ISLAMABAD, Pakistan–Private US defense contractors held Pakistani and Afghan citizens kidnapped from Pakistani tribal territory inside the building of the US Consulate in Peshawar when it was attacked by armed men on April 5.
Immediately after the attack, US diplomats and employees in the consulate were shifted to the American-run Khyber Club in the University Town suburb of Peshawar. US military and intelligence personnel moved the detained Pakistanis and Afghans to Islamabad, either to the US Embassy building or to one of its several safe houses in the Pakistani capital.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The group has been attacking Chinese, Sri Lankan and Pakistani citizens during the past five years. This was a rare attack against US interests by the group.
Sources in several Pakistani security agencies in Peshawar knew of US activities and considered them part of US help to Pakistan to fight terrorists. But it is not clear if US personnel had the authority to nab Pakistani citizens or any other nationals on Pakistani soil.
United States, Britain, Canada and Australia warned their citizens of serious security risk and terror threat in India. The current situation raises serious concerns over Indian hosting of Commonwealth Games 2010 and the Cricket World Cup.
New Delhi – Australia and Britain on Thursday warned tourists of the increased risk of militant attacks in New Delhi, joining Canada and the US, which have urged foreigners to avoid parts of the Indian capital.
The new alerts updated long-standing general advice for Western visitors to India that they should exercise caution and underlined security risks in the city as it gears up to host the Commonwealth Games in October.
The US said on Wednesday it had information of a “specific” threat to half-a-dozen of the city’s shopping areas and markets which it described as “especially attractive targets”. It advised Americans traveling or residing in India to maintain “a high level of vigilance” and watch out for unattended packages.
The Canadian government said on its website that an attack could be carried out “in the following days or weeks in market areas” of Delhi frequented by foreigners, specifically in the Chandni Chowk area in Old Delhi.
Following this new advice, the Australian High Commission in New Delhi said on Thursday it “strongly” advised Australians “to minimise their presence in market areas of New Delhi”.
India is home to a wide range of separatists and insurgents. A growing Maoist insurgency, so far concentrated in remote rural areas of northern and eastern India, also threatens to spread to urban areas, with the eastern city of Kolkata seen as particularly at risk.
NEW DELHI: The authorities may have refrained from calling the blasts in Bangalore a terror act, but the incident can well be a wake-up call ahead of the Delhi Commonwealth Games as it exposed chinks in the armour of the security agencies.
The low-intensity explosions were set off by devices with timers, pointing to an expertise that can be used to engineer mayhem on a bigger scale. In fact, in crowded settings, even low-intensity blasts can exact a disproportionate toll by triggering panic leading to stampede.
That the packets carrying explosives went undetected in an area which is supposed to be thoroughly scanned, considering the known plan of terrorists to target Bangalore and sports venues across the country, has distressed the authorities.
— More than 80% of India’s nuclear and missile infrastructure based in the insurgency-hit areas or extremists’ dominated region
—Growing Moist insurgency, Nexal dominance in India’s Red Corridor ring alarm bell across the globe with regard to nuke safety
—The reasons behind fire at India’s top nuke facility further panics global community
—Indian Premier Manmohan Singh still shows the shameless cheeks to express reservations over safety of Pak nukes at Nuclear Summit in US
—46 world leaders, attending nuke summit having serious reservations about safety of nukes in India
Makhdoom Babar (Additional reporting by Christina Palmer & Ajay Mehta in New Delhi & Kapil Verma & Priyanka Joshi in Mumbai)
While the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has expressed his reservations over the safety of Pakistan nuclear assets at the 2-day Nuclear Summit being held at US capital Washington and is being attended by 46 world leaders from across globe, he appears to have completely forgotten the actual state of affairs with regard to the safety of India’s own nuclear and missile infrastructure back home, where the situation is highly alarming, reveal the findings of The Daily Mail’s investigations into the matter.
According to The Daily Mail’s investigations, the Indian government, in bid to keep it maximum possible away from the striking capabilities of Pakistan that lies across India’s northern borders, decades back decided to install all its nuclear and missile facilities in the Eastern zone of the country. However, with the passage of time, the eastern region of India emerged as the most disturbed, fragile and ungovernable region of the country with a variety of insurgency movements including that of Naxal rebels, emerging in that very part of the country.
