Like CLOCKWORK, ladies and gentlemen.
"16 killed in Kabul attacks; Taliban claim responsibility; Indians target" by Amir Shah and Deb Riechmann, Associated Press | February 27, 2010
Related: Pakistan and India's Other Problems
Timing sure stinks, doesn't it?
KABUL, Afghanistan - Insurgents struck yesterday at hotels in the heart of Kabul with suicide attackers and a car bomb, killing at least 16 people - half of them foreigners - in an assault that showed the militants remain a potent force despite setbacks on the battlefield and the arrest of more than a dozen key leaders.
See: Pakistan's Taliban Towel
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks, which Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, said targeted Indians working in Kabul.
This is what we are told my an untrustworthy, agenda-pushing, war-promoting MSM, world.
At least six of the dead were Indian citizens, including some government officials, Indian authorities said. The Taliban have long opposed India’s involvement in Afghanistan and its ties to an Afghan group that helped the United States oust the Islamist regime in late 2001.
What?
INDIAN INTELLIGENCE AGENTS running FALSE FLAGS in AFGHANISTAN?
I mean, Mumbai, yeah, but....
A French filmmaker and an Italian diplomat also were killed, their governments said.
OOOOPS!!
That might make them want to LEAVE!
The Kabul police chief said the Italian, Pietro Antonio Colazzo, died a hero, slain by the Taliban when they found he was phoning tips to police from inside his hotel where attackers were holed up.
Italy’s news agency ANSA said Colazzo was deputy chief of the Kabul office of the Italian foreign intelligence agency and had been in the country for about two years....
So he WASN'T ACTUALLY a CIVILIAN, was he?
The attacks follow a string of setbacks suffered by the Taliban, who have all but lost control of a major southern stronghold of Marja in a major offensive by thousands of US, Afghan, and NATO troops.
Like the word games. Means they haven't really lost it yet, huh?
The British government said it lost a soldier yesterday in an explosion during a foot patrol - the 14th NATO service member to die in the operation.
Furthermore, more than two dozen senior and mid-level Taliban figures have been detained in Pakistan in recent weeks. That suggests the attacks in Kabul were a way for the Taliban to show that they remain a threat, capable of striking even in the center of the Afghan capital.
“Yesterday, the US was showing to the world, ‘See, we are raising the flag in Marja and isolating the Taliban,’ ’’ said Kabul political analyst Wahid Mazhda. “The Taliban once again are showing their power, saying, ‘We are still active.’ ’’
The four-hour assault began at about 6:30 a.m. when a car bomb devastated a residential hotel used by Indian doctors working at an Indian government-sponsored health center....
Police officers and rescue workers carrying the wounded lumbered down the rain-soaked streets, largely empty because yesterday was a holiday marking the birth of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.
Thus I can't see Muslims doing this at this time, sorry, MSM.
And who knew it ever rained in Afghanistan, huh?
Police escorted a dazed middle-age woman dressed in pink pajamas but no shoes - her socks soaked with rainwater.
“I haven’t seen . . . where are my . . .,’’ she muttered, speaking only in fragments.
As the fighting raged, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid phoned the Associated Press from an unknown location to claim responsibility, saying five suicide attackers were “targeting two places used by foreigners.’’
Caller ID said it came from CIA headquarters.
The assault was the deadliest in the capital since Oct. 8, when a suicide car bomber killed 17 people outside the Indian Embassy. A suicide car bomber killed more than 60 people in a 2008 attack at the gates of the Indian Embassy in July 2008. India accused archrival Pakistan’s spy agency of involvement in that attack.
Well, that could be, too; however, seeing as that is offered up in the paper the exact opposite is likely the truth.
Although India made no such allegations after yesterday’s assault, the deaths of so many Indians raised speculation that the attack could be linked to the rivalry between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, both deeply involved in Afghanistan.
Oh, I HAVE NO DOUBT about THAT!!
So WHO BENEFITS from CONTINUED TENSIONS, world?
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Other shoe dropped:
"Pakistani militants tied to attacks in Kabul; Afghan officials contradict claims made by Taliban" by Karin Brulliard, Washington Post | March 3, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan intelligence official said yesterday that the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-i-Taiba orchestrated the deadly attack that targeted two guesthouses in the capital last week.
Salt shaker, please.
Thank you.
The Afghan Taliban asserted responsibility for the assault, which left 16 people dead, within hours of its start. But Sayed Ansari, Afghan intelligence spokesman, said investigators had reached a different conclusion based on evidence that the attack was carried out by a team of suicide bombers who spoke Urdu, a Pakistani language, and who were searching for Indian victims.
Lashkar-i-Taiba has focused most of its attacks on India, which blames the militant organization for the siege that killed 165 people in Mumbai in November 2008. Evidence that it was involved in Friday’s bombings in Kabul could undermine fragile peace efforts between longtime foes Pakistan and India, whose foreign secretaries met last week.
And WHO WANTS THAT, huh?
The claim by Afghan intelligence could not be verified yesterday, and it contradicts the conclusions of other observers. A US military intelligence official told reporters Monday that he believed that the Haqqani network, a Pakistan-based Afghan militant group, was behind the attack. Indian officials have said they suspect the two groups worked in concert to stage the raid.
Ah.....
"Haqqani.... credited with introducing suicide bombing to the region.... cultivated as a "unilateral" asset of the CIA and received tens of thousands of dollars in cash for his work.... He may have had a role in expediting the escape of Osama Bin Laden.... In July 2008, CIA officials confronted Pakistan officials with evidence of ties between Inter-Services Intelligence and Haqqani. Haqqani has been accused of involvement in the 2008 Indian embassy bombing in Kabul...."
Tired of the "game" yet, readers.
But the possibility that Lashkar-i-Taiba was involved provided a fresh signal that a group initially focused on fighting India over disputed Kashmir might be turning its guns toward Afghanistan. Major General Michael Flynn, the top US military intelligence official in Afghanistan, said a growing number of the group’s fighters were streaming into that country’s south for combat experience.
“They are aligning with the Taliban,’’ said Mohammad Saad, a retired Pakistani brigadier and security analyst.
Pfffffft!!
Saad said that several members of the group are training with associates of the Haqqani network in North Waziristan, a Pakistani tribal region bordering Afghanistan, but that language challenges have forced most of them to work alongside Afghan fighters inside Afghanistan.
Getting CIA TRAINING, are they?
That also points to increased mixing of militant groups in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, where US troops and intelligence are seeking to blunt Taliban and Al Qaeda control. Analysts say insurgencies that are described as distinct are actually a complex stew of overlapping and shifting alliances.
Yeah, whatever, MSM!
Just doing what you do best: obfuscate.
That was underscored yesterday as the Pakistani Taliban, an offshoot of the Afghan insurgency, confirmed that the chief of yet another Pakistani militant group, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, had been killed by a US drone strike Feb. 24.
Related: How Does the U.S. Love Pakistan?
Same way they say they love Afghans.
The commander, Qari Zafar, was wanted by US and Pakistani officials for the 2006 bombing of the US Consulate in Karachi.
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