sonntag.

Faced with an insurgency by indigenous Taliban allied with the Afghan militants, Pakistan wants a peaceful Afghanistan. It is viewed with deep suspicion in Kabul, however, because of its ties to the Taliban, whom Pakistan backed through the 1990s.

"For a comprehensive solution, we need a much greater involvement of Afghan authorities and the inclusion of neighbouring countries, in particular Pakistan," Merkel said.

Germany has said it is committed to boosting troop levels in Afghanistan and nearly doubling civilian aid to create the conditions to start a withdrawal from next year.

Goals

But Merkel has refused to set a date for the withdrawal of troops, saying this could encourage the Taliban to lay low for a while and then launch a big attack.

"A withdrawal without reaching our goals and a unilateral German pull out would not be a handover of responsibility but an act of irresponsibility," she said.

Polls show that a sizeable majority of Germans favour an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan. According to Nato figures, Germany had 4,280 soldiers in Afghanistan as of December last year.

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Pakistan Taliban Chief Reportedly Killed in U.S. Drone Strike

Sunday, January 31, 2010 
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,584402,00.html

 Reuters

Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, left, is seen with CIA homicide bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal Al-Balawi in a video released Jan. 9.

The head of the Taliban in Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed in a U.S. drone attack, Pakistan state television reported Sunday.

The report stated Mehsud had been injured in a drone attack in the Shaktoi area January 14 and died three days later. He reportedly was buried in the village of Mamuzai in the North Waziristan region.

The Pakistani army said Sunday that it was investigating the reports.

The militant leader's death would be an important success for both Pakistan, which has been battling the Pakistani Taliban, and the U.S., which blames Mehsud for a recent deadly bombing against the CIA in Afghanistan.

The army's announcement came shortly after Pakistani state television, citing unnamed "official sources," reported that Mehsud died in Orakzai, an area in Pakistan's northwest tribal region where he was reportedly being treated for his injuries.

"We have these reports coming to us," army spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas told The Associated Press. "We are investigating whether it is true or wrong."

A tribal elder told the AP that he attended Mehsud's funeral in the Mamuzai area of Orakzai on Thursday. He said Mehsud was buried in Mamuzai graveyard after he died at his in-laws' home. The elder spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the Taliban.

Pakistani intelligence officials have said that Mehsud was targeted in a U.S. drone strike in South Waziristan on Jan. 14, triggering rumors that he had been injured or killed. The strike targeted a meeting of militant commanders in the Shaktoi area of South Waziristan.

Mehsud issued two audio tapes after the strike denying the rumors. But Pakistani intelligence officials told the AP on Sunday that they have confirmation that the Taliban chief's legs and abdomen were wounded in the strike.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Pakistani Taliban officials were not immediately available for comment, but low-level fighters have dismissed rumors of Mehsud's death in recent days as propaganda.

The drone strike that targeted Mehsud came about two weeks after a deadly suicide bombing he helped orchestrate killed seven CIA employees at a remote base across the border in Afghanistan. Mehsud appeared in a video issued after the bombing sitting beside the Jordanian man who carried out the attack.

The bomber, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, said he carried out the attack in retribution for the death of former Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud — Hakimullah Mehsud's predecessor — in a U.S. drone strike last August.

The U.S. refuses to talk about the covert CIA-run drone program in Pakistan but officials have said privately that the strikes have killed several senior Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders.

Pakistani officials publicly protest the strikes as violations of the country's sovereignty, but U.S. officials say privately they support the program, especially when it targets militants like Mehsud who the government believes is a threat to the state.

Mehsud, who has the reputation as a particularly ruthless militant, took over leadership of the Pakistani Taliban soon after Baitullah Mehsud's death.

The 28 year-old militant leader has focused most of his attacks against targets inside Pakistan, but his men have also been blamed for attacking U.S. and NATO supply convoys traveling through the country en route to Afghanistan.

Hakimullah Mehsud first appeared in public to journalists in November 2008, when he offered to take reporters in Orakzai on a ride in a U.S. Humvee taken from a supply truck headed to Afghanistan. He was the Pakistani Taliban's regional commander in the Orakzai, Khyber and Mohmand tribal areas before taking over the organization.

He has taken responsibility for a wave of brazen strikes inside Pakistan, including the bombing of the Pearl Continental hotel in the northwestern city of Peshawar last June and the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore earlier that year.

The group stepped up its attacks after the Pakistani army invaded its stronghold of South Waziristan in mid-October. More than 600 people have been killed in attacks throughout the country since the ground offensive was launched.

Authorities have said Mehsud has been behind threats to foreign embassies in Islamabad, and there is a $120,000 bounty on his head.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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NATO fuel tanker blown up in Pakistan

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:45:25 GMT
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117586&sectionid=351020401

 
Nato supply trucks are regularly attacked in Pakistan.


A NATO tanker carrying fuel for US-led International forces in war-torn Afghanistan has been targeted by militants in northwestern Pakistan.

The driver and his assistant were wounded when more than 10 gunmen opened fire at the fuel tanker near the city of Peshawar.

This is the third such incident in less than a week. However, no group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Last October, gunmen set fire to a fuel tanker and a transporter carrying four vehicles that had been parked overnight near Peshawar.

The NATO supply trucks are regularly attacked by militants in northwestern Pakistan, which serves as the main supply route for the troops stationed in Afghanistan.

MSD/MMN

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Militants Stage Comeback in Pakistan Tribal Area

Tuesday, February 02, 2010 
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,584515,00.html

KHAR, Pakistan —  Pakistani troops killed eight Islamist militants Tuesday in an Afghan border region where insurgents are staging a comeback after a military operation there was declared a success, a local official said.

The fighting came amid continuing reports that the head of the Pakistani Taliban had died as a result of injuries sustained in a U.S. missile strike elsewhere in the northwest in mid-January. On Monday, a Taliban commander said chief Hakimullah Mehsud was alive and promised to provide proof soon.

The clashes in the Bajur region illustrate the tenacity of Islamist militants in northwest Pakistan, most of whom are allied with those waging war against U.S. and NATO troops across the border in Afghanistan.

Bajur was declared free of militants a year ago after a military offensive, but in recent days government officials say security forces have killed dozens of insurgents there. A militant homicide attack there killed 16 people on Saturday.

The latest deaths came during overnight raids in the towns of Damadola and Sewai, local government official Abdul Malik said. He said tribesmen loyal to the government hung the corpses of two alleged militants from an electricity pole in the Inayat Kali area in Bajur, though he did not know when the insurgents were killed.

There was no independent confirmation of the fighting or the identities of the dead.

The Taliban and Al Qaeda are both present in Bajur, the northernmost segment of Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal belt. The tribal regions are a suspected hiding area of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, and a regular target for missiles fired by U.S. unmanned planes.

