Instability In Pakistan- Merged Thread

[Yrys]

Abducted Pakistani students freed

The authorities say all the students
have been accounted for

Dozens of students abducted by militants in the north-west of Pakistan have been released,
the military and college staff say. Several buses carrying students and staff were reported
missing in an area near the Afghan border on Monday. The vice principal of Razmak Cadet
College told the BBC everybody seized in North Waziristan had been released.

About 80 hostages were freed after a clash between militants and the army, a military
spokesman said. Pakistani officials believe that Taliban militants are trying to divert
attention away from the military offensive against them further north.

'Armed militants'

Vice principal of the cadet college, Junaid Alam, said that all of the abducted students were
accounted for, except for 20 students who had escaped from the militants earlier and could
still be making their way to the town of Bannu. He stressed that none of the students
remained in the custody of the militants. The students were kidnapped when travelling in
a convoy of buses from their college to Bannu.

While figures cannot be confirmed, reports suggest that as many as 500 people, including
students, their family members and staff were travelling in the convoy. The buses were
stopped in the semi-tribal area of Bakakhel by heavily armed militants.

The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan says that initially up to 300 people may have been held, but
many of these were released. The others managed to escape on foot or in the remaining
vehicles. The Taliban then took away 80 students and staff and kept them hostage for
several hours. Negotiations about the hostages between the militants, a tribal council
and the local political agent took place throughout the kidnappings.

Major Gen Athar Abbas, a spokesman for the Pakistan military, described how the army
ultimately managed to rescue the captive students. He said soldiers had opened fire on
the militants as they were taking the students to South Waziristan. "Under cover of the
firing the militants escaped and we have recovered them all," he said.

Pakistani troops are battling militants in the Swat valley and pushing northwards from its
main city of Mingora, which is now under full government control. The authorities say
more than 1,200 militants and about 90 soldiers have been killed since their offensive
began in a neighbouring district nearly six weeks ago.

The last few days have seen a rise in violence in the tribal areas next to the Afghan border.

 

[CougarKing]

Some good news from this blighted part of the world: the local people in the areas the Taliban used to control/currently control are now turning against the Taliban, according to this report.

June 5, 2009

Taliban Stir Rising Anger of Pakistanis

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A year ago, the Pakistani public was deeply divided over what to do about its spreading insurgency. Some saw the Taliban militants as fellow Muslims and native sons who simply wanted Islamic law, and many opposed direct military action against them.

But history moves quickly in Pakistan, and after months of televised Taliban cruelties, broken promises and suicide attacks, there is a spreading sense — apparent in the news media, among politicians and the public — that many Pakistanis are finally turning against the Taliban.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/world/as...ref=global-home

 

[CougarKing]

And the offensive continues in earnest not too long after a deadly suicide attack in a Pakistani mosque that was believed to have been planned by the Taliban.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090607/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

Pakistanis avenge mosque blast, attack Taliban
          Associated Press Writer Asif Shahzad, Associated Press Writer – 49 mins ago
ISLAMABAD – Hundreds of Pakistanis banded together and attacked Taliban strongholds in a troubled northwestern region, killing 11 militants, to avenge a deadly suicide bombing at a local mosque, officials said Sunday.

The incident Saturday underscored a swing in the national mood toward a more anti-Taliban stance — a shift that comes as suicide attacks have surged and the military wages an offensive in the Swat Valley.

Some 400 villagers from the neighboring Upper Dir district, where a suicide bomber killed 33 worshippers at a mosque in the Haya Gai area on Friday, formed a militia and attacked five villages in the nearby Dhok Darra area, said Atif-ur-Rehman, the district coordination officer.

The citizens' militia has occupied three of the villages since Saturday and is trying to push the Taliban out of the other two. Some 20 houses suspected of harboring Taliban were destroyed, he said.

At least 11 militants were killed, said the district police chief, Ejaz Ahmad.

The government has encouraged local citizens to set up militias, known as lashkars, to oust Taliban fighters.

"It is something very positive that tribesmen are standing against the militants. It will discourage the miscreants," Rehman said.

Ahmad said around 200 militants were putting up stiff resistance in their strongholds surrounded by the villagers. "We will send security forces, maybe artillery too, if the villagers ask for a reinforcement," he added.

The surge in suicide attacks reached Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, on Saturday when a man wearing an explosive-laden jacket attacked a police compound but was shot down before he could enter the main building. Two officers died and six were wounded, police said.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack at the police emergency response center, but it fit with a Taliban threat of strikes in major cities across Pakistan in retaliation for the military's month-old offensive in Swat.

On Sunday, police in the southern city of Karachi said they averted a suicide attack by arresting a would-be bomber allegedly linked to Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud. Several explosives and bomb-laden jackets were found during the raid, which was spurred by a tip, senior police official Javed Bukhari said.

"He was planning to carry out large attacks in Karachi with other accomplices, but we have averted the attempt," he said.

The Swat battle is seen as a test of Pakistan's resolve to take on militants challenging the government in the northwestern regions near Afghanistan. More than 1,300 militants and 105 soldiers have died so far, the military says.

The U.S. supports the Swat offensive, hoping it will eliminate a potential sanctuary for al-Qaida and Taliban militants implicated in attacks on Western forces in Afghanistan.

The campaign began after the collapse of the most recent peace deal, which imposed Islamic law in Swat and surrounding districts. The agreement was brokered by hard-line cleric Sufi Muhammad, three of whose aides were arrested by security forces last week. Two of the aides were killed Saturday after the Taliban attacked their convoy, the army said.

The motive for the ambush was unclear. It could have been an attempt to rescue the men or kill them before they gave intelligence to the military.

But Swat Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said Sunday that Pakistani authorities killed the men because U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke was visiting.

"It is a gift the government has presented to Holbrooke," Khan told The Associated Press via phone from an undisclosed location. "We believe that they are martyred. We want to tell the government that their martyrdom is not going to be futile."

There have been tensions between Sufi Muhammad's movement and the Taliban, which itself is composed of different factions.

In Bajur tribal region, a clash between the two groups left four dead Saturday, a local official said. The fight occurred over the alleged abduction of a Taliban commander, said Faramoosh Khan, an administrator in Bajur's Mamund town.

Bajur was the focus of a previous military offensive, and the military said it vanquished the Taliban there in February, but reports of militant activity in the region persist.

___

Associated Press writers Ashraf Khan in Islamabad and Habib Khan in Khar contributed to this report.

