Family members of Raza Haider, slain leader of the Muttahida Quami Movement, cried during his funeral in Karachi yesterday (Fareed Khan/Associated Press)
Yeah, those are the ones left behind.
"Killing fuels Pakistan tensions; Party says rivals back militants" by Ashraf Khan, Associated Press | August 4, 2010
KARACHI, Pakistan — The ruling party in Pakistan’s largest city accused its main political rival of supporting Islamist militants suspected of assassinating a party leader, further stoking tensions yesterday after 45 people died in a night of revenge attacks and arson.
The accusation appeared to reflect the complex and vicious political and ethnic fault lines that crisscross Karachi, also Pakistan’s commercial hub and home to the main port for supplies to US and NATO troops across the border in Afghanistan.
You know, who would want to stir s*** up so there is more of a western presence?
It has long been plagued by political violence between supporters of rival parties that draw votes from different ethnic groups that live in the city of 16 million people. Their supporters are accused of running protection rackets and illegally seizing land, muddying the picture as to the reasons for the bloodshed.
Don't tell me they are acting like Israel.
The killing of politician Raza Haider was the most high-profile in a series of slayings of party activists over the last month.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik of Pakistan was quoted by militants as saying Islamist militants were likely suspects, saying Haider was on an extremist hit list.
That is when I start suspecting Mossad, CIA, MI-6, or Blackwater.
Haider was a senior member of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the party that runs Karachi and represents mainly descendants of Urdu-speaking migrants from India who settled in Pakistan when it was created in 1947. The movement’s main rival is the Awami National Party, a nationalist party made up mostly of ethnic Pashtuns from the northwest, where the Taliban are based.
Yeah, and who would want to stir that up?
Pashtuns have been arriving in the city in greater numbers in recent years, fleeing Pakistan Army offensives against the Taliban. The movement has long spoken out against the alleged “Talibanization’’ of the city. While some militants have found safe haven here, critics say the movement is exploiting the issue for political purposes....
Police promised to investigate the slaying, but few killers in such cases have ever been brought to justice, nor the motives for the attacks revealed.
That is usually the case when there is government involvement.
Within hours of Haider’s assassination, rival gangs torched buildings in Karachi and gunfire erupted in several parts of the city. Many of the dead were killed in targeted, execution-style attacks, authorities said, without revealing details on who they were.
Schools were closed and most business stopped yesterday as the city braced for further violence, but by nightfall there were no reports of fresh unrest....
--more--"I'm sure there is some somewhere else:
"Pakistani paramilitary leader killed; Taliban claim responsibility for suicide bombing" by Riaz Khan, Associated Press | August 5, 2010
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A Taliban suicide bomber killed the head of a US-backed paramilitary police force battling militants in northwestern Pakistan yesterday.
The bombing killed Sifwat Ghayur, one of the highest-ranking security officers ever assassinated in Pakistan.
Ghayur headed the 25,000-strong Frontier Constabulary. The bombing that killed him was the first attack since monsoon rains triggered massive flooding over a week ago.
The northwest city often targeted by the Taliban had been calm recently, but renewed violence could further strain a government already struggling with the flood relief effort.
Just going to have to let those American troops in, huh?
The bomber detonated his explosives next to Ghayur’s car in the center of Peshawar after waiting at a traffic light for the vehicle to approach, said the police chief’s driver, Shakirullah Khan, who was injured in the attack.
“I stopped the car at a traffic light,’’ said Khan, who was driving Ghayur home from the office. “While my boss was sitting in the left front seat, I saw a young boy move from the sidewalk toward our car and in no time a huge explosion took place and our car was in flames.’’
The explosion engulfed several vehicles, killing Ghayur and three bodyguards, said Mohammad Haris Khan, a senior police officer. The attack also injured 11 people, he said.
That's one hell of a powerful suicide bomb.
Rescue workers frantically tried to extinguish the blaze in the minutes after the attack but were unable to save Ghayur, whose body was plastered to his seat and burned beyond recognition.
“We have lost a very brave and able official in this cowardly attack,’’ said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where Peshawar is the capital.
“It doesn’t mean the terrorists are gaining strength, but they have been beaten and are targeting those who are active in the war against terrorism,’’ he said.
The US Embassy in Islamabad also denounced the attack, saying it was “especially vicious as so many people in the region are struggling to recover from the deadly monsoon flooding.’’
Now I am starting to think we have a hand in it.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying they will continue to target government personnel and leaders of a key political party in the northwest who have been outspoken critics of the militants.
“This is our work,’’ Azam Tariq said by telephone from an undisclosed location.
Hmmmm. Who does he think he is, Dick Cheney?
And the worldwide spying web can't trace the call?
“In the coming days, we will carry out more such attacks against leaders of the Awami National Party, marked people in the government and security forces, and also security buildings.’’
If true then the "terrorists" are winning.
The Frontier Constabulary is a paramilitary police force that is primarily drawn from the northwest and operates throughout the country in support of traditional police officers.
The United States has backed this fight with billions in aid given to Pakistan’s security services, including to the Frontier Constabulary, according to a report last year by the Government Accountability Office.
It has worked with the army to battle the Pakistani Taliban, which is based in the country’s semiautonomous tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan.
Peshawar is at the center of the conflict.
It is the main city in the northwest, abuts the tribal regions, and is just an hour’s drive from the Afghan border.
The city was hit by almost daily bombings last fall in retaliation for an army offensive against the Pakistani Taliban’s main sanctuary in the South Waziristan tribal area. But it has been quiet in recent months.
And cui bono?
Violence in the country, however, has not been confined to the northwest.
Extra troops were deployed to the southern city of Karachi yesterday after 13 more people were killed overnight in violence triggered by the assassination of a leading member of the city’s ruling party, said government spokesman Jamil Soomro.
At least 58 people have died since politician Raza Haider was gunned down Monday night.
Authorities have revealed little about the identities of the dead or the nature of the killings, but the victims are believed to be members of rival political parties or ethnic groups.
--more--"
My Globe reveals even less today.