The death of militant chief Hakimullah would be an important victory against an Al Qaeda ally already recently driven from its stronghold of South Waziristan by a Pakistani army offensive in October. Hakimullah's predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, died in a similar attack in August.

The Pakistani Taliban initially denied Baitullah was killed, only admitting his death after Hakimullah was named his heir weeks later.

The U.S. is eager for Islamabad to pursue militants on Pakistani soil, where Washington says they plot assaults on American troops in Afghanistan. Hakimullah Mehsud is believed to have played a key role in a suicide attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan late last year that killed seven agency employees.

Taliban commanders Waliur Rehman and Qari Hussain are seen as the two most likely successors to replace Mehsud. Hussain is known as the group's chief trainer of suicide bombers. Rehman was the commander in South Waziristan.

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US Drones Killed 123 Civilians, Three al-Qaeda Men in January

By By Amir Mir

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24546.htm

February 01, 2010 "The News" -- LAHORE: Afghanistan-based US predators carried out a record number of 12 deadly missile strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan in January 2010, of which 10 went wrong and failed to hit their targets, killing 123 innocent Pakistanis. The remaining two successful drone strikes killed three al-Qaeda leaders, wanted by the Americans.

The rapid increase in the US drone attacks in the Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan can be gauged from the fact that only two such strikes were carried out in January 2009, which killed 36 people. The highest number of drone attacks carried out in a single month in 2009 was six, which were conducted in December last year. But the dawn of the New Year has already seen a dozen such attacks.

The unprecedented rise in the predator strikes with the beginning of the year 2010 is being attributed to December 30, 2009 suicide bombing in the Khost area of Afghanistan bordering North Waziristan, which killed seven CIA agents. US officials later identified the bomber as Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, a Jordanian national linked to both al-Qaeda and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

In a subsequent posthumous video tape released by Al-Jazeera, Balawi claimed while sitting next to TTP Chief Commander Hakimullah Mehsud that he would blow himself up in the CIA base to avenge the killing of former TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud in a US drone attack. The consequent increase in US strikes, first in North Waziristan and then South Waziristan, specifically targeting the fugitive TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud clearly shows that revenge is the major motive for these attacks. The US intelligence sleuths stationed in Afghanistan are convinced the Khost suicide attack was planned in Waziristan with the help of the TTP. Therefore, it is believed Afghanistan-based American drones will continue to hunt the most wanted al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, especially Hakimullah, with a view to avenge the loss of the seven CIA agents and to raise morale of its forces in Afghanistan.

According to the data compiled by the interior ministry, the first US drone strike was conducted on January 1 which struck a vehicle near Ghundikala village in North Waziristan and killed four people. The second attack came on January 3, targeting the Mosakki village in North Waziristan, killing five people. Two separate missile strikes carried out on January 6 killed 35 people in Sanzalai village of North Waziristan. The fifth predator attack was carried out on January 8 in the Tappi village of North Waziristan, killing five people. The sixth attack on January 9 in Ismail Khan village of North Waziristan killed four people, including two al-Qaeda leaders. Mahmoud Mehdi Zeidan, the bodyguard for al-Qaeda leader Sayeed al-Masri, and Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim, who had been involved in hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in 1986, were reportedly killed in this missile strike.

The seventh US attack on January 14 in the Pasalkot village of North Waziristan killed 15 people, amidst rumours Hakimullah Mehsud could be among the dead.

The eighth drone attack came on January 15 in the Zannini village near Mir Ali in North Waziristan, killing 14 people, including an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist, Abdul Basit Usman, a Filipino wanted by the Americans. The ninth strike was carried out on January 17 in the Shaktoi area of South Waziristan, which killed 23 people. The tenth drone attack came on January 19 when two missiles were fired at a compound and vehicle in Booya village of Datakhel subdivision, 35km west of Miramshah, in North Waziristan, killing eight people. The eleventh strike carried out on January 29 targeting a compound belonging to the Haqqani network in the Muhammad Khel town of North Waziristan, killed six people. The twelfth and the last predator attack of the month came on January 30, killing nine people in the Lend Mohammad Khel area of North Waziristan.

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Tuesday, February 02, 2010
10:56 Mecca time, 07:56 GMT 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/2010227419502754.html
 
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Deaths in Karachi ethnic violence  

 
Violence in Karachi, Pakistan's commercial capital, has a direct impact on the country's economy [AFP]
 
At least 26 people have been killed in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, after four days of ethnic killings, police officials say.

The officials said that nine people from the total death toll were killed on Monday in the city's Orangi western neighbourhood, which has a majority ethnic Pashtun community.

The clashes appeared to be between activists from rival political parties, which traditionally gather support from different ethnic groups.

Waseem Ahmed, the Karachi police chief, said the unrest started on Friday, when officials from the Pashtun-dominated, secular Awami National Party (ANP) were killed by unknown assailants.

Those initial killings sparked other attacks in Pashtun areas of Karachi, with ANP politicians reportedly blaming activists from the rival Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), also a secular party but which represents mostly Urdu-speaking residents of Karachi.

At least 40 people were killed as ethnic clashes erupted across the city in early January.

Asif Ali Zardari, the president of Pakistan, travelled to Karachi on Monday, where he met political leaders from MQM and the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) to discuss the law and order situation.

Economy fallout

Karachi, which is home to 18 million, holds the country's central bank and main stock exchange. The city is also the Pakistan's main industrial base as most foreign companies investing in Pakistan have offices there.

Investors in Pakistan have got used to almost daily violence in the northwest, but bloodshed in Karachi has a more direct impact on financial market sentiment.

An International Monetary Fund loan package of $7.6bn agreed to in November 2008 helped Pakistan avert a balance of payments crisis and shore up reserves.

The IMF increased the loan to $11.3bn in July 2009.

Though Karachi has largely been free of violence over the past couple of years, a bomb that detonated at a minority Shia Muslim procession in late December fuelled concern that the Pakistani Taliban fighters were expanding their fight to the city.

Gangsters and the drug mafia have taken advantage of the tension, officials say, increasing the chances that violence could get worse.

At least 67 people have been killed in political violence in Karachi since the start of 2010, according to police.
 
 

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Obama proposes $1.2 bln to aid Pakistani military


  Updated at: 2120 PST, Monday, February 01, 2010
http://www.thenews.com.pk/updates.asp?id=97643

 
   WASHINGTON: U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday proposed $1.2 billion in funding next year to help train and equip Pakistani security forces to fight Taliban militants.

Created by Congress last year, the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund set aside some $700 million in 2009 to train and equip the country's army and other security forces. 

WTF !

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Tuesday, February 02, 2010
21:22 Mecca time, 18:22 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/201022151350906994.html
   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Deaths in Pakistan 'drone' attack  

 
North Waziristan is home to fighters loyal to the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network.
 
Missiles fired by suspected US drones have killed at least 17 people and wounded 15 others in Pakistan, residents and security officials say.

Officials said the missiles rained down on the Degan area in North Waziristan, part of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal region near the Afghan border, on Tuesday.

