Did you know Pakistanis are for school choice and charter schools?
"Trash-filled classrooms have Pakistanis racing to private school" by Naween A. Mang, Bloomberg News December 25, 2014
ALLAH WARAYO, Pakistan — Ayaz Ali stands outside the only school in his southern Pakistan village, struggling to recall the last time the lone teacher showed up. It was at least five years ago.
‘‘I’d come back, but we haven’t really seen the teacher for some time now,’’ said Ali, 16, who now spends his days in the fields picking cotton and wheat near Allah Warayo village in Sindh province. ‘‘I don’t think he’s returning.’’
The school is strewn with debris and smells of human waste. Since district education officials say the school is technically still open, Ali has no alternatives that he can afford.
Ali’s plight shows how Pakistan’s government often poses a bigger obstacle to a quality education than Taliban militants who shot Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai in the face two years ago. One in three students now attends a privately run school, up 50 percent from a decade ago, as a failing public system produces one of the world’s highest truancy rates.
Are you sure that is not an Afghan classroom?
‘‘People are rushing to private schools,’’ said Mosharraf Zaidi, campaign director for Alif Ailaan, an education advocacy group in Islamabad, who added that poor students like Ali who can’t afford private school are the ones who suffer most. ‘‘The answer isn’t private, private, private. The answer is to fix the government.’’
The country has 7 million children who are out of school, two-thirds of them girls, and most of them lack minimum mastery of math and reading, according to a World Bank report in April 2014. Pakistan ranked 113 of 120 countries on the United Nations’s Education for All index.
That's going to be a lot of terrorists.
Pakistan is a young country, with a third of its population younger than 15 years old. Even so, spending on education fell for a second straight year to 2.1 percent of gross domestic product in 2012, among the lowest in the world, according to the latest available data from the World Bank. That’s about half as much as the nuclear-armed nation spends on its military, budget documents show.
Sometimes this student feels like he's looking in a mirror even if it's half a world away.
Since his election in 2013 Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has focused on stabilizing an economy hit by a power crisis that curbed growth. Provincial governments are responsible for overseeing education, according to the constitution.
Ali’s school in Allah Warayo is typical of government-run schools, which are often in decaying buildings that lack running water, toilets, or proper furniture. Teachers are frequently absent or don’t attend at all.
Related: Navajo Classroom
Private schools are increasingly filling the gap. Pakistan now has more than 150,000 for-profit schools, at least 25,000 madrasahs, and hundreds of other nonprofit schools. That compares with 233,300 public schools, according to the government’s Economic Survey 2014.
Elite private schools in well-to-do sections of big cities can cost as much as $300 a month.
Many other private schools offer a low-cost alternative for parents, charging the equivalent of $2 per month.
Politicians often stand in the way of any attempt to improve public education, said Atta-ur-Rahman, a former chairman of the constitutionally mandated Higher Education Commission.
‘‘The feudal landlords who have ruled over us are determined to keep the people of Pakistan uneducated,’’ Atta-ur- Rahman said. ‘‘This allows them to loot and plunder the national exchequer at will.’’
You don't have to know how to read to recognize that trui$m, no matter where you live.
--more--"
Avoid the military academies if at all possible:
"Brazen attack on school kills 141 in Pakistan; Taliban gunmen targeted children; Country’s leaders vow vengeance" by Tim Craig, Washington Post December 17, 2014
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Taliban gunmen stormed an elite army high school in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday, in a killing spree that claimed at least 141 lives — nearly all students — and brought defiant calls from the country’s leaders to strike back harder against militants.
After a nearly nine-hour battle in Peshawar, near the Afghan border, police officials said all seven militants had been killed.
Major General Asim Bajwa, an army spokesman, then gave the death toll from the massacre: 132 students and nine teachers or staff members. The attackers, Bajwa said, sought ‘‘to inflict maximum harm’’ and took no hostages.
I hope it's not a Sandy Hook-type hoax; however, if it did happen who benefited?
More than 120 people were wounded, some seriously. It was possible that the death figures could rise amid the carnage that brought global condemnation.
‘‘A house of learning turned into a house of unspeakable horror,’’ Secretary of State John F. Kerry said in a statement from London.
I just caught a whiff of a false flag of some type. The immediate seizing on such things tips the hand a bit.
He decried what he called gut-wrenching images, including reports of a teacher burned alive in front of students.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, Pakistan’s longtime regional rival, called it ‘‘a senseless act of unspeakable brutality.’’
