ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani army said it is investigating reports that Pakistani Taliban leader Hakeemullah Mehsud has died from injuries sustained in a US drone missile strike.
Pakistani army spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas said the army is using its agents in Pakistan’s northwest where the death is reported to have occurred to try to confirm or deny the reports.
Pakistani state TV reported earlier Sunday that Mehsud died in Orakzai tribal area, where he was reportedly being treated for his injuries. It cited ”official sources.”
Pakistani intelligence officials have said that Mehsud was hit in a US drone strike in South Waziristan on Jan. 14, triggering rumors he had been injured or killed. Mehsud issued two audio tapes after the strike denying the rumors. The state run TV also claimed that Mehsud had been buried in Tajaka village in Mamozai area of Orakzai Agency.
MIRAMSHAH: A suspected US drone has been shot down in North Waziristan, sources said Sunday. The local tribesmen have claimed that they fired down the unmanned aircraft in Hamzoni area.
The unmanned aircraft came down in Humzoni area of Datta Khel in North Warisitan bordering Afghanistan, where there have been over 14 drone strikes over the past few weeks.
According to state TV, the drone was shot down while the tribesmen have also claimed that they fired down the pilotless aircraft.
Both the Pakistani and US authorities have maintained a silence on this officially, although it is suspected to be a warning to Langley from Pakistan’s Armed Forces to put an immediate halt to US airspace violations and missile attacks inside Pakistani territory. Relations between the two ‘allies’ appear to have taken a nose-dive in recent days.
“Too Little, Too Late, We Already Have Superior UAVs”
Mariana Baabar
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan military sources say they are not impressed by the offer of the United States to supply RQ-7 Shadow Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), as they already have superior quality UAVs, which they have upgraded, and which are in use.
The disappointment is understandable since unlike the drones that fly and take out targets inside Pakistan’s Fata region, the ones being offered to Pakistan are unarmed and commonly used for intelligence gathering.
Later, when DG ISPR Major General Athar Abbas was asked about the overall weapons being provided to Pakistan for counterinsurgency and other military supplies, he remarked, “Too little, too late”.
It was US Defence Secretary Robert Gates who, in a meeting with the media at the residence of the US ambassador, said the US was enhancing Pakistan’s intelligence capabilities. He said the offer comes because Islamabad had requested for them. “We have a lot of information on the Afghan side that we share … we also help Pakistan build its own capacity. We will be providing them with UAVs (Shadow) together with equipment and training,” he said.
The United States really will never stop whining. It is time to crush the US war-hysteria for the last time in Pakistan. Pakistan should go on the offensive and we should deliver selective strikes inside Afghanistan destroying drones and whatever equipment is to be used against Pakistan.
KARACHI, Pakistan—After the controlled media leaks about US concerns of a Taliban ‘safe-haven’ in Quetta, the US Ambassador in Pakistan has come out and spoken to the media about it. Instead of denying reports that the US might attack the provincial capital of Balochistan, she says the US will have to do what it has to do to take out terrorists.
The drone strike that resulted in the death of Pakistan’s most wanted terrorist is believed to be a result of deliberately planted false intelligence, sources in South Waziristan have confirmed.
Rival militants close to Qari Zainullah Mehsud (who was killed on Baitullah Mehsud’s orders) tipped off suspected local CIA informers about the presence of a ‘high value afghan taliban target’ in a house in South Waziristan.
Qari Zainuddin, a former aide of Baitullah Mehsud, had denounced Baitullah Mehsud in June this year and had revealed Mehsud’s links with Indian and Israeli intelligence agencies. Zainuddin was gunned down in his office the next day and Baitullah Mehsud claimed responsibility for the killing.
In what appears to be an attempt to extract revenge by those loyal to Qari Zainuddin, false intelligence was deliberately fed to a number of local residents suspected of working as informers for the Americans in Afghanistan. Hours later, a CIA operated drone guided by a physically dropped electronic homing device, attacked and destroyed the house which the Americans believed was occupied by Anti-US Afghan Taliban.
The CIA has been paying tribesman in Waziristan “plant the electronic devices” near militant safehouses, reported the Guardian on June 1st this year. “Hours or days later, a drone, guided by the signal from the chip, destroys the building with a salvo of missiles.”
