Sunday, January 24, 2010

Obama Plays Tennis in Pakistan

He is SERVING UP VOLLEYS of MISSILES, folks!

Yeah, dunk your hands up to the elbows in Muslim blood, Obomber.

Join the ranks of war criminal predecessors and peers.


"In Pakistan, US strike kills key terrorist; Was listed as one of FBI’s most wanted" by Ishtiaq Mahsud and Rasool Dawar, Associated Press | January 16, 2010

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan - A US missile strike in Pakistan killed one of the FBI’s most-wanted terrorists, a man suspected in a deadly 1986 plane hijacking with a $5 million bounty on his head, three Pakistani intelligence officials said yesterday.

The death would be the latest victory for the CIA-led missile campaign against militant targets in Pakistan’s insurgent-riddled tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, a campaign that has recently escalated....

Been a rather quiet campaign, wouldn't you say, Globe?

Related: Pakistan Pops Up in My Printed Boston Globe

But the information is nearly impossible to verify independently because access to Pakistan’s tribal regions is restricted. North Waziristan is considered a key sanctuary for a range of militant groups, including Al Qaeda and factions focused on battling the United States in Afghanistan. Pakistan has been resisting mounting US pressure to wage an army offensive in the region.

In the meantime, the United States has been pounding it with missiles. A pair of missiles hit a house in the Mishta area of South Waziristan yesterday, the 10th such attack in roughly two weeks in Pakistan’s tribal belt bordering Afghanistan. Two intelligence officials told the Associated Press that the two people killed were suspected militants. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not have the authority to make such disclosures to the press.

More innocent lives lost over lies!

Four of the drone-fired missiles landed yesterday in the Zarniri area of North Waziristan, killing three people. The area is near where a strike Thursday killed 12 people but is thought to have missed its apparent target, Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.

Yeah, they ALWAYS MISS the "terrorists."

So who was in the houses, huh?

A purported audiotape of Mehsud denying his death emerged yesterday but contained no specific reference to the missile strike.

Oh, an audiotape. I'm convinced.

The lack of a reference to Thursday’s strike means the tape could have been recorded prior, possibly to keep the Pakistani Taliban united in case Mehsud was incapacitated. Militants have in the past given misleading information about who lived and died.

Like the AmeriKan *ewspapers have a leg to stand on there!

PFFFFT!

Propaganda is spreading through the media that Hakimullah has been martyred. . . . It can never happen,’’ he said on the audio recording.

Yeah, I get a HUMONGOUS DOSE of it every day when I pick up a Globe.

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Related: Will the Drone War Sink Pakistani Cooperation?

With more C.I.A., more drone strikes, and more subsequent civilian deaths, Obama may be digging himself right out of Pakistan. The problem is that without Pakistani support, digging himself out of the Afghanistan mess will be impossible.

Which means more of this mass-murdering slaughter!

"US drone strike kills 20, Pakistan says" by Associated Press | January 18, 2010

MIR ALI, Pakistan - At least one suspected US drone fired on a house in Pakistan’s volatile tribal region yesterday, killing 20 people in the 11th such attack since militants in the area orchestrated a deadly suicide bombing against the CIA in Afghanistan, intelligence officials said.

Related: Who Feels Sorry For the CIA?

Four missiles slammed into the house in the Shaktoi area of South Waziristan, the same region where a drone strike Thursday targeted a meeting of militant commanders in an apparently unsuccessful attempt to kill Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.

What, ONE not good enough?

Little bit of OVERKILL, don't you think?

The militant leader helped organize the Dec. 30 attack against a remote CIA base in Afghanistan’s Khost Province that killed seven of the agency’s employees and appeared in a video alongside the Jordanian man who carried out the bombing. Analysts suspect the Haqqani network, an Al Qaeda-linked Afghan Taliban faction based in North Waziristan, also helped carry out the CIA attack, the worst against the spy agency in decades.

And that is your CIA connocted cover story, folks.

Since the bombing, the United States has carried out 11 suspected drone strikes in North and South Waziristan, an unprecedented volley of attacks since the CIA-led program began in earnest in Pakistan two years ago.

This SICKENS ME!!!

The house targeted in the attack yesterday was being used by Usman Jan, the head of the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, intelligence officials said. Five Uzbeks were killed in the strike, but it was unclear if Jan was among them. Jan’s predecessor, Tahir Yuldash, was killed in a drone strike in South Waziristan last year. The other 15 people killed in the strike yesterday were Pakistani Taliban, said the officials. Four more militants were seriously wounded.

I thought we didn't do body counts anymore?

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PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A suspected US drone attack in Pakistan’s volatile tribal area killed five people yesterday, as part of an unprecedented wave of strikes since a deadly attack against the CIA across the border in Afghanistan, said intelligence officials.

I call it the Revenge of the CIA.

The two missiles slammed into a compound and a nearby vehicle in the Deegan area of North Waziristan, a zone dominated by the Haqqani network, an Al Qaeda-linked Afghan Taliban faction that many suspect helped orchestrate the Dec. 30 suicide bombing that killed seven CIA employees at a remote base in Khost Province.