They said the missiles struck suspected fighters' hideouts and a training centre.

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, said there were reports that up to 19 missiles had been fired.

"This would be the first time you get a co-ordinated attack by such a large group of drones since the attacks against targets inside Pakistan began.

"Seventeen people have been reported killed. However, there is mounting fear that the death toll could be at least over two dozen or even cross 30."

Locals were digging dead and wounded out of the debris.

Similar attacks


in depth
  Focus: Pakistan, another bloody year?
  Focus: Obama's Pakistan dilemma
  Riz Khan: Is Pakistan heading towards civil war?
  Blog: Return to the Swat Valley
  Video: Security test in Pakistan's Swat

 
At least nine people were killed in a suspected US drone attack in the same area on Friday.

Missiles hit a compound allegedly used by Taliban fighters in Muhammad Khel, a town in North Waziristan.


The identities of those killed in the attack were not immediately known.


A series of drone raids have been carried out this month in North Waziristan, home to fighters loyal to the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network.

The US never confirms drone attacks, but its forces in neighbouring Afghanistan and the Central Intelligence Agency are the only ones known to use the unmanned aircraft capable of firing missiles.

The attacks have often resulted in civilian deaths, stirring anger among Pakistanis and even bolstering support for the Taliban and anti-US sentiment.
 
 

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Published on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 by Canada.com

Washington's Refusal to Talk about Drone Strikes in Pakistan Meets Growing Opposition

by Sebastian Abbot

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Criticism is mounting over Washington's refusal to say anything about missile strikes against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Pakistan's northwest, prompting even supporters to argue the U.S. needs to be more open to counter militant allegations that only innocent civilians are dying.

A US Predator drone flew over the moon above Kandahar Air Field in southern Afghanistan on Sunday. The Pakistani Army said Sunday it was investigating reports that Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud died from injuries sustained in a US drone missile strike in mid-January. Mehsud's death may still be unconfirmed, but the secret nature of and silence surrounding the US drone wars should be cause for serious concern. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP)
Missiles launched by unmanned drones are the most effective way for the U.S. to go after militants hiding in the lawless border area near Afghanistan because the Pakistani government refuses to allow U.S. troops on its soil and has been reluctant to target many of the fighters itself.

While the government criticizes the strikes as an infringement on national sovereignty, it is widely assumed to privately support the attacks and help provide intelligence.

But the militants are the only ones speaking publicly about people killed in the strikes. Their claims of hundreds of civilian fatalities have made the attacks deeply unpopular in Pakistan, even though they have eliminated hard-line leaders responsible for the deaths of thousands of Pakistanis.

A poll conducted by Gallup Pakistan for Al-Jazeera in July last year found that only 9 per cent of Pakistanis supported the drone strikes. The poll was based on face-to-face interviews with more than 2,500 Pakistanis throughout the country and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 to 3 percentage points.

More information about the CIA-run program could help offset opposition in Pakistan and also assuage concerns that the strikes violate international law.

"The U.S. government doesn't even suggest what the proportion of innocent people to legitimate targets is," said Michael Walzer, a renowned American scholar on the ethics of warfare. "It's a moral mistake, but it's a PR mistake as well."

Several groups in the U.S. have attempted to calculate what percentage of the more than 700 people killed in the drone strikes in Pakistan has been civilians. Without input from Washington, the results have been all over the map, ranging from 98 per cent to 10 per cent.

Residents interviewed by The Associated Press in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area, the site of a majority of the strikes since the program began in 2004, said they believe almost all of the victims are innocent civilians - although it is possible their comments are influenced by fear of the Taliban.

"I have yet to know a terrorist killed in these drone attacks," said Safirullah Khan, a 32 year-old teacher in Mir Ali town. "If someone knows of any, they should tell me and let the world know also."

U.S. officials argue privately that civilian deaths are much lower than are often reported in the press - a tactic that critics say does little to counter the Taliban's claims.

The U.S. silence, which supporters say is driven by operational concerns and the politically sensitive nature of the strikes for Pakistan, has raised questions about whether the program conforms with international law principles governing who can be targeted and what level of collateral damage can be justified.

"I think the main concern for those of us looking at it from the outside is we don't know what the criteria are for the individual decision of whether to pull the trigger or not," said Paul Pillar, a former senior counterterrorism official at the CIA. "Each particular decision is essentially rendering a death sentence on someone and usually more than one someone when you get into the collateral damage."

Several different groups, including the U.N. and the American Civil Liberties Union, have pressed the U.S. to reveal who it is killing in the strikes but have so far been rebuffed.

The U.S. government refuses even to acknowledge the drone program in Pakistan, but intelligence officials occasionally leak the names of high-profile militants killed in the strikes, including Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.

"The CIA may indeed operate as a matter of principle in secrecy, but it cannot legitimately carve itself out as the sole actor which is not subject to any form of accountability when its activities are so well-known and proclaimed with such pride," said Philip Alston, a U.N. investigator of extrajudicial killings.

Concerns about how the CIA picks targets escalated this month following a wave of strikes after a deadly suicide bombing in Afghanistan's Khost province on Dec. 30 killed seven agency employees. Militants in Pakistan are believed to have helped orchestrate the attack.

"As you get the sort of attacks we have seen over the past few days in response to the Khost killings, suspicions start to rise that the standards are dropping and there is a greater willingness to countenance civilian deaths. Some sort of information would be essential to try to provide reassurance," Alston said.

Roger Cressey, a former counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations involved in the initial phases of the drone program, believes concerns about its moral basis are overblown.

"The CIA is not going off like a bunch of trigger happy joystick controllers killing people randomly," he said. "They take a very serious and methodical approach to acting upon intelligence and making the decision."

A former U.S. intelligence official said the CIA requires at least two kinds of intelligence to confirm a target before striking - for instance, imagery from the aircraft combined with a radio intercept.

The former official said that even with confirmation, sometimes the CIA will not carry out a strike if there are indications that civilians are at risk. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the classified program.

Despite Cressey's confidence in the program, even he is worried about the fact that Washington's silence allows the Taliban to dominate local perceptions about the strikes.

"Nature abhors a vacuum, and if that vacuum is filled by what the Taliban says happens in the drone strikes, then that does influence and impact the population, a population that is incredibly critical to us for our overall success," he said.

Associated Press writers Rasool Dawar in Mir Ali, Riaz Khan in Peshawar and Pamela Hess in Washington contributed to this report.

© 2010 Canwest News Service

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

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/02-7

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Wednesday, February 03, 2010
12:30 Mecca time, 09:30 GMT 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/201022151350906994.html
 
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Lethal bombing in north Pakistan  
 

North Waziristan is home to fighters loyal to the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network
 

A roadside bomb has killed at least eight people, including four foreigners and three school girls, near a girls' school in northwest Pakistan.

Local reports said that Wednesday's blast was caused by an improvised explosive device.