Pakistani army convoys drove from the scene even as families wept on the streets or carried hastily made plywood coffins to a hospital filled with the dead, many still wearing their green school blazers and sweaters.
The massacre struck at the heart of Pakistan’s military, one of the nation’s most highly respected institutions, which is seen as the guardian of stability in a turbulent region and an important bridge between Pakistan and Western allies such as the United States.
I'm trying to wonder why someone would want to do this:
"Efforts to roll back the Taliban could receive a powerful boost from a thaw in relations with neighboring Pakistan. Afghanistan and Pakistan were bitterly divided during much of the 13-year rule of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, with each accusing the other of supporting insurgent groups operating along the porous border. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has sought a reset in relations, hoping that Pakistan can contribute to eventual peace talks with the Taliban. Both Ghani and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif have insisted there would no longer be distinctions made between good and bad insurgents, a tacit reference to what analysts describe as a longtime Pakistani policy of battling its own insurgents while turning a blind eye to the Afghan Taliban."
Who would oppose peace?
The school, which is open to children of civilians and military personnel, is funded and operated by Pakistan’s army but the surrounding area is not heavily fortified, the Associated Press said.
A little more than 1,000 students and staff were registered at the school.
In June, Pakistan’s army launched a major operation against Islamist militants in the country’s restive tribal areas. Since then, the number of attacks inside the country has sharply declined, but the Pakistani Taliban had been warning for months that it would retaliate.
The decision to target students brought a wave of anger and disgust from across the world — similar in ways to the outrage after a Taliban gunman shot Pakistan student activist Malala Yousafzai in 2012.
Now this really is smelling like a false flag psyop.
‘‘I am heartbroken,’’ the 17-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate said after the Peshawar attack. ‘‘But we will never be defeated,’’ she added.
In a statement, the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was to avenge the Pakistan military operation in North Waziristan, the heart of the tribal region. But Taliban militants in neighboring Afghanistan decried the killing spree, calling it un-Islamic.
The tally of the ‘‘dead received’’ at Lady Reading Hospital showed how the young paid the overwhelming price. Some of the dead were instructors in their 20s and 30s. But they were far outnumbered by student names and ages: 14, 15, 13.
‘‘My son was in uniform in the morning. He is in a casket now,’’ wailed one parent, Tahir Ali, as he collected the body of his 14-year-old son Abdullah, according to the Associated Press. ‘‘My son was my dream. My dream has been killed.’’
Pervaiz Khattak, chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, said the Taliban attackers started ‘‘indiscriminate firing’’ after entering the school through a back door.
The first students targeted were 9th- and 10th-graders gathered in the auditorium to receive first-aid training from military doctors, police said.
Muhammad Harris, a 16-year-old student, said he was in a room with 30 students and four teachers when they heard a commotion in the hallway. The students said some of the attackers appeared to be speaking Arabic.
Al-CIA-duh?
‘‘Our female teacher went outside when we heard the firing and was shot dead,’’ Harris said. ‘‘One attacker was crying, ‘Help me I am injured.’ But he was not and was trying to trap us and shoot us.’’
A female teacher in a Muslim country?
‘‘Then the army arrived and we were rescued,’’ he continued, ‘‘but I saw all the wounded and dead bodies when coming out.’’
At the Lady Reading Hospital, 16-year-old Shahrukh Khan said he hid behind a desk as four gunmen entered the auditorium.
He watched the gunmen calmly shoot anyone they could find. Then, from behind the desk, he saw two black boots approaching him, he told the AFP news agency.
Bullets then tore into both his legs below his knee.
‘‘I saw death so close and I will never forget the black boots approaching me,’’ he said. ‘‘I felt as though it was death that was approaching me.’’
Don't Taliban wear sandals?
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who rushed to Peshawar, denounced the school assault as a ‘‘cowardly act’’ and vowed to maintain the military operations against militants ‘‘until the menace of terrorism is eliminated from Pakistani soil.’’
There is a who benefits for you.
‘‘The nation needs to get united and face terrorism,’’ he added. ‘‘There is no room for any reluctance and we need unflinching resolve against this plague.’’
Hmmmmmmmmmm!
‘‘The fight will continue. No one should have any doubt about it,’’ Sharif said. ‘‘We will take account of each and every drop of our children’s blood.’’
President Obama promised to stand by Pakistan — a key ally in the region — after an attack he described as horrific.