 

[MarkOttawa]

More on tide maybe turning:

Pakistan military campaign has broad support, but for how long?
People across Pakistan, even in the northwest, support the offensive against the local Taliban militants. But among refugees, and areas bearing the brunt of the influx, patience is wearing thin.
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-pakistan-support8-2009jun08,0,1543103.story?track=ntothtml

Reporting from Mardan, Pakistan — Cradled in his father's arms, 8-month-old Maaz Ayaz appeared listless and underweight.

A smudge of dirt marked the boy's face. His father, Mohammed Ayaz, anxiously talked of how he and his wife could feed Maaz only tea and biscuits -- the only food they could get their hands on at the refugee camp.

"We've asked for milk, but there's none available," Ayaz said. "We're worried about our boy."

Such moments of anguish abound at the Sheikh Yaseen camp in this chaotic, sun-baked city that has become the hub for Pakistanis fleeing the fighting in the Swat Valley, about 30 miles to the north.

Support for the military offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in the northwest has been widespread, cutting across economic and ethnic lines. But that support hinges precariously on how Pakistan manages the massive humanitarian crisis created by the war's displacement of an estimated 3 million Pakistanis.

About 200,000 of the displaced people, nearly all ethnic Pashtuns, are crammed into sprawling tent camps in Mardan and elsewhere in the country. The rest have sought refuge with relatives or friends. At Sheikh Yaseen, more than 7,600 people live in 1,485 tents.

The Pakistani military launched the offensive in April after Taliban militants based in Swat began to assert control over adjoining districts, one of them just 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad.

The broad support for the military campaign could be undermined if the flow of displaced Pashtuns to other regions and cities triggers ethnic tensions. Thousands of Pashtuns have sought shelter in camps and homes in the southern port city of Karachi, where political leaders of the majority ethnic Sindhi population have vehemently opposed their influx.

More than half of Karachi's shops and markets closed May 25 after Sindhi nationalists called for a citywide strike to protest the arrival of Pashtuns from Swat [emphasis added--not much love lost between Pakistan's ethnic groups]. In the past, many Sindhis have opposed the settlement of Pashtuns in Karachi, saying their presence marginalizes locals and takes away jobs.

Pakistanis have been encouraged by reports of the gains being made by the troops against militants, and, experts say, they are realizing how severe a threat the Taliban poses if allowed to spread unchecked...

A broad view (long article):

Why the Taliban won't take over Pakistan
For reasons of geography, ethnicity, military inferiority, and ancient rivalries, they represent neither the immediate threat that is often portrayed nor the inevitable victors that the West fears.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0607/p06s07-wosc.html?page=1

It has become the statistic heard round the world. The Taliban are within 60 miles of Islamabad. Just 60 miles. Every dispatch about the insurgents' recent advance into the Pakistani district of Buner carried the ominous number.

Washington quivered, too. A top counterinsurgency expert, David Kilcullen, reiterated that Pakistan could collapse within six months. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said flatly if the country were to fall, the Taliban would have the "keys to the nuclear arsenal." On a visit to Islamabad, Sen. John Kerry – the proctor of $7.5 billion in Pakistani aid as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – warned bluntly: "The government has to ratchet up the urgency."

The Pakistani military did launch a major counteroffensive that has sent 2 million people fleeing their homes. For now, both the US and many Pakistanis appear to be relieved that the military has drawn a line at least somewhere, in this case in the fruit orchards of the Swat Valley and the city of Mingora, north of Islamabad.

Yet Pakistani analysts and officials here caution that the casus belli of all the commotion – the infamous 60 miles and the threat of an imminent Taliban takeover – is overblown. The Visigoths are not about to overrun the gates of Rome. Bearded guys with fistfuls of AK-47s are not poised to breeze into Islamabad on the back of white Toyota pickups...

The M1 Motorway heading out of the capital starts like an American Interstate highway – three divided lanes in each direction, manicured on and off ramps. Take an exit toward Buner and soon the pavement grows intermittent, as does the sight of any women in public view.

Eventually, a bridge spans the rock-strewn Indus River. Historically, this has marked a significant divide – and serves as a reminder of how geography and history intrude on the Taliban. "West of the Indus [versus] East of the Indus – the cultures, attitudes, and linkages with Afghanistan are very different," says General Masood.

West was frontier and Pakistan still calls it that: the North West Frontier Province. In this direction, the land rises toward Afghanistan, and the lives get harder as mountains tear apart arable land and communities divide into insulated tribes.

The worldview of the Taliban comes from West of the Indus. For them, the plains represent exposure. "The Taliban have been able to operate in certain [mountainous areas] because of the terrain and the sympathy factor," says Rifaat Hussain, a military expert at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. "But the moment they begin to move out of the hideouts, they are exposed. If you have 100 truckloads of Taliban on the Peshawar Highway, all you need is two helicopter gunships" to wipe them out.

Coming down from the hills also would expose the Taliban to a more secular, urban world that views their way of life as something on the cover of National Geographic. Or, as a colleague of Professor Hussain puts it: "They are a bunch of mountain barbarians [emphasis added--many Paks do see them that way, and the Baluchs as even worse]."..

On the other hand, the unity of the country is pretty fragile; its fissiparousness is what is to be feared, rather than a takeover by the Talib miscreants.
http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=76158&Itemid=2
And the army sees itself as the guarantor of that unity, which the politicians have been rather poor at promoting--see:

AfPak: Compare and contrast
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/06/afpak-compare-and-contrast.html

Existential Pakistan/Threatened Afstan
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/05/existential-pakistanthreatened-afstan.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Colin Parkinson]

In Swat, the Taliban exploited the social order, where most of the land is held by a few large landowners who have not always been nice to the people working the land. The Taliban drove the landowners out of the valley. Saying they will be killed if caught and that all rent is to go to them and they intended to change land distribution. Needless to say this gained them a lot of sympathy from the people on the bottom. Thankfully the Taliban are their own worst enemy and quickly set about alienating the same people who recently saw them as saviours. From my reading, the Taliban has always suffered a shortage of administrators and civil planners in their ranks and with their distrust of existing officials, they are ill prepared to run the territories they gain.

 

[CougarKing]

Serves "Terry" Taliban right for all the trouble he caused in Pakistan; they're getting cornered by the locals they tried to control.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090609/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

Taliban cornered in NW Pakistan by angry locals
Associated Press Writer Munir Ahmad, Associated Press Writer – 23 mins ago
ISLAMABAD – A group of Taliban fighters under siege by hundreds of angry tribesmen tried to sneak to another village in northwest Pakistan, only to find themselves cornered there too, an official said Tuesday.