A group of journalists and aid workers were travelling in an army convoy to the opening of a girls' school in the Lower Dir area when it was hit.

"Eight people were killed in this blast. Four foreigners, one gunman and three school girls," Mumtaz Zarin, a police official, told the AFP news agency.

At least 45 people, including school girls, were injured in the blast.

"We are investigating the nationalities of the foreigners. I was told that they are NGO (non-governmental organisation) people and came here for the inauguration ceremony of a girl's school," Sardar Ali, a doctor from the local Taimargara Hospital, told the AFP.

"Four local journalists were also injured in the blast," he said.

Foreign aid workers and journalists have been particularly interested in girls' education in parts of northwest Pakistan, where Taliban fighters opposed to co-education have destroyed hundreds of schools.

'Largest attacks'

On Tuesday, at least 29 people were killed and many more wounded in a suspected US drone attack in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan.


in depth :
  Focus: Pakistan, another bloody year?
  Focus: Obama's Pakistan dilemma
  Riz Khan: Is Pakistan heading towards civil war?
  Blog: Return to the Swat Valley
  Video: Security test in Pakistan's Swat

 
Officials said a series of missiles rained down on Dattakhel village in the Degan area of North Waziristan, part of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal region near the Afghan border.

They said the missiles struck suspected fighters' hideouts and a training centre.

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, said there were reports that up to 19 missiles had been fired.

"One thing is quite clear - this was perhaps one of the largest attacks carried out so far," he said.

"There is expected to be a backlash because just recently the military had clearly said that they had not given any tacit approval for the Americans to conduct such a strike and there is tremendous opposition inside Pakistan. The military is aware of that."

Tribesman in the area of the attack had claimed that they shot down at least two US drones in the past. Those reports have not been confirmed.

'Drone' attacks

In the same area on Friday, at least nine people were killed in a suspected US drone attack

Missiles hit a compound allegedly used by Taliban fighters in Muhammad Khel, a town in North Waziristan.


The identities of those killed in the attack were not immediately known.


A series of drone raids have been carried out this month in North Waziristan, home to fighters loyal to the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network.

The US never confirms drone attacks, but its forces in neighbouring Afghanistan and the Central Intelligence Agency are the only ones known to use the unmanned aircraft capable of firing missiles.

The attacks have often resulted in civilian deaths, stirring anger among Pakistanis and even bolstering support for the Taliban and anti-US sentiment.

The US has increased drone attacks since a suicide bomber crossed over Pakistan's border and killed seven CIA employees in an attack in eastern Afghanistan on December 30.
 
 

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Deaths in Pakistan 'drone' attack

Aljazeera.net
http://uruknet.com/index.php?p=m62845&hd=&size=1&l=e

February 2, 2010



Missiles fired by suspected US drones have killed at least 17 people and wounded many more in Pakistan, residents and security officials say.

Officials said the missiles rained down on Dattakhel village in the Degan area of North Waziristan, part of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal region near the Afghan border, on Tuesday.

They said the missiles struck suspected fighters' hideouts and a training centre.

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, said there were reports that up to 19 missiles had been fired.

"This would be the first time you get a co-ordinated attack by such a large group of drones since the attacks against targets inside Pakistan began.

"Seventeen people have been reported killed. However, there is mounting fear that the death toll could be at least over two dozen or even cross 30."

Locals were digging dead and wounded out of the debris.

Similar attacks


in depth 
  Focus: Pakistan, another bloody year?
  Focus: Obama's Pakistan dilemma
  Riz Khan: Is Pakistan heading towards civil war?
  Blog: Return to the Swat Valley
  Video: Security test in Pakistan's Swat
 
At least nine people were killed in a suspected US drone attack in the same area on Friday.
Missiles hit a compound allegedly used by Taliban fighters in Muhammad Khel, a town in North Waziristan.


The identities of those killed in the attack were not immediately known.


A series of drone raids have been carried out this month in North Waziristan, home to fighters loyal to the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network.

The US never confirms drone attacks, but its forces in neighbouring Afghanistan and the Central Intelligence Agency are the only ones known to use the unmanned aircraft capable of firing missiles.

The attacks have often resulted in civilian deaths, stirring anger among Pakistanis and even bolstering support for the Taliban and anti-US sentiment.



 

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Obama’s surge: killing spree on both sides of AfPak border


By Bill Van Auken

http://uruknet.com/index.php?p=m62876&hd=&size=1&l=e

WSWS, February 3, 2010

CIA drone missile attacks claimed the lives of 123 civilians last month alone in Pakistan, it was reported this week. Meanwhile, on the other side of the border, US Special Forces have launched an assassination campaign against alleged leaders of Afghanistan’s Taliban movement in preparation for an imminent military offensive.

These killings are the product of the military "surge" ordered by the Obama administration, which is increasing the US troop deployment in the country by another 30,000. With other NATO countries providing between 5,000 and 10,000 additional soldiers, the occupation force in Afghanistan is set to swell to 150,000 by the fall of this year.

In Pakistan, the illegal US campaign of targeted assassinations has been joined with repeated Pakistani military offensives, instigated by Washington, that have claimed thousands of lives and displaced over a million people in the country’s northwestern tribal areas.

Citing figures compiled by Pakistan’s Interior Ministry, the Karachi-based daily the News International reported Monday that "Afghanistan-based US predators carried out a record number of 12 deadly missile strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan in January 2010, of which 10 went wrong and failed to hit their targets, killing 123 innocent Pakistanis."

The other two missiles, the newspapers said, claimed the lives of three alleged leaders of Al Qaeda on Washington’s wanted list.

On Tuesday, the day after the report was published, there was a massive drone attack in the Degan area of North Waziristan, part of Pakistan’s tribal areas near the Afghan border. According to initial reports, at least 17 people were killed and another 15 wounded. The death toll was expected to rise, however, as villagers dug through the rubble of demolished buildings.

This latest attack reportedly involved multiple drones and the firing of as many as 19 missiles.

The Pakistani media has attributed the upsurge in drone attacks to the CIA’s search for revenge following the December 30 suicide bombing that killed seven CIA operatives and a top Jordanian intelligence agent. Those killed in the bombing at Forward Operating Base Chapman, near the Afghan border, included senior intelligence agents directly involved in picking targets for the Predator drone attacks.

The CIA believes that the attack, carried out by a Jordanian doctor whom the agency had believed was working for it in infiltrating Al Qaeda inside Pakistan, had been carried out with the aid of the Pakistani Taliban and its leader, Hakimullah Mehsud.

Last month the Taliban in Pakistan released a video in which the Jordanian, Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, was shown explaining the planned attack while seated next to Mehsud.

The bombing at the CIA base was itself apparently motivated by revenge; in this case for the killing of Hakimullah Mehsud’s brother, Baitullah Mehsud, in a US drone attack last August.