The chaos that Afghanistan and Iraq has been experiencing in the past decade is undeniably because of the presence of foreign troops occupying these lands. While these troops were supposed to bring peace and stability to these countries, quite the opposite has happened; the role of these troops has become increasingly suspicious, and a great many questions have been raised regarding their true intentions. While Afghanistan has been seeing its share of brutality, Iraq has suffered tremendously too; private security firms have been engaged in committing all sorts of atrocities. Quite often, one hears about these mercenary death squads in the news and even in newly published books. However, the killing of innocent civilians in Iraq cannot be only attributed to mercenary death squads. The very troops that occupy Iraq and Afghanistan illegally in the name of bringing freedom to these countries, are themselves extremist crusading murderers! In a collaborated effort with the military, in Iraq and Afghanistan, mercenary armies like Black Water, DynCorp, etc. are responsible for a lot of the atrocities too, and they contribute to the overall genocide of Muslims worldwide. The video accompanying this article stands testimony to this:
Henry Kissinger once observed that it was more dangerous being America’s ally than its enemy.
The latest example: the U.S.-installed Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who is in serious hot water with his really angry patrons in Washington.
The Obama administration is blaming the largely powerless Karzai, a former CIA “asset,” for America’s failure to defeat the Taliban. Washington accused Karzai of rigging last year’s elections. True enough, but the U.S. pre-rigged the Afghan elections by excluding all parties opposed to western occupation.
Washington, which supports dictators and phoney elections across the Muslim world, had the chutzpah to blast Karzai for corruption and rigging votes. This while the Pentagon was engineering a full military takeover of Pakistan.
ISLAMABAD: Kayani’s worldview is Pakistan centric; he is respected as his military has won victories against enemies where the superpower could not succeed; like all good military leaders, he has good political sense; having recognised the failure of pre-emptive kill-capture doctrine, the US and West are listening with more attention to his advice; the strategic and operational framework outlined by him for ongoing conflict is in-sync with the national interests and good news for Pakistan.
Having gone through the article ‘General in the hood’, one gets more convinced that a lot needs to be thought right first, before endeavouring to put right, between the two countries. The article reinforces the perception; ‘What is good for Pakistan gets portrayed as bad for India’. The urge to write became more compelling due to a deliberate effort of quoting issues, which actually form the basis of threat to Pakistan. Interestingly enough, Pakistan’s predicament is that if it is not successful against the extremists, it gets portrayed as epicentre of terrorism and threat to world, especially India, and if it succeeds, our neighbour still feels threatened and portrays these as back to Brass Tacks. The blame game continues, despite knowing far too well, the extent to which Pakistan has gone against the miscreants with tangible results.
RAIPUR: A day after 76 troopers were massacred in the worst ever Maoist attack, hundreds of para-military men and state police personnel assigned to track down the killers are scared to enter the jungles of Chhattisgarh Wednesday fearing a repeat of the ‘bloody Tuesday’ incident.
The shell-shocked police incumbent here have ordered nearly 40,000 policemen deployed in the restive Bastar region to retaliate.
But officials posted in the interiors of the region say: “The Tuesday attack has rattled the entire police force engaged in the anti-Maoist operation and they are now reluctant to enter the landmine protected jungle terrain”.
“It’s easy for everyone to dictate to us from New Delhi and Raipur sitting in air-conditioned chambers, but here the situation is completely hostile because Maoists rule the roost in jungles. The forces in Bastar now need urgent motivation,” a police officer based in Dantewada said on phone.
Seventy-three security personnel were killed on Tuesday when over 700 Maoist guerrillas in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region ambushed a 120-member contingent of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) by first bombing and then opening fire.
In what is one of the biggest Maoist attacks in the country, the guerrillas triggered multiple blasts and then fired indiscriminately at the CRPF team in the Chintalnar forested hamlet of Dantewada district, about 450 km south from here, in violence-hit Bastar.
More than two dozen personnel were injured.
According to Dantewarda Superintendent of Police Amaresh Mishra, the dead included 72 troopers from the 62nd battalion of the CRPF and one state police officer.
“A massive contingent of heavily armed Maoists ambushed a CRPF team in a hilly stretch. They first triggered blasts from all directions and followed by indiscriminate firing,” Vishwa Ranjan, director general of police, told IANS.
Militants targeted the US Consulate in Peshawar today with multiple bombs and gun attacks as renewed violence in north-western Pakistan left more than 40 people dead.
Gunmen wearing paramilitary uniforms opened fire outside the consulate from two vehicles before the explosions that shook the high-security district, which also houses key government offices.
Gunmen wearing paramilitary uniforms opened fire outside the consulate from two vehicles before the explosions that shook the high-security district, which also houses key government offices.