This isn’t the first time an electronic homing device has led the Americans to strike a wrong target. The Guardian’s report continues:
$2,000 For A Dead Afghan Child, $100,000 For Any American Who Died Killing It
NEW YORK CITY—After Obama apologized for the strike which the Afghan government claimed killed well over a hundred ordinary country folk, came the report that the families of those killed, and subsequent Afghani dead falling in harm’s way of the US military, continuing as before, can apply to receive up to $2,000 compensation. This is the price the great United States of American puts on an Afghan or Pakistan human being, while awarding $100,000 to families of Americans who die while fighting and killing wherever.
Shocking? Shame provoking? Embarrassing that no Afghani or Pakistani child or parent has any human right at all, including the right not to be blown to pieces in a US drone air strike? – the final insult being the value of their lives put at a mere $2,000 by the wealthiest nation in history?
38 Pakistanis Killed By CIA Drones Every Month Since 2006
Not only killing Pakistanis, but the U.S. is quietly increasing the number of its soldiers based in Balochistan and NWFP, and is building a massive military fortress right behind the Presidency and PM House in Islamabad that will cost one billion dollars. The arrival of the Americans comes with increased separatist chatter inside Sindh, Balochistan, NWFP, and the Northern Areas. The silence of the Zardari government has been bought for US $ 1.5 billion. Gradually, America will turn Pakistan to a mess like Iraq, with sectarian killings and proxy wars. The Pakistani people and the military need to wake up.
The irony is that the UN has more guts to criticize US drone policy than the Pakistani government whose 700 innocent citizens, mostly women and children, have been killed in exchange for 12 or 16 al Qaeda terrorists, whose death reports are questionable at best, considering that all US intelligence reports in recent years have been cooked.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—President Obama’s special envoy Richard Holbrooke landed the pro-U.S. Pakistani government in trouble when he told journalists that the issue of CIA-manned drones that have killed hundreds of innocent Pakistanis was not even raised in any one of his several meetings with senior Pakistani officials in the Pakistani capital.
Mr. Holbrooke’s terse answer during a briefing stunned Pakistanis who thought the controversial drones were at least the second most important issue on government’s list after the issue of the refugees from the military operation against terrorists.
So far the principle result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan following the events of 9-11 has been the destabilization of Pakistan. That breakdown is peaking with the events in what AP calls the “Swat town” of Mingora—actually a city of 375,000 from which all but 20,000 have fled as government forces moved in, strafing it with gunships. We’re talking urban guerrilla warfare, house-to-house fighting, not on the Afghan border but 50 miles away in the Swat Valley. We’re talking about Pakistani troops fighting to reclaim the nearby Malam Jabba ski resort from the Tehreek-e-Taliban, who since last year have been using it as a training center and logistics base. We’re talking about two million people fleeing the fighting in the valley and 160,000 in government refugee camps.
‘We have the capability – Government needs to make the decision’
Air Chief Marshall on India’s purchase of AWACS, Pakistan’s own plans of purchasing AWACS, Swat Operation and ability to shoot US drones in Pakistani airspace.
Apocalypse Now. Run for cover. The turbans are coming. This is the state of Pakistan today, according to the current hysteria disseminated by the Barack Obama administration and United States corporate media – from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to The New York Times. Even British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said on the record that Pakistani Talibanistan is a threat to the security of Britain.
But unlike St Petersburg in 1917 or Tehran in late 1978, Islamabad won’t fall tomorrow to a turban revolution.
Pakistan is not an ungovernable Somalia. The numbers tell the story. At least 55% of Pakistan’s 170 million-strong population are Punjabis. There’s no evidence they are about to embrace Talibanistan; they are essentially Shi’ites, Sufis or a mix of both. Around 50 million are Sindhis – faithful followers of the late Benazir Bhutto and her husband, now President Asif Ali Zardari’s centrist and overwhelmingly secular Pakistan People’s Party. Talibanistan fanatics in these two provinces – amounting to 85% of Pakistan’s population, with a heavy concentration of the urban middle class – are an infinitesimal minority.
The Pakistan-based Taliban – subdivided in roughly three major groups, amounting to less than 10,000 fighters with no air force, no Predator drones, no tanks and no heavily weaponized vehicles – are concentrated in the Pashtun tribal areas, in some districts of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), and some very localized, small parts of Punjab.