US and Pakistani intelligence have claimed that Hakimullah Mehsud, who was personally targeted in the attacks, has died from wounds suffered in one of the missile strikes carried out in mid-January. The attack, the seventh carried out last month, struck the village of Pasalkot in North Waziristan, killing 15 people.

Pakistani television media reported last weekend that Mehsud had died, but no government official has publicly confirmed this claim. Pakistani officials are reluctant to do so for fear of being identified with the US drone missile campaign, which is widely hated because of its large numbers of civilian victims and its gross violations of Pakistani sovereignty. Also, the government has repeatedly claimed that Mehsud had been killed over the last several months, only to be proven wrong.

Taliban spokesmen insist that Mehsud is still alive.

In Afghanistan, US Special Forces troops are carrying out another campaign of targeted assassinations aimed against the Afghan resistance.

As the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, behind the public statements about waging a battle for the hearts and minds of the Afghan people by limiting civilian casualties and providing security and economic development, "the US is quietly escalating a more forcible campaign."

"In recent months, small teams of Army commandos, Navy Seals and Central Intelligence Agency operatives have intensified the pace of what the military often calls 'kill-capture missions’—hunting down just one or two insurgents at a time who are deemed too recalcitrant to be won over by any goodwill campaign," the Journal continued.

Over the weekend, a US Special Forces unit returning from one of these "kill-capture" raids encountered an Afghan National Army outpost and attacked it, apparently believing it was battling Taliban fighters. After the unit called in air strikes, four Afghan soldiers were killed and several others wounded.

These raids are being carried out in advance of what is anticipated to be a major US offensive in the Marjah region of Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold where some 10,000 Marines have been deployed. The offensive is expected as early as the end of this week.

A report by the Agence France Presse news agency captured the mood of the Marines as they are about to be unleashed upon the district.

"Anger, frustration and a hunger for revenge are running high among US Marines as casualties mount on the frontline of the battle against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan," AFP reported Tuesday.

"Commanders try to keep the men’s rage in check, aware that winning over an Afghan public wary of the foreign military presence and furious about mounting civilian casualties is as crucial as any battlefield success," the report continued.

This rage is apparently a reaction to fighting against an indigenous resistance with the ability to inflict casualties on occupation forces and melt back into the local population.

These casualties have continued to mount, with four occupation troops killed on Monday. One of the soldiers, identified as an American, was killed in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan. Two other soldiers, whose nationality was not immediately reported, lost their lives in a firefight in the south of the country. And a Spanish soldier was killed, with six others wounded, when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb west of Kabul.

Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday, Admiral Mike Mullen, chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sounded an ominous note as he argued for the $33 billion in supplemental funding that the Obama administration has requested as the first installment on its Afghan surge.

Mullen said that 4,500 soldiers and Marines out of the 30,000-troop surge that Obama ordered last December are now in Afghanistan. He said 18,000 of them would be on the ground by late spring, and the full 30,000 by early fall.

"Right now, the Taliban believe they’re winning," said Mullen, who had acknowledged that the US military had found "the situation to be more dire than previously understood," with the Taliban possessing "a widespread paramilitary, shadow government and extra-judicial presence in a majority of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces."

"The hardest work to achieve our regional aims remains ahead of us," said the top US military commander. This "work" will involve a major escalation in the bloodletting on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in the coming weeks and months.


 

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Pakistan Blast Kills U.S. Troops, Children, Say Local Officials


BY SHERIN ZADA and MUNIR AHMAD | 02/ 3/10 07:14 AM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/03/pakistan-blast-kills-us-troops_n_447191.html

 
File photo of Pakistani troops.   
 
SHAHI KOTO, Pakistan — Three U.S. soldiers traveling with Pakistan security force members were killed Wednesday and one wounded in a roadside bombing in northwest Pakistan that also injured dozens of schoolgirls, officials said.

The soldiers were in the region as part of a small, little-publicized U.S. mission to train members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps to better fight al-Qaida and Taliban militants, Pakistan's army said.

The U.S. Embassy declined to comment. If the deaths are confirmed by American authorities, they would represent a major victory for militants close to the Afghan border who have been hit hard in recent months by a surge in U.S. missile strikes and a major Pakistani army offensive.

The attack, which killed at least four other people and wounded 70, will draw attention to the presence of U.S. troops on Pakistan soil at a time when anti-American sentiment over perceived violations of sovereignty is running high. U.S. and Pakistani authorities rarely talk about the training program out of fear it could generate a backlash.

The blast hit a convoy close to a girls' school celebrating its opening in the Shahi Koto area of Lower Dir district, which like much of the northwest is home to al-Qaida and Taliban militants. It was unclear where the convoy was heading.

One of the dead was a Pakistani soldier, officials said. Around 70 people were wounded, among them many schoolgirls, said an army statement and police chief Mumtaz Zarin Khan. Some officials said three schoolchildren also were among the dead.

Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen Athar Abbas said three Americans soldiers training the Frontier Corp were killed and one was wounded in the attack.

Lower Dir shares a border with Afghanistan and with the Swat Valley, a region the army last year retook from militant control in an offensive that included operations in Lower Dir. The army had claimed both regions were now clear of insurgents.

Story continues below 
The bomb flattened much of the Koto Girls High School, leaving books, bags and pens strewn around.

"What was the fault of these innocent students?" said Mohammed Dawood, a resident who helped police dig the injured from the rubble.

Later, the bodies of three foreigners and two injured were flown by helicopter to Islamabad and then taken to the city's Al-Shifa hospital, said a doctor there who asked his name not be used citing the sensitivity of the case. One of the injured had minor head wounds and the other had multiple fractures.

He said Pakistani army and intelligence officers were present and not allowing visitors into the building.

U.S. troops have been training Pakistan's Frontier Corps since at least 2008. The corps is a major force in the northwest, but they have long been under-equipped and under-trained, making them a feeble front line against militants.

The training program was never officially announced, a sign of the sensitivity for the Pakistan's government in allowing U.S. troops on its territory. Frontier Corps officials have said the course includes classroom and field sessions. U.S. officials have said the program is a "train-the-trainer" program, and that the Americans are not carrying out operations.

____

Zada reported from Shahi Koto, and Ahmad from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Zarar Khan and Chris Brummitt contributed from Islamabad

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17 Pakistanis Killed in US Drone ‘Revenge’ Strike

Largest Scale Air Attack Against Pakistani Targets Yet

by Jason Ditz, February 02, 2010
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/02/02/at-least-17-killed-as-us-drones-fire-salvo-of-missiles-against-pakistan-village/

Though there have surely been single strikes which netted a much larger death toll, like the June attack on a South Waziristan funeral, the United States today launched the single largest coordinated drone attack against a target inside Pakistan today.

In the attack, at least nine of the unmanned warplanes fired some 18 missiles against the tiny village of Deegan, in Datta Khel, killing at least 17 people and injuring numerous others. The toll is expected to rise as the attacks, which hit multiple homes, left many people buried in rubble around the village.

