ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s army chief of staff, General Ashfaq Kayani, made a rare public apology Saturday over the deaths of civilians during military action and issued orders to avoid further incidents.
Military and political officials initially said at least 42 militants were killed in a gunfight and air strike in the Tirah valley of northwest Khyber district, where Pakistani jets targeted local Islamist militants last Saturday.
But tribesmen said dozens of civilians were killed and the military on Saturday released a rare public apology over the deaths, in what is part of Pakistan’s lawless and semi-autonomous tribal belt neighbouring Afghanistan.
With its announcement that it will launch no new offensives against the Taliban in 2010, Pakistan’s army appears to have opened a new innings in its favourite game with the West, says the BBC’s Syed Shoaib Hasan in Islamabad.
Pakistan’s military thinks it has strong reasons not to attack the militants
With talk of NATO pulling out of Afghanistan, an increasingly potent Taliban threat and rising questions in the U.S. about whether defeating the insurgency is possible, there is even less incentive for the Pakistani authorities to share intelligence on Haqqani and Omar, said Shaun Gregory, a professor at Bradford University’s Pakistan Security Research Unit.
“The Pakistanis want the Americans out; above all they want India out. And the only creatures who can do that are the Afghan Taliban,” he said. “If the Pakistanis hand over more info on al-Qaida and the rest, it will have a marginal effect as to what happens in Afghanistan.”
The Pakistanis have not supplied the U.S. with any intelligence on the Haqqani network, Gregory said. In return, Haqqani and other Afghan Taliban have not joined their Pakistani Taliban brethren in trying to seize other regions and advance on the capital, Islamabad.
“They don’t want to antagonize several groups in Pakistan. If the Haqqani group starts helping the Pakistani Taliban, then God help us,” said Talat Masood, a Pakistani defense analyst. “The Americans cannot stay in Afghanistan forever, but we will have to live here forever.”
MINGORA: Swat showed no sign of the scars of war on Friday as people showed amazing resilience to celebrate the independence day in a traditional manner.
While the Pakistani government is reluctant to confront the Americans about the activities of America’s Indian allies, the Pakistani military has given the Americans solid evidence about the activities of Indian intelligence in Pakistan’s tribal belt and Swat. These activities appear to be facilitated by the Karzai regime and the U.S. military and intelligence. The latest discovery of Indian weapons inside Pakistan is the Indian army standard issue Vicker-Berthier light machine gun.
In this episode of PakistanFirst’s exclusive ‘Editor’s show’, Zaid Hamid sheds light on the war against militants in Malakand Agency, sacrifices of the Army, situation on IDPs, and solutions to the problems faced by Pakistan. WATCH
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.
Politically, by giving the Pakistani Taliban a chance for peace, General Kayani has won the sympathies of the people of the region and broad national support. The local population have also had a chance of looking at life under the Pakistani Taliban, a large part of whom are former thugs and thieves. This has bought the Pakistan Army a great deal of political mileage. Meanwhile, militarily the Pakistani Taliban are overstretched. They are also dangerously close to being strategically dissected, outflanked and caught with their pants down.
Finally this puppet government appears to have woken up to Indian/Afghan backed terrorism in Pakistan:
ISLAMABAD: The government on Wednesday startled the Senate by saying that Russia and India were supporting the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) in its secession bid, saying the same outfit had kidnapped UNHCR official John Solecki.
Making a policy statement while winding up the five-day debate that in fact continued for three days, excluding Saturday and Sunday, on the killing of there Baloch leaders and the deteriorating law and order in Balochistan, Adviser to Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik claimed they had proof of foreign involvement in the province.
Watch Ahmed Quraishi and Zaid Hamid discuss the Balochistan situation in our last week’s episode of Loud & Clear, from Islamabad
Ahmed Quraishi discusses the CIA backed game in Balochistan, Swat peace deal, the recent aid promised to Pakistan and the conditions attached to it – with strategic defence analyst Zaid Hamid.
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So Senator Kerry has come to do the usual doublespeak to the Pakistani people through its already confused leadership! Like the other US leaders before him, his understanding of Pakistan ran skin deep at best as he tried to justify the drones by declaring that terrorism existed in Pakistan before these attacks. Oh what a revelation Senator; but we all know qualitative difference between the pre- and post-9/11 status of terrorism in Pakistan. And, while some elitist part time residents and drawing room analysts (the very group that they seem to decry) of the capital may see drones as merely red herrings, the fact is that drones have killed almost 900 innocent Pakistanis between 2006 and 2009 and only 10 Al Qaeda targets.
At the time of writing this, too much has already been written, said and criticized about the alleged flogging of a teenage girl in a remote area of Swat (Pakistan) by a self-proclaimed Islamic group calling themselves representatives of “Talibaan Movement in Pakistan”.
