"Rival political, criminal gangs kill 39 in 2 days in Pakistan" August 19, 2011|By Ashraf Kahn, Associated Press
KARACHI - Suspected gang members killed 39 people in two days in Pakistan’s largest city, with many of the victims tortured, shot, and stuffed in sacks that were dumped on the streets, officials said yesterday.
The gangs are allegedly affiliated with the city’s main political parties and have been blamed for a surge in killings in recent months. The government has been unable to stop the violence, as it also grapples with a faltering economy and a raging Islamist insurgency.
The unrest illustrates the precarious state of Pakistan’s stability at a time when the United States wants the nuclear-armed country to step up its fight against Taliban militants who stage cross-border attacks against foreign troops in Afghanistan.
Meaning the U.S. will just have to GET IN THERE and OCCUPY the place, huh?
Cui bono?
Seventeen people were killed in Karachi on Wednesday and another 22 yesterday, said Saud Mirza, police chief in the teeming metropolis of some 18 million people. Many of the victims were tortured, shot in the head, and stuffed in burlap sacks, he said.
A resident in one of the neighborhoods that has experienced much of the violence said people were afraid to leave their homes. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared being targeted.
The latest round of violence seemed to be driven by a mix of political and criminal motivations, said Sharfuddin Memon, the security adviser to the government in Sindh Province, where Karachi is the capital.
A senior leader of the most powerful political party in Karachi, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, blamed some members of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party for the recent violence....
Politics ain't beanbag!
Of course, YOU KNOW WHOM I THINK is RESPONSIBLE!
A large number of Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s supporters are Urdu-speaking descendants of people who came to Karachi from India soon after the birth of Pakistan in 1947.
“We demand the government stop this horrible genocide of Urdu-speaking people,’’ Raza Haroon said.
So WHO WOULD WANT TO DESTABILIZE the country by stirring up OLD HATREDS?
Sharjeel Memon, Sindh’s information minister and a senior member of Pakistan People’s Party, declined to respond to the allegations. He said the chief minister of the province would hold a press conference later yesterday.
Supporters of the Pakistan People’s Party have been targeted by the violence as well....
The recent violence came after the Muttahida Qaumi Movement left the federal coalition led by the Pakistan People’s Party in late June and joined the opposition.
Karachi has a long history of political, ethnic, and sectarian violence, but the recent wave is high by historical standards. More than 300 people were killed in July alone.
There were at least 490 political, ethnic, and sectarian killings in Karachi during the first half of the year, among more than 1,100 killings overall in that time period, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
There has also been violence in Pakistan’s northwest tribal regions along the Afghan border, where the Taliban and other militants have bases.
The Pakistani army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, announced yesterday that an operation in the Kurram tribal region had ended in success. The military operation there has killed more than 200 militants since July, officials said.
Pakistan's biggest gang.
The UN has said thousands of civilians were displaced.
Yeah, but WHO CARES about a REFUGEE CRISIS in Pakistan?
The army has staged multiple operations in nearly all parts of the tribal belt to push out insurgents but with limited success. The army has declared victory in various operations, only to resume fighting later when militants regroup.
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"Suicide blast kills 48 at mosque in Pakistan; Anti-Taliban tribe possibly targeted" August 20, 2011|By Riaz Khan, Associated Press
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A suicide bomber struck worshipers during prayers yesterday at a mosque close to the Afghan border, killing 48 people in an attack one official said may have been aimed at anti-Taliban elders praying during the holy month of Ramadan.
Militants have frequently attacked tribesmen who have dared speak up - or raise arms - against them in the border region, where Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban have long held sway. Rifts between insurgent factions have also led to mass-casualty attacks there.
Pakistan has lost more than 35,000 people in militant violence since 2007, with mosques, markets, and hotels targeted. But the attack was shocking because it came not only on Islam’s holiest day of the week, but also its holiest month, when observant Muslims fast during the daytime and spend extra time in prayer and communal activities.
Which is the GREATEST INDICATION that it was NOT MUSLIMS!
