tagged w/ Waziristan
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The campaign of CIA drone strikes against suspected militants in Pakistan has made the United States "the most prolific user of targeted killings" in the world, according to a United Nations official, who is urging that responsibility for the program be taken from the spy agency.The campaign of CIA drone strikes against suspected militants in Pakistan has made the... more
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A stepped-up campaign of American drone strikes over the past three months has battered Al Qaeda and its Pakistani and Afghan brethren in the tribal area of North Waziristan, according to a mid-ranking militant and supporters of the government there.
link : http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/world/asia/05drones.html?ref=worldA stepped-up campaign of American drone strikes over the past three months has... more
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suzane
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added this
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2 years ago
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Pakistan seems happy in getting a massive civilian and military aid package and the assurance from Washington that this country will be given the central role in the Afghan endgame.
Pakistan has presented two lists to the Obama Administration officials ahead of the two-day summit. One was a 56-pages long wish list and the second was a list of heavily bearded Taliban leaders arrested recently in Pakistan. According to the reports (msn, news) a new $7.5 billion, five year US assistance package for Pakistan’s energy, water, agriculture and education sector was pledged. The one billion unpaid US reimbursements for fighting the Pakistani Taliban would also begin flowing.
In addition, Pakistan will receive defence supplies in the coming years, P-30 Orion maritime patrol aircraft, five 250 TOW anti-armour missile systems, six AN/TPS-77 surveillance radar, six C-130E transport aircraft, and 20 AH-1F Cobra attack helicopters and new F-16 with higher speed fighter jets and naval frigates. The wish-list also included Pakistan’s plea for a civilian nuclear deal like the US concluded with India. This last wish remains unfulfilled.
This is indeed a great victory for Pakistan to be a central player in Afghanistan, a role it played with horrible consequences in the 1990s: the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the al-Qaida terrorist network that successfully staged 9/11 and other terrorist attacks in the West and the ongoing endless war in Afghanistan, are among the problems caused by Pakistan’s three decades misadventures in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has a history of undertaking some tactical combat operations including mock operations against selective groupings within the Taliban insurgency in order to attract US policy makers to increase the cash flow. It has now become clear that the recent arrest of Taliban leaders were also designed in order to punish those Taliban who enter into negotiation in Kabul bypassing Pakistan. According to Financial Times (March 19), Kai Edie, ex-UN special representative to Afghanistan, accused Pakistan of sabotaging the UN clandestine discussions with senior Taliban leaders.
Pakistan never chooses to harm those Taliban who are Pakistani military strategic partners and always relies on their support. At the very moment that Pakistani civilian leaders pledge to cut off the Taliban bases in Pakistan, the shadowy ISI agents are secretly giving assurance to the Taliban that Pakistan is supporting the Taliban in the ‘anti-American Jihad’.
One such irreconcilable group with close links to al-Qaida and ISI is Haqqani’e network which is headquartered in North Waziristan and is carrying out deadly terrorist attacks against the Western forces in Afghanistan with impunity. This is a Pakistani no-go zone from where most suicide bombers are sent into Afghanistan. Under increasing US pressure, it is possible that the ISI may turn against Haqqani if the upcoming US and NATO major June offensive in southern Kandahar province proves to be successful. Given Pakistani obsession with the Taliban, this change would also be conditional and limited.
The ISI is a Pakistani complex visible and invisible intelligence conglomerates. There is an ISI within an ISI. That ghostly ISI remains invisible and most of its members are retired generals who deviously play the real Afghan game from behind the scene. Their activities remain a top Pakistani secret. When I want to update my knowledge of Pakistan’s policy vis-à-vis the Taliban, I am going to look for the latest statements by retired ISI generals instead of official statements by Pakistan’s prime minister or foreign minister.
Before the battle in Swat Valley which started in early 2009, a peace agreement between the Taliban and Pakistani military was waiting for Zardari’s approval. The Pakistani Taliban in Swat insisted that they don’t need Zardai’s signature as long as the ISI is officially endorsing the agreement.
In mid March 2010, the provincial Premier in Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif, made a plea to that Taliban at a mosque struck by a Taliban’s bomb not to attack the province for they and the province are all against Western intervention in Pakistan, “General Pervez Musharraf planned a bloodbath of innocent Muslims at the behest of others only to prolong his term in office, but we the Pakistan’s Muslim League-Nawaz opposed the former president’s policies and rejected the dictation being received from abroad.