‘‘By targeting students and teachers in this heinous attack, terrorists have once again shown their depravity,’’ Obama said in a statement.
He then signed the next drone strike order.
Across Pakistan, many residents were glued to televisions, shocked and horrified at the images of bloodied children being ferried — many carried — to overflowing hospitals.
Ahsam Mukhtar, a student at the school, said he was in a classroom when the assault started.
‘‘Our teacher told us to lie on the ground, but the firing went on and it was very loud.’’ Mukhtar said in a televised interview. ‘‘Then the army came and took us out of the classrooms. In the corridor, I saw dead bodies with bullet injuries in the head. Some had wounds in their arms. I also saw our mathematics teacher lying injured on the floor.’’
I truly hope this was a drill being reported as real.
Hanan Askari Rizvi, a Pakistan military analyst, said in an interview the attack was unprecedented even in a country that experienced thousands of terrorists attacks over the past decade.
He said the Taliban appears to be growing more desperate as the Pakistan military operation against it continues in North Waziristan.
‘‘Now they are attacking the soft targets,’’ Rizvi said. ‘‘This horrendous act of terror shows that the terrorists have weakened after military operation and that’s why less number of attacks but they still have the ability to strike at soft targets.’’
--more--"
Earlier I was complaining about the Pakistan coverage in my Globe, but this sure brought pages of coverage.
"Activists, world leaders condemn Pakistan attack" Associated Press December 17, 2014
LONDON — Political leaders and millions of people throughout the world mourned the lives of the children who died in the Taliban assault on a school in Peshawar on Tuesday, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai who said she was ‘‘heartbroken.’’
‘‘Innocent children in their school have no place in horror such as this,’’ said Yousafzai, 17.
“I condemn these atrocious and cowardly acts and stand united with the government and armed forces of Pakistan whose efforts so far to address this horrific event are commendable,’’ she said. “I, along with millions of others around the world, mourn these children, my brothers and sisters — but we will never be defeated.’’
What about the innocents that will be killed by the government and its armed forces?
Yousafzai is herself the survivor of a Taliban attempt to silence her. In a bid to prevent her from lobbying for a girl’s right to education, a Taliban gunman shot her in the head at close range in Pakistan two years ago.
She survived with the help of expert medical care and now lives in Birmingham, England, where she is continuing to fight for equal education.
Yousafzai, who has expressed an interest in going into politics in Pakistan once her education is completed, said she stands united with the government and armed forces of Pakistan in their response to the attack.
She received the Nobel at a gala ceremony in Norway last week.
I'm sure you will find it if you do some scrolling.
Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, said, ‘‘The government together with the army has started Zarb-e-Azb and it will continue until the terrorism is rooted out from our land.’’ Zarb-e-Azb is the name of the Pakistani military operation being carried out in North Waziristan.
“We also have had discussions with Afghanistan that they and we together fight this terrorism, and this fight will continue,’’ Sharif said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, Pakistan’s longtime archrival, said in a series of tweeted statements:
“Strongly condemn the cowardly terrorist attack at a school in Peshawar.’’
‘‘It is a senseless act of unspeakable brutality that has claimed lives of the most innocent of human beings — young children in their school.’’
‘‘My heart goes out to everyone who lost their loved ones today. We share their pain & offer our deepest condolences.’’
In Washington, President Obama said, “The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms today’s horrific attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar.’’
They only do that when they are involved in some way, be it a propaganda effort or actual atrocity.
“Our hearts and prayers go out to the victims, their families, and loved ones. By targeting students and teachers in this heinous attack, terrorists have once again shown their depravity,’’ Obama said.
“We stand with the people of Pakistan, and reiterate the commitment of the United States to support the government of Pakistan in its efforts to combat terrorism and extremism and to promote peace and stability in the region.’’
‘‘Mothers and fathers send their kids to school to learn and to be safe and to dream and to find opportunity. And particularly at this military school in Pakistan, they sent their kids there with the hope and dreams of serving their country,’’ said Secretary of State John F. Kerry. “Instead, today they are gone, wiped away by Taliban assassins who serve a dark and almost medieval vision, and the opposite of everything that those mothers and fathers wanted for their children.’’
I mean, it's so over the top and we have seen so much of these over the years the script gets old.
In other world reaction:
■ President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan: ‘‘The killing of innocent children is contrary to Islam.’’
■ UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon: ‘‘No cause can justify such brutality. No grievance can excuse such horror. It is an act of horror and rank cowardice to attack defenseless children while they learn. Schools must be safe and secure learning spaces. Getting an education is every child’s right. Going to school should not have to be an act of bravery.’’
■ Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain: ‘‘The scale of what has happened in Pakistan simply defies belief. It is a dark, dark day for humanity when something on this scale happens with no justification. There is not a belief system in the world that can justify such an act. I think what this shows is the worldwide threat that is posed by this poisonous ideology of extremist Islamist terrorism.’’
It is indeed beyond belief considering the endless staged and scripted fictions presented as real by my pre$$. Flogging the agenda further simply confirms it.
■ Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird of Canada: ‘‘On Oct. 9, 2012, the Taliban attempted to silence one girl who dared to confront them, and stifle her future. They failed miserably. In the moments that follow such harrowing tragedy, we hope that the resolve and the dignity of innocent Pakistani people will see more children like Malala Yousafzai emerge to carry the torch forward for more education, free from violence or intimidation.’’
It's all yours.
--more--"
I know who will figure this all out for us:
"How the Pakistani Taliban became a deadly force" New York Times December 17, 2014
NEW YORK — The Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, is a loose and increasingly divided umbrella organization that once represented roughly 30 groups of militants.
Related: TTP is in reality a CIA/RAW backed group
Also see: 'SECURITY SERVICES DID PESHAWAR SCHOOL MASSACRE'
I have no doubt they helped.
The group was officially founded in 2007 by a prominent jihadi commander, Baitullah Mehsud, and for years, it and allied groups such as Al Qaeda have been based in the Pashtun tribal areas in northwestern Pakistan, particularly in North and South Waziristan.
Many Pakistani Taliban commanders fought in Afghanistan as part of the movement that swept to power in Kabul. When US forces ousted that movement in 2001, many of its leaders fled across the border into Pakistan.
The Pakistanis among them played host to their Afghan counterparts — as well as hundreds of fighters from Al Qaeda — providing them with shelter, logistical support, and recruits.
Under pressure by the United States, the Pakistani army made tentative efforts to dismantle those sanctuaries in 2003 and 2004, but it was too late. The tribal militiamen, enriched and radicalized by their Al Qaeda guests, chafed under the army’s attempts to impose control.
They sometimes cooperated in cease-fire agreements with the Pakistani military, only to renege months later. Under Mehsud, the Taliban started to attack the Pakistani security forces and government, even within the country’s major cities. Soon, they openly declared their goal of imposing their will across Pakistan.
The United States designated the Pakistani Taliban a terrorist organization in September 2010.
The group owes allegiance to the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, and cooperates closely with the Afghan movement in its insurgency in Afghanistan, providing men, logistics, and rear bases for the Afghan Taliban. It has trained and dispatched hundreds of suicide bombers from Pakistan’s tribal areas.
The movement shares a close relationship with the Haqqani Network, the most hard-core affiliate of the Afghan Taliban, which has been behind repeated suicide attacks in and around Kabul and eastern Afghanistan. The groups also cooperate and provide haven for Al Qaeda operatives, including Al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Didn't Zawahiri attend sermons at the the Red Mosque?
Related: Haqqani Ha-Ha
It really just is not that funny anymore.
The wide extent of militant cooperation in the tribal areas has complicated matters for the Pakistani military intelligence agency, which has long provided support for the Afghan-focused Taliban, even while trying to fight the Pakistani Taliban in recent years.
The Pakistani Taliban and affiliated militant groups have mounted a long series of devastating attacks in Pakistan’s cities over the years.
One of their most significant attacks in 2014 was an audacious siege of the Karachi international airport in June. The attack, in which a group of 10 attackers fought security forces for hours and killed 13 people, represented the final straw for Pakistan’s military.
Related: At the Pakistan Airport
Within days, an extensive military air and ground assault began against Taliban leaders headquartered in North Waziristan. It is that offensive that a Taliban spokesman said led to the retaliatory militant attack in Peshawar on Tuesday that killed dozens of Pakistani schoolchildren and teachers.
In September 2013, the Pakistani Taliban unleashed one of their deadliest attacks ever, sending suicide bombers to the historic All Saints Church in Peshawar, a symbol of cooperation between Muslims and Christians.
All told, at least 120 people died in the attack and its aftermath, which refocused attention on the Taliban’s persecution of religious minorities.