India, lauded as the largest democracy in the world, comprises a range of ethnic communities. These are held together, feebly, behind the garb of democracy, which has the world believe that all is well at home. For Indians, the harsh reality is that the long concealed fractures are now beginning to show up as large as the Grand Canyon; long term oppression through history that has been horribly justified through hierarchical order [particularly the caste system] cannot endure. The downtrodden are rising and have been doing much more than making their presence known. Amid the havoc that the Maoists have been wreaking, the Indian leadership has been putting up a bold front. However, few statements have come through that are alarming, and they actually highlight how worried India ought to be. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself has admitted that the Maoists pose “the single biggest internal security threat to the country.” This is despite the fact that his government has been relentlessly blaming Pakistan for everything that happens on Indian soil. The time for covering up their own mess was over a long time ago, and, the Indian leadership, which has been re-elected, ought to focus on its domestic threats. India’s current regime may have been the sole victors of the General Election of 2009, but they are compelled to accept a competing force on another front; Maoist rebels have also shown that they hold considerable sway in many districts of the country that now form what is known as ‘The Red Corridor.’
Real Terrorists are rare and usually easily caught always ask: “Who gains from this?
Every time there is a terrorist attack, the nations blamed say that it was a “false flag” operation. This is what America did to cover up My Lai. We were lying. Germans claimed Poland invaded Germany in 1939. An educated guess is that 75% of terrorist attacks we hear of were staged, never happened or were done by “radical groups” that were first infiltrated, then controlled and eventually financed and supplied by intelligence agencies. Intelligence agencies are, in actuality, the biggest terrorist organizations in the world. The CIA has blown up more buses, airplanes and markets than any almost anyone else. The Mossad may be number one, followed by, well, everyone, the RAW, ISI, MI-6, IRA and dozens of others.
Either directly or through idiots, clones (operatives using false identity to look like “terrorists”) or through simply doing it themselves, these groups promote national policy by destabilizing nations, swinging elections or defaming religious, national or political groups by staging attacks and using the press to place the blame. The popular video game Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 even has a terrorist attack on a transportation center in Moscow built into it, a “false flag” attack. Today, the real thing happened.
WASHINGTON: The atmospherics are good but the ground realities are unfavourable. India is struggling to stay relevant and advance its geo-political equities with the United States at a time Washington is buffeted by domestic pressures and international crises that are undercutting its resolve to put ties with New Delhi on a higher plane.
Good intentions, broad agenda, and packed schedules notwithstanding, Indian diplomatic foray into Washington this week was notable for gripes and grievances than any significant advancement towards the stated goal of achieving a strategic relationship with the US, foreign secretary Nirupama Rao had a series of meetings on Tuesday, including a drop-in by secretary of state Hillary Clinton at a state department meeting with her counterpart William Burns, but in the end there was no meeting of minds on the most fundamental security issue of the times.
India and US disagree on Afghanistan and Pakistan. That much became clear towards the end of the foreign secretary’s visit although elaboration on this issue was foiled by the cancellation of Rao’s wrap-up press meet (Indian Embassy said she was unwell).
How about exchanging Taliban Number Two Abdul Ghani Baradar for terror master Brahamdagh Bugti and the dismantling of the terror network targeting Pakistan’s Balochistan?
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Pakistan has agreed to hand over Afghan Taliban’s number 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, to Afghanistan. How about asking for Mr. Brahamdagh Bugti in exchange? Or for the dismantling of the Afghan-based terror infrastructure targeting Pakistani Balochistan?
There are signs that Afghanistan’s role as a base for anti-Pakistan operations over the past seven years is gradually shrinking. But it is not completely over yet. The rollback in that role is directly linked to what the United States wants. And Washington’s recent change of heart regarding Pakistan’s role and legitimate regional security interests are the result of the Pakistani military standing its ground, not any genuine change of heart in US policymaking circles. This is why you did not see any US official jumping in excitement at the idea of Pakistani military training the Afghan National Army, which is what our army chief has proposed.
The American Dream: A Terror-Sponsoring Nefarious Terrorist State!
Shouldn’t the United States of America be declared a hostile terrorist state?
