"50 dead in Pakistan suicide bombing; Blast targets assembly of Taliban foes" by Riaz Khan, Associated Press / December 7, 2010
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Two militants wearing vests studded with explosives and bullets blew themselves up outside a government-backed meeting of anti-Taliban tribesmen close to the Afghan border yesterday, killing 50 people and wounding 100 others.
I'm always suspicious of these types of events because the government certainly knows where and when the meeting took place. Who benefits?
The strike in Mohmand region underscored the tenacity of the Islamist uprising in the northwest despite Pakistani army offensives over the last 2 1/2 years. The operations have retaken areas where militants enjoyed safe haven, but authorities have struggled to hold onto the gains.
The tribally administered region is home to thousands of militants staging or supporting attacks on American troops fighting a related insurgency in Afghanistan. It also houses Al Qaeda leaders and operatives from around the world plotting attacks on the West....
Oh, yeah?
Which "Al-CIA-Duh" would that be, huh?
The made-up "Al-CIA-Duh?"
Or the "Al-CIA-Duh" CREATION for the COURTROOM!?
Related:
Prop 101: Al-CIA-Duh and the OSI
Prop 101: Al-CIA-Duh's Greatest Hits
Prop 101: The "Terrorism" Business
New York Times Admits War on Terror is U.S. Creation
Oh, AmeriKa's MSM KNOWS ALL ABOUT and yet STILL PUSHES the CHARADE, huh?
The Pakistani army has supported the creation of tribal militias against the militants, but the groups have been ruthlessly attacked. On three separate occasions this year, suicide bombers killed more than 65 people attending meetings between officials and tribesmen, who are typically paid for attending.
Security is tight at the gatherings, with attendants frisked well away from the fortified government buildings where they take place.
Stinking more and more.
But local police and soldiers are poorly equipped and trained, while suicide bombers — especially when they work in pairs or more — are hard to defend against....
What crap.
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Time to get on the bus and go to school:
"Suicide bomber kills 15 in Pakistan" by Associated Press / December 9, 2010
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A suicide bomber blew up a bus in northwest Pakistan yesterday, killing 15 people in the third attack this week.
The blast, like the earlier ones, took place close to the border regions with Afghanistan, the stronghold of Islamist militants threatening the stability of nuclear-armed Pakistan....
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"Peshawar, near the militant-riddled tribal regions of Pakistan and the Afghan border, has long been a favorite Taliban target. Militants have frequently attacked schools — especially those for girls — but usually when children are not present....
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Coming up on a checkpoint:
"About 150 militants attacked five security posts in an unusually large and coordinated assault close to the Afghan border, sparking hours of fighting that killed 11 soldiers and 24 insurgents, officials said.
Al Qaeda and Taliban militants often stage attacks in northwest Pakistan, but the overnight assaults were notable for their size and the level of planning needed.
Yeah, that is worth noting -- almost as if it needed coordination from some intelligence agency.
They underlined that insurgents in the tribal areas along the frontier still have significant capabilities despite multiple military offensives in the region since 2008....
A remote-controlled bomb rigged to a bike exploded on the outskirts of Quetta city in southwestern Pakistan, killing a police officer and wounding five more, police official Hamid Shakil said. Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan Province, where a long-running insurgent movement that wants greater autonomy for the region has at times targeted security officials....
How rare Baluchistan is mentioned in my paper.
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Also see:
Death toll at aid center rises to 45 in Pakistan suicide bombing
Displaced Pakistani villagers lose food aid after suicide bombing
Is that how a rebel wins over the population?
On the road again:
"Militants hit NATO convoy in Pakistan" by Associated Press / December 21, 2010
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Militants fired rockets at a NATO convoy carrying supplies to Afghanistan yesterday, destroying two oil tankers and wounding two people, a Pakistani government official said.
Taliban militants occasionally attack trucks on NATO’s main supply route through Pakistan, though the vast majority of the goods are untouched.