--more--"
While they have my attention:
"Deadly education in Pakistan" December 19, 2014
Tehreek-e-Taliban’s
cold-blooded massacre of 132 children at a military-run school in
Pakistan is just the latest sign of an epidemic in the country. More than 838 Pakistani schools have
been attacked by militants over the past five years, according to the
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Often, empty schools have simply
been blown up, due to the militant’s opposition to Western education.
But gunmen have also brazenly shot students, as in the case of girls
education activist Malala Yousafzai.
More than 138 students and teachers are believed to have been kidnapped
in recent years by militants. Those statistics make the northwest
region of Pakistan one of the most dangerous places in the world to go
to school.
Tehreek-e-Taliban, an umbrella group of militants based in the tribal areas, claimed that they launched the attack as a revenge against the military operations launched against them in June.
“We targeted the school because the army targets our families,” a Taliban spokesman told Reuters. “We want them to feel our pain.”
The Pakistani military, which has intermittently struck peace agreements with the group, must not back down on its campaign. Instead, this attack should remind all Pakistanis of what’s at stake. If Tehreek-e-Taliban is allowed to hold the country hostage to its extremist demands, Pakistan’s very future will be in jeopardy.
The attack shows the wisdom in Washington’s decision to extend Coalition Support Funds to Pakistan for another year. Even as the US military mission in Afghanistan winds down, the existential security threats that Pakistan faces must not be forgotten.
Yet, Pakistan’s fight against extremism can’t be won by military means alone. This is above all a cultural struggle between forces that embrace modernity and those that hang onto outdated practices, such as honor killings and blasphemy laws. The Taliban’s “actions today have shown once again that Pakistan will not know peace until this madness is taken on in all its manifestations and defeated,” Zohra Yusuf, chair of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said in a statement.
If this unimaginable tragedy has a silver lining, it will be in its
ability to unite all of Pakistan against the extremists who peddle a
perverted version of religion.
I'm not seeing any silver lining and what a stink!
--more--"
"Pakistan unites after assault" by Ismail KhanNew York Times December 18, 2014
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistan’s army chief, General Raheel Sharif, traveled to Afghanistan on Wednesday to seek help in locating the Pakistani Taliban commanders who orchestrated the massacre at a Peshawar school Tuesday in which 148 people, mostly schoolchildren, were killed.
Sharif and the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency, Lieutenant General Rizwan Akhtar, flew to Kabul, the capital, for meetings with President Ashraf Ghani and General John F. Campbell, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, the Pakistani military said.
The sudden trip came as Pakistanis united in horror and grief at Tuesday’s assault, in which Taliban gunmen stormed the Army Public School and Degree College, firing randomly, throwing grenades, and lining up some students to be executed. Of the 148 fatalities, 132 were students.
Journalists were shown the blood-splattered school buildings where the killings took place. Clothes, shoes, and schoolbooks were scattered across the deserted hallways. One military officer wept as he accompanied a reporter around the scene.
The government declared three days of mourning, the national flag was lowered to half-staff on all official buildings, and prayer services were scheduled across the country.
Pakistan’s fractious military and political leaders also resolved to strike back against the Taliban. For the army, that involved pointing to their sanctuary in Afghanistan.
In its statement, the military said that Sharif had shared vital elements of intelligence with the Afghan president and US commander in Kabul.
Ghani assured the Pakistanis of his cooperation against the Taliban, the statement said. There was no immediate reaction from Afghan or US officials in Kabul.
A senior security official in Peshawar, speaking on the condition of anonymity before the meeting, said Pakistan possessed hard proof that Tuesday’s attack had been coordinated by Taliban commanders hiding on Afghan soil.
Looking more and more like an inside job.
“The intel monitored the conversation between the attackers and their handler who was across the border during the siege,” the official said. “The chief would be demanding action.”
Pakistan has long contended that the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Maulana Fazlullah, is hiding in the mountainous eastern Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan. Last year, Afghan officials admitted to aiding Fazlullah, largely as payback for Pakistani support for the Afghan Taliban.
But ties between the two countries have visibly warmed since September, when Ghani came to power, and in recent weeks some reports have suggested that US airstrikes inside Afghanistan had targeted Pakistani Taliban leaders.
The other element of Pakistan’s militant problem, however, lies within — namely the military’s history of favoring some Islamist groups while fighting others. In Peshawar, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said that policy was ending.
“We announce that there will be no differentiation between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban,” he said.
The Pakistani Taliban, for their part, named the commander responsible for the attack as Omar Mansoor, the Taliban commander for Peshawar and Darra Adam Khel, a nearby tribal district known for its gunsmiths.