A citizens' militia that sprang up over the weekend to avenge a deadly suicide bombing at a mosque in Upper Dir district appeared unwilling to stop pursuing the Islamist fighters, underscoring the rising anti-Taliban sentiment in Pakistan.

The growing pressure on militants who have held sway in parts of Pakistan's northwest comes as the army bears down on their one-time stronghold in the Swat Valley region. Talk has also turned to the possibility of another operation against al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in the nearby tribal belt along the country's border with Afghanistan, something U.S. officials privately say they would like to see.

Some 1,500 tribesmen laid siege to several villages known as Taliban strongholds in Upper Dir over the weekend, eventually cornering militants in Shatkas and Ghazi Gay villages. By Tuesday, some of the Taliban tried to get away to Malik Bai village, which the tribesmen also encircled, police official Fazal Rabi said.

"About 200 Taliban have been surrounded by the militia" in the villages, Rabi said.

Officials have said the Taliban carried out Friday's mosque bombing that killed 33 in the town of Haya Gai because they were angry that local tribesmen had resisted their moving into the area, where minor clashes between the two sides occurred for months. Rabi said the tribesmen had sworn on the Quran that they would not let the militants go unpunished.

At least 13 insurgents have died in the fighting since Saturday.

The citizens' militia, or lashkar, was using its own weapons and had no police backup, Rabi said.

The army's chief spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, on Monday urged civilians to consider the kind of rule the Taliban was trying to impose — they stand accused of whippings and beheadings in the name of Islamic law in Swat — and join the fight against them.
"Citizens should ponder upon the way of life they are introducing, if that is acceptable to us," Abbas told the News1 television network. "If not, they have to raise a voice against them, they have to rise against them."

Washington strongly backs the Swat offensive, and officials have said privately they would like Pakistan to follow up by launching an operation in nearby South Waziristan tribal region, the main base for Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.The government has announced no plans to attack the area, where al-Qaida fighters also are believed to be operating.

 

 

[CANADIAN F0RCES]

now this is what we need more of. people who know "their" country to help if they really want this threat gone. no?

 

[dale622]

Sounds like our friends from the south in green beret's are getting involved. Glad te see foreward progress being made.

 

[X-mo-1979]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090609/Pakistan_Taliban_090609/20090609?hub=World

The Associated Press

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan's military has dispatched helicopter gunships to the volatile northwest in support of thousands of angry tribesmen who have laid siege to a group of Taliban fighters, police said Tuesday.

The citizens' militia sprang up over the weekend to avenge a deadly suicide bombing at a mosque in Upper Dir district and appeared unwilling to stop pursuing the Islamist fighters, underscoring the rising anti-Taliban sentiment in much of Pakistan.

The tribesmen's numbers have steadily risen to more than 2,000, with residents of two villages and a town joining them Tuesday, area police official Atlas Khan said.

"People back in the villages, especially children, are fetching them food and other supplies. They are doing it because they think the fighters are fighting for their sake, they think it is their common war," Khan said.

He confirmed media reports that helicopter gunships struck two villages, Shatkas and Ghazi Gay, where the militants have strongholds, late Monday and Tuesday morning. Some of the Taliban were blocked Tuesday when they tried to get away to nearby Malik Bai village, which the tribesmen also encircled, police said.

The growing pressure on militants who have held sway in parts of Pakistan's northwest comes as the army bears down on their one-time sanctuary in the Swat Valley. Talk has also turned to the possibility of another operation against al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the nearby tribal belt along the country's border with Afghanistan, something U.S. officials privately say they would like to see.

Upper Dir district police chief Ejaz Ahmad said some 200 militants, including foreigners, were putting up tough resistance, with sporadic fighting continuing.

"Reports we are getting say that the foreigners among them are around 20 to 25. Most of them are Afghans, but some of them are Central Asians and Arabs too," Ahmad said.

Ahmad said the militia was foiling the fighters' efforts to flee.

"Villagers have encircled them completely, and they cannot run away," he said.

Asked how long the fight might go on, the police chief said, "The militants are well-entrenched in their strongholds. The area is large and consists of tough terrain, which also has thick forests. I cannot say when, but it will take time to expel or kill all the militants completely."

Officials have said the Taliban carried out Friday's mosque bombing that killed 33 in the Upper Dir town of Haya Gai because they were angry that local tribesmen had resisted their moving into the area, where minor clashes between the two sides occurred for months.

At least 14 insurgents have died in the fighting since Saturday.

The military said in a statement Tuesday that 27 militants were killed and 22 were taken into custody across the region, including Swat, in the past 24 hours, with one soldier killed in an attack on a checkpoint and nine wounded.

The army's chief spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, on Monday urged civilians to consider the kind of rule the Taliban was trying to impose -- they stand accused of whippings and beheadings in the name of Islamic law in Swat -- and join the fight against them.

"Citizens should ponder upon the way of life they are introducing, if that is acceptable to us," Abbas told the News1 television network. "If not, they have to raise a voice against them, they have to rise against them."

Washington strongly backs the Swat offensive, and officials have said privately they would like Pakistan to follow up by launching an operation in nearby South Waziristan tribal region, the main base for Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

The government has announced no plans to attack the area, where al Qaeda fighters also are believed to be operating.

Wouldn't it be just grand if this started happening in Z/P?

 

[CougarKing]

And the Taliban in Pakistan retaliate with another bombing in a Pakistani city. Apparently they don't realize this will only hasten their demise since this will only further inflame Pakistanis against them.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090609/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

Bomb at luxury hotel in Pakistan kills at least 11
          Riaz Khan, Associated Press Writer – 27 mins ago
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Suicide attackers shot their way past guards and set off a massive blast Tuesday outside a luxury hotel where foreigners and well-to-do Pakistanis mixed, killing at least 11 people and wounding 70, officials said. The bombers struck the Pearl Continental Hotel at about 10 p.m., when nightlife was still in swing. The attack reduced a section of the hotel to concrete rubble and twisted steel and left a huge crater in a parking lot.

The blast came a week after Taliban leaders warned they would carry out major attacks in large cities in retaliation for an army offensive to reclaim the nearby Swat Valley region from the militants. No claim surfaced immediately for the bombing in Peshawar, the northwest's largest city with about 2.2 million people.

Earlier in the day, officials said Pakistan's military engaged militants on two fronts elsewhere in the northwest. The army dispatched helicopter gunships in support of citizens fighting the Taliban in one district and used artillery fire against militants in another after sympathetic tribal elders refused to hand them over.