This act has once again brought Islam and Shariah at the focal point for global media who are working overtime in portraying the punishment as Islamic and then as barbaric including an attempt to attach it with implementation of Shariah laws by radical Islamists.
Here we have attempted to raise some key points and questions to help readers in evaluating the case themselves and come up to their own conclusions:
President Obama has said that Al-Qaeda has strongholds in Tribal Areas of Pakistan and from there they are planning to attack US. He also mentioned that the US plans to expand its ‘war on terror’ inside Pakistan. This statement of Obama coincided with another statement and that, from terrorist number one. No it’s not Osama! Current terrorist number one is Baitullah Mehsud, based in Tribal areas of Pakistan.
This picture saddened me no end. The proud tribesmen of Pakistan, those who beat the English and the Russians and fought their way to liberate half of the Indian occupied Kashmir are now facing an American conspiracy and a Pakistani complacency.
Another US Expert Guess or calculated tactical move?
Recently, US experts and CIA have concluded that Osama Bin Laden is in Chitral Valley, a scenic area in NWFP province in Pakistan.
On what basis these claims are made is still unknown, but one thing is sure – like the drone attacks in FATA and NWFP, this new “secretly known hide out” of Osama Bin Ladan and possible action against it by CIA has rung bells in intellectual and security circles.
Here is why Chitral is critical in current geo political scenario for Pakistan and for US and NATO.
Story of a brave FC soldier who was martyred fighting in Swat
Teri Bus Ik Pukaar Par Mein A Gaya Hun Chor Kar!
Azeem Se Azeem Kaam, Meray Watan Tujhay Salaam!
PESHAWAR: “I am dying, take my gun and deliver it to General sahib,” were the last words of Sepoy Gul Farosh as he lay critically injured near Manglawar village in Swat on October 28, 2007.
His surviving colleagues from the Frontier Corps conveyed his words and delivered his gun to their officers. Maj General Mohammad Alam Khattak, Inspector General of the Frontier Corps, was subsequently informed about Sepoy Gul Farosh’s dying words. In his meetings with FC soldiers and visitors, the general often mentions the brave Jawan as someone who fought till the end and didn’t lose control of his gun even after being fatally wounded.
Peshawar, 16 March, (Asiantribune.com): Militants attacked a NATO supply terminal and set fire to about 20 trucks carrying supplies to Western forces in Afghanistan on Sunday.
Militants attacked the supply depot situated at Ring Road in the jurisdiction of Yakatoot Police Station, Peshawar– capital of North West Frontier Province.
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.
“US-instigated mayhem in the tribal area has now seeped into the rest of the country as well. This is what the US wants to have a pretext to go in and take out Pakistan’s nuclear weapons before they “fall into the hands of the extremists”. This has been the US plan all along; only the naïve rulers of Pakistan have been unable, or unwilling, to see it.”
The US ambassador in Islamabad had requested the World Food Programme as well as USAID to prepare plans to cater for 800,000 refugees from SWAT – months before trouble even began in the region.
Fazlullah and Baitullah Mehsud are being supported and protected by the CIA. Why has Imam Dera, Fazlullah’s madrassa that sits across Fiza Ghat on the Indus River in Swat, has not been attacked while Jalaluddin Haq-qani’s compound in Waziristan has been repeatedly bombed?
A nearly completed U.S. military study is expected to say that nuclear-armed Pakistan , not Iraq , Afghanistan or Iran , is the most urgent foreign policy challenge facing President Barack Obama .
Pakistan , convulsed by a growing al Qaida -backed insurgency, hamstrung by a ruinous economy and run by an unpopular government that’s paralyzed by infighting and indecision, is critical to U.S. efforts to stabilize Afghanistan , thwart the spread of nuclear weapons and prevent tensions with neighboring India from escalating into a nuclear showdown.
“This will be a major policy challenge,” warned Paul Pillar , a professor at Georgetown University in Washington who served as the top U.S. intelligence analyst on the region. “The situation is in flux.”
Pakistan is slipping deeper by the day into political, economic, ethnic and religious chaos.
The Pakistani Taliban control most of the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and have seized Swat, a valley 100 miles from Islamabad . Electricity and food shortages have sparked unrest and stalled industrial production, and the stock market has dropped more than 60 percent while the Pakistani rupee has fallen 30 percent against the dollar in the last year.
There is no doubt left that we are fast approaching a point where some form of military intervention will become a necessity, in a way that is diametrically different from the past. We, the civilians, will need to borrow the organizational capabilities of the Pakistani military to help civilians in power reshape the Pakistani state domestically and in terms of foreign policy.
Another US Expert Guess or calculated tactical move?