In a statement Wednesday, the militants released photos that showed six armed men, described as the attackers, wearing military fatigues and gripping assault rifles, standing alongside Mansoor. A Taliban spokesman, Mohammed Khurasani, warned of further attacks unless the army ceased a six-month-old offensive against militants in the North Waziristan tribal district.
Photos cited in my propaganda pre$$ no longer convince me.
Pakistan’s leaders spent the early part of the day grieving for those killed Tuesday. Before traveling to Kabul, Raheel Sharif attended a service for victims at the army headquarters in Peshawar. Nawaz Sharif, who held a meeting with opposition political leaders in the city, announced that he was lifting a moratorium on the death penalty that has been in place since 2008.
Sitting grim-faced beside the prime minister was Imran Khan, the opposition leader who has spent the past four months trying to oust the prime minister amid vote-rigging accusations. In response to the crisis, Khan has agreed to suspend his street campaign.
Very interesting outcome there.
--more--"
"Pakistan school attack takes Taliban to a new level of atrocity; The extremists are copying Islamic State’s terror strategy" by H.D.S. Greenway December 18, 2014
Now we know who is enabling such things (getting to be over a month again)?
It is a sad fact of modern life that homicidally inclined extremists feel they have to compete in frightfulness. It is no longer enough to just kill people in twos and threes. Terrorist outrages have to be evermore spectacular in the post-9/11 age. The attack this week on an army-run school in Peshawar, Pakistan, that killed 145, most of them children, takes atrocity to a new level for the Taliban, which is no doubt a reason why it did it.
The Taliban has said that the attack is an act of revenge for army operations in nearby Waziristan. But there are likely other reasons for the massacre.
The Taliban has been deeply impressed with the successes of the Islamic State, which now controls great swaths of territory across Iraq and Syria. Extremists are trying to match the Islamic State’s level of atrocities. Sadly, the very awfulness of its deeds is part of its recruiting appeal.
Another reason for targeting school children is to countermand the attention that this year’s Nobel peace laureate, Malala Yousafzai, has attained on the world stage. The Taliban has never ceased from denouncing the young school girl who was shot and nearly killed by a Taliban gunman in nearby Swat. She has been a powerful spokesperson for education for girls, which the Taliban opposes. Religiously conservative Pashtuns on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border are not in favor of educating girls, and that was one of the motivating factors for opposing the Russians and the Afghan Communists in the 1980, who were in favor of education for girls. Killing school children is a way to get back at Malala and the West that has lionized her.
Pakistan is now in a state of shock and in deep mourning. Successive governments have tried to make peace with the Taliban, but all of them failed, while the Taliban used the respite to consolidate its position. It is now deeply ensconced in every province and city in Pakistan, not just in their strongholds on the wild frontier with Afghanistan, of which Peshawar is the capital. A few years ago, the commanding general of Pakistan forces in the northwest told me that worry about urban terrorist attacks has been one of the reasons Pakistan held its hand in going after the Taliban on the frontier. This year that restraint ended as Pakistan is coming to realize that the Taliban poses a mortal threat.
For years Pakistan has been ambivalent about the Taliban. The army helped organize and carry out the Taliban takeover of most of Afghanistan from the chaos and anarchy that followed the Russian withdrawal. The Pashtuns, who make up the majority of the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, live on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The majority of Pashtuns live on the Pakistani side, but they make up the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. Pakistan felt it necessary to have a force friendly to Pakistan in control of Afghanistan for fear of being outflanked by India, which Pakistan has long thought of as the real enemy. The US invasion of Afghanistan upset the plan, and led to a policy of helping and sheltering Taliban forces hostile to the American installed government in Afghanistan while combating Taliban hostile to Pakistan.
Perhaps this week’s atrocity will now unite Pakistan’s political parties and its army in the realization that it is the Taliban that poses the real threat to the Pakistani state, not India. It will be a tough task routing the Taliban, but the stakes are very high. Perhaps America, too, now that it is winding down its long war in Afghanistan, will focus on the fact that a Taliban takeover of Pakistan is so much more threatening than anything that can happen in Afghanistan.
Should one of Pakistan’s nuclear bombs fall into the hands of Islamic extremists, the world will become very unsafe indeed. When religious extremists vie for ever more brutal and deadly attacks, there can be no deterrence against using the ultimate trump card in frightfulness and mass murder.
I guess you can read the writing on the wall.