Neither operation was anywhere near the size of the military's offensive in the Swat Valley, where 15,000 troops have battled up to 7,000 Taliban fighters.

But the battles Monday and Tuesday in the Upper Dir and Bannu districts suggest that pockets of pro-Taliban sentiment remain strong in some areas, while the militants' form of hardline Islam is unpalatable in others — particularly because of the violence the militants have used to enforce it.

Peshawar lies in between the two districts. The Pearl Continental, affectionately called the "PC" by Pakistanis, overlooks a golf course and a historic fort. The ritziest hotel in the city, it is relatively well-guarded and set far back from the main road.

Police official Liaqat Ali said witnesses gave vivid accounts of how the bombers carried out their attack.

Three men in a pickup truck approached the hotel's main gate, opened fire at security guards, drove inside and detonated the bomb close to the building, Ali said. A senior police officer, Shafqatullah Malik, estimated it contained more than half a ton of explosives.

The chaotic scene echoed a bombing last year at Islamabad's Marriott Hotel that killed more than 50 people. Both hotels were favored places for foreigners and elite Pakistanis to stay and socialize, making them high-profile targets for militants despite tight security.

The method of attack also matched a May 27 assault on buildings belonging to police and a regional headquarters of Pakistan's top intelligence agency in the eastern city of Lahore, for which the Taliban claimed responsibility. A small group opened fire on security guards to get through a guard post, then detonated an explosive-laden van.

In Washington, two senior U.S. officials said the State Department had been in negotiations with the hotel's owners to either purchase or sign a long-term lease to the facility to house a new American consulate in Peshawar. The officials said they were not aware of any sign that U.S. interest in the compound had played a role in its being targeted.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations were not public and had not been completed. They said no immediate decision had been made on whether to go ahead with plans to base the consulate on the hotel grounds.

Lou Fintor, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, said there were no immediate reports of American casualties.

North West Frontier Province Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told The Associated Press early Wednesday that officials were reporting 11 deaths in the blast. Other police and government officials could confirm only five dead.

An AP reporter saw six wounded foreigners being helped out of the Pearl. One said the group worked for UNHCR.

The U.N. agency identified a staff member as among the dead: Aleksandar Vorkapic, 44, an information technology specialist from Belgrade, Serbia.

Peshawar district coordination officer Sahibzada Anis said the blast wounded three others working for the U.N. agency — a Briton, a Somali and a German.

Amjad Jamal, spokesman for the World Food Program in Pakistan, said more than 25 U.N. workers were staying at the hotel. He said all seven WFP workers were safe.

Dr. Khizar Hayat at Lady Reading Hospital said the hospital received some 70 wounded people, with at least nine in critical condition.

Farahnaz Ispahani, spokeswoman for President Asif Ali Zardari and the ruling party, condemned the attackers.

"We will not be cowed by these people," she said. "We will root them out, we will fight them and we will win. This is Pakistan's unity and integrity that is at stake."

The military offensive in Swat and surrounding districts began in late April, and officials have blamed a handful of suicide attacks on Taliban attempts to seek revenge.

U.S. officials would like Pakistan to launch an operation in the nearby South Waziristan tribal region, the main base for Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud. The government has announced no plans to attack the area, where al-Qaida fighters also are believed to be operating.

A new operation started Tuesday in Jani Khel, a semiautonomous region in Bannu bordering North Waziristan, another Taliban stronghold, after the government imposed an indefinite curfew, said Kamran Zeb Khan, coordination officer for the Bannu district.

He told the AP that the operation, backed by artillery, was launched after tribal elders failed to meet a Monday deadline to expel or hand over militants believed responsible for a mass kidnapping last week of students who were later released.

Pakistan's military would not confirm that any operation had begun.

The other fighting took place next to the Swat Valley in the Upper Dir district, where helicopter gunships arrived to support a citizens' militia battling some 200 Taliban fighters.

The militia, called a lashkar, sprang up over the weekend to avenge a suicide bombing that killed 33 people at a mosque. Officials say the Taliban carried out the bombing because local tribesmen resisted their moving into the area.

"In Upper Dir, as you are seeing, a lashkar has risen, people have stood up. God willing, the situation will soon improve there," legislator Najmuddin Malik said while visiting a refugee camp in Peshawar.

The militia's numbers have steadily risen to more than 2,000, with residents of two villages and a town joining them Tuesday as they surrounded the Taliban in tough terrain, area police official Atlas Khan said. His report could not be independently confirmed because media access to the conflict zone has been restricted to military-escorted junkets.

A tribal elder said villagers won't go home until the militants are gone — one way or another.

"We are out on a mission to kill or flush out all the Taliban," Malik Motabar Khan told AP by phone from the village of Ghazi Gay. "We will stay here until we kill all of them."

___

Associated Press writers Munir Ahmad, Asif Shahzad and Nahal Toosi in Islamabad and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

 

[jollyjacktar]

I have been wondering why they have not risen up against the Talibs earlier.  Bombing Mosques and killing people at prayers is a sin against Islam.  Hopefully these folks won't let any of these assholes escape alive from the trap and this positive change of standing up to the Talibs moves to other areas.  About time too.  Good hunting.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Because the Taliban are adept at using terror and aren't above hurting your family if you oppose them. Generally it takes a spontaneous surge of anger to create the conditions that allow the citizens to respond forcefully enough to nullify the Talibans use of force and terror.

 

[CougarKing]

At least the Pakistani government continues to show its resolve to eliminate the Taliban from its teritory.

Agence France-Presse - 6/13/2009 11:51 AM GMT
Pakistan vows to fight Taliban 'until the end'
President Asif Ali Zardari said on Saturday that Pakistan was battling for its "sovereignty" a day after scores of people were killed amid an escalating offensive against the Taliban.

Zardari said Pakistan would fight "until the end," as US defence officials in Washington confirmed that Islamabad was stepping up its operations against militants in the country's troubled northwest.

"We are fighting a war for our sovereignty," Zardari said in a television address. "We will continue this war until the end, and we will win it at any cost.

"The Taliban are the enemies of innocent people. They want to terrorise the people and to take control of the country's institutions."

Zardari's pledge came after suicide bombings targeting Friday prayers at two mosques killed at least six people, including a prominent Muslim cleric, and wounded more than 100.

The explosions confirmed fears that Taliban militants would avenge an offensive against them in the northwest, where the military said Friday 39 insurgents and 10 soldiers had been killed in fresh fighting.