If the Taliban are also fighting the same cause, then they should not carry out acts of terror in the province of Punjab.” (News International March 18) On March 29, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Mr Shah Mahmood Qureshi boasted in an interview to Newsweek that Pakistan has, “eliminated 17,000 terrorists.” “The myth was that,” he added about Pakistan’s military success in South Waziristan, “it had never been occupied by any force and that it was impossible to do it. We have done it.” In Pakistani thinking Pashtun Northwest Frontier Province — formally renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa last week— is still a colony
Pakistan’s double game in war on terrorism, fighting those who are dangerous to its state security and those who disobey, while offering clandestine support to the most virulent Anti-Western extremists among the Afghan Taliban, is designed to trap the US into a vicious circle of a bunch of Taliban in exchange for bags of cash and weapons. This so-called strategic dialogue has a strong sense of déjà vu about it. Is this the last bargain? Experience shows that there would be more of the unwanted Taliban arrested in exchange for ongoing support in time to come.Pakistan seems happy in getting a massive civilian and military aid package and the... more
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The country's Supreme Court voted to end amnesty from corruption charges for the President and now there are calls for him ad his cabinet to step down. The anti-corruption agency is re-opening hundreds of cases. That agency is also barring some 248 people from leaving the country.
Pakistan's ambassador to the US ruled out a coup today. As did US General David Petraeus.
I haven't seen any reports of tanks in the streets, but this article from Canda's Globe and Mail, published a few weeks ago, argues that there are forces inside of Pakistan's military that are trying to overthrow the President in a slower, more quiet coup.
The men who wish to replace Mr. Zardari represent the religious right-wing backers of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, adding a new obstacle in Barack Obama's war effort in Afghanistan. A change of guard in Pakistan will also place Canadian troops at a higher risk of attack from a Taliban that will get unimpeded access to safe havens across the international border....The army's patience with Mr. Zardari ran out in October, when the U.S. Congress passed the Kerry-Lugar bill that promised billions in aid to Pakistan, but with a crucial caveat: The money would go through the channels of the civilian administration and if the military interfered with the democratic process or bullied the politicians and the judiciary, the Americans would halt all aid to the military.
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There are few things I love more than finding a big long Seymour Hersh piece in the New Yorker - and today brings a doozy: Defending the Arsenal.
The thrust of the piece is that the greatest threat to the security of Pakistan's nukes could come not from the Taliban, but from within the military itself. Hersh also goes into extensive detail about the workings of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal and the US' secret efforts to help better secure it. Lots of great tidbits in there like:
Safeguards have been built into the system. Pakistani nuclear doctrine calls for the warheads (containing an enriched radioactive core) and their triggers (sophisticated devices containing highly explosive lenses, detonators, and krytrons) to be stored separately from each other and from their delivery devices (missiles or aircraft). The goal is to insure that no one can launch a warhead—in the heat of a showdown with India, for example—without pausing to put it together. Final authority to order a nuclear strike requires consensus within Pakistan’s ten-member National Command Authority, with the chairman—by statute, President Zardari—casting the deciding vote.
At least one blogger in the Pakistani blogosphere has been less than kind to Mr. Hersh for calling the effectiveness of their military into question. From the blog Bazm-e-Iqbal:
American scaremongerers like Seymour Hersh need to come out of the wonderland they are living in. Before talking about mutiny in the Pakistan army and trying to help secure our nukes you better pay attention to securing Fort Hood.
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As Pakistan hammers militants in South Waziristan, they've got a little help from their friends. The US military is providing video surveillance and intelligence from unmanned drones - the deepest involvement between the two militaries to date.
From the Los Angeles Times:
For months the United States and Pakistan have been sharing information from Predator flights in the volatile border regions, but until now the Pakistanis had not accepted help for their major military operations. Islamabad turned down American surveillance and targeting aid during the offensive in the Swat district that began in May.
The use of military drones for intelligence gathering in Pakistan is separate from the ongoing Predator attack campaign being carried out in that country by the CIA. Over the last 18 months, missile strikes from CIA-operated drones have killed at least 13 senior Al Qaeda or Taliban operatives in Pakistan's tribal zone.
It's a tricky situation for Pakistan's military as they're usually very careful to not seem too dependent on the US. It also could give strength to claims by Taliban militants that the Pakistani government is following the direction of the United States.
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- Captured by Somali pirates - A journalist's first hand storyAs Pakistan hammers militants in South Waziristan, they've got a little help from... more
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As Pakistan's military is prepping their strike against the Taliban in South Waziristan, the militants seem to be attacking right back. Dressed as police officers, attackers besieged three different law enforcement agencies in the city of Lahore killing over 30 people.
