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

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Thursday, February 18, 2010
13:47 Mecca time, 10:47 GMT   
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/201021885329447111.html
 
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Deaths reported in Pakistan blasts  
 

Up to 13 people are said to have been killed and several others injured in separate attacks in the tribal region in Pakistan's northwest.

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder reported quoting sources that one explosion happened at a busy market in Orakzai agency on Thursday.

He said that at least eight people were killed in the second explosion, which occurred in the adjoining Khyber agency, near the headquarters of Lashkar e-Islam, an armed group.

The AFP news agency reported that the commander of Lashkar e-Islam was among those killed in the attack, which took place in the Upper Tirah area.

Rahat Khan, a local administrative official, told AFP: "We have reports that five people, including a Lashkar e-Islam commander, were killed in the blast."

Two intelligence officials also confirmed to AFP that the target was a base of Lashkar e-Islam, which Pakistan has blamed in the past for similar attacks.

'Armed group revival'

Lashkar e-Islam, which means Army of Islam, have staged bombings in the past and are the target of a Pakistani military operation to oust them from Khyber, but intelligence officials blamed warring extremist factions.

"There are two militant groups fighting with each other in Tirah valley. Both of them are attacking each other. There is a possibility that the rival group attacked the Lashkar-e-Islam base," one intelligence official said.

"There is no communication system in the area. This is an inaccessible area for us," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Another official suggested the bombing could be a revival of a feud between Lashkar-e-Islam and rivals Ansar-ul-Islam, which means Companions of Islam.

Khyber and Orakzai is part of Pakistan's wild tribal belt on the Afghan border where Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked fighters have carved out strongholds and in what the United States calls the most dangerous region on earth.

The bombing came as Richard Holbrooke, the special US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, met Yousuf Raza Gilani, the prime minister of Pakistan, in the capital Islamabad.

Barack Obama, the US president, has called on Pakistan to take stronger acting to fight disruption in the region as the United States pours 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan to battle al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

Pakistan's security has deteriorated drastically since joining the US "war on terror" in late 2001. At least 3,000 people have been killed in bombings and similar attacks since July 2007.

In a separate incident in NWFP's district of Kohistan, official sources were quoted as saying that a landslide killed at least 36 people.
 
 

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Official: Pakistan Captures 2 Top Taliban Figures

Thursday, February 18, 2010 
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,586541,00.html

KABUL —  Two Taliban shadow governors from northern Afghanistan have been arrested by Pakistani authorities, an Afghan official told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The reported arrests occurred about the same time as the capture of the Afghan Taliban's No. 2 figure, who was apprehended in the Pakistani city of Karachi. The loss of several key figures from the militant leadership is likely to be a severe setback to the Taliban — at least in the short term — as they come under military pressure from U.S.-led forces in the south.

Mohammmad Omar, the official governor of Kunduz province, said Mullah Abdul Salam, the Taliban governor of Kunduz and Mullah Mohammad, his counterpart in Baghlan, were arrested about 10 to 12 days ago in Pakistan.

Both were key figures in the Taliban's expansion to northern Afghanistan, where their forces threatened NATO supply lines coming south from Central Asia and raised alarm that the militants were extending their influence nationwide.

Two Pakistani intelligence officials said Salam was arrested in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad. One of the officials said Salam's arrest was the result of information gleaned from Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, second in command after Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

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

Mullah Baradar was believed to have been apprehended last week, although neither U.S. nor Pakistani authorities have released the exact date.

The Taliban has long operated its own shadow government in the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan, but in recent years, it has bolstered its influence in the north. As of late last year, the Taliban had shadow governments in 33 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, according to a NATO intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official provincial governor of Kunduz said the shadow governor was believed to be the Taliban's key contact in northern Afghanistan, and at one time controlled an estimated 1,200 insurgent fighters.

"He was a tyrant. He was a cruel person," he said. "We are very happy. He strongly rejected the peace process."

Gen. Kabir Andarabi, chief of police in Baghlan province, said the arrest of the Taliban's shadow governor in his province would positively improve security in the province. Andarabi said the shadow governor is thought to have left the area after 21 Taliban fighters were killed in a battle against Afghan and NATO forces about three weeks ago.

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Dozens dead in Pakistani market blast

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 08:32:53 GMT
http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=118903&sectionid=351020401

   
 
At least 45 people have been killed and more than 100 injured in an explosion in Pakistan's northwest, according to officials.

Press TV's correspondent Javed Rana reported on Thursday that the attack took place in a cattle market in the Tirah valley of Khyber region.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast as of yet.

Meanwhile, several people, including a militant commander, were killed in another blast near a base camp of pro-Taliban militants. Dozens of people were also injured in the attack.

Despite military operations in the tribal areas by Pakistani military and the US drone attacks, militancy continues to increase in northwest Pakistan.

In another blast on Thursday, a NATO supply tanker was damaged, injuring its driver, in the Baghbana area of Khuzdar district.

Police said the bomb had been planted in the roadside bushes and went off as the vehicle drove by.

AGB/MB

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41 killed in Pak twin blasts

by Omer Farooq Khan, TNN, Feb 18, 2010, 06.21pm IST
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/41-killed-in-Pak-twin-blasts/articleshow/5588777.cms


ISLAMABAD: At least 41 people were killed and more than 60 injured in twin-suicide bomb attacks Pakistan’s north-western tribal region of Khyber.

The first blast occurred near a mosque and compound of militants in a crowded market place of Tirah Valley in Khyber, an area famous for selling hashish. Twenty seven people were left dead and more than 40 were injured. Within hours of the first attack, another blast hit a cattle market in Darmela area of Khyber, killing 14 people and injuring more than 20. Initial reports suggested that the second blast took place in Orakzai tribal region as the two areas border one another.

Officials said the first attacker targeted a compound used by the local militant group Lashkar-e-Islam. Lashkar-e-Islam (Army of Islam) has been locked in a bloody war in the area with a rival militant group, Ansar-ul-Islam (Companions of Islam). An insurgent commander, Amir Azam, was among the dead, said Khalid Umerzai, commissioner of adjoining Kohat district.

"There are two militant groups fighting with each other in Tirah valley. Both of them are attacking each other. There is a possibility that the rival group attacked the Lashkar-i-Islam base," Umerzai said. According to witnesses, the bomber walked in among the militants as they were speaking at a compound used by the pro-Taliban Lashkar-e-Islam group and blew himself up.

Lashkar-i-Islam is the most active militant group in Khyber and is led by feared warlord Mangal Bagh. It has loose ideological ties to the Taliban, but operates independently. The organization has staged bombings in the past and was the target of a Pakistani military operation to oust them from Khyber tribal region.

NATO supplies into Afghanistan pass through the volatile Khyber tribal region.

On January 8, a suicide bomber targeting Ansarul Islam killed five militants and wounded 12 others in Tirah Valley, about 120 kilometers southwest of Peshawar.

Hundreds of people have died in clashes between Lashkar-e-Islam and another armed Islamic group, Ansar-ul-Islam, both of which are banned by the government, in the region in the past few years.

Locals say government military’s helicopters have recently helped Ansarul Islam, now re-named the Peace Committee - during clashes with Lashkar-e-Islam. Pakistan has suffered numerous bombings over the last few months, many of them apparently in retaliation for an army operation against the Pakistani Taliban in the South Waziristan tribal area.

[agentbluescreen]

In case nobody noticed the CIA Mafia and it's Glenn Beck Republicrat radical tea-baggers movement is inciting civil war at home here in America. It claimed it's first victim in Austin Texas yesterday.

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Saturday, February 20, 2010
10:28 Mecca time, 07:28 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/201022062817965393.html
   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Pakistan air strike 'kills 30' 

 
Two police stations came under attack in the  northwestern region of Pakistan [AFP]
 
The Pakistani army has said it had killed 30 fighters in an air strike in South Waziristan near the Afghan border where the military launched a major offensive in October.

The strike on Saturday came as teams of co-ordinated suicide attackers struck two police stations in northwestern Pakistan, killing a local police chief and wounding four officers.

An army statement said it targeted a hide-out in the Shawal mountains on a tip-off that the fighters were hiding there.

It said 30 people were killed but provided no further details.

Shawal is believed to be one of the al-Qaida and Taliban strongholds in the area.

Gul Zareen, a police official, said the suicide attacks on police stations started within minutes of each other in the district of Mansehra.

Khalil Khan, the Mansehra police chief, was killed when an attacker blew himself up inside the town's police station, Zareen said.

In the second attack, a pair of attackers stormed a station at least 25km away in the town of Balakot, triggering a shootout that left one of the attackers dead.

Zareen said the slain attacker was wearing a suicide jacket and the second attacker fled toward nearby offices.

Officers were trying to track him down, he said.
 
 

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Interior Minister: Pakistan Won’t Hand Over Taliban Captives to US

Detainees May Be Turned Over to Afghanistan, However

by Jason Ditz, February 19, 2010
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/02/19/interior-minister-pakistan-wont-hand-over-taliban-captives-to-us/

According to Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik, the Pakistani government will not turn over top Taliban commander Mullah Baradar or two other high profile Taliban captives to the United States.

Instead, Malik says they will hold the detainees for questioning, and to see if they can be charged with any crimes in Pakistan. If not, they will be deported to Afghanistan, where they will no doubt be charged with very serious crimes by the Karzai government.

Mullah Baradar was captured earlier this month in Karachi and is said to be Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s top adviser. He is said to have provided the Pakistani government with “useful” information.

The other two, Mullah Abdul Salam and Mullah Mir Mohammed, are reportedly the “shadow governors” of Baghlan and Kunduz Province in northern Afghanistan. They were captured last week in Balochistan.

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Officials Tout Death of Waziristan Warlord’s Younger Brother

Slain Haqqani 'Played No Significance'

by Jason Ditz, February 19, 2010

http://news.antiwar.com/2010/02/19/officials-tout-death-of-haqqanis-younger-brother/


Touted as another major hit in the CIA air war against North Waziristan, Mohammed Haqqani, the younger brother of Haqqani family leader Sirajuddin Haqqani and the youngest son of former Mujahideen leader Jalaluddin Haqqani, was slain in a US drone attack.


 
Sirajuddin Haqqani

The Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) confirmed Haqqani’s death in the strike, but officials say it does not appear that his elder brother was present at the time of the attack.

But apart from Haqqani’s high profile name, Pakistani officials say Mohammed played no significant role in any of the Haqqani family’s operations. He is one of the few “named” people killed in the CIA drone strikes, with most being unnamed suspects or plain innocent civilians.

Though operationally independent, the Haqqani network has some ties with the Afghan Taliban and officials have also speculated it might have ties to other militant factions. The group is centered around North Waziristan, but has been courted by the Karzai government for years because of their influence in Afghanistan.

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Pakistanis stage mass anti-US rally    VIDEO

mms://217.218.67.244/presstv/20100222/OUTPUT_23-59-00-SNG-JAVED-ISLAMABAD.wmv

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Monday, February 22, 2010
17:34 Mecca time, 14:34 GMT 
 http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/201022212127841355.html
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Swat bombing targets Pakistan army  
 

The bombing apparently targeted a security forces convoy at a junction in Mingora [Reuters]

At least six people have been killed in an car bomb attack on a security forces convoy in northwest Pakistan.

A suspected suicide bomber crashed his vehicle into the convoy as it passed through a market in Mingora, the main town in North West Frontier Province's Swat Valley, on Monday. 

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said that a security forces convoy had come under attack at an intersection in the town.

"A lone suicide bomber plunged at the convoy," he said. "The powerful explosion destroyed a few shop and vehicles as well."

Hyder said that local reports were saying that two security forces personnel and four civilians were among the dead.
   
Local television footage showed a car enveloped in flames and black smoke billowing down a street, as casualties lay on the ground.

"I was going for some work in the bazaar but was stopped by security forces because the army convoy was moving," Saeedur Rehman, a teacher, told the AFP news agency.

"Suddenly there was a huge blast and smoke filled the area. Then heavy firing started and I lay on the ground."

'Inhuman acts'

Yusuf Reza Gilani, Pakistan's prime minister, condemned the bombing, vowing that "such inhuman acts of terrorism" would not sway Pakistan from its determination "to curb this menace and fight the insane extremists".

More than 3,000 people have been killed in suicide attacks and other bombings across Pakistan since July 2007.

Pakistani forces staged a military offensive in North West Frontier Province last year in an attempt to retake the region from Taliban control.

In July, after two months of fighting that left an estimated 2,150 fighters dead, the army said it had largely cleared the Taliban from Swat and neighbouring Buner and Lower Dir.   

General James Jones, the US national security adviser, visited Swat earlier this month and congratulated Pakistani security forces on the "success" of their operations and noted their  "tremendous sacrifices".
   
But despite the relative calm, sporadic clashes and suicide attacks continue to rock the valley.
 
 

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South Asia
Feb 24, 2010 
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LB24Df02.html 
 
Cross-border militants strike back

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - As a lone suicide bomber approached a convoy of security personnel after walking through a crowded market he detonated the bomb strapped to his body. Eleven people were killed and more than 35 injured in the massive blast on Monday in the Nishat Chowk district of Mingora, the capital of Swat in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Gruesome scenes of bodies being recovered amid billowing black smoke, burning vehicles and shattered buildings are not new to Pakistan; similar - and much bigger - attacks occur regularly. What was significant about Monday's attack was that it was the first in six months in the Swat area.