Officials say that Deegan is considered a “Taliban stronghold,” but they have been unable to verify if any of the people killed in the attack were actually militants, or simply innocent villagers caught in the endless air war against North Waziristan.

The attack was the latest in an ever escalating campaign of air strikes by the Obama Administration, the 13th distinct attack in 2010 alone. The attacks have killed around 150 people, but only a handful of those casualties are believed to have been militant leaders. Analysts say the dramatic increase in 2010 is “revenge” for the December 30 attack on a CIA base in Khost.

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Wednesday, February 03, 2010
16:57 Mecca time, 13:57 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/201023125741180461.html
   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Blast hits Pakistan school opening 
 

The blast was reportedly caused by an improvised explosive device [Reuters]
 

 
A roadside bomb has killed at least eight people, including three US military personnel and four school girls, near a girls' school in northwest Pakistan.

Local police said that Wednesday's blast was caused by an improvised explosive device.

The US embassy in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, said the Americans were in the area to attend the opening ceremony of the girls' school when the bomb exploded.

"Three Americans were killed and two injured in a terrorist bomb explosion at about 11:20am today in the Lower Dir district of Pakistan’s federally-administered tribal areas," the embassy said in a statement.

"The Americans were US military personnel in Pakistan to conduct training at the invitation of the Pakistan Frontier Corps.  They were in Lower Dir to attend the inauguration ceremony of a school for girls that had recently been renovated with US humanitarian assistance."

Pakistani officials said an Frontier Corps soldier and four schoolgirls also died.

"We have four dead bodies (in this hospital). They are schoolgirls aged 10 to 15. We have received 65 injured, most of them are girls," Mohammed Wakeel, chief doctor at the local Taimargara hospital, said.

Taliban claim


in depth

  Focus: Pakistan, another bloody year?
  Focus: Obama's Pakistan dilemma
  Riz Khan: Is Pakistan heading towards civil war?
  Blog: Return to the Swat Valley
  Video: Security test in Pakistan's Swat

 
Pakistan's Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing and threatened more attacks.

"We claim responsibility for the blast," Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Azam Tariq said.

The school had been blown up in January 2009 and rebuilt with the help of a foreign aid organisation.

Foreign aid workers and journalists have been particularly interested in girls' education in parts of northwest Pakistan, where Taliban fighters opposed to co-education have destroyed hundreds of schools.

On Tuesday, at least 29 people were killed and many more wounded in a suspected US drone attack in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan.

Officials said a series of missiles rained down on Dattakhel village in the Degan area of North Waziristan, part of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal region near the Afghan border.

They said the missiles struck suspected fighters' hideouts and a training centre.

'Backlash fear'

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, said there were reports that up to 19 missiles had been fired.

"One thing is quite clear - this was perhaps one of the largest attacks carried out so far," he said.

"There is expected to be a backlash because just recently the military had clearly said that they had not given any tacit approval for the Americans to conduct such a strike and there is tremendous opposition inside Pakistan. The military is aware of that."

Tribesman in the area of the attack had claimed that they shot down at least two US drones in the past. Those reports have not been confirmed.

The US never confirms drone attacks, but its forces in neighbouring Afghanistan and the Central Intelligence Agency are the only ones known to use the unmanned aircraft capable of firing missiles.

The attacks have often resulted in civilian deaths, stirring anger among Pakistanis and even bolstering support for the Taliban and anti-US sentiment.

The US has increased drone attacks inside Pakistan since a suicide bomber crossed over the Pakistani border and killed seven CIA employees in an attack in eastern Afghanistan on December 30.
 
 

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South Asia
 Feb 4, 2010 
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LB04Df04.html 
 
Pakistani Taliban has its work cut out


By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - Pakistani authorities, having been embarrassed in the past over false claims, have not yet conclusively stated that Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP - Taliban Movement of Pakistan), was killed in a United States drone attack in the South Waziristan tribal area last week.
A senior Pakistani security official has been quoted as saying that Mehsud had "probably been killed" along with about 12 militants in Shaktoee, a village close to the border with North Waziristan, but that the matter was being investigated.

The intense speculation over the fate of Mehsud, who has a 50 million rupee (US$600,000) bounty on his head, obscures the broader and more important fact that the TTP has in recent months evolved from being a Pakistani-centric outfit into an important component of al-Qaeda's regional plans.

As a result, its structures have been radically changed and any vacuum left by the death of Mehsud, if he is indeed dead, will more easily be filled and the impact of his loss will be far less severe than would have been the case under the former more rigid and hierarchical TTP.

Mehsud, who is in his late 20s, was appointed head of the TTP in late August 2009 to replace Baitullah Mehsud, who several days earlier had been reported killed in a drone attack. The TTP at the time denied Baitullah's death, but the elevation of Hakeemullah appeared to contradict these claims.

On September 5, Pakistan forces claimed they had captured a man who confessed to killing Hakeemullah, but this proved to be untrue when Hakeemullah subsequently met some reporters to personally debunk the story. Hakeemullah's aides still insist that he survived the latest drone attack.

Baitullah Mehsud's death was a pivotal moment for the TTP. In a matter of months, what had been a tribal outfit allied with the Afghan Taliban became allied with al-Qaeda and moved from being a Pakistani outfit to becoming an important component of al-Qaeda's regional plans.

The TTP was created in December 2007 as an umbrella organization for several pro-Taliban Pakistani militant groups. This is still true, but Baitullah Mehsud's death and subsequent extensive military operations in South Waziristan against militants forced the TTP to spread out from its focused base into several other tribal areas.

At this point, its members became intimately exposed to the organizational structures of al-Qaeda, and widespread integration followed, including with al-Qaeda's ideology related to the Takfeeri school of thought, which deems fellow Muslims of a different strain of Islam to be heretics and therefore open to attack.

Al-Qaeda members first moved to Pakistan's tribal areas in numbers following the ouster of the Taliban by the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. The Pakistani tribal insurgency became closely knitted with al-Qaeda ideologues. However, the relationship never moved beyond one of coordination.

For instance, the slain Nek Mohammad was financed and trained by al-Qaeda (see Asia Times Online's series on Waziristan), and al-Qaeda's group Jundallah carried out attacks on the Pakistani military in support of tribal insurgents.

Nonetheless, until the death of Baitullah Mehsud, the TTP's ownership was tightly in the hands of the tribal insurgents. Baitullah even did things that upset al-Qaeda, but it could not stop him because while Baitullah was respectful towards al-Qaeda, he was never under its command.

After Baitullah's death, al-Qaeda moved quickly to prevent the installation of Taliban leader Mullah Omar's favorite, Mufti Waliur Rahman Mehsud, as TTP chief. Rahman Mehsud, a cleric, was a member of the pro-Pakistani establishment Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam Fazlur Rahman group.