--more--"
Speaking of mass murder:
"Pakistan forces kill at least 67 suspected militants" by Tim Craig and Shaiq Hussain, Washington Post December 20, 2014
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A series of airstrikes and ground offensives killed at least 67 suspected militants in Pakistani’s northwestern tribal areas, officials said Friday in an apparent sign of intensified military action after this week’s Taliban school massacre.
In another display of toughening policies, two prisoners convicted of previous terrorists acts were hanged in the country’s first executions since 2008, military officials said.
Although Pakistani leaders have suggested they could take the fight across the border into Afghanistan, the latest strikes remained in Pakistani territory.
But in a possibly coordinated mission, a US drone strike late Thursday killed five suspected militants near Nazyan in Afghanistan’s Nangahar Province, the US military said. The area is where many Pakistan Taliban leaders, including chief commander Maulana Fazullah, are believed to reside.
In all, more than 100 suspected militants have been killed by the Pakistani air force and army since Tuesday’s slaughter at the Army School and College in Peshawar, which claimed 148 lives, mostly teenage students.
Meanwhile, a key suspect in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks was ordered held by Pakistani authorities a day after a Pakistani judge granted bail, which sparked outrage in India.
The decision to block the bail order for alleged militant commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was widely viewed as an olive branch to India as well as an effort to keep international support for sustained action against extremists.
Why would they need to worry about that after the alleged butchery?
Lakhvi has been detained in Pakistan since 2009 for his alleged role in plotting the November 2008 siege at Mumbai’s landmark Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel. The attack, carried out by 10 Pakistani Laskhkar-e-Talia militants, killed 166 people.
That's the official story anyway. Looks like a patsy to me. India's 9/11.
Citing a lack of evidence, a judge in Islamabad had set a $10,000 bail Lakhvi on Thursday. But a Foreign Ministry official said Lakhvi was being kept in detention under a statue allowing for the ‘‘maintenance of public order.’’ The government also plans to appeal the bail decision to the country’s Supreme Court.
In a further sign of widening pressure on militants, Pakistan’s powerful army chief traveled to the border region Friday to personally oversee the expanding military operation.
Pakistan’s military said ground forces and airstrikes killed at least 17 suspected militants late Thursday.
At least 50 more were killed during ground battles Friday, including an ambush assault on militants, the military statements said.
The Associated Press, also citing Pakistani military officials, said the overall death toll was at least 77.
A statement by the spokesman for the Pakistan-based Taliban, Muhammad Khurasani, gave further details of the school attack. Khurasani said militants were dispatched to the school’s auditorium after learning that students would be there for lessons in military first aid.
The Taliban leadership issued ‘‘clear instructions to the attackers to spare the primary section [of the school] and small kids in the other part of the school and only shoot the targeted students,’’ Khurasani said. ‘‘The children of army people were killed after identification,’’ he said. “Hundreds of other innocent students were let free.’’
Pakistani military leaders said, however, the vast majority of the slain students were the children of civilians.
‘‘How can I forgive those animals who destroyed the beautiful face of my innocent son?’’ said Palwasha Khalil, the mother of a 16-year-old killed in the school.
‘‘My heart goes out when I think of how painful it was for my son to receive bullets to his head and face.’’
With calls for revenge growing across Pakistan, the country’s leaders are also accelerating plans to start executing prisoners convicted of taking part in major terrorist attacks.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted a moratorium on executions this week, and the country’s army chief signed death warrants Thursday for six alleged ‘‘hard-core terrorists,’’
A senior military official said the two hanged Friday were Mohammad Aqeel, a Taliban militant involved in a 2009 attack on Pakistani military headquarters in Rawalpindi; and Arshad Meherban, who was convicted of attempting to assassinate former Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff in 2003.
Whatever happened with his trial?
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make public comments on the executions.
Pakistani government leaders also are rushing to review the cases of hundreds of other prisoners who had been convicted of terrorism in civilians courts over the past decade.
So far, the Interior Ministry has identified more than five dozen prisoners who have exhausted their appeals and could face execution in the coming weeks.
The Pakistan Taliban, meanwhile, warned they will kill even more children if the government follows through with the planned executions.
--more--"
Speaking of killing children:
"Drone strike kills 5 Taliban militants
ISLAMABAD — A US drone fired two missiles at a militant hideout in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least five Taliban fighters, two security officials said. The strike took place in the town of Datta Khel in North Waziristan, where Pakistani troops have been carrying out a major operation against local and foreign militants since June. In a separate operation, officials said Pakistani security forces killed five ‘‘terrorists’’ near Peshawar, where the Taliban killed 148 people this past week at a school (AP)."