Five militants scaled the wall of the police training center, where more than 800 recruits had just started classes, said Maj. Gen. Shafqat Ahmed, the officer commanding security forces in Lahore.
In the ensuing two-hour battle between the hundreds of army commandos and the gunmen, one attacker was killed early on and another detonated a suicide bomb. The three surviving militants then tried to move to a residential compound, but families locked themselves inside while commandos fired on the assailants.
This is just the latest in a series of brazen attacks from militants. Is it a sign of weakness in the government's efforts? Or is it a new desperate tactic from a Taliban that is facing certain doom in South Waziristan?
Turning the attacks against Pakistani cities certainly hasn't seemed to win the Taliban any converts among the residents there. From a Lahore blog:
Yes, we are living in insecure times and when a full-fledged war is being raged against these mug-heads, they are sure to strike back. What makes all Pakistanis proud is the sacrifice of life that our soldiers and policemen are making to fight terrorism and to protect common citizens like you and me.
We should pray for these brave sons of the soil and help them by providing any information that we are able to gather against terrorists or suspicious activities around our cities and neighborhoods.
To all the policemen who lost their life today in Lahore and Kohat; every Lahori and Pakistani salutes you!
If you're in Pakistan let us know how the attacks are affecting daily life. Are they at all?
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In an update to yesterday's story about the brazen Taliban attack on Pakistan's military headquarters, bombing runs have begun in the South Waziristan region.
Pakistani jets bombed militant targets in the main insurgent stronghold along the Afghan border Tuesday ahead of an expected ground offensive there, while the army killed 26 insurgents elsewhere in the northwest, authorities said.
The army says 80 percent of the militant attacks plaguing nuclear-armed Pakistan are planned from South Waziristan, while the United States says insurgent leaders blamed for spiraling violence in Afghanistan are also based in the lawless, remote area.
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Riding high on their victory over the Taliban in the Swat Valley this May, the Pakistani Army has been planning another offensive near the Afghanistan border. Meanwhile the Taliban haven't exactly gone away. They claimed responsibility for massive car bomb in Peshawar last week and then this weekend, they stormed the Pakistani Army's headquarters and took hostages.
Wait, what?
Yeah, that's right, the Army's headquarters. From Sunday:
Militants are holding up to 15 soldiers hostage inside Pakistan’s army headquarters today after they and others attacked the complex earlier in the day, killing at least six soldiers.
Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas says no army or intelligence leaders are among those being held.
The militants, armed with assault rifles and grenades and wearing military uniforms, stormed the heavily guarded compound in the city of Rawalpindi.
Worse for the military, the NY Times reported today that Pakistan's police actually sent the military a letter warning them that this attack was evident. And yet still they were overwhlemed.
As I mentioned above, in a few weeks time, Pakistan's army is about to launch another major offensive against the Taliban. The Telegraph reports from the region that they'll face tough resistance. Their reporter found a small growing army of foreign fighters and local teenagers hankering for a fight. A symbolically worrisome quote:
"I remember when the British rulers attacked Waziristan," said Hazrat Hussein, a farmer aged 70 who has shouldered a rusty Kalashnikov to join the fight. "The British could not control these tribes," he added with pride.
If you're in Pakistan, let us know. We'd love to hear a local perspective on how this series of blows to the military affects locals confidence in their efforts. Leave your comment over here on Current News.Riding high on their victory over the Taliban in the Swat Valley this May, the... more
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The country's Supreme Court voted to end amnesty from corruption charges for the President and now there are calls for him ad his cabinet to step down. The anti-corruption agency is re-opening hundreds of cases. That agency is also barring some 248 people from leaving the country.
Pakistan's ambassador to the US ruled out a coup today. As did US General David Petraeus.
I haven't seen any reports of tanks in the streets, but this article from Canda's Globe and Mail, published a few weeks ago, argues that there are forces inside of Pakistan's military that are trying to overthrow the President in a slower, more quiet coup.
The men who wish to replace Mr. Zardari represent the religious right-wing backers of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, adding a new obstacle in Barack Obama's war effort in Afghanistan. A change of guard in Pakistan will also place Canadian troops at a higher risk of attack from a Taliban that will get unimpeded access to safe havens across the international border....The army's patience with Mr. Zardari ran out in October, when the U.S. Congress passed the Kerry-Lugar bill that promised billions in aid to Pakistan, but with a crucial caveat: The money would go through the channels of the civilian administration and if the military interfered with the democratic process or bullied the politicians and the judiciary, the Americans would halt all aid to the military.