Related: U.S. Paying Taliban For Protection
Criminal gangs also sometimes destroy the vehicles.
But the paper usually ascribes it to Taliban.
On a visit to Islamabad over the weekend, Premier Wen Jiabao of China told lawmakers that Pakistan’s sacrifices in the global fight against terrorism should be recognized and respected by the international community.
You mean rather than constantly harangued as the U.S. does?
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So who else has come to call on Pakistan?
"During Pakistan visit, Biden vows long-term US support" by Karin Brulliard, Washington Post / January 13, 2011
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Vice President Joe Biden insisted yesterday that the United States will not abandon Pakistan in the aftermath of the Afghanistan war, sternly rejecting the notion as one of several widely held “misconceptions’’ here about US intentions in the region.
Democracy and stability in Pakistan — where Al Qaeda and a complex stew of other Islamist militant groups have found haven — are in the “vital self-interest’’ of both countries, Biden said during a one-day, unannounced visit to the Pakistani capital.
“It is the extremists who violate Pakistan’s sovereignty and corrupt its good name,’’ Biden said at a news conference with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani. The US objective, Biden said, “is to restore and strengthen sovereignty in those areas of your country where extremists have violated it.’’
As we violate it!
See: AmeriKa Double-Crosses Pakistan
No Truth to the New York Times
We are the extremists, dear Amurkns!!
Biden arrived yesterday morning on a trip meant to reemphasize US commitment to Pakistan but also to pressure it to shore up its economy and more aggressively pursue militants based on its territory. In addition to Gillani, Biden also met with President Asif Ali Zardari and Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani.
The Obama administration’s intensified war effort in neighboring Afghanistan gave new priority to bolstering Pakistan’s government, which previously received far less US aid than did the country’s powerful military. Congress passed a five-year, $7.5 billion civilian aid package in 2009, and the two nations have since held several “strategic dialogue’’ sessions to focus on issues such as agriculture and energy....
When was the last time the floods were mentioned in my paper?
But the relationship is rocky, and both sides voice suspicion of the other’s intentions. US officials have been frustrated by Pakistan’s reluctance to move against militants who strike American troops in Afghanistan.
This is the way you subtly turn an ally into an enemy.
Pakistani military officials say that the US military has failed to stop insurgents crossing into North Waziristan from Afghanistan and that US policy favors India, Pakistan’s foe — a belief some Pakistani nationalists argue reflects US efforts to weaken Pakistan....
Yeah, the favoritism is obvious (can violate the NPT and still get help with their nukes).
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While I'm there why not take a look at a local paper:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The United States was never, and is not, an enemy of Pakistan. But the US political, military and intelligence thrust in Afghanistan over eight years has decidedly placed the US on the side of our enemies. This is a US choice, not a compulsion.
From day one, Washington chose to turn Kabul into the new hub of anti-Pakistanism in the region. A lot of evidence suggests a CIA role in tolerating and exacerbating anti-Pakistan insurgencies along our Afghan border. Today all anti-Pakistan terrorists take refuge in US-controlled Afghanistan. American political engineering inside Islamabad [‘Exhibit A: the crumbling coalition government’] is motivated by an overriding key objective: downsizing the Pakistani military and forcing the nation to accept Indian regional hegemony. If Pakistan does not accept this it will be punished.
The role of CIA drones in destroying Al-Qaeda is a myth. The agency’s figures on Al-Qaeda in Pakistan’s border regions are questionable, to begin with. The single-biggest achievement of drone missiles is pushing Pakistani tribesmen into the hands of terrorists and mind-control technicians who reprogramme them to kill Pakistani civilians and soldiers.
US claims about the Pakistani tribal belt becoming the most dangerous place in the world is another myth. Over the past 13 months, most of the terror plots in the United States and Europe came from US and European citizens, some of them were of Pakistani origin, who visited this region from the Afghan, not Pakistani, side, and under the noses of the US, ISAF and NATO. How these people managed to slip through tight American and European security procedures is inexplicable, but the stories were always timed with US pressure on Pakistan to start a new civil war against its own people in North Waziristan.