Religious scholar Sarfraz Naeemi, who had spoken out against Taliban suicide bombings, was among two people killed in one of the mosque attacks, in the eastern city of Lahore, police said.

Lahore police chief Pervez Rathore said a suicide bomber had entered the room where Naeemi was sitting with others after Friday prayers, and blew himself up.

Naeemi had issued a fatwa (edict) against suicide bombings carried out by Taliban militants.

Shops, offices, banks and schools in Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan's two largest cities, were closed Saturday in protest at Naeemi's killing, officials said.

Protests to condemn the killing were also held by religious groups in several Pakistani cities.

In the other mosque attack, four people died and at least 105 were wounded when an explosives-filled car ploughed into a mosque in the northwestern garrison town of Nowshera, police said.

Meanwhile, security officials said that jets pounded militant hideouts in the Mohmand tribal district bordering Afghanistan, killing at least seven rebels. Jets also attacked the northwestern tribal districts of South and North Waziristan, they said.

The tolls could not be verified independently as the areas are out of bounds to journalists due to the ongoing military operations.

Separately, a roadside bomb targeting a police vehicle in the northwestern garrison town of Kohat killed a policemen and a civilian and six others on Saturday, senior police official Dilawar Khan Bangash told AFP.

A spokesman for militant leader Baitullah Mehsud's Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for Friday's two mosque attacks, as well as Tuesday's bombing of Peshawar's Pearl Continental hotel that killed nine people.

"Anyone who will oppose us to please the Americans will face the same fate," Maulvi Omar told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.

In Washington, senior defence officials, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, said Islamabad planned to step up its offensive against Taliban forces in South Waziristan.

The region is a stronghold for the TTP, Pakistan's umbrella Taliban organisation, as well as for Al-Qaeda and other extremist groups.

These groups are clearly interconnected, the official said, so "an offensive certainly can play an important role," noting that the strategy is to "have pressure on both sides of the border."

A 90,000-strong US and international coalition is fighting the Afghan Taliban and other insurgents on the Afghanistan side.

A second US defence official told reporters the Pakistani army has been redeploying forces to areas surrounding South Waziristan: "We think the initial phase of the operation has already begun," the official said.

 

[MarkOttawa]

A cautionary note:

Pakistan's Next Fight? Don't Go There.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/12/AR2009061202392.html

...
hopes are high in many quarters that the Pakistani military will ride this momentum into the more crucial battle -- in South Waziristan, the home base of Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan's terrorist honcho, and untold numbers of al-Qaeda fighters. Last week, the United States delivered four MI-17 cargo helicopters to Pakistan to support the army's fight against the Taliban. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has called the Swat operation "just the start" and has declared, with cheering from the Western sidelines, "We're going to go into Waziristan."

But this enthusiasm should be tempered. The Obama administration has shown a refreshing realism in its policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, and if it wants to succeed there, it should encourage the Pakistani army to stay out of Waziristan -- at least for now.

South Waziristan is an area slightly smaller than Connecticut. Yet after a couple of thousand years of fighting -- and defeating -- anyone who has dared tread too close, Waziristanis have acquired an outsize reputation as recalcitrant tough guys. "No patchwork scheme," Lord Curzon, the turn-of-the-20th-century British viceroy of India, declared, "will settle the Waziristan problem. Not until the military steamroller has passed over the country from end to end, will there be peace. But I do not want to be the person to start that machine." His recent bluster notwithstanding, Zardari doesn't want to start it either.

Unlike Swat, South Waziristan has been under Taliban rule for most of the past decade. In March 2004, Pakistani troops entered this southernmost tribal agency in their first bid to crush the militants. A month later, the Taliban were clobbering the army, and former president Pervez Musharraf was scrambling to find an exit strategy. Since then, the Taliban have repelled several other operations and, in 2007, kidnapped more than 200 soldiers.

Does that make it impossible for the Pakistani army to defeat them today? Not necessarily. But it is unrealistic to believe that the Pakistani army could continue fighting Taliban remnants in Swat, remain heavily deployed along the border with India (where they'll remain until, well, forever) and dedicate enough troops in South Waziristan to resemble a steamroller.

Another stumbling block is the Pakistani military's roster of assets in South Waziristan: They have an almost equal number of jihadist friends and enemies. In the Waziri areas (the region is populated by two tribes, Wazirs and Mehsuds), some Pakistanis see a Taliban leader named Maulvi Nazir as a strategic asset, the kind of "good" Talib who is only interested in fighting the Americans in Afghanistan. Nazir endeared himself to the officer corps when he expelled hundreds of Uzbek militants from the Waziri areas in March 2007.

If the Pakistani government considers Nazir a good Talib, then Baitullah Mehsud is definitely a bad one. How bad? The U.S. government is offering $5 million for his head, compared with the $600,000 bounty Islamabad put up for Fazlullah. Whether Mehsud is eight times more dangerous than Fazlullah remains to be seen, but he is undoubtedly more capable of committing catastrophic acts of terrorism. Pakistani and U.S. intelligence agencies believe he masterminded the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and has a pool of trained suicide bombers waiting for orders.

Nazir is no saint, though. There have been several drone attacks, including one that killed al-Qaeda's leading WMD expert, in his territory. But the Pakistani army won't come for him, and he knows it. He has sounded unfazed by rumors of an impending invasion. He has even reportedly told Mehsud that though he can't join him in fighting Pakistani forces, he'll guarantee him safe passage through Waziri areas to Afghanistan to fight NATO forces there.

And finally, there's al-Qaeda. In his Cairo speech, Obama declared that the United States doesn't want to stay in Afghanistan forever. But neither he nor any future president will be able to ponder withdrawal without having either killed or captured Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Both men are suspected of having bunked down in South Waziristan at various points. If uber-stealthy drones and commandos haven't found them so far, a noisy, invading battalion of Pakistani troops probably won't, either.

In some ways, Swat and South Waziristan today are like Afghanistan and Iraq in 2003: Rushing into the latter would almost certainly jeopardize success in the former. Pakistan's battle against the Taliban won't be won or lost in the hills, but in the hearts of ordinary Pakistanis, and especially the Pashtuns who live on either side of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. They are watching more closely than anyone to see whether the army is serious about finishing off Fazlullah's Taliban. They are also watching more closely than anyone to see the fate of millions of Pashtuns who have fled their homes in and around Swat as a result of the army offensive...