Instead, Hakeemullah Mehsud, a known hardliner and an ally of the anti-Shi'ite militant group Laskhar-e-Jhangvi, was promoted from being Baitullah's deputy. He had proved himself as a powerful commander in Orakzai Agency, Khyber Agency and Darra Adam Khel in North-West Frontier Province.

Several other Pakistani Taliban commanders had been close to al-Qaeda's ranks, but Hakeemullah Mehsud was perhaps the first to fully absorb - and spread - the Takfeeri school of thought. His operations reflected this in that he increasingly turned his attentions to the cities, where ordinary people became targets.

The attacks included those on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September 2008 (before Mehsud was TTP chief), which killed at least 40 people and wounded another 200; Moon Market in Lahore last December, where 42 people were killed and 135 injured; and the Parade Lane Mosque in Rawalpindi, also in December, in which at least 35 people were killed and dozens injured, including army officers and their children.

The TTP has brushed aside criticism that civilians are being killed, saying that they are people who have given up their faith and become supporters of the American war in the region. This attitude has its roots in the beliefs of the Takfir wal-Hijra Islamist group, which emerged in Egypt in the 1960s. One of its tenets is that the ends justify any means and that killing other Muslims can be justified.

Along with Hakeemullah Mehsud, other hardline commanders emerged, such as the brutal Qari Hussain Ahmed Mehsud, the chief of suicide bombers. The militants who had moved from South Waziristan, mainly to North Waziristan and Orakzai Agency, practically abandoned their "Pakistani" dispensation as they moved closer to al-Qaeda or its allied groups.

A suicide attack this year on a US Central Intelligence Agency base in Khost province in Afghanistan, in which several top agents were killed, is an example in which several North Waziristan-based groups joined hands. These included al-Qaeda's Lashkar al-Zil (Shadow Army), headed by Ilyas Kashmiri and Hakeemullah.
Unlike Baitullah Mehsud, Hakeemullah never saw himself as a tribal warlord of any particular region; he moved around a lot, never staying in one place for too long.

If Hakeemullah is dead, Qari Hussain Ahmed Mehsud, 22, is likely to take over his position, which is now centered on spreading the Takfeeri ideology and which calls for attacks from Kabul to Karachi. Qari Hussain has already personally undertaken such work in Swat and other Pakistani tribal areas.

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

 
 
 

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Published on Wednesday, February 3, 2010 by The Guardian/UK

Obama's Silent War Shocks Pakistan

The latest Taliban bombing has uncovered America's low-profile funding of the Pakistan military

by Delcan Walsh

To many Pakistanis the most shocking aspect of the latest Taliban bombing was not the death toll, or the injuries inflicted on survivors, but the question that it raised: what was a team of American soldiers doing in a tense corner of North West Frontier province?

A map of Pakistan locating Lower Dir. A bomb blast in Pakistan claimed by the Taliban killed eight people Wednesday, including three US soldiers and children.
(AFP/Graphic)

In a way, the attack tugged the veil from a multi-faceted military assistance program that, while not secret, is rarely publicized – by either side.

President Obama's public aid to ­Pakistan is transparent: $1.5bn a year for the next five years, mainly to boost the civilian government. But behind the scenes the US is engaged in other ways. Over the past decade it has given over $12bn in cash directly to the ­military to subsidize the costs of fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida. The program to train the Frontier Corps, which the killed ­soldiers were involved with, is ­estimated to be worth $400m more over several years.

Generously provisioned counter-narcotics programs operate along the Afghan border, funding everything from wells to schools. In Islamabad military contractors – usually retired army personnel – are paid to advise the army, discreetly working out of suburban houses. All this is hugely sensitive. Public opinion in Pakistan is overwhelmingly hostile to American "interference".

Last year a media furor erupted over the role of the contractor Blackwater, which vocal right-wing commentators believed was part of a covert plot to steal the country's nuclear weapons.

The Taliban played on that fear yesterday with a spokesman describing the bomb as "revenge for the blasts carried out by Blackwater in Pakistan".

The critics are backed by public opinion. A survey last October found that 80% of Pakistanis rejected American assistance in fighting the Taliban.

© 2010 Guardian News and Media Limited
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/03-6

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South Asia
Feb 5, 2010
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LB05Df01.html
 
 
US fires off new warning in Pakistan

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - With its biggest drone attack to date in Pakistan, the United States has sent a clear message of its renewed determination to destroy Taliban and al-Qaeda sanctuaries in the Pakistan and Afghanistan border areas.

Pakistan government officials say that nine unmanned US drones on Tuesday evening fired 19 missiles on Dattakhel village in the Degan area of North Waziristan, across from the Afghan province of Khost, killing at least 31 people and injuring many more.

Security officials who spoke to Asia Times Online say the prime target is believed to have been Afghan Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani.

"The extraordinary high-profile attack through a barrage of drone strikes was the result of a recent surge in intelligence all along the border regions," one security official told ATol on the condition of anonymity.

"The Americans have been heavily bribing [Afghan] tribal people to inform on the militants and their hideouts across the border in the Pakistani tribal areas. In the coming days, similar treatment [drone attacks] is likely to be meted out in Orakzai Agency, Khyber Agency, Bajaur and Mohmand," said the official.

According to reports that Asia Times Online has not been able to officially confirm, the US has distributed about US$12 million among Shinwari tribesmen in the six districts of the Afghan province of Nangarhar. Their brief is to provide detailed information on the Taliban's Tora Bora Brigade, whose bases stretch from the Khogyani district of Nangarhar to the Tora Bora mountains and across the border into the Tera Valley in Khyber Agency, Parachinar in Kurram Agency and Orakzai Agency. Shinwari tribesmen live on both sides of the Durand line that separates the two countries and engage in extensive trading.

A similar approach is being adopted with other Afghan tribes along the border areas specifically to target anti-Western militants.

Over the past few years, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the US Central Intelligence Agency have tried to set up a network of informers in the Pakistani tribal areas, but informants have systematically been exposed and executed by militants. Hence the use now of Afghans with ties on both sides of the border.

The drone attacks and the intelligence-gathering are a part of the US's "track two" approach that also includes an increasing military presence inside Pakistan.

On Wednesday, three American soldiers were killed and two others injured in a bomb attack in Lower Dir, bordering Bajaur Agency. The attack, in which a Pakistani soldier and three schoolgirls were also killed and hundreds injured, marks the first fatal Taliban operation against the US military inside Pakistan. The bomb went off as a security convoy traveled to a school that was celebrating its reopening after being damaged in an earlier militant attack.

The Pakistan army is heavily engaged against militants in Bajaur, which is one of the major supply lines for the Afghan Taliban in the provinces of Kunar and Nuristan. Last November, the Taliban seized virtual control of Nuristan and forced American forces to vacate their three main bases in the province.

The US Embassy in Islamabad stated that the three US soldiers killed had been deployed as trainers to the Pakistani Frontier Corps (FC). Training courses in counter-insurgency are meant to take place in Peshawar, capital of North-West Frontier Province, and in Buner in the same province.