The return of violence to Swat is a direct result of the Taliban gaining control of the provinces of Kunar and Nuristan across the border in Afghanistan, sources in an al-Qaeda-led militant group tell Asia Times Online.

In a series of operations in the tribal areas that started last year, beginning in Swat and culminating in the offensive in North Waziristan, the Pakistani military rolled back the extensive advances make by the Pakistan Taliban and al-Qaeda. The militants were dispersed, with most disappearing into the wilds on both sides of the border.

Then, towards the end of last year, United States troops evacuated their main bases in Nuristan and border posts in Kunar and handed over responsibility for security to the Afghan National Army (ANA). In November, the Taliban struck a ceasefire deal with the ANA under which the Taliban agreed not to attack provincial capitals in return for the ANA not attacking Taliban bases in the two provinces. (See Taliban take over Afghan province Asia Times Online, October 29, 2009.)

This, say the militant sources, allowed militants from across the border to regroup, and Monday's attack is the first of what the sources say will be many more in Swat, as well as other tribal areas. This includes the restive belt of Bajaur Agency, Mohmand Agency and Dir and Swat in NWFP. There has already been a revival of activity in Bajaur and Mohmand over the past few weeks.


The militant sources say that the fighters who have gathered in Kunar and Nuristan have split into several groups to fight in Afghanistan and in Pakistan on a rotational basis to make the optimum use of their human resources.

A senior militant linked with al-Qaeda told Asia Times Online by telephone that the new assault in Pakistan would start in earnest once the weather improved in the next few weeks, while the battle in Afghanistan would continue.

"If you remember, the Soviets also sent additional forces [to Afghanistan] in the last days [late 1980s], but within a short period they decided they could not beat the mujahideen and they withdrew. The US has done the same [with its 30,000 troop surge] and will soon face so many losses it will not have any choice but to withdraw," the militant said.

Al-Qaeda and the Taliban arrests
The arrest over the past few days of several senior Taliban figures plays into the hands of al-Qaeda, a militant connected with al-Qaeda tells Asia Times Online. He says that as a result of the arrests, the Taliban have severed all links of communication for dialogue - be it with Afghanistan, Pakistan or the US - and they will now work more closely with al-Qaeda.

Those arrested include the Taliban's supreme commander in Afghanistan, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar; the former governor of the Afghan province of Nangarhar, Moulvi Abdul Kabeer; Mullah Abdul Salam, the shadow governor of Kunduz; and Mir Muhammad, also a shadow governor in northern Afghanistan.

Apart from Baradar, these Taliban handed over to the US were very much "assets" of the Pakistan military, which had direct links to them. Kabeer was known to be in contact with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) up until his arrest at the weekend. Because of these links, he would not visit North Waziristan for fear of reprisals from al-Qaeda militants. He was nevertheless on the Taliban's command council.

Similarly, Salam had links to the ISI dating to the mid-1990s shortly before the Taliban took control of Kabul - he represented the Taliban militia at the ISI's headquarters in Islamabad and he remained an asset.

Baradar was not directly in contact with the ISI, but his movements were known and security agencies turned a blind eye as he was considered one of Pakistan's future strategic assets in Afghanistan.

"They [those arrested] were aces in the hands of the Pakistan military, which could have used them to its favor, but now they are lost," a militant leader told Asia Times Online. "Why? We are all wondering, but the fact is that now the Taliban realize that they have no option but to join forces with al-Qaeda in a regional battle against the US and all its allies, including Pakistan and India," the militant said.

Commenting on the arrests, a senior strategic expert told Asia Times Online on the condition of anonymity, "Undoubtedly, they were Pakistan's assets and their arrest might have dire consequences for Pakistan. In my opinion, some very narrow vested interests led to the arrests. Pakistani chief of army staff General [Ashfaq Pervez] Kiani is scheduled to retire on November 27. He cannot make a decision on an extension of his own service, it has to be done by the government with the consent of Washington, and therefore Kiani agreed to make former friends the scapegoats," the analyst said. Kiani has developed very close ties to the US military and has effectively taken over "war on terror" responsibilities from the civilian government.

Sections in the military that are not as keen as Kiani on close ties with the US do not want to see his term extended, preferring one of their own to be promoted. Aware of this, the ISI's counter-terrorism branch explained that Baradar's arrest "was a mistake" and that intelligence officials were not aware of his presence when they made the raid that led to his apprehension.

Nonetheless, with the other arrests that followed, especially that of Kabeer, the Taliban are not buying this line and instead are looking to the regrouped militants in Afghanistan to do their talking in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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

 
 
 

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10 killed in bomb attack in Swat Valley

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 02:49:52 GMT
http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=119264&sectionid=351020401

   
 
At least 10 people have been killed and several others injured in a bomb attack in the Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan.

Officials told Press TV that the blast occurred on Monday near the Mingora Police Station in the Nishat Chowk area of the town of Mingora.

After the blast, intense gunfire was heard outside the police station.

The security forces cordoned off the area and the injured were sent to the Saido Sharif Hospital.

According to local doctors, eight of the injured people are in critical condition.

Four seriously injured people were later transferred to the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar.

The Swat police chief, Deputy Inspector General Idrees Khan, told reporters that a bomber attacked a security forces convoy in the market area.

The blast occurred as three vehicles carrying Pakistani security forces passed through the busy Nishat intersection.

Three women and two soldiers were among the ten people killed.

Security was put on high alert in the Swat Valley after the blast and a curfew was imposed in Mingora.

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Taliban Spy Killing: Alleged U.S. Spies Found Dead In Pakistan


by RASOOL DAWAR and HUSSAIN AFZAL | 02/24/10 09:57 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/24/taliban-spy-killing-alleg_n_474305.html



MIR ALI, Pakistan — Suspected U.S. missiles killed four people Wednesday in an al-Qaida and Taliban stronghold in northwest Pakistan, intelligence officials said, amid signs of greater cooperation between Islamabad and Washington.

Three missiles hit a compound and a vehicle in Dargah Mandi area of North Waziristan tribal region.

The identities of the dead were not immediately clear, said intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media on the record. However, the area hit was a stronghold of the Haqqani network, an Afghan Taliban faction that is considered a major threat to U.S. troops across the border in Afghanistan.

A missile strike in the same region last week killed Mohammad Haqqani, a son of the network's aging leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani, officials said.

The missile strikes have been one of several blows in recent weeks to militants on Pakistani soil. At least three Afghan Taliban commanders have been captured in recent weeks in Pakistan, including the No. 2 leader of the insurgents, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Wednesday that Islamabad was expecting a formal request from the Afghan government to hand over Baradar – which likely would allow U.S. officials to conduct their own interrogation of him.

Baradar was captured in a joint Pakistani-U.S. operation in the southern city of Karachi early this month, and has given some useful information to Pakistani interrogators, Pakistani officials have said. It is unclear if American officials have had direct access to Baradar.

Malik held talks Wednesday with his Afghan counterpart, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, and said afterward that "there is going to be a formal request" from Afghanistan to turn Baradar over.

Malik said last week Pakistan would not hand the Afghan suspects to U.S. authorities but would return them to their countries of origin if there was no proof they had committed crimes in Pakistan. The comment reflected the government's sensitivity to widespread anger among many Pakistanis who think Islamabad too often does Washington's bidding.

  FBI Director Robert Mueller met Pakistani and Afghan officials in Islamabad on Wednesday for talks on counterterrorism cooperation. Mueller also met separately with top officials at Pakistan's intelligence agencies, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement. The statement offered few details, and did not mention if Baradar was discussed at the talks.

U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees the war in Afghanistan, said the arrests of the Afghan Taliban suspects were the result of intelligence breakthroughs, and dismissed the idea that Pakistan acted against Baradar because he may have been involved in talks with the Afghan government and it wanted to get a seat at the table by arresting him.

"I wouldn't share your characterizations that, in a sense, (the Pakistanis) have always had this intelligence," Petraeus told reporters late Tuesday. "What has happened is that there has been some important breakthroughs."

Over the past 18 months, Pakistan has undertaken several army offensives in the northwest against Islamist militants. Those operations have mostly targeted militants attacking the Pakistani state, not militants fighting U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Petraeus said Pakistan still made distinctions between such groups, but that there appears to be an "evolution" in that it now sees them as increasingly entwined.

The insurgents have found ways to retaliate beyond suicide attacks.

Earlier Wednesday, the bodies of two men alleged by militants to be U.S. spies were discovered in Mir Ali, a town in North Waziristan.

Each had a note attached accusing the victim of spying for the Americans and warning other informants they faced the same fate, area resident Akram Ullah said. Another witness, Sana Ullah, said one man was a local tribal elder and the other was Afghan.

___

Hussain Afzal reported from Parachinar. Associated Press writers Munir Ahmad, Chris Brummitt and Rohan Sullivan contributed to this report from Islamabad.

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US drone strike kills six in Pakistan: officials


AFP
AFP South Asian Edition
http://wire.antiwar.com/2010/02/24/us-drone-strike-kills-six-in-pakistan-officials/
Feb 24, 2010 06:37 EST

A US drone fired missiles into a Taliban compound on Wednesday, killing six militants in Pakistan's northwest tribal belt near the Afghan border, security officials said.

The attack targeted the Dandey Darpa Khel area of North Waziristan, a stronghold of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked fighters in the rugged tribal region branded by Washington the most dangerous region in the world.

"The US drones fired three missiles, six militants were killed. A vehicle was also destroyed," said a security official in Peshawar, the main city in the northwest. "It hit a compound, the death toll may rise."

The identities of the dead were not immediately clear, nor whether they included any high-value targets.

A Pakistani intelligence official in the main district town of Miranshah confirmed the strike and the death toll.

Two of the missiles slammed into the compound, while another hit a vehicle driving nearby in Darga Mandi village, another security official said.

A US drone strike in the same area last Thursday killed Mohammed Haqqani, a brother of Al-Qaeda-linked warlord Sirajuddin Haqqani, whose network is fighting against US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Officials initially said the compound hit Wednesday was also frequented by militants loyal to Haqqani. While the area is a Haqqani stronghold, officials later clarified that the actual compound was used by Pakistani Taliban.

"The militants are not allowing anyone to enter the area and have surrounded the place," said a security official.

North Waziristan and the Haqqani network have been targeted by a surge of drone strikes in recent months.

The US drones routinely target Taliban and Al-Qaeda commanders in the semi-autonomous tribal belt, which Washington calls the global headquarters of Al-Qaeda.

US officials say the strikes are a vital weapon in the war to defeat Al-Qaeda and to end eight years of fighting in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Drone strikes have killed a number of high-profile targets, including Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud and possibly his successor Hakimullah Mehsud, but the US raids fuel anti-American sentiment in Muslim Pakistan.

US officials increasingly believe Hakimullah Mehsud died in a January strike in North Waziristan, although the Taliban insist he is alive.

More than 800 people have been killed in the US strikes in Pakistan since August 2008, with a surge in the past year as President Barack Obama puts Pakistan at the heart of his fight against Al-Qaeda.

Washington is pressuring Islamabad to do more to dismantle militant border sanctuaries, as it struggles to battle the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan, where more than 121,000 US and NATO troops are based.

Source: AFP South Asian Edition

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Published on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 by BBC News

US Drone Attacks Spawn Violent Retributions in Tribal Regions of Pakistan

by BBC News

Drone Attack 'Kills Four' in North-West Pakistan

Missiles fired by a suspected US drone aircraft have killed at least four militants in north-west Pakistan, security officials say.

US drone attacks are being stepped up along the Afghan-Pakistan border.  The increase in these attacks have also increased violence on the ground, as killings and violent retribution seem to follow each strike. (Getty image)

They said that the attack targeted a militant compound in the North Waziristan tribal area.

Meanwhile, locals say two tribesmen accused of spying for the US have been killed by the Taliban in the same area.

North and South Waziristan are known sanctuaries for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants and are often hit by drones.

There have been about more than a dozen such strikes this year alone.

Locals say the attacks have destroyed many training camps and compounds. They have also killed dozens of local and foreign militants, officials say.

Elsewhere in the troubled north-west, a Pakistani Hindu has been kidnapped in Khyber district. His abductors have demanded 10 million rupees ($117,619) for his release.

Earlier this week a Pakistani Sikh who had been kidnapped was beheaded in the same area.

Bodies dumped

Tribesmen told the BBC that one of the bodies found in North Waziristan on Wednesday - that of tribal leader Malik Salah Khan - had a "warning letter" attached to it.

"It said that whoever spied for America would meet the same fate," a tribesman said.

Officials say one body was found in the Datakhel area of North Waziristan, while the other was found near Mir Ali, about 20km (12 miles) from the main town of Miranshah.

They said both men - who were kidnapped several days ago by armed militants - had been shot several times in the head and their bodies dumped in the open.

The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan in Islamabad says that such killings have become commonplace in the region since drone attacks increased in frequency a few weeks ago.

The militants usually kidnap local tribesmen after a drone strike on charges of spying. Their bodies are later found riddled with bullets or decapitated.

Publicly criticised

The US has stepped up drone attacks in north-west Pakistan since a suicide bomber killed seven CIA agents across the border in Afghanistan last month.

More than 700 people have died in nearly 80 drone strikes since August 2008.