"Pakistan makes arrests in Taliban school carnage" Associated Press December 22, 2014
ISLAMABAD — Authorities made several arrests on Sunday resulting from the Taliban school attack that killed 148 in the northwestern city of Peshawar, officials said.
‘‘Quite a few suspects who were facilitators in one way or the other have been taken into custody,’’ Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said, adding that the interrogations were ‘‘moving ahead in a positive manner.’’ He did not disclose their identities or say how many there were.
Seven Taliban gunmen wearing explosives belts stunned the world Tuesday by storming into the military run school and slaughtering 148 people, including 132 students. Another nearly 121 students were wounded in the ensuing eight-hour siege of the school, located in an area where many military families live.
The group claims it fights to establish a ruling system based on its own harsh brand of Islam. It has killed thousands over nearly a decade.
The Taliban say they attacked the school in revenge for an army operation against them in North Waziristan that was launched in mid-June. The army says it has so far killed over 1,200 militants in the operation.
The government bombed the militants’ hideouts in the country’s tribal area along the Afghan border in response to the school attack and lifted a ban on the execution of convicted terrorists.
Over the weekend, it executed six men convicted on terrorism charges — two were hanged Friday and another four on Sunday, said two Pakistani government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.
All six belonged to local militant groups who had turned against the state and had been convicted for involvement in two attempts to assassinate former president Pervez Musharraf. One was also convicted of leading a militant siege of Pakistani army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi in 2009.
Militants have threatened attacks to avenge the hanged men.
--more--"
Next head in the noose:
"Pakistan grants bail to key suspect in ’08 Mumbai attack" by Salman Masood and Declan Walsh, New York Times December 19, 2014
ISLAMABAD — A Pakistani court Thursday granted bail to a militant commander accused of orchestrating the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, drawing loud protests from India.
The suspect, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, is a senior commander with Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group behind the blitz of attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai that left 166 people dead and gravely worsened the relationship between Pakistan and India. He has been on trial since 2009.
The slow pace of the trial, which is closed to the news media, has been a continuing source of contention with India, which accuses the Pakistani authorities of tacitly supporting Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Lakhvi’s lawyer, Rizwan Abbasi, said his client had been freed on a bond of about $5,000. The Federal Investigation Agency, a Pakistani law enforcement agency, opposed bail.
Indian officials protested Lakhvi’s release and called for it to be immediately reversed. Syed Akbaruddin, spokesman of the Indian government’s Ministry of External Affairs, said it would “serve as a reassurance to terrorists who perpetrate heinous crime.”
And the bankers or war criminals walking around that have never been tried?
The significance of the bail hearing was heightened by the assault by the Pakistani Taliban on a school in Peshawar on Tuesday that killed 148 people, nearly all schoolchildren.
A day after the attack, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declared Pakistan would no longer distinguish between “good” and “bad” Taliban — an approach that has drawn frequent criticism from Indian and Western officials.
Experts say the Pakistan military’s ambiguous approach to militancy — fighting certain groups, such as the Pakistani Taliban but ignoring others that share its strategic objectives, such as Lashkar — is hampering the army’s ability to prevent atrocities such as the Peshawar school massacre.
That attack provoked strong sympathy for Pakistan in India, where newspapers covered the story with banner headlines.
That Thursday’s bail decision came just two days after such an attack struck Indians as deeply unfortunate and a lost opportunity for the two countries to have a shared purpose against militancy.
Like a curfew?
Lakhvi was arrested in 2009 on suspicion of directing the Mumbai attacks, in which a team of Pakistani militants infiltrated the Indian city by sea, then went on a killing rampage in hotels, a cafe, a railway station, and a Jewish center.
Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving gunman, told Indian interrogators that Lakhvi had orchestrated the attack by phone from a base in Pakistan. Kasab was later convicted of murder and conspiracy and was executed in 2012.
Although the Pakistani authorities cracked down on Lashkar after the 2008 attacks, the group has since reestablished itself under its leader, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who lives openly in the eastern city of Lahore.
Although the United States has offered a $10 million reward for information leading to Saeed’s arrest, he enjoys police protection and runs a large charity that has taken a prominent role in relief efforts after natural disasters such as the floods in 2010.
Were the floods that long ago?
--more--"
Btw, how did that election in Kashmir turn out?