We must eliminate terrorists who kill Pakistanis, but also we must win back tribal Pakistanis. That is not possible without ending foreign meddling and terror sanctuaries in the CIA’s Afghan backyard. The TTP and Swat terrorists cannot survive if not for the American sanctuary in Afghanistan.
A third American myth that needs to be blown is our tribal belt being the source of US failure in Afghanistan. A few on our side of the border sympathising with the Pakhtun-led resistance in Afghanistan because of tribal affinities cannot turn the tables in Kabul. The impending US rout and the growing Pakhtun resistance are a direct result of America’s 2002 plan to punish the Pakhtuns—against strong Pakistani advice. That blunder is the driving force behind Afghan resistance, not Pakistan’s tribal belt.
Pakistanis have had it with this double game. The dramatic escape from Pakistan last month of CIA’s Islamabad station chief is one sign of this. He and his staff are involved in the murder of Pakistanis in an illegal covert war: the UN mandate for American occupation in Afghanistan does not include a role for the CIA to wage a covert war in Pakistan.
The CIA’s responsibility for these murders extends to Pakistanis killed in at least two attacks mounted by Pakistani forces earlier this year, one of them in Tirah Valley—based most likely on flawed CIA intelligence—resulting in the killing of more than 60 Pakistanis.
In the case of the two attacks based on CIA information, the data was so flawed in one case that the Pakistani army chief had to personally apologize for the wrongful deaths and compensate the victims. The bold move by the army chief indicated dismay within the military over innocent Pakistani casualties. It represented a break from the days of his predecessor Pervez Musharraf, whose administration sanctioned, and owned, the CIA’s Pakistan operations.
The US government and the CIA were quick to plant stories accusing the ISI of leaking Mr. Jonathan Banks’ name. But Mr. Banks’ identity is on record in the files of the Pakistani embassy in Washington and in the Foreign Office in Islamabad. This is why even the next CIA station chief is not safe as long as determined Pakistanis are out there seeking justice through a lawsuit.
Statements attributed to President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani clearly show they consented to Pakistani civilian casualties in CIA attacks. US journalist Bob Woodward quoted Mr. Zardari as telling senior US officials he was not concerned about civilian Pakistani deaths. And former US ambassador Anne W Patterson wrote in a diplomatic cable to Washington that Mr. Gilani encouraged US officials in a meeting to continue CIA drone attacks, and that he would cover up for civilian deaths in public. This is probably why drone attacks in just one year, 2010, at 136 attacks, exceeded the number of attacks in the preceding six years: 96 in 2004-2009.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s envoy in Washington Husain Haqqani has been lobbying to get CIA agents and private US security contractors into Pakistan. His wish was granted last year when President Zardari allowed him the discretion to issue visas in Washington without verification. On one occasion, almost 500 such visas were granted in less than 24 hours. Mr. Haqqani has been bullish about allowing undercover US intelligence and military personnel into Pakistan and often argued with his diplomatic superiors over this. Last year, he even complained about the ISI chief to the prime minister over visas to Americans. The classified letter strangely leaked to an Indian television channel in New Delhi.
But if the pro-US Zardari government is involved, what is the Pakistani military doing? Perhaps Gen. Kayani does not wish to challenge the civilian government’s understandings with Washington because that could lead him down the slippery slope of military intervention, which the army chief doesn’t favor.
It is important that the CIA and its agents are purged from Pakistan as soon as possible. Here is a comment that an American left on a US website after reports that CIA drones killed tens of people in Pakistan in the last week of 2010: “It’s interesting to witness a country actively cooperating and assisting another country waging war against itself. What a proud nation that must be.”
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Wow, their reporting is way better than ours here in AmeriKa!