A surge in such strikes has been ordered by US President Barack Obama.

Pakistan has publicly criticised drone attacks, saying they fuel support for militants, but observers say the authorities privately condone the strikes.

The American military does not routinely confirm drone operations, but analysts say the US is the only force capable of deploying such aircraft in the region.

© 2010 BBC News

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

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/24-8

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Now, the Hekmatyar Option.


Therearenosunglasses’s Weblog

http://uruknet.com/pic.php?f=24-hekm-2-24-2010_99415_l.gif
 

February 24, 2010
http://uruknet.com/index.php?p=m63611&hd=&size=1&l=e

[It the first manifestation of the new Pakistan-constructed paradigm for Afghanistan?  Given that Hekmatyar was Pakistan’s favorite during the anti-Soviet war and his warm relations since then, is he the Army’s choice to replace all the Afghan Taliban former negotiators recently arrested?   We shall see.]   

Hekmatyar announces peace plan

KABUL: Hezb-e-Islami Chief Gulbadin Hekmatyar Wednesday announced a peace plan to steer the country out of the present Afghan crisis.
Talking to Geo News, Hekmat’s nephew Feroz Hekmatyar said the Hezb decided July of the current year for withdrawal of the foreign troops, adding the troops withdrawal should be completed within six months and the security should be handed to Afghan military and police.
Muhammed Feroz said the plan offers the present government to continue functioning until the next elections and ensuing establishment of new government.
He further told that seven-member National Security Council comprising different Afghan castes would be set up, adding the Council will have powers for the decisions.
Feroz said the plan demands the presidential, national and provincial elections be held simultaneously with a ceasefire among all factions.
All political prisoners should be released and the groups involved in crimes should be presented to the courts, according to Hekmatyar’s peace plan revealed by his nephew.



 

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US expands weapon sales to India, Pakistan: report

http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\02\26\story_26-2-2010_pg1_9

* Wall Street Journal says Washington not shy about pursuing weapon deals in region
* US aid made it easier for Pakistan to ramp up its fight against militants on the Afghan border
* Washington’s relationships with the two nations are very different

NEW YORK: The Obama administration is sharply expanding the sales of weapons to both India and Pakistan in an effort to build “closer ties with each country, while creating new opportunities for American defence firms,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The report appeared in the leading financial newspaper as foreign secretaries of the two South Asian nations began peace talks in New Delhi.

“The US has sought to remain neutral in the thorny relationship between the nuclear-armed neighbours,” the journal said, while pointing out that Washington has not been shy about pursuing weapon deals in the region.

Not shy: The US has made billions of dollars in weapon deals with India, which is in the midst of a five-year, $50 billion push to modernise its military, it said.

At the same time, according to the newspaper, the US military aid to Pakistan stands to nearly double next year, allowing Islamabad to acquire more US-made helicopters, night-vision goggles and other military equipment.

Aid: “The aid has made it easier for Pakistan to ramp up its fight against militants on the Afghan border, as the US tries to convince Islamabad that its biggest security threat is within the country, not in India,” the dispatch said.

During a late January trip to Islamabad, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Washington would for the first time give Pakistan a dozen surveillance drones.

India lobbied against the recent US legislation giving Pakistan billions of dollars in new non-military aid; the measure passed. A top Pakistani diplomat warned last week that a two-year-old civilian nuclear deal between the US and India could threaten Pakistan’s national security by making it easier for India to covertly build more nuclear weapons.

Different relationship: Washington’s relationships with the two nations are very different, the journal said, noting, “India, which is wealthier and larger than its neighbour, pays for weapon purchases with its own funds.”

“Pakistan, by contrast, uses American grants to fund most of its arms purchases. A new US counterinsurgency assistance fund for Pakistan is slated to increase from $700 million in fiscal year 2010 to $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2011.

“We do straight commercial deals with India, while Pakistan effectively uses the money we give them to buy our equipment,” the journal said, citing a US official who works with the two countries. “For 2010 and 2011, India could well be the most important market in the world for defence contractors looking to make foreign military sales,” Tom Captain, the vice chairman of Deloitte LLP’s aerospace and defence practice, was quoted as saying.

Russia has been India’s main source of military hardware for decades, supplying about 70 percent of equipment now in use.

The Obama administration is trying to persuade New Delhi to buy American jet fighters, a shift would lead to closer military and political relations between India and the US, White House officials cited by the journal said.

“It would also be a bonanza for US defence contractors,” the journal said, noting US has dispatched senior officials like Robert Gates to New Delhi “to deliver the message that Washington hopes India will choose American defence firms for major purchases in the years ahead”.

Shortly after a late January visit by Gates – on the same tour that took him to Islamabad – the administration signed off on India’s request to purchase 145 US-made howitzers, a $647 million deal.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Gates’s visit did not affect the substance or timing of the howitzer purchase. “That came days after India formally expressed its intent to purchase 10 cargo transport aircraft from Boeing Co in a deal that could be worth more than $2 billion,” according to analysts cited by the journal. app

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US to spend $50 million on media in Pakistan

by Ibrahim Sajid Malick

http://uruknet.com/index.php?p=m63719&hd=&size=1&l=e

February 27, 2010

The Obama administration plans to spend nearly $50 million on Pakistani media this year to reverse anti-American sentiments and raise awareness of projects aimed at improving quality of life, confirms a Washington insider.

After the Kerry-Lugar Bill debacle, the Obama administration had struggled with the idea of 'branding’ aid and many within the State department and the USAID had argued that identifying projects may backfire.

"By announcing that a school was built and is being maintained – partly because of the aid received from America – you can alienate people," said someone who had proposed not 'branding’ the aid.

The US Special Representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke believes that a substantial amount of monies spent on media- especially private TV channels will reduce tension and may even bring Pakistan-US relations back on the right path.

Senator John Kerry, the main architect of Kerry-Lugar bill also supports the idea of claiming credit for all "the good work being done to improve infrastructure, energy and education," said a source in Senator’s office.

Reuters today reported that the Obama administration has sent lawmakers a plan for funding water, energy and other projects. Report said the US intends to spend $1.45 billion of earmarked for the Kerry-Lugar bill in fiscal 2010.

The trust deficit had surged after a well intended aid package focused to uplift Pakistan’s civilian society was trashed by a section of Pakistani media. Interviews with diplomatic sources in Washington, D.C. and media coverage of the KLB debacle had demonstrated growing frustration of the Obama administration.

Although American officials publicly praise military operation in South Waziristan, in private they sing a different tune; their assessment of "alignment" is rather pessimistic. Stories leaked to media consistently allege that al-Qaeda leadership is still enjoying safe haven in Pakistan.

Pakistan-U.S. relations have not been this tenuous before, and the Obama administration is frustrated with the outcome of the Kerry-Lugar bill. "No one had anticipated such negativity," said an American official who did not want to be identified. "We thought Pakistanis [would] celebrate the passage of this bill. This is what we were told by representatives of Pakistani government."

Pakistani government representatives from President Zardari to Foreign Minister Qureshi and Ambassador Hussain Haqqani further down the chain had assured the Americans that Pakistanis would be jubilant; KLB was suppose to heal all wounds, rectify all wrongs and erase memories of the past from the consciousness of the masses.

The Obama administration has shared their plan to sponsor high impact projects and communicate the value of these projects using local media.

Voice of America, a radio and TV platform that speaks for the government of the US already has a tie-up with Geo TV and now they have aligned with Express TV as well.

The Obama administration plans to help Pakistan’s democratic government meet budget shortfalls and deliver services to a population increasingly angry about economic and security troubles. As the funding builds the capacity of the government to provide basic services, the US sponsored Pakistani media will raise awareness and a build a brand for America, our sources have confirmed.





 

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Taliban claim responsibility for Karak suicide attack

Sunday, 28 Feb, 2010       
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/provinces/12-taliban+claim+responsibility+for+karak+suicide+attack--bi-04


Officials visit a police station attacked by an alleged suicide bomber in Karak.—AP World


MIRAMSHAH: The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility on Sunday for a suicide attack on a police station in Karak that killed 4 people including two policemen.

In addition to the dead, more than two dozen people were wounded, most of them police officers, when an attacker detonated a pick-up van on Saturday at the gate of the main police station in Karak.

“We have done this,” Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.

“Both the police and army are equal for us. Both are our enemies. They are responsible for the cruelties on us. We will carry out more such attacks against police.”

Karak lies 150 kilometres (94 miles) southeast of Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province.

The Taliban have claimed and been blamed for most of the bomb and suicide attacks to have taken place in Pakistan. Such attacks have killed more than 3,000 people since July 2007.

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Central Asia
Mar 2, 2010 
http://atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/LC02Ag01.html 
 
An AfPak star over Central Asia


By M K Bhadrakumar

United States AfPak special representative Richard Holbrooke enjoys a fabulous reputation, no matter the current prospects of the Afghan war. The Eurasian space knew him as a potential Nobel winner who evicted Russia from the Balkans. The world at large expects him to take over if and when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton steps down to enter the US presidential election ring in 2012. Holbrooke's tours abroad inevitably get noticed.

His maiden tour of Central Asia and the Caucasus last week was no exception. A State Department spokesman drew attention to it as a significant happening in US regional policy. The tour turned
out to be somewhat more than symbolic; it wasn't altogether bereft of result.

The result actually came at the end of Holbrooke's tour. His halt in Tbilisi came as a morale booster for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. In comparison, his tour of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan merely underscored that diplomacy is a seamless affair and that Holbrooke is at liberty to exceed his hitherto narrowly focused AfPak brief.

Saakashvili has been low on morale following the demise of the Orange revolution in Ukraine, US President Barack Obama's manifest disinterest in color revolutionaries and the growing unease in the West over the Georgian leader's governance style, marked by cronyism, corruption and authoritarianism. To be sure, Holbrooke's unannounced visit perked him up.

Saakashvili summarily dropped any tentative ideas apropos some sort of "normalization" with Moscow, which the Europeans have been counseling him to undertake. He told a nationwide audience that Georgia, which survived the "despotic rule of Persian emperor Shah Abbas in the 16th century, would also endure [Russian Prime Minister] Vladimir Putin - ... Georgia will never kneel down before its enemies".

Holbrooke's visit convinced Saakashvili that despite the rhetoric of a "reset" of US-Russia ties, the Obama administration hasn't quite abandoned the strategic vision of Georgia's North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership.

Conceivably, Georgia falls within Holbrooke's diplomatic turf. The country provides a 600-strong military contingent for fighting the 25,000-strong Taliban militia, but it is not the numbers that count. Holbrooke said the Georgian contingent was destined to play a major role in the world's victory over terrorism. Saakashvili responded that not only the fate of the world but of Georgia's too depended on the success of the NATO mission.

Holbrooke insisted his visit "had nothing to do with Georgian-Russian relations", but the reality is that Washington hopes to incorporate Georgia as a vital link in the proposed NATO supply chain leading to Afghanistan from Europe, which will bypass Russian territory. Clearly, NATO is gearing up to cross over from the Balkans, across the Black Sea, to the Caucasus in an historic journey that will take it to Central Asia via Afghanistan.

Clinton also made it clear in her hard-hitting speech at a NATO strategic concept seminar organized by the Atlantic Council in Washington last Tuesday that "there can be no question that NATO will continue to keep its doors open to new members ... We are already working with many of these nations in Afghanistan. And we must find ways to build on these efforts ... We have already determined the need for a NATO that can operate at strategic distance. We need to cultivate strategic relationships in support of that goal."

Later, the US's permanent representative to NATO, ambassador Ivo Daalder, amplified: "We're not going to change the way we do business. We believe that an enlargement of the alliance is a stabilizing factor. We believe that NATO's door must remain open to new members. We believe that no country [read Russia] can have a veto over which other sovereign country can or cannot join an alliance. That reality will remain."

Taliban pose no threat
Equally, Holbrooke's mission to the Central Asian capitals was an opening gambit. He got mixed results, which was only to be expected since the Central Asians are no more babes in the woods of international diplomacy. There are longstanding problems between the Central Asian states, but the region doesn't present a geopolitical vacuum.

Holbrooke thumb-sketched a futuristic security scenario for the region in the nature of an al-Qaeda threat. As he put it, "I think the real threat in this region is less from the Taliban than from al-Qaeda, which wants to train international terrorists." He said this in Dushanbe after meeting with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon.

On the one hand, Holbrooke gently eased Central Asian concerns regarding the US's expected reconciliation with the Taliban. At the same time, he calmed the Central Asian mind regarding the Taliban's extremist ideology.

This is not the first time that Central Asian leaders have heard from a visiting US official a projection of the Taliban as a benign movement. Holbrooke echoed what US diplomats almost routinely propagated in the 1996-97 period as the Taliban came to power in Kabul.

Holbrooke added, "For ethnic and geographic and strategic reasons, Tajikistan is the country of immense importance if one wants to have a peaceful outcome in Afghanistan." These are profound remarks. It is the sort of description that fits only one other country in Afghanistan's neighborhood - Pakistan. Dushanbe has a complex relationship with Afghan Tajiks. The ethnic Tajik population in Afghanistan is numerically bigger than Tajikistan's, but it has lacked leadership since the assassination by al-Qaeda of Ahmad Shah Massoud in 2001. At any rate, Tajik nationalism is a can of worms - almost as much as Pashtun nationalism.