That the same Haqqani network that works for the CIA?

Yesterday’s strike was the 12th since the CIA attack, an average of one about every day and a half....

The ones we are being told about, anyway?

In yesterday’s strike, four people were killed in the compound and one in the vehicle, said the intelligence officials. The victims’ identities were unknown, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media....

Then they could have been women or children, huh?

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Maybe the Pakistanis could just do it themselves, huh?

"US hopes spy drone offer prompts Pakistani cooperation" by Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times | January 22, 2010

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The United States will provide a dozen unarmed aerial spy drones to Pakistan for the first time as part of an effort to encourage Pakistan’s cooperation in fighting Islamic militants on the Afghanistan border, American defense officials said yesterday. But Pakistani military leaders, rebuffing American pressure, said they planned no new offensives for at least six months.

Anytime there is NO ESCALATION of KILLING, I'm happy.

Now to ROLL BACK the REST!!!!

The Shadow drones, which are smaller than armed Predator drones, will be a significant upgrade in the Pakistanis’ reconnaissance and surveillance ability and will supply video to help cue strikes from the ground or the air. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who is in Pakistan on a two-day visit, disclosed plans for the drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, in an interview yesterday. Asked whether the United States planned to provide the Pakistani military with drones, something it has long requested, Gates replied, “There are some tactical UAVs that we are considering, yes.’’ Other Defense Department officials later confirmed the offer.

Shortly before Gates’s remarks, the chief spokesman of the Pakistani Army indicated the army would not begin any assault against militants in the tribal region of North Waziristan for six to 12 months, pushing back against calls by the United States to root out militants staging attacks along the Afghan border. The army spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, said that Pakistan had to stabilize its gains and contain Taliban militants scattered by offensives already opened last year. “We are not capable of sustaining further military operations,’’ Abbas said.

The developments underscored the difficulties that President Obama now faces in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Even as the Taliban have stepped up attacks on both sides of the border, the Pakistani army has been reluctant to take on all of its factions in all parts of the country’s tribal areas. Pakistan has long asked for drone technology from the United States, arguing that it should have the same resources to watch and kill militants on its own soil as does the CIA.

I'm kind of tired of the mass-murder, you know?

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Related: More Drone Data Than They Know What to Do With

Maybe the Pakistanis can help us sort through it -- if they aren't overwhelmed by their own tapes.

And how come I ALWAYS have to find THIS STUFF OUT through the BLOGS, MSM?!!!

See: US Finally Admits Blackwater Operating in Pakistan

After months of angry denials and accusing Pakistani media outlets reporting the story of engaging in “conspiracy theories,” the United States government has finally come clean about Blackwater forces operating in Pakistan, in the form of an interview by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on local Pakistani television.

Also see
: Pentagon backtracks after Gates ‘admits’ Blackwater operating in Pakistan

What Robert Gates Didn’t Say - And US Media Hides - About Blackwater In Pakistan

Related:
Gates says propaganda tainting US image in Pakistan available

"That statement is a complete insult to the intelligence of every single Pakistani citizen who can see very clearly what is going on here. 'Mutual respect' does not allow for the killing of innocent civilians through drone attacks; what the US military is doing here is "armchair, remote-controlled terrorism", and the Pakistani people understand this as their current reality, completely detached from any alleged "propaganda". Right now, all the Pakistani people are experiencing and witnessing is massive displacement, courtesy of the Pakistani military attacks on places like Swat, and the bodies of dead relatives." -- Wake the Flock Up

Okay, let's get back to some conventional murder then:

"Ambush leads to deadly clashes in Pakistan; Search operation after battles yields 25 insurgents" by Hussain Afzal, Associated Press | January 24, 2010

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

Elsewhere in the northwest, a suicide bomber killed a police officer and three passersby, part of a relentless wave of violence by Al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents also blamed for attacks on US and NATO troops across the frontier in Afghanistan.

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

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

Those terms are chilling. So where did the people go?

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

Washington has welcomed the military campaign but is pushing the Pakistani Army to do more to target the Taliban blamed for violence across the border in Afghanistan, especially those based in North Waziristan. The Pakistani Army has said it is too taxed to launch another operation right now. “We have gone in Orakzai and Kurram because they were affecting our operations in South Waziristan,’’ Pakistani Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told DawnNews TV on Friday night. “We are too thin on the ground. We are too overstretched. It is not possible to get into any other area for operations.’’

So HOW LONG until U.S. COMBAT TROOPS are OFFICIALLY IN Pakistan, readers?

The army deployed some 30,000 troops against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan in mid-October and has retaken many towns in the region. But many fear the militants have just set up in other parts of the vast, lawless border regions and will continue to threaten the Pakistani government and US troops in Afghanistan. Illustrating that threat, a suicide bomber rammed a vehicle laden with explosives into a police station near South Waziristan yesterday. One officer and three passersby died in the assault, police chief Farid Khan said.

And CUI BONO, 'eh?

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

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