Another one, though I suspect Mr Khan has some political self-interest in mind:

Imran Khan warns of Pakistan’s ‘suicide’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6493667.ece

Pakistan's military offensive against the Taliban will backfire and fuel more extremism and bomb attacks, the cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan warned last week.

“I have never been so depressed in my life,” he said. “Pakistan is on a suicidal course.”

Khan was speaking in London, where he was visiting his two sons by his ex-wife Jemima before heading to America to raise funds for refugees displaced by the fighting.

The 56-year-old leader of Pakistan’s Movement for Justice party has been branded pro-Taliban for speaking out against the military operation, which has driven 2.5m people from their homes.

“I’m not pro-Taliban,” he said. “But my point is: shouldn’t we have looked at other options? How do you justify using heavy artillery, helicopter gunships and F-16 fighter-jets in civilian areas? Who in the world does this? Meanwhile all the top Taliban leadership have escaped. It’s so inhuman, what they have done; it will backfire.”

Khan pointed out that the launch of the operation coincided with President Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to Washington in late April, after which the US agreed a five-year deal worth $1.5 billion (£910m) a year. “Was this operation to save the people of Swat or to get dollars from the Americans?” he asked.

“Only 10 days earlier, Parliament had passed a resolution endorsing a peace deal in Swat with the Taliban. Why was there no discussion? A military operation should have been the last resort.”

Khan insisted that Pakistan would never contain extremism as long as American troops remained across the border in Afghanistan [emhpasis added]. “Hatred of America is much more than of the Taliban,” he said...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[CougarKing]

And the Pakistani Army has been ordered to now target the Taliban commander of all their forces in Pakistan, Mehsud himself.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090614/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

By NAHAL TOOSI and ASIF SHAHZAD, Associated Press Writers Nahal Toosi And Asif Shahzad, Associated Press Writers – 34 mins ago
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan ordered its army to go after the country's top Taliban commander, a feared al-Qaida-allied militant whose remote stronghold could prove a difficult test for troops but whose demise would remove a major threat to the country's stability.

The announcement Sunday of the operation in South Waziristan, rumored for weeks, came hours after a suspected U.S. missile strike killed five alleged militants there. The move will likely please Washington, which wants Pakistan to eliminate safe havens for militants leaving Afghanistan and which considers South Waziristan a particularly troublesome hideout for al-Qaida.

Owais Ghani, the governor of North West Frontier Province, told reporters in Islamabad late Sunday that the government felt it had no choice but to resort to force against Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud and his network. Past army action in the region had usually faltered or ended in truces, strengthening the militants.

"Baitullah Mehsud is the root cause of all evils," Ghani said, noting a slew of suicide bombings that have shaken Pakistan in recent days. "The government has decided that to secure the innocent citizens from terrorists, a meaningful, durable and complete action is to be taken."

Ghani suggested the operation has already begun, though the military has insisted its recent attacks on militants in South Waziristan were retaliatory, not the launch of a new offensive. Two intelligence officials said the army and Taliban were fighting in the Spinkai Raghzai area of South Waziristan as the governor made the announcement.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told The Associated Press late Sunday: "The government has made the announcement. We will give a comment after evaluating the orders."

South Waziristan, part of Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal belt, is a rumored hide-out of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. As the military has pursued a separate offensive against Taliban fighters in the northwest's Swat Valley, observers have noted that the Taliban will not be defeated in Pakistan unless they lose their tribal sanctuaries.

The U.S. has frequently targeted South Waziristan with missile strikes. The suspected strike Sunday hit three vehicles and killed five suspected militants. Two Pakistani intelligence officials confirmed the attack on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Neighboring North Waziristan, another militant stronghold and target for U.S. missiles, may also fall under the new Pakistani offensive at some point.

Mehsud is believed to pose a serious internal threat to the Pakistani government, and has been blamed for the killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, though he has denied that accusation. The Taliban chief also has been linked to attacks on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, though he is believed to have operated primarily in Pakistan.

In many ways, a full-scale battle in South Waziristan will be a harder fight than in Swat, where the army claims to have killed hundreds of militants over the past six weeks.

One reason is that the tribal region's porous border with Afghanistan could make it easier for militants to escape to the other side. Because of the tribal belt's semiautonomous nature, the government has long had limited influence, allowing militants to become deeply entrenched.

A new offensive could also mean more displaced civilians in Pakistan, already struggling to deal with more than 2 million who fled their homes in Swat and surrounding districts.

Pakistan's decision comes as public opinion has shifted against the Taliban, who have been blamed or have claimed responsibility for a series of bloody attacks in recent weeks, including one that killed a prominent anti-Taliban cleric and another that devastated a luxury hotel in Peshawar.

On Sunday, a bomb rocked a market in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan, while officials said clashes between the Taliban and security forces killed at least 20 militants in a tribal area supposedly cleared of insurgents months ago.

Government official Inayat Ullah said 11 to 13 pounds (5 to 6 kilograms) of explosives were planted in a fruit vendor's hand-pulled cart in the market. Police official Mohammad Iqbal put the death toll at nine, with 20 wounded.

At a hospital where some of the wounded were taken, cries punctured the air.

"It was crowded there when something big exploded," said 30-year-old Ilyas Ahmad, whose legs were wounded. "It was a big noise. Everybody was crying. Bodies were lying there. People were lying around blood."

A Taliban commander, Qari Hussain Ahmad, blamed the blast on Pakistani intelligence agencies, saying the government was carrying out such acts to legitimize an operation in Waziristan.

"They want to malign us. They want to use killings of innocent citizens against us," Hussain told The Associated Press by phone from an undisclosed location.

Fighting on multiple fronts could tax the army's ability to hold regions once it says it has cleared them. The latest clashes in the Bajur tribal region underscored that.

Bajur was the main theater of operations against the militants before Swat. After some six months of fighting, the army said in February that the Taliban there had been defeated. But there have been occasional reports since then of ongoing militant activity.

Pakistani forces used jets, helicopters and artillery to pound suspected Taliban hide-outs in Bajur over the weekend.

Zakir Hussain Afridi, the top government official for Bajur, said the fighting was in the Charmang valley, a stretch he described as largely under Taliban control. Jamil Khan, his deputy, put the militant death toll at 20 since Friday.

___

Associated Press writers Habib Khan in Khar and Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan contributed to this report.