Holbrooke also revealed that he "talked [with Rahmon] especially about energy and water and about Tajikistan's capabilities to help deal with the water crisis in other parts of the region, especially Pakistan and India." This is an extremely controversial subject that concerns many regional powers, where Tajik and Uzbek interests, in fact, collide. How the US will eventually "balance" Tashkent and Dushanbe will bear watching.

No doubt, Washington sees Tashkent as the prize catch of its Central Asian diplomacy in the recent past. But Uzbek language is highly nuanced and according to state media, "The leader of our nation ... expressed Uzbekistan's firm determination to further develop US-Uzbek relations in a constructive way in light of efforts to bring lasting peace and stability to Afghanistan." Holbrooke was quoted as responding that he, too, wanted to "strengthen cooperation with Uzbekistan over security". The American Embassy refused to confirm or deny reports on whether he brought up the reopening of an air base in Uzbekistan from where the US was evicted half a decade ago.

In sum, Holbrooke heard many vague promises of support, but they fell short of any visible outcome. There were missteps too. His trip to Turkmenistan was canceled at the last minute due to "scheduling conflicts". A joint press briefing with Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev in Bishkek was abruptly canceled without explanation. His public appearance in Dushanbe was unnaturally terse and he wasn't even open to questions and answers.

There was indeed a noticeable lack of concrete results. On the other hand, Holbrooke was merely wetting his toes in an enigmatic region that puzzles even brilliant minds. What cannot be overlooked is that Holbrooke decided to take a look at the region at all. The summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is due to be held in June in Tashkent, can be expected to have "maintenance of peace and stability in Afghanistan" as a key agenda item.

Strictly speaking, Central Asia is not within the purview of Holbrooke's AfPak brief. As far as the logistics of the Afghan war are concerned, US Central Command chief General David Petraeus regularly visits Central Asian capitals. Conceivably, Washington would like to measure how the regional powers - especially Russia, Iran and China - react to Holbrooke's appearance in Central Asia at a time when the Afghan war appears set to spill over into the region.

English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote, "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" If Holbrooke comes, can he be far behind in returning?

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

 
 
 

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South Asia
Mar 2, 2010 
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LC02Df02.html 
 
Pakistan holds onto its Taliban


By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - The refusal of Pakistani intelligence to turn over Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and as many as six other top Taliban figures to the United States or the Afghan government has dealt a serious blow to the Barack Obama administration's hopes for Pakistani cooperation in weakening the Taliban.

It has left little doubt in the minds of US officials that the Pakistani military intends to keep physical custody of the Taliban detainees in order to exert influence on both the pace of peace negotiations
in Afghanistan and the ultimate terms of a settlement.

The Pakistani custody of Baradar and other Taliban leaders now appears to be more of a safe haven for the Afghan insurgents than a normal detention. At least some US officials already accept the likelihood that the Pakistanis will allow the Taliban leaders to continue to maintain contact with other Taliban officials while in custody.

The primary evidence of the Pakistani military leadership's intentions is the Pakistani refusal to allow the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to question Baradar in the days following his initial detention. The CIA was denied direct access to Baradar for "about two weeks", according to US media reports.

That Pakistani refusal of access frustrated the CIA, which was eager to interrogate Baradar about details of the Taliban's operations and finance. During those crucial two weeks, US intelligence officials got no information that would lead them to the rest of the Taliban leadership.

US intelligence officials doubt that they can get the truth from Baradar as long he is in Pakistani military custody, according to Miller's report.

During that two-week period, CIA director Leon Panetta and other US officials asked the Pakistani government and military leaders to transfer Baradar and other Taliban leaders to the US detention center at Bagram air base in Afghanistan to allow the US military to interrogate him, according to one report.

But Pakistani Interior Minister Rahman Malik flatly rejected that proposal on February 19. He announced that Baradar and two other high-ranking Taliban leaders arrested in February would not be handed over to the US, and that Pakistani questioning of Baradar would continue to determine whether he had violated Pakistani law.

Even if Baradar was found not to have broken the law, Malik said he would be returned to "the country of origin, not to the USA".

The Obama administration then tried to pressure Pakistan to extradite the Taliban leaders to Afghanistan. Federal Bureau of Investigation director Robert Mueller, accompanied by Afghan Interior Minister Hanif Atmar, met secretly with Interior Minister Malik last Wednesday and sought to get him to agree to extradition to Afghanistan, as Anand Gopal reported in the Christian Science Monitor.

Despite Afghan government statements that he had agreed to extradition to Afghanistan, Malik was non-committal about extradition on Thursday. He promised only that his government "will definitely look at" a formal request from the Afghan government.

Pakistan and Afghanistan were reported to be negotiating an agreement on the return of prisoners, with the "mechanisms" for such a return still to be worked out.

Then on Friday, a provincial high court in Pakistan's Punjab province delivered what appeared to be the final blow to the prospects for extradition of Baradar and four other Taliban leaders to Afghanistan. The court blocked any extradition by Pakistan of the Taliban leaders to any country until the court could hear the issue of the detainees’ rights.

The Pakistani government could appeal the decision, but officials in Islamabad told CBS News there were no plans for such an appeal at present.

Even before the court intervened in the issue, any hopes the Obama administration and the US military might have had that Pakistan was prepared to sell out its former Taliban allies had already waned.

The newspaper report in the US on Wednesday quoted a "top American official" who had met with Pakistani army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kiani "recently" - presumably Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who had met with Kiani on January 21 - who did not seem confident about the prospects of getting control of the Taliban leaders. The official said, "We'll know soon whether this is cooperation, or a stonewall and kind of rope-a-dope."

The official was referring to a number of past episodes in which the Pakistani military was ostensibly supporting US policy in Afghanistan while it continued to support the Taliban.

The same story last Wednesday quoted a "top American military officer in Afghanistan" as speculating that the Pakistanis were intending to use Baradar and their other Taliban prisoners to accelerate the timetable for a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan. "I don't know if they're pushing anyone to the table," said the unnamed general, "but they are certainly preparing the meal."

By suggesting that the Pakistanis were preparing for a negotiating process involving Baradar, the "top military officer" was acknowledging that he and other US officials expect Pakistan to allow Baradar to negotiate with the Hamid Karzai government in Kabul while he is in custody.

That role would also require that Baradar be allowed to communicate with other members of the Taliban leadership - both those in custody and those still operating freely, including Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

Multiple reports from US sources have indicated that the original arrest of Baradar was not the result of a raid specifically targeting the Taliban's second-ranking leader but an "accident". Baradar's identity was discovered only after the raid took place, the US officials said.

It now appears that Pakistan's military leadership quickly adopted a new strategy for stepping up the timetable for Afghan peace negotiations and ensuring that its interests were protected in those negotiations after it realized that it had Baradar in custody.

That decision would account for the rapid detention of as many as six other members of the Taliban leadership council that followed the apprehension of Baradar, as Gopal reported in the Christian Science Monitor on Wednesday.

The plan evidently assumes that the Taliban leaders will have to consult Pakistani intelligence officials while they negotiate with the Afghan government and the United States.

The Obama administration had been counting on Pakistan to end its policy of providing safe haven for Afghan Taliban leaders and fighters because, without such a decision, US officials admit there is little or no possibility of seriously weakening the Taliban.

That assumption impelled Obama to write a letter to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari last November, warning bluntly that Pakistan's support for the Taliban would no longer be tolerated, the Washington Post reported on February 19.

The Pakistani government adjusted to the latest US pressure on its Taliban policy by allowing the Central Intelligence Agency to expand its intelligence operations in Pakistan aimed at intercepting Taliban and al-Qaeda messages to Karachi. It also agreed to joint operations with the CIA to find high-level Taliban operatives.

But it is now clear that the increased intelligence cooperation with the CIA did not mean Pakistan had abandoned its broader strategy of relying on the Taliban as the best guarantee of Pakistani influence in Afghanistan.

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.

(Inter Press Service) 
 
 

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Video Adds to Questions About Hakimullah’s ‘Death’

Latest Tape Undated, But Mocks 'Propaganda' About His Killing


by Jason Ditz, February 28, 2010
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/02/28/video-adds-to-questions-about-hakimullahs-death/

Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Hakimullah Mehsud has been “confirmed killed” several times by Pakistani officials in recent days, and US officials also reportedly believe this to be the case, though they are understandably gunshy about making this declaration public as it the seventh “confirmed” killing of the militant in just over six months as the leader of the group.


 Hakimullah Mehsud

This confidence has taken another hit today, however, as the TTP have released a new video of Hakimullah. The video features some 43 minutes of interview with Hakimullah and an unseen interviewer.

The film is undated, however, and makes no specific mention of any recent events which would give a conclusive clue to when it was made. It does, however, mock the “media propaganda” about his death. That provides no real proof, of course, as it doesn’t say which of his supposed deaths he is referencing.

After replacing Baitullah Mehsud as leader of the TTP in August, Hakimullah dramatically increased the extent to which the group launched attacks across Pakistan, and even struck a CIA base in Afghanistan. His high profile deaths and even higher profile resurrections into the public eye have given him an enormous reputation for a man who has only been the group’s leader for six months.

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Muslims Are Their Own Worst Enemy

By Paul Craig Roberts

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24896.htm

March 02, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- Muslims are numerous but powerless. Divisions among Muslims, especially between Sunni and Shi’ites, have consigned the Muslim Middle East to almost a century of Western control. Muslims cannot even play together. The Islamic Solidarity Games, a regional version of the Olympics, which were to be held in April in Iran, have been cancelled, because the Iranians and the Arabs cannot agree on whether to call the body of water that separates Iran from the Arabian Peninsula the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Gulf.

Muslim disunity has made it possible for Israel to dispossess the Palestinians, for the U.S. to invade Iraq, and for the U.S. to rule much of the region through puppets. For example, in exchange for faithful service, Egypt receives $1.5 billion a year from Washington, which enables President Mubarak to buy off opposition. The opposition had rather have the money than support the Palestinians. Therefore, Egypt cooperates with Israel and the U.S. in the blockade of Gaza.

Another factor is the willingness of some Muslims to betray their own kind for U.S. dollars. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to neoconservative Kenneth Timmerman, head of the Foundation for Democracy, which describes itself as “a private, non-profit organization established in 1995 with grants from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to promote democracy and internationally-recognized standards of human rights in Iran.”

By now we all know what that means. It means that the U.S. finances a “velvet” or some “color revolution” in order to install a U.S. puppet. Just prior to the sudden appearance of a “green revolution” in Tehran primed to protest an election, Timmerman wrote that “the National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars during the past decade promoting ‘color’ revolutions in places such as Ukraine and Serbia, training political workers in modern communications and organizational techniques. Some of that money appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.” So, according to the neocon Timmerman, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, it was U.S. money that funded Mousavi’s claims that Armadinejad stole the last Iranian election.

During President George W. Bush’s regime it became public knowledge that American money is used to purchase Iranians to work against their own country. The Washington Post, a newspaper sympathetic to the neocon’s goal of American hegemony and war with Iran, reported in 2007 that Bush authorized spending more than $400 million for activities that included “supporting rebel groups opposed to the country’s ruling clerics.”

This makes the U.S. government a “state sponsor of terrorism.” For confirmation, one of the U.S. paid operatives, who conducted terror operations in Iran, has ratted on his terrorist supporters in Washington. Abdulmalek Rigi, leader of the Baloch separatist group responsible for several attacks, was recently arrested by the Iranians. Rigi admitted that the Americans in Washington assured him of unlimited military aid and funding for waging an insurgency against the Islamic Republic of Iran. (Read his confession here:  )

Possibly he was tortured into confession. It is the American way. If the “light of the world,” the “indispensable people,” and the “shining city on the hill” tortures people, perhaps the Iranians do as well. Rigi’s younger brother, himself on death row in Iran, has said that the U.S. provided direct funding to the separatist group and even ordered specific terrorist attacks inside Iran (see Antiwar.com, Feb. 23, 2010 and also and here ).

The U.S. and its NATO puppets have been killing Afghan women, children, and village elders since October 7, 2001, when the U.S. military invasion “Operation Enduring Freedom,” a proper Orwellian title for a self-serving war of aggression, was launched. The U.S. installed puppet president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is bought and paid for with U.S. dollars.

The money that Washington gives Karzai finances the corruption that supports him. Karzai’s corruption and his treason against the Afghan people encourage the Taliban to keep fighting in order to achieve a government that serves Afghans instead of Washington, D.C.

Without the puppet Karzai selling out Afghans to Washington, the U.S. would have already been driven out of the country. With Karzai paying Afghans with American money to fight Afghans for the Americans, the war drones on into its ninth year.

Feminists, liberals, and naive American flag-wavers will say that what is written here is utter rot, that Americans are in Afghanistan to bring women’s rights and birth control to Afghan women and to bring freedom, democracy and progress to Afghanistan, even if it means leveling every village, town, and house in the country. We, “the indispensable people,” are only there to do good, because we care so much for the Afghan people who live in a country that most Americans can’t find on a map.

While this collection of naifs rants on about America “saving” Afghans from whatever, the White House and the Congress are conspiring against the American people to cut $500 billion dollars out of Medicare in order to give the money to private insurance companies. Jobless benefits are about to run out for millions of Americans, whose jobs have been moved offshore in order to make the rich richer. The U.S. Senate failed on Friday, Feb. 26, to extend jobless benefits. A single Republican Senator, Jim Bunning of Kentucky, was able to block the bill because it would cost a measly $10 billion and “would add to the budget deficit.”