“Whoever did it in the holy month of Ramadan cannot be a Muslim,’’ said Saleem Khan, who said that in the aftermath of the blast people ran over him to escape the scene. “It is the cruelest thing any Muslim would do,’’ he said from his hospital bed in the main northwestern city of Peshawar, where he was being treated for his injuries.
Yes, I suspect it is GOVERNMENT INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES or their HIRED HANDS!
The mosque is in Ghundi, a village in the Khyber tribal region, a part of Pakistan’s tribal belt that is off-limits to foreigners and considered too dangerous for nonlocal Pakistanis to visit. Much of the nonlethal supplies heading to US forces in Afghanistan pass through it.
Where the Taliban take their cut, right?
As it has in other areas of the border during the last three years, the Pakistani Army has carried out several operations against militants in Khyber, with limited success. It has funded and supported the creation of tribal militias in some areas, which have also struggled against the brutality of the Taliban....
TV footage showed prayer caps, shoes, and green prayer mats scattered across a blood-splattered floor, while ceiling fans were twisted and walls blackened. Men comforted a young boy who wept as he held his hand to his heart....
The attack was the deadliest since twin bombings in mid-June killed around 40 people in Peshawar. That attack was believed to be part of a series of bombings staged by militants in retaliation for the US killing of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in May.
They always work in the bin Laden been photo-shopped s***.
What is it Hitler said about repeating a lie?
The Pakistani Taliban and its affiliates are seeking to topple Pakistan’s pro-Western government and install a hard-line Islamist regime. Their anti-American rhetoric, combined with fact that successive Pakistani regimes have been corrupt and unable to provide basic services to the country, means they have some support.
The United States is supporting Pakistan’s fight against the militants because of their deep links to Al Qaeda, whose leaders are believed to be based in the tribal regions. But the relationship between the countries is deeply troubled, chiefly over allegations that Islamabad is supporting insurgent factions fighting in Afghanistan.
Can you see why I am tired of reading the Boston Globe?
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned the bombing....
Since 2008, the United States has routinely fired missiles at militant targets in the northwest, a tactic that has increasingly angered Pakistan’s army and civilian leaders as well its people.
The most recent attack took place earlier yesterday in South Waziristan, where two missiles hit a house, killing four suspected militants, said two Pakistani intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.
South Waziristan is a lawless stretch of rugged territory that was largely under the control of the Pakistani Taliban until October 2009, when the country’s army launched an operation against the insurgents.
However, militant activity is still reported in the region.
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Also see: Pakistan clamps down as killings surge
"Pakistani soldier sentenced to death" August 13, 2011|Associated Press
KARACHI, Pakistan - A Pakistani court yesterday sentenced to death a soldier who shot and killed an unarmed youth as he begged for mercy - an attack that was caught on videotape and repeatedly broadcast on TV, triggering unusual public anger at the country’s powerful military.
I told you they are a gang.
Five other soldiers and a civilian who were present during the June attack in a park in Karachi were also convicted of murder and handed life sentences.
The verdicts were a rare instance of Pakistani security forces being held publicly accountable over human rights abuses, which are allegedly widespread.
Sounds like the U.S. Our cops always seem to be exonerated.
The slaying occurred during a time of heightened public criticism of the army for its failure to detect or stop the May 2 US raid that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden....
And there it is AGAIN, readers!
Pakistani security forces are often accused of using excessive force and killing unarmed civilians. The criminal justice system in Pakistan is inefficient and conviction rates are very low, so officers sometimes kill suspects rather than hold them for prosecution, human rights activists said.
Human Rights Watch welcomed the verdicts.
“One hopes that the verdict will go some way in arresting the impunity with which Pakistan’s trigger-happy security and paramilitary agencies perpetrate abuses,’’ said Ali Dayan Hasan, the group’s Pakistan director.
We call them occupying forces.
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"Bomb hits NATO supply tankers
PESHAWAR - A bomb attack in northwestern Pakistan yesterday destroyed 16 tankers carrying fuel for US-led forces in Afghanistan, police said. The attack took place at a terminal close to Peshawar."