FROM THE NEWS BLOG: http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/12/17/is-there-a-coup-coming-in-pakistan/
SOURCES: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/a-military-coup-in-pakistan/article1393331/
http://www.examiner.com/x-2086-Foreign-Policy-Examiner~y2009m12d17-Is-Pakistan-on-the-verge-of-a-coupThe country's Supreme Court voted to end amnesty from corruption charges for the... more
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Leading human rights group Amnesty International is saying civilians trying to flee the conflict zone in South Waziristan may be suffering collective punishment at the hands of the Pakistan army, and some have been banned from major roads.Leading human rights group Amnesty International is saying civilians trying to flee... more
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About 150,000 people have fled their homes in South Waziristan.... but aid officials do not expect the exodus to become a humanitarian crisis, as did a similar offensive in the Swat valley this year.
By Alamgir Bitani
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Pakistani aircraft attacked Taliban in the South Waziristan region on Sunday a day after the army said it had captured a strategic town on an approach to the militants' main base area.
Separately, gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead the minister of education in the provincial government in Baluchistan, a gas-rich southwestern province where separatist rebels have been waging a low-level insurgency for decades.
A separatist group claimed responsibility.
The army assault in the ethnic Pashtun tribal region of South Waziristan on the Afghan border is seen as a test of the government's determination to tackle Islamists responsible for a string of attacks against government and other targets.
The United States and other powers embroiled in neighbouring Afghanistan's growing conflict want Pakistan to eliminate militant sanctuaries in its lawless northwest.
The latest bombardment in the week-old offensive was against militant bases in the three villages of Sam, Badr and Ladha, government and security officials said.
"It was intense bombing and later helicopter gunships attacked," said an intelligence agency official who declined to be identified.
Several militant hideouts had been destroyed in the bombing, said a government official, adding he had no information about casualties. Military spokesman were not available for comment.
South Waziristan, a rugged land of rocky mountains and patchy forest, is a global hub of Islamist militancy. Foreign fighters including Uzbeks and Arab al Qaeda supporters are fighting alongside the Taliban.
Soldiers are advancing on the militants' main stronghold area from three directions.About 150,000 people have fled their homes in South Waziristan.... but aid officials... more
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the Pakistan Taliban was dealt an other blow when the hometown of one of Pakistani Taliban's chief was taken by the Pakistan army
Excerpt From article:
The 8-day-old air and ground offensive in the South Waziristan tribal region is a key test of nuclear-armed Pakistan's campaign against Islamist militancy. It has already spurred a civilian exodus and deadly retaliatory attacks.
Washington has encouraged the operation in the northwest because many militants there are believed to shelter al-Qaida leaders and are also suspected to be involved in attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. military has also kept up its own missile strikes in the lawless tribal belt, including a suspected one that killed 22 Saturday.....the Pakistan Taliban was dealt an other blow when the hometown of one of Pakistani... more
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Pakistani forces Saturday captured the hometown of the chief of the country's Taliban movement, officials announced, the first big gain in the weeklong ground offensive in South Waziristan.Pakistani forces Saturday captured the hometown of the chief of the country's... more
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A total of 28 people, majority of them foreigners, were killed in two separate US drone strikes in Pak-Afghan bordering areas of North and South Waziristan late Friday.A total of 28 people, majority of them foreigners, were killed in two separate US... more
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Pakistani security officials said on Monday that troops had fired on U.S. military helicopters and forced them to turn back to Afghanistan, but both the Pakistani and American militaries denied the incident.
According to the security officials, the incident took place near Angor Adda, a village in the tribal region of South Waziristan where officials have said U.S. commandos in helicopters raided a suspected al Qaeda...
(Read rest at Link...)
Pakistani security officials said on Monday that troops had fired on U.S. military... more
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Al-Qaeda is planning to release a video message within 24 hours to mark the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, a U.S.-based intelligence group said.
The terrorist network's media production unit as-Sahab published banners on the Internet earlier this week flagging the release, with a graphic saying ``Wait 11 September,'' IntelCenter, based in Alexandria, Virginia, said in an e-mailed statement today.
The banner showed a silhouette of a face with a question mark over it...
(Read the rest at Link...)
Al-Qaeda is planning to release a video message within 24 hours to mark the seventh... more
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