The “fiscally responsible” Bunning supports blank checks for wars of aggression (war crimes under the Nuremberg standard) and payoffs to investment banks for wrecking the retirement plans of most Americans. Bunning sends the bills to the unorganized and unrepresented Americans, whose jobs have been stolen by corporate offshoring of jobs and whose retirements have been stolen by the endless greed of the Wall Street investment banks.

What fool believes that the U.S. government, which is totally indifferent to the fate of its own citizens, cares so much about Afghanistan that it will spend blood and treasure to bring “progress” and “women’s rights” to a country half a world away, while it drives its own citizens into the ground?

At Washington’s behest, the government of Pakistan is conducting war against its own people, killing many and forcing others to flee their homes and lands. The Pakistani government’s war against its own citizens has caused military expenses to soar, putting Pakistan’s budget deep in the red. Deputy US Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin ordered the Pakistani government to raise taxes to pay for the war against its own people. http://news.antiwar.com/2010/02/12/us-treasury-dept-presses-pakistan-to-raise-taxes/  The puppet ruler, Asif Ali Zardari, complied with his American master’s orders. Zardari declared a broad-based value added tax on virtually all goods and most services in Pakistan. Thus, Pakistanis are forced to finance a war against themselves.

The “cakewalk war” in Iraq has lasted 7 years instead of the promised 6 weeks, and the violence is still ongoing with Iraqis killed and maimed nearly every day. The reason Americans are still in Iraq is because the Iraqis hate each other more than they hate the American invader. The vast majority of the violence in “the Iraq war” was committed between Iraqi Sunnis and Iraqi Shi’ites as they cleansed one another from neighborhoods.

The majority Shi’ites regarded the American invasion of Iraq as an opportunity to gain power over the minority Sunnis, who ruled under Saddam Hussein. Therefore, the Shi’ites never engaged the American invading forces. The minority Sunnis (20 percent of the population) gave most of their effort to fighting the Shi’ite majority, but in their spare time a few thousand Sunnis were able to inflict serious losses on the American superpower.

Finally realizing the power of lucre in the Arab world, the Americans put 80,000 Sunnis on the U.S. military payroll and paid them to stop killing Americans.

This is how the U.S. won the war in Iraq. Iraqis sold out their independence for American dollars.

Considering that a few thousand Sunnis were able to prevent superpower America from successfully occupying Baghdad or much of Iraq, had the Shi’ites joined with the Sunnis against the invaders, the U.S. would have been defeated and driven out. This outcome was not possible, because the Shi’ites wanted to settle the score with the Sunnis, who had ruled them under Saddam Hussein.

This is the reason that Iraq today is in ruins, with one million dead, four million displaced or homeless, and the professional class having fled the country. Iraq, under the American puppet Maliki, is an American protectorate.

As long as Muslims hate and fear one another more than they hate their conquerers, they will remain a vanquished people.
 
 

 

 

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Pakistan: New Orakzai Offensive to Start Next Week

Restive Agency Saw TTP Influx After South Waziristan Invasion

by Jason Ditz, March 02, 2010
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/03/02/pakistan-new-orakzai-offensive-to-start-next-week/

Pakistan’s government says today that it will be launching another massive military offensive, this time against the Orakzai Agency, beginning next week.

Major General Tariq Khan says the forces will do battle with an estimated 1,000 Taliban in the region, and will “defeat Taliban everywhere in the tribal areas” eventually.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani hinted at the Orakzai invasion in December, as the South Waziristan invasion netted few leaders of note and Orakzai locals reported a massive influx of Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) members moving in from neighboring Waziristan.

The Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), which neighbors Orakzai, has announced it will renew registration of refugees from the region, as well as the Kurram Agency, which the government has declared a “conflict zone.”

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Tanks arrive in Miranshah

* Locals fear army preparing to launch offensive in N Waziristan’s headquarters, claim reinforcements reached area on Tuesday

By Iqbal Khattak
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\03\04\story_4-3-2010_pg1_1

PESHAWAR: A tense calm prevailed in North Waziristan’s headquarters of Miranshah on Wednesday after “the arrival of eight tanks and [army] reinforcements”, sparking fear among locals that the army was preparing to launch an offensive against the Taliban.

Locals claimed the reinforcements were sent in on Tuesday – a day after clashes between the Taliban and security forces – and said the eight tanks had arrived “in a show of force ahead of the operation”.

While Miranshah Bazaar was open on Wednesday, activity on the streets had dropped considerably – partly because of rain and mainly because of security concerns, shopkeepers told Daily Times over the phone. The bazaar was completely shuttered on Tuesday because of a curfew imposed by the authorities, after the killing of two FC troops by suspected Taliban triggered clashes in the middle of Miranshah Bazaar
on Monday.

Pamphlets: On Tuesday, locals said the military also distributed pamphlets branding the Taliban “agents of Israel and India”, to win the hearts and minds of tribespersons “ahead of a military operation to deny TTP members safe havens”.

The Taliban responded within hours by distributing pamphlets of their own. The exchange sparked fear among civilians that “both sides are looking for excuses to mount clashes”. “These pamphlets, we believe, will not auger well for us ... both sides look set to overrun the other... we have never seen this before,” locals told Daily Times over the phone. “What we don’t want is the operation to start in the summers... the temperatures are too high to live in Bannu and other cities,” they said.

Over the last two weeks, the military has set up another post in Kajhori, an entry point to North Waziristan, checking identity cards of all those arriving or leaving. Similar checking is also underway in Bakhakhel, just outside Bannu. Soldiers at two other checkpoints disallow outsiders from entering or exiting North Waziristan through those routes.

Meanwhile, sources in Khar said soldiers were seen on Wednesday moving out of Bajaur Agency for possible deployment somewhere in Waziristan.

Home | Main

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Published on Thursday, March 4, 2010 by The Telegraph/UK

One in Three Killed by US Drones in Pakistan Is a Civilian, Report Claims

One in three "militants" killed in US Predator Drone attacks in Pakistan's remote tribal areas is in fact a civilian, according to a report by an American think tank.


by Dean Nelson

The report, by the Washington-based New America Foundation, will fuel growing criticism of the use of unmanned drones in the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, who use Pakistan as a base for attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan.

Critics say their use not only takes innocent lives, but amounts to unlawful extra-judicial killing of militants.

The report by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann found that 32 per cent of those killed in drone attacks since 2004 were civilians.

Their report, The Year of the Drone, studied 114 drone raids in which more than 1200 people were killed. Of those, between 549 and 849 were reliably reported to be militant fighters, while the rest were civilians.

"The true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 32 per cent," the foundation reported.

The number of drone attacks has increased dramatically since Barack Obama replaced George W Bush as US president early last year.

There were 45 drone attacks during Mr Bush's two terms of government, compared with 51 during the first year of Mr Obama's new administration. In the first two months of this year, up to 140 "militants" have been killed.

Despite the controversy surrounding the scale of civilian deaths, and public opposition from Pakistan's government, the Obama administration has increased its reliance on drones to target "high-value" Taliban and al-Qaeda figures.

Since last autumn, they have killed the Taliban's notorious leader Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan, and more recently, it is claimed, his successor Hakimullah Mehsud.

In 2008, Pakistani intelligence sources said they had killed Rashid Rauf, the British al-Qaeda militant behind the 2006 transatlantic airliner bomb plot.

Osama bin Laden's deputy Ayman al Zawahiri is believed to had a lucky escape when a drone struck a compound he had recently left.

Taliban leaders this week confirmed another of their top leaders Mohammed Qari Zafar had been killed in north Waziristan.

He was believed to have organised the 2006 bombing of the American embassy in Karachi.

The report said although civilian casualty figures are high, they did not believe their study would cause American commanders to reconsider their use.

"Despite the controversy drone strikes are likely to remain a critical tool for the United States to disrupt Al Qaeda and Taliban operations and leadership structures," it concluded.

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2010

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

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/04-1

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South Asia
Mar 6, 2010 
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LC06Df01.html 
 
 Natural law brings AfPak crashing

By M K Bhadrakumar

Be it a baseball struck in a neighborhood sandlot game or in high-wire diplomacy, an elementary principle of physics holds good - what goes up must come down. In a way, the sheer dynamics of the nosedive of the United States' AfPak diplomacy in the four weeks since the London conference on Afghanistan on January 28 can be attributed to gravitational pulls.

Earth's gravity does not permit animated suspension, and US's AfPak special representative Richard Holbrooke has found it difficult to keep up the entente cordiale worked out in the British capital. United States President Barack Obama may need to act faster than he would have thought.

The US's AfPak special representative Richard Holbrooke has run into head wind almost simultaneously in four key capitals in and around the Hindu Kush - Islamabad, Kabul, Tehran and New Delhi.

Holbrooke no doubt achieved spectacular success in London, by rushing an agenda of "reintegration" and reconciliation of the Afghan Taliban through the assembled gathering of statesmen. The gathering included such inveterate critics of the doctrine of the "good Taliban" as India, China and Russia. But Holbrooke kept the lot together. That was probably the finest hour of AfPak diplomacy.

Pakistan sets ground rules

But did he force the pace? No sooner had the crowd dispersed from London, than AfPak diplomacy began unraveling. First, Pakistan went ahead and "captured" the Taliban's deputy head Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. The funny thing is that Baradar was shaping up as a key interlocutor for AfPak diplomacy. The Mullah or his men were darting in and out of the Persian Gulf oasis towns having secret rendezvous with American envoys. Call it Track II or whatever, but a track was being cleared for the US's reconciliation with the Taliban's Quetta shura - its top leadership organ.

Or, at least, that was how Washington assessed the situation. Of course, these goings on were completely in the know of Pakistan. But there was a crucial difference: they were not being conducted through Pakistani mediation. So, Pakistan just nabbed Baradar. The dilemma facing AfPak diplomacy today is: how do you negotiate when you don't have an interlocutor? A kind of recess is developing in the AfPak diplomatic calendar.

Pakistan's message is straightforward: any negotiations with the Taliban ought to be conducted through the proper channel, namely, Pakistan's ISI. Actually, it is not too much to demand. Pakistan committed a great deal of resources to stop the Taliban disintegrating through some of their darkest days between 2001 and 2004. Islamabad cannot be expected to just roll over and let the Americans inherit the crown jewels ("strategic assets") when the hour of glory is nearing.

Karzai delivers a blow

Witnessing the determination in Islamabad to lock the stable doors to prevent the studs from being stolen, Kabul seems to have followed suit. Afghan President Hamid Karzai went ahead with a decree "Afghanizing" the country's election commission. Curiously, Karzai acted unilaterally, just as Holbrooke was on a visit to Kabul.

There is some dramatic irony insofar as Karzai intended his move with the primary purpose of preempting the sort of regime change that Hobrooke attempted during the last presidential elections. Karzai has decreed that the Afghan election commission shall henceforth have no more foreigners - that is to say, there is no more scope for the US to plant proxy agents who might dictate terms within the election supervisory body.

The timing is interesting insofar as the Afghan parliamentary elections are due in August. Karzai expects insurgent groups to increase their participation in the elections to make the new parliament more representative. He has negotiated with the Taliban with this objective in mind. Karzai hopes to see the new parliament as an Afghan political base for himself that would insure against any US attempts to oust him.

AfPak diplomacy, on the other hand, is moving on an altogether different track to engage the Taliban with a view to integrate the latter in the Afghan mainstream politics, which would certainly necessitate Karzai making way for an "interim government" within a year or so. If he succeeds in constituting a new parliament with a four-year term as prescribed by the constitution, the US game plan will crash land.

The political stakes are indeed high. Karzai has, plainly put, cocked a snook at AfPak diplomacy. Washington has been left with no option for the present but to take Karzai's blow and pretend nothing happened. The only way out now will be to deny Karzai the international funding without which he may be hard-pressed to the elections in August. But that is a blatant strong-arm tactic. Besides, Karzai is a tenacious leader and may still find a way out to hold the elections, and that could deal a blow to American prestige.

Conceivably, Holbrooke left Kabul with mixed feelings. It is unclear whether Karzai took him into confidence about his move to clip the AfPak wings, though Karzi probably did not. Quite obviously, Karzai's move is primarily directed at the sort of diplomacy Holbrooke practises - loaded with a lot of muscle power.

An Iranian set-up

From Kabul, Holbrooke apparently headed for his first ever tour of Central Asian capitals as "part of an accelerating intensification of our [AfPak] diplomatic outreach efforts". But Iranian reports have since interpreted that Holbrooke's real mission was to hold a clandestine meeting with the Jundullah terrorist leader Abdul Malik Rigi at the US airbase at Manas on the outskirts of the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek.

Washington is studiously keeping mum at the Iranian allegation. But Tehran has followed up on the matter with Bishkek. The Kyrgyz ambassador in Tehran has been summoned to the foreign ministry and asked to explain how his country's government got mixed up with a notorious terrorist like Rigi.