 

[Yrys]

Lahore buries anti-Taliban cleric

Thousands attended the funeral
in Lahore

The funeral has taken place in the Pakistani city of Lahore of a prominent Muslim cleric killed
in a suicide attack on Friday. The cleric, Sarfraz Naeemi, was one of Pakistan's leading Sunni
scholars and was known for his outspoken views opposing suicide bombings. He had denounced
the activities of Taliban militants as un-Islamic.

Protests against the killing have taken place in a number of Pakistani cities, including Lahore.
Sarfraz Naeemi was killed when an explosion struck the Jaamia Naeemia madrassa around
the time of Friday prayers. He was one of the few scholars who had openly supported the
ongoing military operation in Swat and had labelled the activities of the Taliban "un-Islamic".

Six people were killed in the attack on Sarfraz Naeemi and a simultaneous suicide bombing
at a mosque in the north-west garrison town of Nowshera.

Presidential support

The Pakistani President, Asif Ali Zardari, used a late-night broadcast to the nation on Friday,
to condemn the killing of the cleric. He said the Taliban were brutal people who were working
against the sovereignty of Pakistan. Mr Zardari also announced pay rises for the armed forces,
who are engaged in a major offensive against the Taliban.

 

[MarkOttawa]

On to South Waziristan:

Pakistan To Pursue Taliban Leader
Militant Suspected In Bhutto Killing
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061402428.html

Pakistani officials announced Sunday night that security forces will launch a military operation against Baitullah Mehsud, a feared Taliban leader who has asserted responsibility for numerous suicide bombings across the country and who is believed to have ordered the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in late 2007.

The announcement by officials in North-West Frontier Province came after a week of deadly attacks attributed to the Pakistani Taliban ["Mehsud's trail of blood", note assassination of Benazir Bhutto Dec. 27, 2007],
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/mehsuds-trail-of-blood/article1181727/
including the bombing Tuesday of a five-star hotel that killed 11 people in the northwestern city of Peshawar and the assassination Friday of a moderate Sunni Muslim cleric in another suicide bombing here in the capital of Punjab province.

It also followed another day of violence in the northwestern region where the Taliban forces are based. A bomb hidden in a market cart in the town of Dera Ismail Khan killed at least eight people and wounded 25, and a suspected U.S. drone aircraft fired a missile in the tribal region of South Waziristan, reportedly killing three Islamist fighters, officials said.

Provincial Gov. Owais Ghani said at a news conference in Peshawar on Sunday that the government will soon begin a military operation against Mehsud in South Waziristan, the rugged semiautonomous region near the Afghan border that has been his stronghold for several years. Ghani did not say when it would begin, but an army spokesman confirmed that the decision had been made.

Last month, the army launched a major offensive against Taliban forces in the region around the northwest Swat Valley, sending more than 2 million refugees fleeing to other districts for safety. Until now, however, it has been reluctant to penetrate more dangerous tribal districts in pursuit of Mehsud and other Taliban leaders, who seek to forcibly impose a draconian version of Islam on the nation.

"Baitullah is the root cause of all the problems. He is the axis of evil [not Obama-speak, what?]," Ghani told reporters. He said the young militant leader was responsible for "gory acts of terror," including the slaying of Bhutto at a rally in Rawalpindi and the recent string of deadly suicide bombings, among them a second attack Friday that killed four worshipers at a military-run mosque in Nowshera...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Start of good (long) article by Jonathan Kay in the National Post:

Pakistan: land of unintended consequences
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=1702948

I've spent the last two days at a conference sponsored by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, listening to dozens of specialists discuss the best way to pacify the Taliban-infested border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's been a humbling experience, as well as an educational one: I seemed to have been the only person on the speaking roster who hadn't spent a good chunk of his or her life in south Asia. (Emphasis on "or her": It surprised me how many women have adopted this remote, misogynistic corner of the globe as their focus of study.)

Alongside the various ambassadors -- current and former -- there was a former police chief from Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, a former CIA operative and a variety of brand-name global terrorism experts. Other speakers had done in-depth reporting from the region for Western publications, or run grass-roots NGOs. Most of the attendees agreed that the Taliban was strong, and getting stronger -- and not one offered a simple solution.

A basic problem, it emerged, is the sheer complexity of the military dynamic in eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan.

While journalists often talk about the Taliban as if it were a single, unified force, there are in fact many Talibans. On the highest level are the hardcore, mass-murdering jihadis -- men whose cause is inseparable from that of al-Qaeda; who are intermarried into the group and have even adopted Arabic as their primary language. Everyone in the room agreed that ordinary politics means little to these men: Holy War is in their blood.

In the middle tier are the tribal militias, village-defence forces, drug gangs and other Taliban-of-convenience. These groups shift their allegiance around opportunistically, depending on who seems to be winning at any given moment.

Finally comes the hapless foot soldiers -- illiterate peasants paid by the month to tote a gun and go where they're told.

Each group calls out for a different strategy. In the case of the dedicated jihadis, the only thing to be done is to kill them -- which means boots on the ground, special forces and drones. The militias, by contrast, respond quickly to shifts in popular opinion, propaganda and outreach. And the low-level foot soldiers can be lured away by jobs -- which means economic projects and nation-building...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[CougarKing]

Another update:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090623/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

Taliban commander shot dead in northwest Pakistan
          Associated Press Writer Paul Alexander, Associated Press Writer – 35 mins ago
ISLAMABAD – A Taliban faction leader who was seen as the chief rival to the militant group's Pakistani head was fatally shot Tuesday, reportedly by one of his own guards. The attack on Qari Zainuddin appeared to be a sign that divisions within the Taliban have broken into the open as they come under military assault.

The army is clearing out militants from the Swat Valley and has been pounding strongholds of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in the South Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan in apparent preparation for a major offensive.

The tribal zone was also hammered by suspected U.S. missile strikes, which targeted a purported Taliban training center and then hours later hit a funeral procession for some of those killed in the earlier strike.

Two intelligence officials said up to 40 people were killed — including Sangeen Khan, a top aide to Mehsud — and 60 more wounded. The military said it had no information on the attack, and it was impossible to independently verify the information because the area is dangerous and restricted to outsiders.

In the first strike, three suspected U.S. missiles hit the training center in the village of Najmarai in the Makeen area of South Waziristan, said the two intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk the media.

Hours later, four more missiles blasted into the evening funeral procession.

"I saw three drones, they dropped bombs," said Sohail Mehsud, a resident of Makeen, which is the home district of Baitullah Mehsud.

Dozens of such strikes have been carried out in the tribal regions over the last year. U.S. officials concede they have been using drone-fired missiles to target suspected militants in Pakistan, but they do not comment on individual strikes.