By implication, with the soldiers being some way from their designated training centers, they could have been overseeing FC operations in Lower Dir or Bajaur Agency, where a tough battle against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants is underway - both sides have sustained heavy casualties in the past few days.

The US is operating its track two approach in conjunction with the ongoing initiative to seek dialogue with elements of the Taliban. This process has a long way to go, and the touted breakthrough of the United Nations removing five former Afghan Taliban officials from its sanctions blacklist is of no real significance as the five defected immediately after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

The UN said the five would no longer be subject to international travel bans and a freeze on their assets. All five men were members of the Taliban government and were blacklisted in 2001. They are Abdul Wakil Mutawakil, a former foreign minister; Faiz Mohammad Faizan, a former deputy commerce minister; Shams-us-Safa, a former Foreign Ministry official; Mohammad Musa, a deputy planning minister; Abdul Hakim, a former deputy frontier affairs minister.

Of these, one of the most interesting is Abdul Hakim, who after fleeing Afghanistan held a press conference in Pakistan along with former Taliban provincial ministers at which they announced the formation of the Jamiat Khuddamul Koran. This group, with the backing of the ISI, condemned Taliban leader Mullah Omar for providing sanctuary to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Within a few months, Jamiat Khuddamul Koran disappeared off the scene and Abdul Hakim turned up in Kabul, the Afghan capital, where he became loyal to President Hamid Karzai. Most of the other members of the group joined the Taliban in the fight against foreign troops in Afghanistan.

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

 
 
 

[bigron]

Friday, February 05, 2010
13:57 Mecca time, 10:57 GMT   
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/2010258817644962.html
 
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Pakistan stages Kashmir rallies 

VISIT SITE FOR ARTICLE AND VIDEO !



Hafiz Saeed's address on 'Kashmir Solidarity Day' rally set to further complicate India-Pakistan relations
 
 
Political parties and religious groups across Pakistan are holding rallies in support of the separatist movement in Kashmir.

And in his first public speech since release from house arrest, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, is set to address one 'Kashmir Solidarity' rally in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Friday.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa has been accused of being a political front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba network - the group blamed by India for the 2008 attacks on Mumbai in which gunmen killed more than 160 people.

Saeed denies involvement and was released in June by a Lahore court which found insufficient evidence for his continued detention.

Growing anger

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said the rallies this year "hold more fervour because there's considerable anger".



 
Kashmiri separatists have been holding rallies, which often turn violent, since 2008 [AFP]
"It is an attempt to try and muster support within Pakistan and to try and capitalise on the anti-American sentiment that is growing in this particular part of the world.

"It will be an opportunity for Saeed to be able to rally the people behind him, and of course on the self-determination of the Kashmiri people," he said.

Indian troops sealed off neighbourhoods in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, on Friday and arrested dozens of activists to block planned protests over the death of a Muslim boy.

The 14-year-old child was struck by a teargas shell fired by police on Sunday during a separatist demonstration.

His death has sparked days of angry protests against Indian rule over the region. More than 150 protesters and policemen have been injured in clashes.

Kashmiri separatists have been holding regular rallies, which often turn violent, since 2008. More than 60 protesters have died in  the protests since then, most of them as a result of police firing.

Solidarity

On Thursday, Yousuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan's prime minister, reiterated that his government will "continue extending political, moral and diplomatic support" to the separatist campaign in Jammu and Kashmir.
 


"We will continue extending our political, moral and diplomatic support to the people of Kashmir"

Yousuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan's prime minister
 
"We will continue extending our political, moral and diplomatic support to the people of Kashmir and our principled stance will not be changed on the issue of Kashmir," Gilani said in his talks with leaders of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

In recent years, February 5, has come to be known as a day of solidarity with the Kashmiri people. The date has no specific significance, but is celebrated officially in Pakistan.

It is a public holiday and the government and opposition parties compete with each other to demonstrate their support for the Kashmiri Muslims.

Indian-administered Kashmir, which is predominantly Muslim, is claimed by both India and Pakistan in its entirety.

Anti-India sentiments run deep in the Himalayan region, where more than a dozen groups have been fighting for Kashmir's independence or its merger with neighbouring Pakistan.
 
 
 

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US presence in Pakistan exposed

Pakistani public is furious as evidence of Washington's military influence builds.


by Samira Shackle
http://uruknet.com/index.php?p=m62922&hd=&size=1&l=e

 

A US embassy security vehicle escorts an ambulance in Islamabad after yesterday's attack. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images


February 4, 2010

Yesterday came news of a bomb attack on a road convoy near a school in Pakistan. On the surface, this is nothing out of the ordinary -- reports of bombings in Pakistan come thick and fast, particularly in the lawless and fraught North-West Frontier Province, where the latest attack took place.

But this was different. The initial reports had it that "three westerners" were among the ten people killed. First, officials said they were journalists, then aid workers. It later emerged that they were US soldiers.

Which raises the question -- what were these soldiers doing there? Officially, there are no US troops stationed in Pakistan. But the Daily Times, a Pakistani newspaper, reports:

According to a statement by the US embassy in Islamabad, the US troops killed in the attack were training FC [Frontier Corps] soldiers on a request by the Pakistani government.

It is reported that the Americans have given the Frontier Corps programme $43.8m worth of equipment. And US officials say Washington is ready to spend up to $400m on upgrading the corps. This is on top of the $1.5bn that Washington gives Islamabad each year by way of straightforward (non-military) aid. So the Frontier Corps assistance is a way of propping up the Pakistani military, rather than a secret US offensive. Nonetheless, the programme has been conducted behind the scenes.

I have blogged before about the lack of clarity around exactly what US policy in Pakistan entails, and this programme is a case in point. It might not be secret, but it is certainly not transparent. The Toronto Star reports: "Most Pakistanis interviewed Wednesday had no idea US soldiers were stationed in the north-west."

The administration is reluctant to shout about the policy because the public is overwhelmingly opposed to any US involvement in Pakistan at all. A poll last October found that 80 per cent of Pakistanis were opposed to the idea of US assistance in fighting the Taliban.

For President Asif Ali Zardari's government, the timing could not be worse. A scandal recently erupted over the presence of the US security contractor Blackwater in Pakistan. Both governments have denied it, but amid the media storm, evidence is growing that the firm is indeed operating in the country.

Islamabad has also been inconsistent about the US drone attacks taking place in Waziristan, which have claimed the lives of more than 600 people in the past year. While the government outwardly criticises every attack, the drone assaults are reportedly launched from a Pakistani military base in Balochistan.

It is unclear whether the Taliban deliberately targeted the convoy or whether the killing of the US soldiers was a coincidence, but either way, they have scored an unexpected victory by sending the covert military strategy hurtling into the public eye, further destabilising the already wobbling Islamabad government.