The story is still unfolding and there is no need to second-guess that if the Iranians chose to divulge so much already to the media, they must know a lot more. Rigi is presently undergoing interrogation at the hands of the Iranian authorities. If the Iranian media reports have any basis, AfPak diplomacy stands exposed as inept and ludicrous. The Iranians seem to have not only plucked Rigi out of the hands of his American mentors (which doesn't speak highly of the US intelligence capability) but it is all but certain that Pakistani intelligence may have directly or indirectly been privy to the Iranian operation.

A storm in Delhi

But what happened on last Tuesday was much worse. For no apparent reason, Holbrooke waded into the explosive subject of the terrorist attack in Kabul on February 25 which resulted in the killing of nine Indians, including two senior army officers. At a press briefing in Washington on Tuesday, he rubbished the preliminary assessment of Indian (and Afghan) officials that it was a targeted attack by the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-i-Taiba masterminded by the ISI.

"I don't accept the fact that this was an attack on an Indian facility like the embassy.'' Holbrooke said. ''They were foreigners, non-Indian foreigners hurt. It was a soft target. And let's not jump to conclusions. I understand why everyone in Pakistan and everyone in India always focuses on the other. But, please, let's not draw a conclusion which - for which there's no proof."

The Indian embassy was attacked by a suicide bomber last October, with 17 people killed. It was also bombed in July 2008 when 60 people died.

In principle, Holbrooke had a point, as the inquiry into last week's Kabul attack is still underway. But there is evidence that the terrorists went from room to room and sought out the Indians before killing them. Delhi is shocked that Holbrooke would go out on a limb apparently to cover up for the ISI.

But why he spoke at all - and its awkward timing - is becoming important. After all, diplomacy is also about remaining silent. Especially when Delhi and Islamabad are entangled in high-strung diplomacy under close US watch from behind the curtain.

The feeling in Delhi is that Holbrooke spoke on purpose. He is no doubt a consummate diplomat.

Holbrooke was likely indulging in a complex image-building exercise. The Baradar setback aside, Holbrooke has been having a rough time with the Pakistanis. According to the Delhi grapevine, he refers to the Pakistanis in a highly disparaging way as "useless fellows". The reading in Delhi is that the Pakistanis receive Holbrooke with elaborate courtesy and lavish hospitality, but prefer to do hard business with the Pentagon on the substantive issues of AfPak policy.

Holbrooke probably hoped that by placing ambassador Robin Raphel, who enjoyed past connections with the Pakistani establishment and the Taliban leadership, as his deputy in Islamabad he would get an inside track on the Quetta shura. But for Pakistan, anything involving the Quetta shura is for now deadly business. Pakistan is using Raphel to lobby in Washington for increased aid and so on, but it keeps the Quetta shura out of the matrix.

The harsh reality is that Pakistan is in a position to make or unmake AfPak diplomacy - and also AfPak diplomats. It holds the trump cards to deliver the Taliban to the negotiating table. And Islamabad is skilled enough to manipulate Washington.

In sum, with Karzai spinning out of control and Islamabad making a mockery of AfPak diplomacy, Holbrooke most probably spoke out of pressure. Viewed from Delhi, Holbrooke made a high-profile attempt to ingratiate himself with the powers that be who control Lashkar-i-Taiba. Whether he will succeed in this enterprise or not remains to be seen but he has certainly annoyed the Indian establishment.

The Indians made diplomatic demarche both at Delhi and at Washington, taking exception to Holbrooke's "unhelpful" outburst over the Kabul terrorist strike. After repeatedly rebuffing Holbrooke's request to visit Delhi for consultations, Indians finally received him only in late January in the immediate run-up to the London conference. Holbrooke blithely forecast at his press conference on Tuesday that he hopes to visit Delhi next with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. How Mullen (or Delhi for that matter) views the prospect remains to be seen.

Will Obama step in?

Why is AfPak diplomacy in such disarray? It isn't entirely Holbrooke's fault. For one thing, South Asians aren't like the "junkyard dogs" that he came across in the Balkans in the mid-1990s. They are a deeper lot credited with oriental patience and can be every bit as tenacious as Holbrooke himself must be.

Then, there is also a far deeper issue. Holbrooke is seriously handicapped by an AfPak brief that keeps evolving in his hands. This was not like the case with Yugoslavia where the Bill Clinton administration pursued a cold-blooded agenda. The Washington Post reported that the AfPak diplomacy has confused all protagonists, including the Afghans.

At any rate, Holbrooke has been left somewhat stranded on the center stage. The worst thing that can happen to a diplomat is to be expected to stay in the limelight and yet not do anything.

Second, unlike in the 1990s, the US's influence is much diminished today, but its diplomats work as if they operate in a unipolar world. The plain truth is that regional powers like India, Iran or even Pakistan are far from convinced about the US's AfPak policy. And they can be expected to do their utmost to safeguard their interests, no matter what the US diplomats prescribe as good enough.

The tailwind that the London conference was expected to generate dissipated all too soon and AfPak diplomacy is running into head winds that may make forward movement difficult. But Obama gets an opportunity to tack into the wind in early April when he is due to meet the prime ministers of India and Pakistan on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.



Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey
 
 

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Monday, March 08, 2010
12:09 Mecca time, 09:09 GMT 
 http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/20103841851216548.html
 
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Deadly blast rocks Pakistani city 

 
The Federal Investigation agency has been a target of violent attacks before [Reuters]
 
A bomb has gone off outside a buliding housing a federal investigative agency in Pakistan's city of Lahore, killing at least 11 people and wounding about 60 others, police and government officials said.

A police official said that Monday's explosion appeared to be a suicide car bomb and targeted the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).



Khusro Pervaiz, a provincial government official, told reporters: "It's clear that the office of the investigation agency was the target."

The attack comes after recent gains by the Pakistani authorities against homegrown anti-government fighters.

Pakistan has won praise from its ally Washington after capturing high-profile Afghan Taliban figures.

The blast left a huge crater in the road outside the office of the FIA, and destroyed the front of the building.

Scenes of destruction

Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Pakistan, said the dead included three officials and two school girls. 

The FIA has been attacked at least twice before.

Tariq Saleem Dogar, the provincial police chief, told reporters: "According to initial reports, terrorists came in a car and exploded."

Television footage showed scenes of major destruction with fallen masonry, a large crater in the ground and volunteers trying to shift debris by hand as ambulances raced to the scene.

Angry residents shouted at police as they arrived at the scene in Lahore's Model Town residential neighbourhood.

"We repeatedly asked them to please move this office away from our houses but they didn't give a damn," one woman said.

Stock market investors, growing accustomed to bomb attacks across the country, shrugged off the latest violence, dealers said.

"The market has become sort of immune to these acts of terror and it only reacts if the damage is huge," said Khalid Iqbal Siddiqui, director at Brokers Invest and Finance Securities.

Dealers said healthy foreign flows into the market in recent days had helped investor sentiment.
 
 

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US helped ISI create extremists: Petraeus
 
http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=27658
 

Sunday, March 07, 2010


WASHINGTON: Noting that Pakistan has made significant progress in its fight against extremism that threatens its existence, a top US military general has refused the certificate of “American satisfaction” to Islamabad in its war against terrorism.

“I wouldn’t allow you to put words in my mouth,” General David Petraeus, Commander of the US Central Command told Charlie Rose of the PBS in an interview when he asked: “So the bottom line is you are satisfied with the Pakistani effort and the Pakistani cooperation and the Pakistani effort to wipe out the Taliban in Pakistan?”

Rose posed such a question to Petraeus, when the American general was praising Pakistan for its recent success against the Taliban and arrest of its top leaders inside the country. “What I would say is that Pakistan has made significant progress in its fight against extremists threatening its existence. And there is a growing recognition that the other extremist elements, also in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, have a symbiotic relationship with the tribal areas threatening them, and over time they are dealing with them as well,” Petraeus said.

“But, again, look, we have a chequered past with Pakistan, and we need to be up front about it and recognise it. We’ve walked away from that country three different times, including after Charlie Wilson’s war after we established the Mujahideen,” he said.

“Our money, Saudi money, others joined together, helped the ISI, indeed, form these elements which then went in and threw the Soviets out of Afghanistan with our weaponry. And then we left and they were holding the bag,” he said, acknowledging that it was the US which helped ISI to form these extremist elements. General Petraeus, however, acknowledged that the interests of Pakistan and the US differ in Afghanistan. He said Pakistan and the US has the same interest in Afghanistan in not allowing al-Qaeda to re-establish safe havens. “But it also has an interest that is somewhat different than ours, and that is their strategic depth and always has been for a country that’s very narrow and has its historic enemy to its east. So again, we just have to appreciate this.

“This is not unique, of course, just to Afghanistan and Pakistan and throughout the world. We have interests, they have interests. What we want to do is find the conversion interest, understand where they are divergent and try to make progress together,” Petraeus said.
 

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Influential cleric issues fatwa against terrorism 


09/03/2010 06:00:00 PM GMT
http://aljazeera.com/news/articles/39/Influential-cleric-issues-fatwa-against-terrorism.html
 
An influential Pakistani cleric issued a fatwa on March 2, described as an "absolute" condemnation of terrorism without "any excuses or pretexts."


By John L. Esposito

(AFP) Qadri declared that terrorists and suicide bombers were unbelievers

An influential Pakistani cleric issued a 600-page fatwa on March 2, described as an "absolute" condemnation of terrorism without "any excuses or pretexts." Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri declared that terrorists and suicide bombers were unbelievers and that "terrorism is terrorism, violence is violence and it has no place in Islamic teaching and no justification can be provided for it, or any kind of excuses or ifs or buts."

While domestic politics in Muslim countries, the presence of foreign troops and the impact of Western foreign policies remain primary drivers in radicalization, a major, comprehensive fatwa like this -- along with less-sweeping fatwas issued by other religious authorities -- does constitute a major challenge to the legitimacy of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Qadri's fatwa is an exhaustive, systematic theological and legal study of the Islamic tradition's teachings on the use of force and armed resistance to support an absolute condemnation of any form of terrorism for any cause. Its significance will be felt in Pakistan, where Qadri over several decades has become a prominent scholar and religious leader as well as a religious media star. It will also have an impact in the West young Muslims in Britain, Scandinavia and Canada, many of whom are of Pakistani backgrounds.

Qadri is a Barelvi Muslim scholar (Barelvi and Deobandis, who claim to follow a more pristine version of Islam, are the two major Sunni Muslim groups or schools of thought in the Indian subcontinent). The Barelvi are estimated to be the largest Muslim group in Pakistan, India and Great Britain. Qadri, noted for his liberal and tolerant views, promotes greater unity among Muslims and inter and intra faith dialogue, reaching out to other theological schools like the Deobandi and to Shiah Muslims and Pakistani Christians. He emphasizes religious, social, and cultural teachings of Islam.

Trained both in traditional madrasas and at Punjab University where in 1972 he earned an MA and PhD in Islamic Studies, Qadri appeals to a broad audience of traditionalists and those that appreciate his integration of traditional Islamic sciences with modern disciplines. Qadri's career took off in the mid-1980s with a popular national television program Fahm-e-Quran (Understanding the Qur'an), speaking in down to earth popular idioms and using analogies from everyday life.

Qadri is among a handful of prominent popular preachers in Pakistan (as elsewhere in the Muslim world) whose primary medium for propagating their messages is the electronic technology (cassettes, videos, CDs, DVDs, and television channels). Qadri's media career has been unprecedented in the modern religious history of Pakistan. Founder of Minhaj-ul-Quran International, based in Lahore, an Islamic movement with centers in 90 countries, its publication house carries thousands of Qadri's CDs and DVDs Urdu, Punjabi, Arabic and English, delivered in Pakistan, India, the Middle East, Europe, the United States, and Canada.

Qadri already has an established track record in his denunciation of terrorism in the name of Islam. One of the few religious leaders in Pakistan who unequivocally condemned the September 11 terrorist attacks, Qadri has challenged the Islamic legitimacy of those who approved the use of violence for religious or political ends. He has condemned al-Qaeda and the Taliban, denouncing al-Qaeda a "lethal threat to Islam and Muslims," whose actions are antithetical to Islam's message of peace.

In a December 5, 2009 press conference, drawing extensively on Islamic texts, Qadri declared: "Islam does not permit, under any circumstances, the massacre of innocent citizens, terrorist explosions and suicide bombings" which according to Islamic law are unacceptable violations of human rights and constitute kufr, (unbelief). At the same time, Qadri has also been a strong critic of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

-- John L. Esposito is University Professor and Founding Director of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding. He is co-author of Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, and author of the newly released book The Future of Islam (2010).






-- Middle East Online

 

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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
13:00 Mecca time, 10:00 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201031054714856586.html
   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Aid workers shot dead in Pakistan  
 
 

 

Unidentified assailants have attacked the office of a Western aid agency in Pakistan, killing up to six people and wounding several others, according to police.

The victims, including two women, are all Pakistanis, Sajid Khan, a police official, said.

Wednesday's attack took place on the office of the World Vision in Ogi, a small town in Mansehra district, 65km north of Islamabad.

Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Swat valley, quoted police as saying that the assailants opened fire and exploded grenades once inside the building.

"They managed to get inside the offices of the western non-governmental organisation (NGO) and plant explosive devices which were then used to destroy the entire building," he said.

NGO 'stormed'

Khan told the AFP news agency that some armed people had "stormed" the building of the NGO.