To believe this rag-tag band could rout the well-equipped, very professional 550,000-strong Pakistani army, the sixth-largest military in the world, which has already met the Indian colossus in battle, is a ludicrous proposition.
Guest speakers:
Former Air Marshall Kaleem Sadaat,
Lt. General (R) Hamid Nawaz Khan, and
Akram Zaki.
Kaleem Sadaat mentions that in 2002 Pakistani Air Force shot down an Israeli made Indian drone, denies Drones take off from Pakistani land and puts forward certain technical aspects.
General (r) Hamid Nawaz Khan says ”stopping Drones attacks inside Pakistan is a test for current government”, specifies US aims for Baluchistan.
Akram Zaki mentions “elections in US and Pak were based on promises of “change” in fact, there is NO change at all in both countries”. Talks of the importance of Baluchistan and American lust for this resource-rich region of Pakistan, he further adds “Americans are prepared to make amphibious landing in Baluchistan”.
Speakers conclude that Baitullah Mehsud is CIA asset in Pakistan to create room for US strikes inside Pakistan.
The expected has happened. Rupee News had already looked into the seeds of time and we had already predicted that one of these days the drone would be shot down. “Charlie Wilson’s War” gave too much credit to the stingers. The company line is that the CIA was responsible for the Russian defeat. While in reality it was the much maligned Pakhtuns who bled the Russians – stinger or no stinger.
Two drones fired on the same day soon after Obama’s swearing in have made the new US administration’s intentions towards Pakistan clear – there will be no respect for international law in this part of the world. This is the historic duality (recall the Monroe Doctrine) that prevails in the very foundations of the much-touted US values! So it is time for our leaders to accept certain ground realities and shape their policies accordingly.
Accept that Obama has nothing positive to offer Pakistan. On the contrary, following the drone attacks, he moved to name Holbrooke as Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to cut off a major chunk of money owed to Pakistan for military services rendered. And what has our reaction been? Without looking at Holbrooke’s record, we have welcomed his appointment, and in response to the cutting of money owed, we have declared that we will appeal to them again–as if this is part of a bargain hunt or a sale! Is this what a nuclear sovereign state does?
Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshall, Tanvir Mahmood has said that Pakistan Air Force is fully capable to stop drones’ flights and missile strikes.
He said that it was up to the government to decide whether it wanted to benefit from PAF capabilities and deter the aggressors violating territorial integrity of the country.
This is in addition to the recent exercise by the army where it sent out a strong message about its defence capabilities. Pakistan Army also has its own fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles, ready to be deployed instead of the CIA controlled drones terrorizing our citizens.
In what is the latest telling sign of the deteriorating relationship between the army and Zardari’s government, the Air Chief Marshall has come out to slap down the Government claims and show them up for the liars they are.
Here’s what the CIA-imposed ‘democratic’ Government has been saying:
And finally, PM Gilani tries to justify US attacks on Pakistan.
Ofcourse all of this comes in the backdrop of the recent revelations of the agreement reached between Zardari and the US in September, as reported by the Washington Post:
America’s killer drones are getting all the attention, in the fight against Pakistani militants. But Pakistan’s military has plenty of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, too. And they’re being used to spy on suspected insurgents, and listen in on their phone calls.
“Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters use not just mobile and satellite phones for communication, but also sophisticated military radios,” Defense News notes. So companies like East West Infiniti are building SIGINT [signals intelligence] for small drones and robotic blimps, to capture those conversations.
Karachi-based Integrated Dynamics actually exports its Border Eagle surveillance drone to the United States for border patrol duties. The company also makes drones the turbojet-powered Tornado decoy, which can fly up to 200 kilometers, and emit false radar signals to “confuse enemy air defenses into thinking they are attacking aircraft,” Defense News says.
The gear will all be on display at the end of the month, at IDEAS, Pakistan’s big military trade show.
The United States really will never stop whining. It is time to crush the US war-hysteria for the last time in Pakistan. Pakistan should go on the offensive and we should deliver selective strikes inside Afghanistan destroying drones and whatever equipment is to be used against Pakistan.
Two drones fired on the same day soon after Obama’s swearing in have made the new US administration’s intentions towards Pakistan clear – there will be no respect for international law in this part of the world. This is the historic duality (recall the Monroe Doctrine) that prevails in the very foundations of the much-touted US values! So it is time for our leaders to accept certain ground realities and shape their policies accordingly.