Zainuddin was gunned down in the nearby town of Dera Ismail Khan. He had emerged as Mehsud's chief rival and had criticized the militant leader over attacks that killed civilians.

Dr. Mahmood Khan Bitani told The Associated Press that he pronounced Zainuddin dead on arrival at a local hospital with gunshot wounds to the head and chest.

Baz Mohammad, an aide to the militant leader who also was wounded, said a guard barged into a room at Zainuddin's compound after morning prayers and opened fire. He accused Mehsud of being behind the attack.

"It was definitely Baitullah's man who infiltrated our ranks, and he has done his job," Mohammad told AP, vowing to avenge the death.

He later filed a criminal complaint with police, alleging the shooting was carried out at Mehsud's behest.

A spokesman for Mehsud could not immediately be reached to respond to the accusation.

Bahawal Khan, the area police official, confirmed the slaying, as did Sher Mohammad, an uncle of Zainuddin. Aides said the guard had gotten closer to Zainuddin about four months ago. He fled after the attack in a waiting car, they said.

Mahmood Shah, a former top security official, said the slaying sends a strong message to the government that they need to launch a strong, comprehensive operation to eliminate Mehsud, described as the center of gravity for much of the terrorist activity in Pakistan. Instead, Shah said, they have relied on "local efforts" by Mehsud's opponents like Zainuddin.

"Baitullah Mehsud has overcome all tribal dynamics. He has resources, funding and a fighting force to strike anywhere in Pakistan," Shah said, calling him a front man for al-Qaida. "You simply can't eliminate him through local efforts; instead, you need a major force."

Zainuddin was estimated to have about 3,000 armed followers in Dera Ismail Khan and nearby Tank. Earlier this month, he denounced Mehsud for recent attacks that have killed civilians — apparently launched in retaliation for the army offensive in the northwestern Swat Valley.

"Whatever Baitullah Mehsud and his associates are doing in the name of Islam is not a jihad, and in fact it is rioting and terrorism," Zainuddin told the AP after a mosque suicide bombing attack, blamed on Mehsud, killed 33 people. "Islam stands for peace, not for terrorism."

Zainuddin's motive for criticizing Mehsud was not clear, but there was speculation that he was trying to portray himself as a more moderate alternative to the Taliban leader, although there appeared to be little or no differences between the two over fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Daily bombing runs and artillery barrages have been softening up militant targets in South Waziristan for about a week and ground troops have moved into position, the military says, though it says the main offensive has not yet started.

Meanwhile, five suspected aides of Mehsud were arrested Tuesday in the southern city of Karachi after an encounter with police, while six others escaped, police official Raja Omar Khatab said. The men are accused of involvement in robberies, kidnappings for ransom and other criminal activity to generate funds for Mehsud, Khatab said.

___

Associated Press writers Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan and Zarar Khan in Islamabad contributed to this report.

 

[CougarKing]

Al Qaeda infiltrators and sympathizers within the Pakistani military's ranks?

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/655572

Extremists' goal to infiltrate military adds to uncertainty over army offensive in tribal regions

Jun 24, 2009 04:30 AM
Rick Westhead
SOUTH ASIA BUREAU

NEW DELHI – As Pakistan's military continues its offensive against the Taliban in the northern part of the country, a senior Al Qaeda leader is threatening to ferret out and use Pakistan's nuclear weapons against the United States.

Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, Al Qaeda's commander of operations in Afghanistan, said both Al Qaeda and the Taliban are working to infiltrate Pakistan's military in an effort to get access to the country's nuclear weapons.

If they're successful, "the mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans."

"The strategy of the (Al Qaeda) organization in the coming period is the same as in the previous period: to hit the head of the snake, the head of tyranny, the United States," al-Yazid said in an interview on the al Jazeera TV network.

"That can be achieved through continued work on the open fronts and also by opening new fronts in a manner that achieves the interests of Islam and Muslims and by increasing military operations that drain the enemy financially."

This threat lends to the air of chaos that has descended on Pakistan: President Asif Ali Zardari is rarely seen in public, afraid he will be assassinated like his populist wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto; Islamabad is no longer a quiet civil service town filled with restaurants, but rather one of guns, police and concrete barriers; in northern Pakistan more than two million people have fled their homes, chased away by the threat of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, who are now working in concert.

The Pakistani secret service, the ISI, has long had a close relationship with the Taliban and has turned a blind eye to the extremist ideology taught in the madrassas. It is also well known that nuclear technology developed in Pakistan by scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan has been sold to countries such as North Korea, Iran and Libya and could find its way into the "wrong hands."

There have been fears in Washington the Taliban could get its hands on nuclear missiles: already, the insurgents are using American technology to battle U.S. troops. The Pakistani arsenal is spread around the country, in places known only to the Pakistani military.

The U.S. General Accounting Office conducted a recent investigation that revealed enemy insurgents, particularly suicide bombers, have been wearing infrared patches on their clothing to get close to American soldiers at night. The patches are available for sale to the public in the U.S. and China and are designed to be seen by soldiers using night-vision goggles.

Military analysts are split over whether Al Qaeda's threats of acquiring Pakistan's nuclear technology should be taken seriously. Over the past month, the Taliban and its Al Qaeda allies have been forced by the advancing Pakistani army to abandon positions in villages and towns in the lush Swat Valley after earlier taking control of communities close to Islamabad, the capital.

It's doubtful that extremists could seize a nuclear weapon by force. What is plausible is they could find allies in the Pakistan military sympathetic to its cause.

Pervez Hoodbhoy, a nuclear physics professor at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University, told the Star in an interview that nuclear weapons remain "as safe as the people who are their custodians."

Remembering a former "very right wing" student who is now working in a high-level military position, Hoodbhoy said the threat to Pakistan's well-guarded nuclear weapons comes not from "mountain barbarians" but from Al Qaeda's "Islamist allies within the Pakistani state and society. These are urban people: engineers, technicians, people in fairly high office."

Because Pakistan keeps its nuclear warheads in a disassembled state, it would probably take weeks to put warheads together, further reducing the risk of a weapon's capture. The professor said it would be much more probable that a terrorist could obtain the nuclear material needed to make a radioactive dirty bomb. The core of a nuclear warhead, for instance, is the size of a grapefruit and conceivably could be moved without detection.

The militants latest threat comes as Pakistan's military conducts operations in South Waziristan, an area that's been used as a base of operations by Baitullah Mehsud, a Taliban leader accused of orchestrating a string of bomb attacks.