"They first set off a bomb and then opened fire. We don't know the exact number of casualties but initial reports suggest four to five people were killed," he said.

in depth

  The Taliban's influence in Pakistan
  Swat: Pakistan's lost paradise
  Profile: Pakistani Taliban
  Talking to the Taliban
  Pakistan's war
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201031054714856586.html
 
World Vision, a large Christian humanitarian group, is helping survivors of the October 2005 Kashmir earthquake in the area.

"We are deeply sorry we've lost staff members who were locals who were deeply committed to improving lives in Pakistan,'' James East, a World Vision spokesman, said.

Mansehra town has been a hub for relief efforts following the earthquake, which killed 73,000 people.

The area has been generally peaceful although there have been occasional incidents of violence.

In 2008, armed men attacked an office of the Plan International, a British-based charity that mainly helps children, killing four Pakistani staff members.

Mansehra is to the east of Swatwhere the army launched an offensive a year ago to clear out the Pakistani Taliban.

'Hit-and-run tactics'

The offensive raised fears that the fighters might be pushed into Mansehra.

"This attack comes against the backdrop of a long history of animosity or anti-NGO sentiment which has been on the rise in Pakistan," our correspondent said.


Taliban in Pakistan have often accused NGOs of spreading "vulgarity" in society

"Particularly when the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, (TTP), Pakistan's Taliban, took over major parts of Pakistan, such as the Swat valley, Waziristan, Quetta and tribal belts.

"After the Taliban were driven away from this part of Pakistan [Swat valley] and forced to take refuge in the mountains, they are now resorting to hit and run tactics to show the Pakistani army that they have not been completely undermined," he said.

Fighters have killed other people working for foreign aid groups in Pakistan and issued statements saying such organisations were working against Islam.

The aid groups are seen by the fighters as a challenge to their authority in regions under their influence. This is because the NGOs mostly employ women workers and support female rights initiatives.

"Taliban groups and religious parties are spreading this rhetoric about international NGOs, saying that they are not innocent organisations, that their mission is a cover for a broader attempt by the Americans and the 'infidels', a term they would use all the time to refer to the international community, to weaken Islam," our correspondent said.

"They tell people that such agencies teach the girls of Pakistan vulgar and immoral ways to imbue them with a sense of rebellion against what has been, for many centuries, a very conservative country."
 
 

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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
21:52 Mecca time, 18:52 GMT 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201031018114779678.html
 
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Lethal US drone raid in Pakistan 
 
 

At least 12 people have been killed by two US missile strikes in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border, Pakistani officials say.

The first strike took place at 8:00 pm in Mizar Madakhel village, some 50km west of Miranshah, the main town of the tribal North Waziristan district and a known hub of Taliban fighters.

Eight alleged fighters were killed when a US drone fired four missiles late on Wednesday, hitting a vehicle and a compound which were being used by armed groups, a senior security official in the area said.

He added that the second strike took place after a brief interval in the same area. It targeted two vehicles which armed groups were using to pull out bodies from the site of the first attack.

"Three missiles were fired in the second strike which killed four rebels," he said.

Another Pakistani intelligence official confirmed the strikes and casualties. The official said it was not immediately clear whether any "high value target" was present in the area at the time of the attack.

Regular target

US drone attacks routinely target Taliban commanders in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt, which Washington calls the global headquarters of Al-Qaeda.

in depth

  The Taliban's influence in Pakistan
  Swat: Pakistan's lost paradise
  Profile: Pakistani Taliban
  Talking to the Taliban
  Pakistan's war
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201031018114779678.html
 
A US drone strike in Miranshah in February killed Mohammed Haqqani, a brother of Al-Qaeda-linked Sirajuddin Haqqani, whose network is fighting against US and local forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.

The covert US drone war against Taliban leaders has focused increasingly on North Waziristan, a bastion of multiple armed groups, since a December 30 suicide attack killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan.

North Waziristan borders Khost province, where a Jordanian doctor turned al-Qaeda double agent blew himself up in the deadliest attack on the US spy agency in 26 years.

Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked groups are blamed for a wave of suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan that have killed more than 3,000 people since 2007.

The most recent attack claimed by Pakistan's Taliban faction was a suicide car bombing in Lahore on Monday that killed 15 people and destroyed offices used to interrogate suspected insurgents.
 
 

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12 killed in US drone strikes in Pak


Islamabad, March 11, 2010
 
http://www.hindustantimes.com/12-killed-in-US-drone-strikes-in-Pak/H1-Article1-517631.aspx 
 
   

Two suspected US drone attacks on Wednesday in Pakistan's restive tribal region near the Afghan border killed at least 12 people, intelligence officials said.

The airstrikes took place in Datta Khel area of North Waziristan, a known sanctuary of Taliban and Al Qaeda militants.

"A drone fired five missiles on a vehicle apparently carrying some miscreants," said a local intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Six people died in the attack".

The second drone fired two more missiles on a crowd of villagers carrying out relief work, killing six people and injuring several others.

"The total death toll now stands at 12 but it may rise as some injured are said to be in critical condition," said the official.

A second intelligence official confirmed the incident and put the death toll at 14. He said the identity of those killed was not known yet.

The attack occurred in an area that is controlled by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a Taliban commander who has signed a peace deal with the Pakistani government.

Dozens of Al Qaeda operatives and some major Taliban leaders have died in the US aerial strikes, although a large number of civilians also perished.

Pakistan, a key US ally in fight against terrorism, has repeatedly protested the airstrikes, saying they violate the country's sovereignty.

But analysts believe Pakistani spy agencies covertly share intelligence with CIA about the possible targets.

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From The Times March 10, 2010
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7055965.ece

US drone strikes in Pakistan tribal areas boost support for Taleban

At least 55 strikes by unmanned drones have occurred since President Obama's inauguration. There were only 45 during the Bush era

Anthony Loyd, Peshawar

The deafening explosion rent the calm of the winter night. A house disappeared in a cloud of flame and dust, its thick earthen walls splaying into the street.

“We ran from our house to help but it was after curfew, and soldiers in a nearby post began to fire on us,” Amir Shah Jehn, 25, said. “So it wasn’t until morning that the bodies were pulled from the rubble and laid at the roadside. There were five dead: a three-month-old baby, the woman of the house, two young men and an Arab.”

It was November 2005. The strike on a house sheltering an Egyptian al-Qaeda commander, Abu Hamza Rabia, in the village of Hamzoni five miles (8km) outside Miran Shah, the capital of North Waziristan, was one of the first carried out by a Predator drone in Pakistani tribal areas.

“We didn’t know what happened back then,” said Amir, an alias he uses for security reasons. “But now it’s routine. There is the constant sound of drones. Sometimes up to seven are flying over us. We call them jasoos — spies.”

Drones are the Obama Administration’s weapon of choice for killing militants in the tribal areas. The pilotless Reapers and Predators have chalked up a long list of insurgent deaths, accounting for scores of leaders from al-Qaeda and the Taleban since their deployment in 2004.

The effects of the campaign, however, are beginning to veer dramatically off course as the strikes intensify, according to tribesmen. “Before the drone attacks began the Taleban weren’t so obvious among us and the militancy wasn’t as strong,” Amir said. “But now every home in North Waziristan seems to have one or two Taleban living in it. The youth are joining them. Feelings against the US and Government are rising because of the attacks. Al-Qaeda has been badly affected by drones — but it has benefited too.”

There is no doubting that drone attacks have increased. At least 55 strikes have occurred since President Obama’s inauguration. There were only 45 during the Bush era. Their use has risen sharply since the suicide attack on a CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan, in December last year. A total of 11 strikes, killing 90 suspected militants, were carried out in a three-week period in January.

The civilian casualty toll is more contentious, with estimates varying hugely. A respected recent study by the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think-tank, concluded that 32 per cent of the 830 to 1,210 people killed in 114 drone strikes from 2004 until February this year were civilian.

The Pakistani military appears to agree, to some extent. A senior officer told The Times that he believed that a third of the dead were militants, a third sympathisers and a third innocent civilians.

The list of insurgents killed includes Saudis, Libyans, Egyptians, Chechens, Uzbeks and Somalis, as well as Pakistanis and Afghans. Last month Abdul Haq al-Turkestani, a militant Uighur leader from Xinjiang, was killed by a drone strike in North Waziristan; an insurgent bastion where at least 55 per cent of drone strikes have occurred.

“One cannot deny the effect of the drones in taking out senior leadership, the militancy’s centre of gravity,” a Pakistani army officer admitted. “It has had a huge impact. But at the same time it has become a huge motivation to fight against the Government and the army because of the perception that it is a breach of sovereignty and is killing civilians. All combined, it creates a very negative impact.”

Major-General Tariq Khan, one of Pakistan’s most experienced border fighters, told The Times that he had been forced to delay an operation in Kurram Agency due to tribal antipathy after a US drone strike.

“We complained about it [the strike],” he said. “It was detrimental to our operations. I was about to mount an operation and the moment the drone did its attack I had to change dates. Our success lies with the writ of the Government and our popularity with the people. We have to take into account the influences and perceptions these people have.”

Others disagree. “To those people sitting in the drawing rooms of Islamabad talking about the sovereignty of Pakistan, we say, ‘What about when Arabs or Uzbeks occupy your village? What about sovereignty then?’,” said Syed Alam Mehsud, a Peshawar-based political activist who is from Waziristan. “We compare the drones with Ababeel” — the swallows tasked by God in the Koran to smite an army with rocks. “Any weapon which kills these people who damaged my sovereignty is in fact helping the sovereignty of my region.”

It is widely agreed that the drone strikes have disrupted insurgent operations, complicated their communications and supply lines, and forced key leaders underground.

However, this comes at a price. Many of the displaced leadership have sought sanctuary in populated areas, spreading instability. Overall, cross-border attacks from North Waziristan into Afghanistan remain at a similar level. The Taleban and al-Qaeda appear to be able to absorb their losses. Anti-US sentiment is growing.

For Waziris and other Pashtun tribes living in the shadow of the drones, it is not just the missiles they fear. The Taleban have grown increasingly convinced that spies are in the midst of the local people, planting transmitter chips — patray, as the locals call them — to guide the drones on to their targets. Although no chips have yet been discovered, after every raid witnesses say that the Taleban react with rage, abducting, torturing and killing anyone suspected of planting a chip.

“Sometimes we see a body a day lying by the roadside,” said Gul Rafay Jan, from Miran Shah. “They’ve got signs around their necks saying they were spies planting chips. Sometimes they have been tortured to make confession videos by having rods pushed through their arms or stomachs, or being suspended over a fire.”

In this climate of fear locals have begun to suspect one another. “Most of them are not educated,” Amir said. “Even if their own son is abducted and killed, they may later wonder if perhaps he was really a spy. So now each time a drone attacks, a few are killed by the missile and a few more by the Taleban, and everyone is left suspecting everyone else.”

? Contrary to earlier reports, an American arrested in Karachi recently is not Adam Gadahn, the spokesman for al-Qaeda, Pakistani authorities have said. The suspect, an al-Qaeda member, has been identified as Abu Yahya Majadin Adam; a name similar to one listed on the FBI website as an alias for Gadahn, the most-wanted American in the terror network. Gadahn, 31, has appeared in several al-Qaeda videos threatening the West since 2001.

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Friday, March 12, 2010
14:48 Mecca time, 11:48 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201031281837513106.html
   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
 
Deadly blasts hit Pakistan city 

 
Two suicide bombers targeted a military convoy in close succession [EPA]


 
At least 40 people, including 10 soldiers, have been killed and dozens injured in two explosions that targeted military vehicles in Pakistan's second city of Lahore, say police sources.

Friday's blasts came only days after a car bomb suicide attack on a police intelligence building in the same city killed 13 people.


Quoting the provincial police chief in Lahore, Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Pakistan, said 40 people had been killed and dozens wounded in the suicide attacks.

The toll was likely to rise, said our correspondent.


Rescue workers, however, gave a lower death toll.

"We have 25 to 30 killed and have 70 injured in different hospitals," Faheem Jehanzeb, a rescue service spokesman, told the AFP news agency.
   
A senior security official, speaking to the AFP on condition of anonymity, put the death toll at 29.

Pools of blood

Afzal Awan, an eye witness, said he saw several people, some with missing limbs, lying in pools of blood after the explosions.

"I saw smoke rising everywhere," Awan told reporters. "A lot of people were crying."

Mohammad Shafiq, a police official, said: "There were two suicide bombers who attacked two military vehicles within the space of 15 seconds.   



"The heads of both attackers have been found." 

Naveed Hassan, another police official, said gunshots were heard after the explosions hit the vehicles.





No group claimed responsibility for the blasts, but suspicion quickly fell on the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda.
   
Pakistani authorities have said security crackdowns have weakened Pakistani Taliban fighting to topple the US-backed government.

Aside from an insurgency at home, Pakistan is also under heavy American pressure to open a new front and go after Afghan Taliban militants in border sanctuaries.
 
 

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13:24 Mecca time, 10:24 GMT   
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201031293451560275.html
 
CENTRAL/S.ASIA 
 
Peace eludes Swat Valley  

WATCH:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKsxG6M7M5I&feature=player_embedded


Only a year ago, the Swat Valley - a region in northern Pakistan - was under full control of the Taliban.

But after a long drawn-out military offensive, Pakistan claimed to have defeated the group.

However, the victory is being questioned, as clashes between the two sides fail to die out.

Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra reports from the Swat Valley.
 
 

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Some U.S. officials see a growing Taliban-Al Qaeda rift

They believe military pressures in the Pakistani border region are making the Afghan militants reluctant to cooperate with their longtime allies. Not all officials are convinced.


By David S. Cloud and Julian E. Barnes

8:10 PM PST, March 11, 2010
http://freedomsyndicate.com/fair0000/latimes00144.html

Reporting from Washington

A growing number of Taliban militants in the Pakistani border region are refusing to collaborate with Al Qaeda fighters, declining to provide shelter or assist in attacks in Afghanistan even in return for payment, according to U.S. military and counter-terrorism officials.

The officials, citing evidence from interrogation of detainees, communications intercepts and public statements on extremist websites, say that threats to the militants' long-term survival from Pakistani, Afghan and foreign military action are driving some Afghan Taliban away from Al Qaeda.

As a result, Al Qaeda fighters are in some cases being excluded from villages and other areas near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border where they once received sanctuary.

Al Qaeda's attempts to restore its dwindling presence in Afghanistan are also running into problems, the officials say. Al Qaeda was forced out of Afghanistan by the U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban in 2001, and it reestablished itself across the border in Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden and other leaders are thought to have taken refuge.

Al Qaeda is believed to have fewer than 100 operatives still in Afghanistan. Though mounting attacks there is not the network's main focus, it remains interested in striking U.S. and other targets.

But its capabilities have been degraded in recent years, and such attacks now require assistance from the Taliban or waiting for fleeting opportunities, such as the suicide bomber attack on a base used by the CIA in Khowst province in December by a Jordanian double agent who had promised U.S. officials intelligence about Al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri.

Last year, the organization began offering stipends to Afghans who would escort its operatives into the country, but there are indications that many Taliban are refusing this inducement, one U.S. official said.

"The Afghan Taliban does not want to be seen as, or heard of, having the same relationship with AQ that they had in the past," said the senior official, who is familiar with the latest intelligence and used an abbreviation for Al Qaeda. The officials and others described the assessments on condition of anonymity.

Indications of Al Qaeda-Taliban strains are at odds with recent public statements by the Obama administration, which has stressed close connections among militant groups to help build support from the Pakistani government and other allies to take them on all at once.

U.S. officials remain unsure whether the alliance between Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban is splintering for good, and some regard the possibility as little more than wishful thinking. A complete rupture is unlikely, some analysts say, because Al Qaeda members have married into many tribes and formed other connections in years of hiding in Pakistan's remote regions.

But the tension has led to a debate within the U.S. government about whether there are ways to exploit any fissures. One idea under consideration, an official said, is to reduce drone airstrikes against Taliban factions whose members are shunning contacts with Al Qaeda.

One of the goals of the U.S. effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan is to isolate extremists, both within Al Qaeda and the larger Taliban movement, while encouraging low- and mid-level Taliban fighters to renounce ties with Al Qaeda and reconcile with the Afghan government.

Tactics such as drone strikes and a stepped-up campaign of targeted killings by U.S. Special Operations troops and an intensified military campaign in both Pakistan and Afghanistan have raised the risks to Taliban fighters who assist Al Qaeda, the senior U.S. official said.

The arrest in recent months of several top Afghan Taliban leaders may also be leading some Taliban to reassess their ties to Al Qaeda in hopes of easing pressure from the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's spy agency, which long allowed the Afghan Taliban to operate relatively unbothered.

Officials acknowledge there is little evidence to suggest that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the top Afghan Taliban leader, favors cutting ties with Bin Laden and other top Al Qaeda leaders, relationships that go back nearly two decades.

"Al Qaeda has been a very valuable resource to the Taliban in the past," said a U.S. official, who is skeptical of the new intelligence. "And I haven't seen the evidence they really want to cut them loose."

Unease with the continuing relationship is most apparent among the Taliban's mid-level commanders and their followers, the U.S. officials said.

Though they have a common enemy in the United States and a common interest in maintaining their sanctuary, Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban have seen their goals diverge somewhat.

The Taliban has focused on moderating its image as part of its campaign to retake power in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has drawn closer to other militant groups in Pakistan's tribal belt that are seeking to overthrow the Pakistani government.

Al Qaeda still has a close relationship with the leaders of the Haqqani network, a militant Afghan group based on the Pakistani side of the border in North Waziristan.

The Haqqani group, named for its founder Jalaluddin Haqqani, continues to cooperate with Al Qaeda despite suffering substantial casualties over the last year and a half in CIA drone strikes, officials said.

The apprehension about continuing cooperation with Al Qaeda is especially strong among members of the Quetta shura, the council of Afghan Taliban leaders, based for the last nine years in the Pakistani city of Quetta. Several top shura members have been arrested by Pakistani security services, officials said, which has left the organization at least temporarily in disarray.

Even in the Haqqani organization, some low- and mid-level Afghan fighters are growing leery about continued collaboration with Al Qaeda, a U.S. official said.

"If the Taliban is telling them to get lost, that creates a problem for Al Qaeda," said Barbara Sude, a former CIA terrorism analyst now at Rand Corp., a policy research organization. "Maybe that's the beginning of what we're seeing."

In the past, Al Qaeda was able to offer the Taliban bomb-making experts, experienced fighters and large amounts of cash for operations in Afghanistan in return for haven in Taliban-controlled areas near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

But Al Qaeda's resources and manpower have been greatly diminished over the years.

"Many [Taliban] do not see AQ bringing that much to the current fight," said a military official. "A lot of their resources have dried up, and the quality of their fighters has been significantly degraded."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2010 Los Angeles Times

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From Times Online March 13, 2010
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7060838.ece


Rickshaw suicide bombing raises fear of more violence


An injured victim walks away from a burning vehicle at the site of a suicide bombing in the Swat Valley

by Robin Henry

A suicide bomber driving a rickshaw killed more than a dozen people in Pakistan this morning.

The blast at a security checkpoint in Mingora, the main city in the troubled Swat Valley, is the country’s second attack in less than 24 hours.

On Friday suicide bombers killed 55 people in near simultaneous attacks in Lahore.

Islamic insurgents are believed to be behind both attacks, raising fears of an offensive by the militants after a period of relative calm in the region.

This morning’s bombing injured 52 and killed at least 13, according to officials.

The attacker, driving a three-wheeled motorized rickshaw, hit a roadblock manned by soldiers and police in Saidu Sharif, the administrative capital of Swat.

It is believed his target was the town’s court house but he had detonated the explosives early after being stopped at the checkpoint.

The blast blew out windows and destroyed several vehicles nearby.

One witness told Reuters he saw “five people including some women, who burned to death” in the street.

Maj. Gen. Ashfaq Nadeem, a top military official for the region, claimed two soldiers and two policemen were also killed in the blast.

He said: “Such acts cannot demoralize us. I want to assure the people of Swat that we will continue fighting till the last Taliban are eliminated.”

Until last year Swat Valley was a Taliban stronghold however the Pakistan military seized back control after peace talks with their leaders collapsed.

The government operation was seen as fairly effective, forcing many insurgents into hiding.

The attacks slowed early this year and in recent months they have been farther apart and largely confined to the remote regions near Afghanistan.

However the Taliban threatened to deploy thousands of suicide bombers in retaliation for the army offensive and there are now fears this weekend’s blasts may signal a fresh wave of violence.

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From The Times March 13, 2010
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7060365.ece

Dual suicide attack on Pakistan military vehicles kills 45 in Lahore


A Pakistani woman mourns the death of a family member in the attack

Foreign Staff


Two suicide bombers targeting Pakistani military vehicles detonated explosives within seconds of each other in the most lethal attack in the country this year, killing 45 and wounding 100.

A third bomb exploded near a police station later in the day, police said, wounding four people and further rattling nerves in the eastern city near the border with India.

Pakistani authorities have said that security operations have weakened Taleban militants linked to al-Qaeda who are fighting to topple the Government, but the insurgents have renewed pressure on Asif Ali Zardari, the President, with five bomb attacks this week alone.

A lull in violence could have provided some relief for the President, who faces calls from opponents to hand over his strongest powers to the Prime Minister. If that does not happen Pakistan could face political turmoil while being pressed to defeat the Taleban.

The five blasts included a car bomb suicide attack on a police intelligence building in Lahore that killed 13 people. A shooting and bombing at a US-based aid agency killed another six in the northwest.

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South Asia
Mar 16, 2010 
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LC16Df02.html 
 
 
 Pakistan sharpens its focus on militants

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - While al-Qaeda-led militants are making powerful statements with attacks such as those last Friday in the Pakistani city of Lahore and in Swat in North-West Frontier Province the next day, Washington is preparing a large canvas for a war in which the Pakistan military will play a leading role.

The end game is seen as the elimination of al-Qaeda and its associated Pakistani militant groups, the arrest of Afghan Taliban commanders and the subsequent isolation of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, which it is hoped will force Mullah Omar into reconciliation talks with Washington leading to America's exit from Afghanistan.

In this plan, the chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani, will be Washington's point man and the stage is set for him to become one of the most powerful people in the history of the Pakistani armed forces as well as in the political structure of the country, without derailing the existing democratic setup in Islamabad.

In Lahore, the capital of the largest province of Punjab and the iconic city of the ruling establishment, two suicide bombers attacked army vehicles, killing 45 people and injuring nearly 100, including 10 soldiers. The next day in Mingora, the main city in Swat, 14 people were killed, including two soldiers, two policemen and a child, when a man detonated a bomb near a check point outside the district court. More than 30 people were injured.

This is a stark reminder to the Pakistani establishment that the next phase of the US-led war in Afghanistan will be fiercely contested across the border in Pakistan to counter the Pakistan army's new operational role in assisting the Americans. Over the past few weeks, Pakistan has rounded up several key Afghan Taliban leaders and commanders while at the same time stepping up military operations in the tribal areas of Bajaur and Mohmand and most recently, starting last weekend, in Orakzai. In Orakzai, the Pakistan Air Force attacked militant hideouts as a prelude to a ground operation.

The next phase will be to step up operations in the North Waziristan tribal area, the headquarters of al-Qaeda's global network and the home of one of the most dangerous Afghan Taliban commanders, Sirajuddin Haqqani.

The US is itching to escalate action against militants inside Pakistan as they feed directly into the conflict in Afghanistan. Pakistan, a sovereign nuclear state, will not allow direct American intervention beyond US drone attacks, which is already a highly sensitive issue.

What Washington can do, though, is back efforts to empower its most trusted Pakistani, Kiani, with a new role to command the war against militants inside Pakistan.

Kiani as a new iron man
Kiani is due to retire on November 27 and he has already taken steps to keep his team in place. In an extraordinary development he extended the terms of four lieutenant generals who were due to retire, the most important being the director general of Inter-Services Intelligence, Ahmad Shuja Pasha.

(Asia Times Online has reported that before Pakistan started a new round of support for the American war in Afghanistan the army attached several conditions, including setting aside any Indian role and the extension of Pasha's service. See Pakistan's military sets Afghan terms February 9, 2010.)

At the same time, Kiani and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff committee, General Tariq Majid, are resisting moves by President Asif Ali Zardari to select his own man to replace Kiani, even though Zardari, as president, is the supreme commander of the armed forces. Zardari's connections with the military are not strong and he relies on advisors, notably two aviation pilots, Captain Nadeem Yousufzai and Captain Obaid Jatoi.

However, this is not the real issue: Washington does not want to have to deal with a new army chief or even see Kiani's term extended. Instead, it is backing the idea of elevating Kiani to chairman of the joint chiefs of staff committee.

At present this is a ceremonial position at the head of the three branches of the military - army, air force and navy. The chairman does not command any authority except during war. It is now envisaged that with a constitutional amendment the chairman (Kiani) would command the three branches, using them as he saw fit in the fight against militants without fear of any one branch objecting.

One reason for empowering the position of chairman of the joint chiefs of the staff committee is a possible serious security downturn in the region that would require the US to use Pakistan's bases for air sorties, as well as its naval facilities for logistical purposes. After September 11, 2001, the then-chief of air staff, Mushaf Ali Mir, opposed a decision to allow Pakistan's bases to be used by the Americans, but General Pervez Musharraf, then president, forced the decision.

Welfare (salaries and benefits), transfers and postings and promotions in all three forces would also be under the chairman, leaving each of the three branch commanders with the responsibility of conducting operations and training.

There is a consensus in London and Washington that Kiani is the right person to hold this all-powerful new position in the next phase of the war and the political leadership, already under pressure from the military chief, would de facto be subservient to the chairman.

Kiani is to date a success story. He has succeeded in negotiating the military's central role in the "war on terror" and in sidelining Indian's role in Afghanistan. He has mounted military operations in the tribal areas and in Swat, where he has to a large degree rolled back the militants' advances.

Under his command, the army has surprised much of the world with the arrests of top Taliban commanders, yet he has allowed the Americans only limited interrogation of important captures such as Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Moulvi Abdul Kabeer, Mullah Mir Mohammad and Mullah Abdul Salam - they are in safe houses in Islamabad. These men will be kept as bargaining chips to guarantee Pakistan's strategic interests in Afghanistan now as well as after the US exit.

Kiani has been chosen as the man to make all of this happen. His record is good, but as the attacks in the past few days indicate, the militants have ideas of their own that could derail the best-laid of plans.

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