The captured ringleader of the Jundallah terrorist group, Abdolmalek Rigi, has confessed that the US administration had assured him of unlimited military aid and funding for waging an insurgency against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
No sooner did Pakistan arrest leading Afghan Taliban figures, conspiracy theories surfaced in the US media in an attempt to malign Pakistan. Indians and their apologists in US were at the forefront of this campaign. Far from appreciating Pakistani stand, strong signs exist that CIA continues its double game against Pakistan. Despite statements to the contrary, Washington continues to bet on the puppet regime of President Asif Ali Zardari.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The US duplicity in its dealings with Pakistan continues unabated and I have always maintained that the scale of their enterprise in destabilizing Pakistan can only be understood by finding linkages in seemingly unconnected events and publications.
Just when the Pakistan military has taken a strong position on its military operations in FATA and the pull towards dialogue with the tribals is becoming evident, the US subversive activities against Pakistan are becoming more overt, and old CIA connections are taking centre stage again including so-called “experts” on Pakistan! Let us look at some recent developments and see the linkages.
A photograph has surfaced that shows a terrorist wanted by Iran visiting a US military base in Afghanistan. Another terrorist wanted by Pakistan has also been spotted meeting Indian spies under American watch—in Afghanistan. Iran arrests one such terrorist but Pakistan’s pro-US government refuses to take a stand on a terrorist insurgency openly backed by rogue US elements, with Indian support.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—After occupying Afghanistan, rogue CIA elements launched a campaign to create a new state of Balochistan out of two conjoined provinces in Pakistan and Iran.
This was done to create the shortest possible supply route from the sea to Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan.
The Sunni-Shia divide was exploited in Iran and a language-based divide was used in Pakistan. In other words, the result was a sectarian Balochi insurgency in Iran and an ethnic one in Pakistan.
This is how Jundullah was born in Iran and Balochistan Liberation Army in Pakistan. Both were armed and supported by CIA using the Afghan soil.
But this American terror infrastructure is now crumbling. Fast.
MELBOURNE: After fears of a mass pull-out of international cricketers from the Indian Premier League (IPL) due to terror threats, there are reports of contingency plans to shift the next year’s World Cup from the Indian subcontinent to Australia and New Zealand.
Reacting to reported contingency, revealed by New Zealand Cricket chief executive Justin Vaughan on Sunday, International Cricket Council (ICC) executive Haroon Lorgat said they will do everything to keep the World Cup in India.
Vaughan has indicated that there were plans to move the World Cup from India to Australia or New Zealand if the security situation deteriorated.
MARJA, Afghanistan — Since the American-led offensive into the last large Taliban enclave in Helmand Province began nine days ago, local Afghans have faced a dangerous and uncertain world.
Their homes are now in a region where the Marines have established a presence, the Taliban have moved into the shadows as a potent guerrilla force, and the Afghan government insists it will soon provide services and bring Marja into the national fold.
All the while, in northern Marja, the fighting grinds on at a pace of several firefights a day — a climate that has displaced many civilians and kept others hiding inside. Abdul Ajahn, an elder here, voiced a lingering fear.
“If the Taliban shoots from that side, and you are on this side, and I am in between?” he said to the Marines at a meeting arranged by a commander and local elders over the weekend. “Then I am sure you will shoot me.”
ISLAMABAD: Security forces claim to have recovered Indian-made improvised explosive devices (IED) from South Waziristan on Friday.
The IEDs were recovered from a suspected militant base near the Razmak area of South Waziristan, where military forces are currently carrying out an offensive against militants.
Security officials recovered five sacks, each containing 20 kilograms of polypropylene with the text “Reliance Industries Ltd, Jamnagar, Gujrat, India” printed on them, DawnNews reported.
Officials said they plan on raising the issue with Indian diplomats in the upcoming talks between the two nations. —DawnNews
Gen. (R) Hamid Gul says that Washington’s policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan have not borne fruit and that the US military will be ultimately defeated by the Taliban
Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul was a military commander in the Pakistani Army in the 1980s, and served as the head of the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency from 1987 to 1989.
But Gul’s rise to fame came during the Pakistan-Saudi-US effort to keep funds and logistical support flowing to the Afghanistan mujahidin, who were eventually credited with defeating Soviet military and political forces.
During the Bush administration, the US sought to put Gul on a UN list of international terrorists but their efforts were blocked by the Chinese delegation.
Domestically, Gul has been an outspoken opponent of Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, and has called for the Supreme Court to be reinstated as the rule of law in Pakistan.
Al Jazeera interviewed Gul during a short visit to Doha.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan–Private US defense contractors held Pakistani and Afghan citizens kidnapped from Pakistani tribal territory inside the building of the US Consulate in Peshawar when it was attacked by armed men on April 5.
